As we dive into the NaNo Prep season, we’ve asked NaNoWriMo participants who’ve published their NaNo-novels for their writing tips on everything from inspiration to avoiding plot holes. Today, Dan Koboldt, author of The Rogue Retrieval, shares the three most important writing lessons he’s learned:
When I began writing fiction in 2008, I thought it would be easy. At the time, I had a number of research papers and nonfiction articles under my belt. I considered myself a fairly good writer, in fact. Then I took my first course in fiction writing. As the class critiqued my first-ever short story, it became painfully obvious that I was fairly terrible at it.
Although I cut my teeth on short fiction, it wasn’t until I began writing novels that I really leveled up. I won my first NaNoWriMo in 2009. That book will never see the light of day, but I was learning. I landed a literary agent in 2014, and signed a book deal with Harper Voyager in 2015. Here are three of the most important things I learned along the way.
AUTHOR | HISTORIAN | ARTIST 