We're now 12 days into "National Novel Writing Month," the annual event in which thousands of people, encouraging and guiding each other online, pledge to write entire novels over the course of November. The official "NaNoWriMo" forums are abuzz with encouragement and advice, testifying to the power of group support in achieving your goals. They are also filled with some of the worst ideas you will read in your entire life.

NaNoWriMo can produce good — or, at least, publishable — work. But generally speaking, thousands of amateur writers, many of them with a fairly narrow set of cultural and artistic touchstones, are not going to produce the next Middlemarch. Or the next Harry Potter. Or even the next great Pirates of the Caribbean-Avengers novel-length crossover.

Luckily we've got the wonderful Tumblr "Best of NaNoWriMo," which trawls the officials forums for the best misguided advice, odd requests, and terrible, context-free excerpts to attest to that. We've got some below; the rest are at the Tumblr itself. Try not to steal any of these ideas.

Research




Plot Points




Excerpts








Raps on Demand


[Best of NaNoWriMo, image via Shutterstock]