NaNoWriMo Fallout

[cjhuitt he/him]

So, at least some of you participated in NaNoWriMo this year. How did it go? Did you finish? Were the Writing Excuses pep talks any help?

Do you like your novel? Hate it? Did it work out like you expected, or not at all? Did you try something different this year? How did it go?

For the rest of you, why has it been so dead around here? (Or has there actually even been a "rest of you"? Maybe everyone did it.)

[cjhuitt he/him]

These are my meandering impressions of the past month so far.

My novel is a big mess right now. I think this is the messiest I've ever had the novel before. I have summaries of what I think should happen for the rest of the novel scattered around, although most of them are in the front of the novel. (I wrote those every now and then, when I sat down to write a chapter but couldn't keep from thinking about the rest of the story). I have the Goal/Conflict/Disaster notes scattered throughout as well, which I faithfully typed out before every scene (except one, that I thought was a sequel but turned into a scene of its own). I have the Emotion/Reason/Anticipation/Choice notes scattered throughout near sequels also, though I didn't formally figure those out as much. (That is probably something to look at in editing). I have summaries of chapters written in omniscient present tense, as well as actual chapters written in past 3-person limited. Sometimes I have both for the same chapter. I have notes about what I need to have happen in the future, which I just foreshadowed, where I had the foreshadowing. I have notes about what I need to put in foreshadowing for where they occurred to me, usually five or six paragraphs before I triggered the event that needs foreshadowing. My descriptions are very haphazardly scattered in, and I have lots and lots of placeholders for names, and sometimes for other details.

Despite all that, I'm feeling really good about the writing process this year. If it wasn't for an early illness that had me not writing for 3 days, and barely writing for 2 more, I would easily have cleared my best mark for words written in November. I came close even so. Plus, the writing was a lot less of a chore this time. I partly attribute that to the mess I mentioned earlier, both because I didn't worry about placing things correctly at this point in time, and because I could skip "levels" for my writing, as it were -- writing the 20000-foot overviews, writing the capsule overviews I stole from Jim Butcher, writing the scene and chapter summaries, or writing actual scenes and chapters. Being able to change it up definitely kept me interested and writing when it seemed like things weren't working on one level.

Another thing I think helped was the prep work done beforehand, reviewing the Jim Butcher posts and coming up with the novel summary and beginning, middle, end targets before writing. I have previously outlined my stories, or gone completely pantsing, but this seemed to be the write amount of pre-writing structure for me. It gives me a goal, but doesn't make me think that I've figured everything out, and now just have the chore of writing it. There are still details and what-not to be discovered along the way. I was generally writing my chapter capsules a few chapters ahead, and my chapter summaries a couple ahead, so when I wrote my chapters, I was aware of what would be happening soon, and could keep that in mind as well as what was supposed to happen there, and make a few tweaks along the way to make the story better.

The third thing that helped, I have no doubt, is actually having practice at writing novels. This was my fifth novel attempt, although the first two were really unstructured and I didn't take the time to try and learn anything from them. I actually recognized fairly early on that one of the problems I was having writing the novel was that I was unhappy with the arc of one of my main characters, so I spent some time thinking about that and what it should be, and came up with a similar arc (with a couple different key events, and a different focus) that made me a lot more excited. I hadn't gotten to any of the different parts yet, except in very-high-level form, so I was able to change that with little effort and dive back in, excited. Something similar happened with another part of the story that I realized didn't make sense, and which led to me thinking about other ways to have the same POV-visible evidence happen, which led to a nice secret society that I think is going to be a lot of fun also.

Finally, this was the first sequel I ever wrote. That itself was an interesting experience. I didn't have to spend as much time worldbuilding, and I had a couple characters all ready to go. However, it also meant I could just change the setting or characters to fit the new story; they had to be basically the same as the previous one so that they can work in both. On the whole I think this helped me, but it also led to some interesting places where I had constraints on my creativity. It also led to me having more characters from the first story make appearances, although mostly brief ones so far, but it was also fun to be able to write a "side" character with a lot of history and mannerisms already defined.

Oh, and of course I'm not done yet, though a lot closer to the spirit of NaNoWriMo this year than the past three tries. The first time I "won", I had burned myself out on the story and just stopped writing it at just over 50k words. The second and third time I won (two years ago and last year), I had written over 50k words, but not gotten to the end, and although had outlined them and knew what the end was, I was missing large pieces of the story. This year, with the summaries that I've written, I have both gotten above 50k and know what should happen all the way up to the end, though I forgot to write those two little words.

I think that my story probably still has 40-60k words left to write, on top of the 62k I officially wrote during the month. I'm not sure when I'll get them all written, but I'll get there. Then I have to go back through and clean up my notes and capsules and what-not, which will probably drop over 10k from it, and maybe up to 30k depending on how messy I've been. That puts me on target for 90k-110k for the novel, maybe a touch long for what I was targeting, but by no means unwieldy.

Well, those are my initial thoughts. I may try to do another post later with my original idea/how it turned out, but I think that should probably wait until I'm actually done writing.

[akoebel]

I'll follow Caleb's lead and try to explain how this NaNo went for me.

This has been a strange event for me this year and to explain it, I'll have to rewind back to last NaNo.

I started last year a new novel which had been brewing in my mind for a few months. The writing went great - so great that I decided early on to do a double NaNo and go for the full hundred thousand words. I managed it, but discovered that writing 3.5K per day while being doable doesn't leave me much time for anything else. Come December, I was so burned out that I decided to leave the book there for a few weeks. Then, something I hadn't anticipated came. I got the opportunity to submit a partial to an editor in January on another work and discuss her input after that. So, I did what any author would do, I put the last project aside and went to full editing mode on the other. This editing before and after the editor's input took me the better part of the year as I finished it in September.

I needed to go back to my NaNo project and finish it, but soon realised I didn't remember much about it. I had to re-read it (a strange experience) in order to remember everything and find the book's voice back.

Then came this November and I thought I could use NaNo to finish the book. At the time, it was at 100K in early act 3 and according to the acts 1 and 2 lengths, I figured I needed to write about 35k to wrap it. The only problem was, I only had in my mind a partial idea about that ending. The characters were all in very bad positions and it seemed like enough for me to find a good ending.

So I went to writing and produced a solid 5k in the first day. Things were looking good and characters started to converge on the final battlefield. Then, the villain did something unexpected : he decided to send all his minions that were hunted down by my hero to the 4 corners of the world in order to buy himself some time. I never expected this and since it was logical (and quite clever on his part), I had to go along. That single paragraph cost me about 20k, I'd say, launching the characters in a journey like those you find in early acts 2.

As a result, most of the writing for this ending feels like I've been writing the sequel in a series and not the end of book 1. After now 50k and a few more detours, I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, though not in the way I would have figured. The main character was supposed to go into a bloodthirsty killing spree and be stopped by an alliance between her friends and the villain. Instead, I have a main character who accepted to surrender to the villain to escape destroying everything in her path and her son is doing all he can to turn her back into the bloodthirsty version of her, thinking it will save her. Very different endings and I think the second one is the stronger. I never even considered it until the characters moved in this direction. This is what I love about writing.

So to recap, I'm at 155K now, with an ending in view which should take me about 10k (ok, let's be realistic here : maybe 15?).

I don't advise anyone to put a book aside for 1 year as I did. There are multiple problems to solve when doing this : the character voices change, the plot gets fuzzy, and you waste words getting back into the book's mood. I don't know how Ray Bradbury did it all his life.

Another thing I learned is that doing 50k in a month is a breeze for me. 100k was hard, but 50k is barely more than what I would normally do. NaNo just helps me force myself to write 7 days a week instead of 4 with time to spare. I even found the time to attend a 4-day con (did the same last year, but found out I could barely attend the panels because I needed to write).

We'll see what next year has in store. Probably something very different.

[Silk she/her]

Well, MY answer for "why has it been so dead around here" is that a Master's degree is a jealous mistress.

I had hoped to participate in NaNo this year, but never really got started (see above--unless the 7k words of thesis revisions that I wrote counts? No? didn't think so), so I don't have much to contribute. I dunno, maybe I'll attempt to do my own personal NaNo this month. Though that certainly takes some of the fun out of it.

[Mandamon he/him]

Here's my thoughts for this year (and last year).

This is my second NaNoWriMo. This one was a little bit different than the first time around. The first time I was really nervous about writing 1667 words a day, and prepared for almost the whole month of October, doing research and writing an outline, plus I needed a lot of research on historical figures. So when I started, I had such a complete outline, it was easy to write something every day toward the story.

I did NaNo both years with my wife, which was an added bonus as we could keep each other at it. We both found writing that much per day wasn't that hard. Last year was my second real attempt at a book, so I didn't have a whole lot of experience. In between then and now, I've polished the work I wrote last year, finished another short work (60k ish), and outlined a future novel pretty thoroughly.

So this time, for me, seemed completely different. I was planning to work on that new outline I had, starting a normal length Fantasy novel (120k+), but about two weeks before, I had an inspiration and had to write it. Luckily, Caleb's "workshop" proved invaluable to getting an outline set up in a hurry.

I didn't have nearly as complete an outline this time, but once I started, I found myself once again on a roll, and easily able to hit my daily target. I hit almost 2000 words per day during the last couple weeks, and hit the 3000 mark the day I finished off 50k words. I started laying out the scene/sequel format for the first couple chapters, but soon ran out of that preplanned material and had to rely on the outline I wrote previously. However, having done the scene/sequel for a time made me aware of how it worked and I could subconsciously "check" myself as I wrote to make sure I was getting all the reactions in.

Both years, I've aimed for a YA book, which makes it a comfortable length for NaNo. I aimed for about 60-90K length, which means I can get most of the story done during the month. I also like that I'm not writing the first part of a long novel in a mad scramble, and then have to go back and fix it later.

I came out with about the same impression as I had last year. It's a great accomplishment having done NaNo, but I don't want to have to go through that all the time (at least while I have another job I'm working full time). I've dropped my goal back to 1000 words a day until I finish off this book, to give me some breathing time. Each year, I say I'm not sure I want to do NaNo again. But I probably will. I felt more confident this year with the outlining prep, even if it wasn't as complete as what I did the year before, I think because it made me focus on fleshing out the characters more.

Maybe I'll attempt a full-size novel for NaNo next year, and see how it comes out.

[Thought]

My main goal in NaNoWriMo was to try new things. Like, a lot. I never wrote a YA book before, I never wrote an Urban Fantasy before, I never wrote 1st person before, I never wrote a female primary protagonist before, I never outlined so early before, I never tried scene-sequel format before, I never tried any coherent overarching structure (such as 3-act) before, I never wrote so much so quickly before, I never had others holding me accountable before, I never had the specific support of my family for writing on weekends (and Holidays!) before, etc.

My first reaction is an immense sense of satisfaction. Not so much because I succeeded, but because it wasn't nearly as hard as I had previously thought. I've known about NaNoWriMo for years, but had always been too afraid to try because that seemed like setting myself up for failure. I'd have a totally different feeling if I had succeeded in finishing everything, but with it being a slog all the way. I attribute a lot of this to the fact that I outlined and had structure.

I think I've mentioned before that I used to think that I was a discovery writer. I started reading Sanderson's blog, then listening to Writing Excuses, and found his and Dan Wells' stories to be quite inspiring, so I started experimenting. As such, I outlined a little (very little) for a project I started back in March or February. That helped immensely. I did a better outline for a few chapters, in July, and that helped even more. So, for NaNo, I wanted to outline intensely.

I was... somewhat successful. I got a good, in-depth outline for about 1/3rd of the book, with only a very skeletal frame for the rest. Still, I knew where acts ended, and where everything was headed. The first third of the book was an immense joy. It felt like reading a thriller, sometimes, as I wrote! Totally new experience (I love writing, but hadn't gotten an adrenaline rush from doing so before). Writing the rest of the book was helped by my skeletal outline, but it was rougher going, didn't have quite the same feeling, and I think those sections will need the heaviest revision. Lesson for next time: get the outline done to the level I want before starting (which is hard, because making the outline makes me really eager to start writing). I want to find out how much outlining is right for me, but I know it is more outlining than I've done.

First Person's been quite interesting. It is definitely easier to maintain a quick pace, though I've had a lot of trouble with tense consistency (supposed to be past, slip into present during tense moments, when I'm eager to write the next page). Also, I think I might be a little... too close. The character is reporting too much, I think, rather than simple describing ("I heard water dripping..." v "water dripped..."). It's been fun, as I can put in more humour, though I am not really sure if the character has her own voice.

Urban Fantasy is a challenge in that I don't feel like I've properly conveyed the otherness of the other world, yet the real world influence is also sort of vague. Something to clean up in revision, hopefully.

YA.... well, to be fair, I largely just view it as a normal book with a young protagonist. Oddly enough, I know that it is quite unmarketable. It's about history, has a female protagonist, lacks a mystery and romance, etc. But it's been an idea demanding to get out for quite some time, so...

The speed of writing is most encouraging. Before this, I thought that 500 words an hour was good, and 1000k a day acceptable. Now both of those seem like really tiny goals. I've been writing slowly this last week, because I am rather exhausted, but hope to average 1.5 to 2k here on out.

Basically, NaNoWriMo taught me that, you know, maybe I can do this writing thing.

Of course, if the book is horrible, I might feel differently, but I won’t know until later.

[Mandamon he/him]

Annnnnnd....Complete!

I finished up my first draft yesterday, clocking in at 70,062 words. I'm going to do something I haven't done before and set this one aside for a few months. Usually I plow right into a second draft, and of course am still too close to the story. I'm hoping this time around I can do some other writing I have planned and then come back fresh. I'm pretty sure there are several parts I want to expand to make the story more complete.

So the only thing I didn't do is give this story a name. Currently it's just titled "Allen," which is the name of the main character. It's short for Allen's Bad day, which I feel is really a terrible title. I came up with a few others, but they all sound equally as bad to me:

Life Without Acne

Superpowers and Zits

Pimples and Powers

Powers, Peanut Butter, and Pimples

Any votes on best/worst from a pick-it-up-in-store point of view?

When everyone else gets finished up, I'd like to do before/after outlines to compare. I found after the latest Writing Excuses that I naturally outline and write very similar to Mary. I'm interested to see what others do.

[Thought]

Congratulations! That's awesome (and 70k in a month and a half, with no planning [if I am recalling correctly], is rather impressive).

[cjhuitt he/him]

Congrats! I need to get mine finished, but work has been rather hectic this month. I should start to get more time sometime about... January.

[Thought]

About a month later than Mandamon, I finished, too. Clocks in at a total of 65k, which means that the last 10k took me about a month and a half to write. I blame the fact that the end is broken. However, I got "Hero With A Thousand Faces" for Christmas, been reading it, and have a good number of ideas as to why it's broken and how to fix it (basically, I had the penultimate conflict in place of the ultimate conflict, which was present in the first half of the book but not developed since I thought it wasn't an important conflict at all). I'm planning on writing up notes as to how, at this moment, I think the story can be fixed, then I'll set it aside for a month or so before starting on a triage-draft read through, followed by what will essentially be pre-alpha edits: at the very least, I'll be making the ending less painful to read, and fixing things I noted for myself as I wrote (such as "delete this scene" or "assume that this scene existed", etc). Hopefully, I'll be to an alpha stage by June.

In the meantime, it is back to working on the project I had set aside for NaNoWriMo. I'd like to move on, but as NaNo taught me, I really need to work on the latter portion of books, and so this old project is right at the stage where I need to be practicing.

[Mandamon he/him]

And congratulations to you, Thought! I'm still somewhat terrible at the endings too. The best thing is to do something else. Then when you come back to it, you can smack yourself in the head and put the obvious ending where it should be.