I've hit 4,000 and have sputtered out of fuel. Now I find myself writing lines like, "I glanced at my Fossil watch" and think: Yay! Fossil is an extra word!
Is anyone else resorting to the lame tactic of dropping brand names to help hit that 50,000-word mark? I only did it once, but think I may do it again down the road... maybe in the 10,000 mark?
I'd love to hear suggestions on how to keep going. It's only November 1 and I'm losing my train of thought!
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27,548 / 50,000
Nov 1, 2007 - 17 22
What's the story about?
9,027 / 50,000
Nov 1, 2007 - 17 34
Have you checked out the Challenge thread? I forget what forum it's in. But it has a bunch of writing challenges, such as: "Incorporate a duck into your story." "Have a character that adds "of death" to every noun" (I LOVE that challenge. Last year I had my coroner add "of death" to every noun, and not only did it pad my wordcount like you wouldn't believe, but it was HYSTERICAL. "Hand me the scalpel...of DEATH. The corpse...of DEATH.")
Also, if you've been using contractions, get rid of them. Why use one word when you can have two? XD
Finally, I like adding characters when I get stuck. Which is how all my NaNo novels get insanely overpopulated. But having a bunch of characters means you have a bunch of different viewpoints that you can switch back and forth from, which makes writing a lot easier. Get sick of one character? Work on another!
Hope this helps! =D
30,007 / 50,000
Nov 1, 2007 - 19 56
I agree, the dares threads that are scattered throughout the forums are very useful. I've already grabbed like 8 pages of dares to stick into my story, and I've already done 1.
Also I know cheating/sneaking around to 50K but I've put a grocery and a things to do list in my story. I feel like if I just keep writing things come out and my word count keeps increasing.
I've never written 3100 words in a day before, and this is exciting to me.
Nicole
50,191 / 50,000
Nov 2, 2007 - 06 13
I've already got some lyrics in mine, so I know where you're coming from. But lyrics make sense for my character, who's using some CDs her sister gave her as kind of a fortune-telling technique thing, so it works. And I don't put the whole song in, just a verse.
Little things like brand names aren't going to make a big enough difference. Throw in new people, new locations, whole new plots. You've got plenty of words left to work them out.
30,007 / 50,000
Nov 2, 2007 - 06 33
I've also added emails and IM into my story and emails I mean
From:
To:
Subject:
Body:
Those little things start to add up especially when your putting the same email in different chapters as each character is sending it out. and then putting all the replies in another chapter to the character who sent the first email.
Nicole
8,282 / 50,000
Nov 6, 2007 - 01 20
Rewrite the same scene two or three different ways, from different characters' POV. It'll come in handy for revisions. :D
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Stephanie Secrest on Romance Divas
50,061 / 50,000
Nov 6, 2007 - 07 44
I'm writing my novel from first POV so writing the POV of different characters wouldn't jive with the story. But that's a great suggestion though!
My current challenge to insert a "ninja rubber ducky" from a "dare" thread from another NaNoWriMo section. lol.
8,282 / 50,000
Nov 6, 2007 - 15 15
Yeah, I'm doing first person too, so I feel your pain. :) Though I decided, prior to NaNoWriMo, that I'd think about telling the story from the hero's POV too, in third person past. I've got a seven year gap between the hero and heroine's first meet and their second first meet, so I've got a *little* room to play.
Yet my problem is... I haven't done *any* of the chapters from the hero's POV yet. I'm still trying to discover his voice. So I'm keeping on plodding along with the first person. :)
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Stephanie Secrest on Romance Divas
12,112 / 50,000
Nov 6, 2007 - 16 44
i've barely begun on my story due to a business trip i got stuck going on, but i made sure to take full advantage of the long flight. however, i've found that hand writing the story first lends really well to expansion when i type it up to get the official word count. because i was tired on the 2nd half of my flight, i started manually counting and adding up how many words i had. when i typed it up last night i nearly doubled the word count mostly because i realized in my haste to jot down various happenings, that i accidentally left out pertinent details that would clear things up for an outside set of eyes. doing this write first then type method also helped me realize that where i started writing wasn't the real beginning to the story.
i love the suggestions about the challenges. that "of death" one sounds hilarious.
53,055 / 50,000
Nov 10, 2007 - 14 31
My favorite part of your thread is that whatever you did must have worked since at my posting you're almost 1/2 way there!
I find the best thing to keep you going when your stuck is to surf the forums. Not for ideas, but for kindred suffering, joy and stress.
If it ain't all in your head, then it's in your heart, if it ain't in both then you would have stopped long before.
Write on,
K
50,061 / 50,000
Nov 19, 2007 - 22 03
Ok. Remember the part about throwing in fillers? Yeah, that's so gone. I've just plain run out of steam. Writing 60 words is now difficult. In my mind, I *know* that my story goes way past 50,000 words. Getting there, however, is another story... I feel like I'm wading through mud. :(
12,112 / 50,000
Nov 21, 2007 - 07 02
i'm definitely sympathizing with you. i'm only at 10k typed and i know i could go the whole way but i don't feel like typing in what i've hand written and i don't really feel into guiding the story forward at the moment. i think the non NaNo stuff is starting to pile up and smother my muse. i'm really hoping to jump start my muse again while i'm stuck on a plane for this last minute business trip i found out about yesterday morning. *sigh*