Something that I find quite helpful is to open a new text document each day. It means you have to do a little math to figure out your total wordcount, but it also cuts down on the temptation to edit yesterday's work.
Yesterday evening, I did another strong push and finished chapter two, adding 2,038 more words to my count. So day one ended up being a 4k day for me! I even got to end the chapter on a 'take me to your leader' joke.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Sunday, November 1, 2009
The First Day
And they're off!
Despite what I said on Wednesday, I did actually end up starting at midnight on Halloween night. I wrote from midnight until 3 AM, but thanks to the miracle of DST managed to get four hours of writing done in that time. I finished all of chapter one, racking up 2,001 words before bed.
Anyone else get anything on paper yet?
Despite what I said on Wednesday, I did actually end up starting at midnight on Halloween night. I wrote from midnight until 3 AM, but thanks to the miracle of DST managed to get four hours of writing done in that time. I finished all of chapter one, racking up 2,001 words before bed.
Anyone else get anything on paper yet?
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Thursday Write-ins
As promised, I plan on running some small Write-ins for the group, since the sense of community is the very best bit of NaNo.
I thought about it, and decided that it should be one of the days that we are all here already. And not wanting to make Wednesday any longer than it already is, I thought Thursday would be best. So each week at 4:30, after Intro to Libraries, I'll be in C209 writing for an hour or two. And you (yes you!) should come and join me.
No homework. There's plenty of time for homework already. Losing an hour or two each week won't cause you to fail (hopefully...).
Bring a laptop, or a pad of paper. Or write at a computer and email it to yourself.
And try to have fun. Writing is supposed to be (mostly) fun.
I thought about it, and decided that it should be one of the days that we are all here already. And not wanting to make Wednesday any longer than it already is, I thought Thursday would be best. So each week at 4:30, after Intro to Libraries, I'll be in C209 writing for an hour or two. And you (yes you!) should come and join me.
No homework. There's plenty of time for homework already. Losing an hour or two each week won't cause you to fail (hopefully...).
Bring a laptop, or a pad of paper. Or write at a computer and email it to yourself.
And try to have fun. Writing is supposed to be (mostly) fun.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
The Big Day
So, Sunday is the big day.
Well, if you really want to get some words in, then Saturday night starting at midnight is the big day. I, personally, prefer sleeping at night, so Sunday is good enough for me.
The trick to NaNo is to write every day. You don't have to write a lot each day, or particularly well each day. Just writing each day is enough. One missed day tends to turn into two, two into a week, a week into a month, and so on. That's why it's important to get off to a good start. So on Sunday, open a new document (and save it!), and write a little something in it (and then save it again!). Doesn't have to be publishable. It doesn't even, strictly speaking, need to be a proper beginning. Just write anything, because anything is so much better than nothing.
Worry about the next day on Monday.
Well, if you really want to get some words in, then Saturday night starting at midnight is the big day. I, personally, prefer sleeping at night, so Sunday is good enough for me.
The trick to NaNo is to write every day. You don't have to write a lot each day, or particularly well each day. Just writing each day is enough. One missed day tends to turn into two, two into a week, a week into a month, and so on. That's why it's important to get off to a good start. So on Sunday, open a new document (and save it!), and write a little something in it (and then save it again!). Doesn't have to be publishable. It doesn't even, strictly speaking, need to be a proper beginning. Just write anything, because anything is so much better than nothing.
Worry about the next day on Monday.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Snowflake Method Five
Today, I'm wrapping up my Snowflake Method series. We've done the first four steps together; I'll leave the other six up to you. The steps get progressively more complex and detailed as you go, and you don't really need to do them all to be ready for November. If you've only done the first four, you'll already be more prepared than most WriMos!
The only thing you really need to worry about, in terms of preparation, is having answers to the really obvious questions. When you are writing, you don't want to stop for anything, so any detail that you can't fill in with no more than a brief pause will either get a [detail goes here] placeholder, or derail you. So try to figure out a few potential trouble spots in advance and write them down.
That (especially) includes the names of things...characters, settings, and other nouns. Have a list of character names for every character, even the minor ones. Know what street your main character lives, in what town, in what state or province, and in what country. If they own a car, know what kind of car and what colour it is. Keep a list of these little facts at hand, and add to it whenever you think of something new or finish a section of writing. There's nothing that will mess you up more than going back and trying to find some little detail you wrote a week ago. That way lies madness and editing.
The other thing that really, really helps is a timeline. It doesn't have to be fancy or detailed or precise; it just needs to give you a big picture view of when things happen. You can do one for your backstory, one for your plotline, or both. And the scale can be entirely relative: six years ago, one month later, etc. You don't need actual dates.
The only thing you really need to worry about, in terms of preparation, is having answers to the really obvious questions. When you are writing, you don't want to stop for anything, so any detail that you can't fill in with no more than a brief pause will either get a [detail goes here] placeholder, or derail you. So try to figure out a few potential trouble spots in advance and write them down.
That (especially) includes the names of things...characters, settings, and other nouns. Have a list of character names for every character, even the minor ones. Know what street your main character lives, in what town, in what state or province, and in what country. If they own a car, know what kind of car and what colour it is. Keep a list of these little facts at hand, and add to it whenever you think of something new or finish a section of writing. There's nothing that will mess you up more than going back and trying to find some little detail you wrote a week ago. That way lies madness and editing.
The other thing that really, really helps is a timeline. It doesn't have to be fancy or detailed or precise; it just needs to give you a big picture view of when things happen. You can do one for your backstory, one for your plotline, or both. And the scale can be entirely relative: six years ago, one month later, etc. You don't need actual dates.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Snowflake Method Four
The Snowflake Method alternates back and forth between character-focused and plot-focused exercises. The first step, the sentence, starts with a character and what they do. The second, the paragraph, outlines the plot very briefly. The third step returns to characters again, focusing on each main one in more detail.
Now, the forth step is an expansion of the second step. What was a sentence becomes a paragraph, just like in the jump from step one to step two. At the end, you should have a full page, with about five paragraphs. The first outlines the characters, setting, and initial action. The second paragraph is about something going wrong. The third and fourth are about things getting worse, with new challenges and conflicts and rising tension. Finally, the last paragraph outlines the ending...or as much of it as you've figured out so far...sometimes you won't know the ending until it happens!
Now you have a plan, a roadmap, a guide to what is going to happen to whom, when and how and maybe even a little bit of why. If you can see a flaw in the story now, it's only a sentence or two to fix it, rather than a whole discarded chapter later. You can't afford to throw away any words in November! If the story looks good on the page you just made, then congratulations. And if you can't wait to expand each of those things some more, then excellent! That is the attitude to have.
I'm not going to post an example today, since it's long and I've rambled on enough already. But I did it and I have it, and it looks like a summary of an interesting story!
Now, the forth step is an expansion of the second step. What was a sentence becomes a paragraph, just like in the jump from step one to step two. At the end, you should have a full page, with about five paragraphs. The first outlines the characters, setting, and initial action. The second paragraph is about something going wrong. The third and fourth are about things getting worse, with new challenges and conflicts and rising tension. Finally, the last paragraph outlines the ending...or as much of it as you've figured out so far...sometimes you won't know the ending until it happens!
Now you have a plan, a roadmap, a guide to what is going to happen to whom, when and how and maybe even a little bit of why. If you can see a flaw in the story now, it's only a sentence or two to fix it, rather than a whole discarded chapter later. You can't afford to throw away any words in November! If the story looks good on the page you just made, then congratulations. And if you can't wait to expand each of those things some more, then excellent! That is the attitude to have.
I'm not going to post an example today, since it's long and I've rambled on enough already. But I did it and I have it, and it looks like a summary of an interesting story!
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Snowflake Method Three
This is where the Snowflake Method starts to get interesting. So far, we've done a sentence and a paragraph. Now, you start to add detail until the triangle starts to look like a star.
Here's an example for my main character:
James Houston, Traveller Anthropologist
Key Viewpoint Character
Houston is dispatched to the northern ice cap to meet the People, and when the call to evacuate comes, his shuttle fails, leaving him to walk a thousand kilometres to rescue.
Motivation: Initially, he is engaging in his occupation. After the crash landing, he is trying to survive.
Goal: To return to the Fathership safely.
Conflict: Gravity, the gradual failure of his Link. On one level, the conflict is between his little group and the Raiders. This mirrors the larger conflict between the Travellers and the Stukas.
Epiphany: He will learn what can be done without the Link and the AIs.
I left off the storyline paragraph, because it is equally full of spoilers and unexplained references to other parts of the story idea. It's both incomprehensible and gives everything away!
The important thing to notice here is how quick and dirty this is. It's all plot based and structural; the more detailed and character based parts come later.
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