NaNoWriMo First Timer

So I'm knee-deep in my very first NaNoWriMo (hereafter NaNo) (or Na-Nooooo!), and I'm loving it. Every day so far has followed this basic template--my inner critic screams at me all morning, I have a blast writing for a few hours in the afternoon and feel great, my inner critic screams at me all night. The writing is probably the easiest part of my day.

Yeah, that inner critic is a butthole.

The novel that I am producing is now six chapters long, each chapter is about 2k words plus a little extra, and it will be a total of thirty chapters. So I will have between 60 and 70k when I'm done. I chose this structure specifically because I wanted to have a completed story at least 60k long. Having this clear and easy to follow plan has made the work much easier to process for me. I am not married to the structure, however, and will rearrange things at will once the story is done. If needed.

I will almost assuredly end up rewriting a lot of the clunk that crowds my MS right now. This is a zero draft, just a means to get the story worked out. Any decent writing that results is just a bonus. So far I am seeing a lot of room for additional descriptions and/or chunks of narrative summary that I will likely want to go back and turn into actual scenes. Or delete. Just saying.

My hope is to finish initial revisions by the end of December, at the latest. Then it will be time for beta readers, more revision (maybe) and so on. I say maybe to more revisions because it is entirely possible that I will abandon the work once it is whipped into half-decent shape. For a while, at least, while I work on the next one.

Why? Because my experiences with my first few short stories taught me that it will likely take a few novels (at least) to get to grips with the basics of long form story-telling. My very first short has been extensively revised three times, each one several months apart. It's now decent, not great but passable, but doesn't hold a candle to my later works (imho.) I have learned a huge amount about both writing and storytelling over the last half-year.

The biggest reason for this book, and for my participation in NaNo, is just to have a finished, novel-length MS. Just to prove to myself that I can do it, and to have enough experience to feel more confident going into my next one. Writers learn by writing. BIC HOK TAM, and all that.

Things learned so far:

Writing fast is easy if you don't worry about quality of words, just quality of story. Get the meat roasted, fix the trimmings later.

Double Days, like I had instead of my Day-Off Story Challenge, are great for getting a running start. I'm actually a day ahead on my quota because of that, and will likely finish my NaNo several days early.

It is difficult to write on weekends, with all the family distractions. I plan to up my weekly quota by a bit, just to take the edge off of weekends. Or something.

Biggest one--it is entirely possible to start with nearly nothing, and get at least to day seven of NaNo. I've proved that to myself. My initial outline is essentially 30 lines, one per chapter, bare bones and very skimpy, and my story idea entry in the Idea Bank is maybe 600 words. I've got the squiggliest of roadmaps and am just making it up as I go along. I'll let you know how that ultimately works out, but for now it's just fine. The only way out is through.

If anyone out there wants to be my NaNo buddy (assuming the adding system is up and running :), I'm silverbowen, same as on twitter.

Further Thoughts on Idea Vs Story

It actually might be better, or at least more clear, to say idea as a separate entity from story, rather than idea vs. story. The latter implies an adversarial relationship which isn't actually extant. Of course, the former is more than a little bit cumbersome.

Anyway, to break from pedantry, the actually crux of this post. And, to answer that query that may even now be formulating in the vast recesses of your questing intellect - I am not intentionally using as many big words as possible. And I most certainly did not imply that you had a large, empty head.

This new goal of being both informative and humorous may need a little tweaking.

I have been running every new idea that I add to my idea bank through the full developmental process. In other words, I write down the original thought/brainstorm. This, plus maybe some dialogue or exposition used to be all I did with the ideas before saving them and moving on.

Now, I also state the idea in a single sentence (usually a what if?). Then I develop the idea to a possible next level, adding specifics, but still keeping it at one sentence. Then I write a full paragraph summary, similar to a blurb, but with no attempt at keeping out spoilers.

I've illustrated the form a few times now, in other posts, so I'm not going to give an example.

This process has not only vastly improved the quality of the ideas that I bank, it is also helping to push my storytelling skills to the next level. Ideas i would have quickly moved past, I am now forced to fully develop, regardless of perceived merit. This is a good thing.

Since the whole purpose of the idea bank is to stretch my imagination, and practice telling the core of my stories, anything I can do to make the process more productive is time well spent. In other words, I am adding heavier weights to my mental whatever-it-is-a-bar-with-weights-on-it-that-people-lift-is-called.

A couple other quick notes - 1) I have now definitely been posting daily for over a month. whee. 2) As I challenged myself, so I deliver. I now touch-type all my blog posts. Okay, sometimes I peek, but I never do the two hands but only five fingers thing anymore.

Day Off Story Challenge - Round Four

I just completed my day off challenge story number four, as of three PM. I started writing this morning around ten, so this one took about five hours. It clocks in at 2,800 words. The title is "Minor Mutilators".

It took me longer to write this than the last few stories. I usually come closer to 700-800 words an hour. At my normal rate, this would have taken an hour or so less. However, I am sick today, and this story included more characters and complexity than usual, so I don't fell like I was really all that slow writing it.

I vacillated this morning between this story and a simpler one that only had two characters. This idea was one I added to my idea bank only a few days ago. But, I thought this idea was slightly more interesting, and I wanted to try to stretch out a little.

In the interest of demonstrating the process, for those curious, The original idea and the refinement are listed below. These are all the development I had, going into the challenge.

Idea - A micro race of aliens mutilates small animals.

Refinement - A collection of house pets team up to stop the menace of tiny alien animal mutilators.

The fun of this story is seeing how the animals, who are heavily personified, manage to defeat the aliens. I had a lot of fun coming up with the viewpoints of the house pets, and their names for themselves, as well.

As the last few stories, I would like to put the full story up, but my readership is so small that I feel it is best to keep it unpublished, and try to sell it. If I get more people reading, or publish it myself, I will likely put the story up here as well.

Ideas Vs Story

I am reading through Bob Mayer's book on novel writing, and getting a lot out of it. In some ways it is a much more nuts and bolts book than other ones I've read recently. He also took the rather unique approach of writing the book over the course of about fifteen years, so a side range of perspective is evident. really good read, highly recommended.

One of the concepts I have picked up is the difference between an idea and a story. Read the book for the full scoop, but the gist is that an idea is a one sentence summary of the core of the book, that must at all costs be maintained. What if an omnipotent being created the universe from scratch - an idea. Genesis - a story. That one idea could generate many different stories, but none of the stories could be summed up as anything other than the one idea.

One of the ways this concept affects me is that I am now applying it to every entry in my idea bank. It goes like this - I have a flash of genius (or something else), I write it down as concisely as possible, in one sentence. Then I start revising that idea to be as interesting as possible, then I start brainstorming the story. The first step is different form my old one, which was - write down the idea, higgledy piggledy. The middle step, enabled by the first step, is brand new.

And no, I am not afraid to use phrases like higgledy piggledy, if I need them to get my point across.

An example -

Idea - What if an office worker was driven mad by her spreadsheet.

Refinement - What if the elder gods used office software to mentally enslave a junior accountant?

The Story - The Elder Spreadsheet - The protagonist, a junior accountant, isn't climbing the corporate rungs fast enough to suit her ambitions. Her weird friend from high school is having great success with an import/export business. They have lunch, the friend suggests using an occult self-help book, which in turn leads to online discussions and eventually a website. The protagonist downloads office productivity software, which she installs on her work computer. It mimics her regular software. She begins to succeed, wildly, but also has strange events and nightmares, etc. Eventually she is a mindless drone, as is the rest of her company. She ends up the CFO, and her weird friend is the new CEO. Her company begins producing and selling the software, worldwide.

I am sure there are a lot of other ways this same idea could be developed into a story. I like this one enough that it is likely going to be the next short that I write, though. Easy peasy, huh?

The Idea Bank

This is a simple, yet incredibly useful concept. At least for me.

I keep a record of every idea I have, no matter how out there or dumb.  Every character, plot device, even phrases that I think would make good titles or good punch lines. I always have pen and paper or a voice recorder handy. I type all this stuff up in a basic text editor nearly every day.

Now, granted that most of these ideas are never going to see the light of day. Even so, I have enough for several years of writing, without breaking a sweat. I pick whatever idea seems most appealing, whenever I'm not sure what to write about next.

I often return to partial ideas, and add on, as well. Many of my dumbest ideas have ended up being killers, once that last little piece of the puzzle fell into place.

The main use of this is just to constantly keep my juices flowing, to practice thinking in a creative fashion. I also get practice typing, and developing ideas beyond that first blush. And I have a massive resource for story prompts, that is growing larger every day.

These ideas can also be combined, two ideas can make a good story where one would be thin. Characters often evolve from one idea to the next, or make it in wildly different stories. Snippets show up when I least expect them, saying "Here. Here is where I go." and inserting themselves into my current work.

I like to think I am earning interest on these ideas as well. Creative interest. I'll be rich in imagination, someday.

The idea bank. Give it a try.