We Updated Our Google Sheet's Tracker
Plus #Preptober Workshops, Calling for Developers, Our Favorite Craft Books for #Preptober, and Creative Tips.
This is Writing Quests’ Official Newsletter.
What’s New- Google Sheets Tracker
Writing Quest is excited to release an updated version of our Google Sheet Progress Tracker. “Version 2025.2” is now available. Feel free to use this for solo use or during November’s Writing Quest.
The tracker and instructions can be found here.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zsjBv1wG4HquO-azqirvdHXDLQRak067?usp=sharing
What is the Progress Tracker
The WQ Progress tracker is a Google Sheets file that you can use to log your word count and/or hours spent over the 30 days of Novel Quest. The tracker has multiple tabs, with the most important being:
Your Quest
The “Your Quest” tab is used at the beginning of the month to enter information about your project. You can name your project, pick a genre, enter your monthly goals, etc. We have updated the tracker to allow users to start at a non-zero word count. This is great for your rebels working on existing projects.
Daily Word/Hour Count
The “Daily Word/Hour Count” tab is where you will fill in your daily word/hour count and set daily goals. At the top, you can find a daily message from Writing Quest. The Calculators that used to be at the top of the page are now located on their own “Calculator” tab.
Progress
The “Progress” tab looks almost identical to last year and shows your progress across the month. This tab has various charts and tables to break down your progress in different ways. Everything on this tab will be filled in automatically using some fancy formulas.
Calculators
We have moved the handy calculators from the top of the “Daily Word/Hour Count” tab to their own tab. We have also given users multiple calculators, so there are different ways to do the math. We also thought it would be helpful to give users a way to check off the easter eggs that they found. ;)
What has changed?
No Aggregator
The tracker has many little changes to improve functionality and style. But one of the biggest changes is that there is no aggregator this year.
We listened to your feedback from last year’s Novel Quest and Sprint into a Story. We know the Aggregator needs more work. We have not yet finished an alternative. But we are diligently working on something for next year.
Since there is no aggregator, there is no way to link your tracker to a community graph. Or for users or quest guides to leave a status message.
New Easter Eggs
What I had the most fun with was updating the hidden easter eggs. There are now 8 Easter Eggs. Some are completely new. While others remain the same in spirit, but have been updated. (Hidden Easter Egg #5 is still a haiku and in the same location, but we have re-written the Haiku, which will change based on what you selected on the “Your Quest” page.)
Preptober Workshops
The Writing Journey (writingjourney.org) is presenting three interactive writing workshops in partnership with the Nichols Library in Naperville. These workshops, while aimed at all writers, should be helpful to those participating in Novel Quest in November. Novel Quest is a free event designed to help motivate writers to complete their draft novel in 30 days in November. Recordings and slides for the workshops will be posted to naperwrimo.org/prep.
How to use tropes in your writing: an interactive workshop.
Ever wonder how writers craft such memorable stories? Learn one of the sharpest tools in our creative arsenals: Tropes! In this workshop, we talk about the use and pitfalls of tropes, how writers use them to engage with their readers, and how you can make them sing in your own work.
Robby Badgley (rargona.bsky.social), author of Sweet Tea & Necromancy, leads this writer’s workshop, one of three workshops presented by the Writing Journey leading up to the November Novel Quest event (write your draft novel in 30 days in November).
Planning, Pantsing, and Plantsing: Writing Tips for a Spectrum of Styles
Many writers like to self-identify as ‘planners’ or ‘pantsers’, but most fall somewhere in between. But how does one write a novel if there isn’t one right way to do it? This workshop covers a myriad of writing styles and preferences, as well as tips and tricks to prepping for a big writing project.
Katie Lazicki, contributing author in Journey to Adventure, leads this writer’s workshop.
Story Wall Party: Saturday, October 18th, 1-3 PM CDT.
Story Wall Party - a brainstorming session for your November novel (or other writing project). Only have some of what you need for the November Novel Quest challenge? Let your fellow writing challenge participants serve as a sounding board to generate new plot twists, ask inspiring questions, and help you get ready for November!
Join Sam McAdams, author of the hilarious Barnyard Heroes series of novels, for this highly interactive workshop.
This event will be offered in a hybrid fashion to in-person attendees and virtual attendees (register to receive the zoom link).
Novel Quest Kick-off (virtual-only) - October 25th, 1-2:30 PM CDT
Have a relaxed, highly interactive discussion about Novel Quest, what to expect, the events that are available in November, and share how you have been preparing, the questions you might have, the tips you might like more information on.
This event will be offered to virtual attendees (register to receive the zoom link).
Call for Developers
We are seeking volunteers to help with the Questy development. In particular, it would be helpful to find individuals with skills/experience/interest in
php/Symphony dev
React web
UI and UX
We are on a journey to create a flexible writing progress tracker (Questy) that will have some nice features, including:
supporting common Quests (defined writing challenges)
supporting individual projects of different formats (novels, series, plays, short stories, etc)
supporting some community communication capabilities, beginning with buddies
supporting community/buddy progress tracking graphs (similar to what NaNo Faces provided when it was active).
You can read more about the project at GitHub (especially see our plans on our wiki).
Our Favorite Craft Books for #Preptober
We here at Writing Quests would like to share with you just a few of our favorite books for writing fiction. Most of these are available at your local library. We have included Amazon links for your convenience. We are not an Amazon affiliate and will not receive anything if you choose to purchase from these links.
What are your favorites? We’d love to hear from you!
Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain -- a must-read book on the mechanics of writing scenes and structuring your book to hook the reader
Writing for Emotional Impact, by Karl Iglesias. -- Great book! Tells you how to manipulate the emotions of your reader to great effect.
Story Genius, by Lisa Cron This book really helped us hone our ideas of story, the types of conflicts characters confront both internal and external and how to apply them in our story arcs.
Art of Fiction, by John Gardner A classic, must read book for any writer. Easily accessible and written in plain language, it covers all of the basics. A great place to get a jump start.
Dialogue: The Art of Verbal Action for Page, Stage, and Screen, by Robert McKee. An absolute gem of a book which includes tips on how to make dialogue sound natural and how to slip in exposition without making it seem forced.
No Plot, No Problem–Chris Baty Who doesn’t love this book? Chris took all of his years of experience creating and leading NaNoWriMo to give writers a boost while trying to write a book in a short amount of time.
The Emotional Craft of Fiction, by Donald Maas This is one of the books legendary literary agent Donald Maas wrote about what makes great fiction. Complete with exercises that will help you hone both scene and story to make your characters and your readers truly feel something meaningful.
Creative Tips
By: John Corso
So you want to be creative? That’s a good idea if you want to write anything worth reading. You’ll feel better about your writing quality, and your readers will appreciate the effort.
A fully creative scene allows the reader’s mind to see your descriptions as pictures. Appropriate detail (not too much, not too little) creates these visual pictures flashing one after the other. Several of these together make an imaginary filmstrip. This mental movie keeps readers turning pages.
We gain our creative insight by becoming comfortable beyond our normal everyday experiences, much like a baker who expands their menu beyond the usual six ingredients. Let’s get you into some creative baking.
“What if…” Perspective
“What if… fridges fought in battles for their human owners?”
“What if… cheese grew wings and flew around?”
“What if… people melted in sunlight?”
These are simple mental games that can be explored anywhere. Stuck in the DMV? “What if… a giant millipede exploded through the tile floor and attacked the closest person?” There’s a story.
Waiting in traffic? “What if… everyone’s cars became giant marshmallows?” Suffering through a family dinner? “What if… Grandma’s baked turkey stood up and danced an Irish jig?”
Imagine the creative stories through the simple use of “What if…”
Vivid Descriptions
Consider all your senses individually and as a whole. Hold an orange half in your hand. Feel its weight against your palm. Slide your fingertips across its skin. Assess its color changes from the outer layer to the interior. Appreciate the grooves, lines, and bumps. Taste it. Squeeze it. Does it make a sound? Inhale its scent.
Add those senses into scenes to accentuate stories. Remember to incorporate smells and odors to create moments that go beyond mere sights and sounds.
Alternative Perspective
A fly, a minnow, and a tree all have different world experiences. The same applies to those of us who live near mountains, large bodies of water, and in urban settings.
Think beyond our normal world. How would a mountain perceive time? What would clouds think about? Would a raindrop enjoy falling?
Fresh perspectives make for entertaining scenes and stories.
Get Uncomfortable
Ditch the normal, the familiar, and the comfortable. Walk backwards through your home. Take the long way home. Brush teeth, wash up, or eat with the opposite hand. Take a chance with unfamiliar foods. Listen to music you’d normally pass on. Talk to culturally-different people. Watch unfamiliar television shows. Buy magazines you’d normally skip. Become familiar with experiences outside your everyday life. Be a traveler of humanity’s rich tapestry of beliefs, customs, and cultures.
A greater worldview reduces biases and opens up story ideas to greater exploration.
All of these tips will stretch your mind in unpredictable ways. The more perspectives, ideas, and creative inputs you can draw from, the better you’ll be at adding fresh content into your writing. These can all lift mediocre stories upward into the creative stratosphere. Readers crave fresh ideas. Will you give it to them?