Sonofzeal's Newbie Thread of DOOM (NaNite version)

That actually sounds awesome and a good way to challenge yourself, among other things :)

You never know what you can do until you try, and I'm encouraging you and other people to take on challenges like these.

In fact, I think that the nanowrimo program itself should have something about challenges like this. Not using the word "said" at all should be an achievement worth 100 WriMoPoints :D

Best of luck to you on your challenges and on your wordcount! :)

So, musings! NaNo hasn't even started yet and I'm already energized and itching to go! I'm currently having to continually find side-projects for me to bury myself in and burn off some of this energy, but I'm worried that by the time NaNo really gets rolling I'll already be past my peak and starting to burn out! =O

Beyond that, I'm constantly besieged by ideas. I know the story I want to write, but new ideas and developments and symbolisms keep occurring to me all over the place, and I'm starting to feel overwhelmed. Having no writing experience, I have little to no idea how to pace this thing - I want to get right to the good stuff, but I know that if I do then I may run into bigger troubles later. I think the way to go is to stretch things out as long as I can, but I'm not quite clear on how to do that. I have all sorts of developments planned now, but I don't really know how to handle that first section of the story. Right now I'm hoping that when I actually start writing, things will come out... but it's kinda scary.

Hey, no worries about that part! Trust me, ideas are rarely anyone's problem. I tend to outline like crazy because if I don't, my ideas get crazy out of hand and I wind up with too many plots at once. Or characters. I once had over twenty main characters because just about everyone had a clone, childhood self, self from an alternate universe, ect. who, of course, supposedly had a totally different personality. I wound up with everyone having the same personality. It was great.

Anyway, great luck! Also, to prove that I'm a nerd, I'll provide you with a TV quote about writing to help you: "You need a writing instrument and you need an idea. I'm just not sure which should come first." -Dr. Brennan, Bones. Okay, not so helpful, but pretty true.

Good luck!

Hey, no worries about that part! Trust me, ideas are rarely anyone's problem. I tend to outline like crazy because if I don't, my ideas get crazy out of hand and I wind up with too many plots at once. Or characters. I once had over twenty main characters because just about everyone had a clone, childhood self, self from an alternate universe, ect. who, of course, supposedly had a totally different personality. I wound up with everyone having the same personality. It was great.

Anyway, great luck! Also, to prove that I'm a nerd, I'll provide you with a TV quote about writing to help you: "You need a writing instrument and you need an idea. I'm just not sure which should come first." -Dr. Brennan, Bones. Okay, not so helpful, but pretty true.

Good luck!

Now, as I'm not really a "writer" I can't say how accurate that is. Certainly it's hard to imagine that the pastime would be so popular if it was quite as rough as Heinlein suggests. If he's right, this NaNo excursion will addict me for life, and I'll never be able to properly integrate in normal society again... but seeing as how I've never properly integrated in the first place, I'm not too worried.

---

Mentors! What's the whole "mentor" thing about? I mean, I like the idea, but I'm surprised how big it seems to be here! I've been looking for mentors in other fields where (imo) mentorship would be far more important, and with little success, but here it seems like a well-established institution! I've already found someone who's agreed to be my mentor, but how did the whole thing get started? How do you choose who to be your mentor or who to mentor? How important is having a mentor to the process?

I'm not really expecting answers here, but these are questions I'll be musing on today.

I have no idea how it started. If there was adoption/mentorship in 2004 when I first tried NaNo I wasn't aware of it. I just posted somewhere and said "I need email buddies" and BAM! I had 10 newbie buddies to help me through the month; four years later, I'm still friends with some of them. I had no mentor and I still won.

As to how important it is, it depends on who you are, I think, and how committed (and/or stubborn) you are. I don't think I needed a mentor; what I needed was someone to pay attention so that if I tried to quit (which I did) I'd feel guilty about it. I needed someone to keep me honest. I didn't want advice, and I didn't want someone breathing down my neck.

Most of the rookies I've mentored have been the same way. We were really more like writing buddies, just joking back and forth and cheering for one another. A few, however, seemed to really appreciate the encouragement, including the regular NaNoMails just saying, 'how's it going?' For some people, NaNo is an enormous challenge on top of their already challenging lives, and many of them have absolutely zero real-world support. In fact, some have families/spouses that are antagonistic toward their creative goals. Those people especially get a big boost from a lone voice of encouragement.

How do I choose the people I mentor? The best part is when I don't have to choose! I'm not much in the mainstream, so I like to post in the Mentors thread and then let rookies pick me. But I do occasionally choose people from the Newbie thread based on something they say (age, location, genre, etc.) The funny thing is, one of the few rookies who contacted me via my Mentor post actually posted herself in the Newbies thread -- and I completely overlooked her.

So who the hell knows, really.

I will say that mentoring has been one of the most rewarding aspects of participating in the last few years, and if I could no longer mentor (for whatever reason) I'd likely stop participating. The forums are an obnoxious mess most of the time: difficult to navigate, packed to the gills with people twenty years younger than I, and extremely busy. I can't keep up with it. But picking out five or six individuals to chat with during the month, that's a pleasure.

Can you tell I'm really, really, REALLY ready to start writing? ;-) I can't believe how long this post is.

Um... anyway.

Thanks for the post! I'm itching to start too. Almost there!!!

-

Went to the Toronto meetup yesterday. Awesome times! I was amazed how many people there were, and how energetic everyone was! I had awesome conversations with a whole bunch of cool people, got some great writing tips, and got a bunch of usernames of cool people to catch up with via NaNiteMail... except Author search is down! Very annoying... but I can understand why they did it, as database searches are pretty heavy resource hogs, and the site does need any help it can get. I'll figure out some way of doing this. I also met some awesome people who I didn't get the name of, especially all the nice folks who rode in my subway car and expounded on the joys of beating up Errol. If you talked to me there and I promised to send you a link, let me know!

There's only a few hours left, and I'm starting to get pumped. Maybe I CAN do 50,000 afterall! I've been saying before that my goal is 25,000.... but I think I might really go for the big 50k. We'll see how this goes, I guess.

I'm up to 2,731 words of material that I feel I could forgive myself for in the morning. I suppose that's a sign that my Inner Editor is still on board, which may come back to haunt me at some point. Still, I'm more than happy with my word output, and eager for tomorrow!

I have to admit, the writing experience is surprisingly intense. Keeping my energy up turned out to be surprisingly easy, even without caffeine or sugar. Indeed, the problem seems to be coming down from the writing buzz, as I need to get to bed at a reasonable hour for work tomorrow. I'm sure there will be days later on when I'll be totally exhausted and have no will to write, but right now I'm savoring this.

Anyway, I hope it went as well for you too, for all of you out there!

I am visiting your thread!

And evidently, I am not as good at answering riddles as I am knowing riddles, since I can't think of the answer to yours.

In other words, I give up.

I can eat, but I can never be full.
I can be felt, but I can never be touched.
I can die, but I can never live.

I am form without substance.
I am protection without safety.
I am day without sun.

My giver was cursed
My followers are feared
My name is a warning

Of all the destroyers I am the greatest
For I bring the inevitable end of all.
Who am I?

.....yeah, fun stuff. =P Wrote that four years ago, I think.

-

Second day is going much slower than the first. I'm still making progress, but my Inner Editor is giving me more issues and I keep getting distracted. I've been writing for three hours now and only got 1000 more words... which is a little disappointing after yesterday's torrential outpouring. I'm still making progress though, and hope to hit 5000 or 6000 at least by the end of the day, as I likely won't be able to work at all tomorrow. Don't get me wrong, I'm still liking what I'm producing, and have every hope of hitting 50,000, but it's going to be a lot of work to get there for me.

Well, more time here means less time writing, so toodles!

Righteo, so things are going well again!

My novel's just made it through the first major transition, and is now officially "down the rabbit hole". This is big! Everything changes here - content, style, even POV. I've decided to keep 3rd Person Objective for the "real world" but use 3rd Person Limited Subjective (with switching) for the "rabbit hole" world. I'm not sure if the switch will be obvious to the reader, but I've tried to reinforce it by using something that my Inner Editor is disconcerted by - using basically the same paragraph three times, but rewritten for each of the main characters. Here's how it looks....

-

Stepping through the opening into the Wall was like waking from a dream, or like falling asleep. Ham felt more than a bit of disorientation as he emerged somehow on the other side. He had the vague sense that there had been something in between, but that thought was crushed by the overwhelming absurdity of what he was facing. The grass was as green as emeralds, or as green as he imagined emeralds to look. The air felt clear and bright, and everything looked crisp and perfect. But about twenty feet away, the view devolved into a morass of grey shadows and strange shapes, constantly moving and squirming in a way that repulsed Ham to his core. Such abominations could not, must not be real! And yet what his eyes told him could not be denied.

Stepping through the opening into the Wall was like waking from a dream, or like falling asleep. Bill felt more than a bit of disorientation as he emerged somehow on the other side. He had the vague sense that there had been something in between, but that thought was crushed by the overwhelming absurdity of what he was facing. The grass was more green than any he had seen in his life. The air felt clear and bright, and everything looked crisp and perfect. But about five feet away, the view devolved into a morass of grey shadows and strange shapes, constantly moving and changing in a way that confused Bill. These were things outside his comprehension, and Bill could have no understanding of them. Ham was there; surely he would know what to do.

Stepping through the opening into the Wall was like waking from a dream, or like falling asleep. Agatha felt more than a bit of disorientation as she emerged somehow on the other side. She had the vague sense that there had been something in between, but that thought was crushed by the overwhelming absurdity of what she was facing. The grass was as green as emeralds, or as green as he imagined emeralds to look. The air felt clear and bright, and everything looked crisp and perfect. But about ten feet away, the view devolved into a morass of grey shadows and strange shapes, constantly moving and changing in a way that intrigued Agatha. Something about them seemed oddly familiar, despite how alien they were. She felt a strange resonance, even with the roiling chaos around them. Ham and Bill were both there, equally enthralled by the strangeness of it all. Ham’s expression concerned Agatha for the first time in her life. She suspected he was going mad.

-

...so yeah, feedback appreciated! Mr Inner Editor isn't entirely displeased with the effect, but it's well outside of his comfort zone and so I'm posting it here. In the spirit of NaNo I'm keeping it and writing forward anyway, but just talking about it is cathartic for him in a way. Now I'm off to write some more, so bye for now!

Ah, that's makes sense. I thought 'fire' early on, but I can't remember now why I didn't think it was right.

PS: You're doing pretty good! Better than me, anyway.

A word on puzzles, because I love them and I was given a book with some brilliant insights that more people should be aware of. Also, I'll be linking this back to novel-writing eventually, so watch out for that. ;) Anyway, as stated in the book (if I remember correctly) the most important thing to know is that a good puzzle has three traits....

1) A good puzzle should state its own answer in some way. A puzzle that does not contain its own answer is a rather poor puzzle indeed!

2) A good puzzle should, after stating its answer, mislead the solver. Note that the puzzle should never lie or give irrelevant information to achieve this goal; the misdirection should be of the subtlest kinds possible. The rule given in the book (I suppose it could be called "Afrit's Rule") is "you need not mean what you say, but you must say what you mean". In other words, the clue should state the answer, but doesn't need to -appear- to state the answer.

For example, the clue "old vehicles are brisk when reversing" appears to be talking about aging cars that move quickly backwards. However, a particular type of old vehicles are "trams", and "trams" when read backwards spells "smart", which in Britain at least can be taken to mean "brisk". "Trams" is "smart" going backwards. The answer is stated, but then disguised by misleading phrasing, without actually making the real answer incorrect.

3) A good puzzle should, upon finding the solution, make that solution obvious. In the above example, there are many words that could potentially make sense for individual parts of the question, and maybe even a few that could make some sort of twisted sense for the whole thing. But only "trams" solves it simply and elegantly (if you're british), and it should be immediately obvious that it is THE intended solution to the question. It wraps up all the loose ends in a way that could only be by design.

-

So, what does all the above have to do with novels? Well, I find my favorite books are ones in which there is a mystery of some kind, even if it's not stated as such. "The Relic" by Douglas Preston is a good example of this - there's a killer monster, a plucky hero/scientist, and a museum. As the hero finds out more and more, the monster kills more and more, and eventually there's a showdown in which the hero emerges victorious. Everything feels nice and complete, until you read the epilogue. The epilogue took half a dozen loose ends that I never even noticed were lose, and used one or two tidbits of new information to tie them together into a horribly compelling twist that turned half the plot of the book on its head. The book had obviously set up the revelation from the beginning ("stating the answer"), distracted me with character drama and action scenes ("misleading the solver"), but once the revelation is made there's no other way to interpret any of it ("making the solution obvious"). "Sophie's World" by Jostein Gaarder pulls off a similarly effective twist at the end of the first half.

Point is, the principals of puzzlemaking apply equally well to plot revelations. There should be enough information already to give the answer, but the author should try to lead the reader away from it until the right time, at which point all should be made unequivocally clear. If the writer fails on the first note, it's a "Tomato Surprise" and seems arbitrary and forced; if he fails on the second, it ruins the surprise; if he fails on the third, it seems unconvincing and the impact is lost. Now, NaNo is not about perfecting the high art of literature, but I still felt it relevant enough to share... especially since it may matter for my story, and I wanted to remind myself.

(Oh, and I use male pronouns in gender neutral contexts for convenience sometimes. Many pardons if that offends anyone, but I find it's the easiest way.)

Bump! Keeping this thread ALIVE :D

So yeah, everything's going pretty well so far. I didn't hit my quota today due to failblog.org (sooo addicting) and job stress and dental appointment, but otherwise I'm rocking the word count. I've got to drive all the way to Unionville and back tomorrow for work (that's a pretty heavy commute from where I am), but otherwise I think I'll be able to catch up.

So yeah, straight word count is more or less on track. I've been told (and you guys can disagree on this) that two of the best things for word counts are dream sequences and torture scenes. Now I'm really making heavy use of dream sequences, but I'm trying to use them as a vehicle for important information and general character development, not just an excuse to be random and pad wordcount. Not that there isn't a little bit of both going on! What's worked so far is to just start writing whatever image comes into my head, and then tie it into that character's main themes after the fact. So far I've done one for each of my three main characters (separated by some actual exposition of course), and it seems to have worked for each.

As for torture scenes... well, I've got one of those coming up, and I'm feeling a little uncomfortable about it. I don't think I have the necessary artistic sadism to really do this. I don't want to hurt this character, I don't want to write about it, and I wouldn't want to read it. I think I need the scene, because it leads the character to an important breakthrough and fast-forwarding would cheapen the result, but I feel like just cracking open "The Secret People" or "Sword of Truth" and using the torture scenes there basically verbatim.

Maybe I should just take Lithy's advice and replace the character with Errol.... hmmm.....

Good grief! *laugh*

You should be writing, look at all the words in these posts. :D

Anyway, things are going alright. I'm finding I have much less energy these days for whatever reason. That heady rush that got me through the first bit is definitely gone, and while I like what I've produced and want to see it finished, it's definitely feeling more like work. Not that I'm giving up, by any stretch of the imagination! Still, it's going to take more determination and energy than the first week did.

The plot's moving along nicely though. I got through the torture scene with my nerves intact, and now things are looking up for the heroes. They'd been held by the Legion, but now they're beginning to unlock their "themed" powers and will soon be able to mount effective resistance. My current plan is for them to use their limited and still-developing powers to escape, but then be stranded in the hostile environment they're in right now. That'll give them a chance to have some good encounters with natives, and to develop their powers a bit more. I need to think about how I want to connect them back to the main plot though... there's options, but I don't know which is best. Also, I think I might have a glaring plot-hole soon that I need to start thinking about now.

Other than that, I think the Limited Third Person Subjective thing is really working out for me. I have three primary characters, and I've been shifting PoV between them rather than jumping to every Tom, Dick, or Mr Ian Woon. I think I've been good about signalling PoV changes as clearly as possible, and I only ever switch at segment breaks (I use double spacing to indicate those). I find this has given me much more flexibility in telling my story the way I want to, especially when characters are divided and going through emotional situations. I'm still resolute in avoiding the word "said" though! To be accurate, I've used it twice so far, but both have been inside dialog so I figure that doesn't count. I've kept up on indicating who's speaking in other ways, and I think the overall effect is subtle but positive. Here's an excerpt of dialog...

Why are you here and not in the TO forum talking?

What's wrong with us?

And Krill is some type of shrimp, is it not?

I kibbitz thee.

-

So week two is in full swing. Starting to question the quality of my novel. Feel like rewriting massive portions. Not going to though. Gotta keep up with word count. Gotta... learn to use full sentences.

Plot is moving along. The heroes escaped, met a very odd faerie, and are now on a quest to get wolfsbane for their friend who was bitten by a werewolf. I didn't really expect (or want) to use a classic "quest" structure like that, but it seems to have happened. Mostly I'm worried it'll undermine the tone. Still, it's too big a thing to go back and change now IMO, and does help tie in some intermediary stuff. Plus, it'll give me an excuse to throw random obstacles at them so they can have fun getting around them. So far they've been ambushed by some frog men. The encounter got resolved peacefully, but now they're under guard and being escorted the long way around. I figure the guards will be the first to go when Mr Werewolf Dude gets hungry.

Cannon fodder is always fun.

A word about rhythm. I think rhythm is one of the most important, and most neglected elements of written literature. One of the reasons I love manga and graphic novels in general as an art form is they allow for far more white space between words, letting the author space out and time lines, creating a sort of poetic structure amidst the prose. I know a surprising number of friends, even friends who read both poetry and prose avidly, who just can't conceptualize rhythm, or even count syllables. This, I think is a terrible shame. Speech, prose, and poetry are all highly rhythmic, and while I'm not the best at handling that, at least I try.

In poetry, you create time with syllable counts and line breaks. In prose, you create time mostly with punctuation. Many people will tell you that proper punctuation is crucial, and I entirely agree, but that's only one side of the coin. In my opinion, punctuation should be treated as a sliding scale - the faster the pace of the scene, the more punctuation can be discarded. Commas can be omitted, and periods can be downgraded to semicolons or even commas. For someone like me who reads the punctuation as well as the words, this will remove some of those mental pauses, and create a more rushed and energetic feeling for the passage. On the other side though, unless you're writing a novelization of the movie "Crank", you probably don't want that all the time. Punctuation in other passages will slow down the reader, and give them a chance to rest. There's a variety of shades of grey in between, especially with comma placement. If you're aware of that, it will help you control the energy of your scenes with much more subtlety.

Week 3 - You started talking with a ridiculously awesome Nano veteran :D.

Just thought I'd throw that in there.

a la la la,
This is my stop,
(Eet errt)
Got to get off,
(Eet Errt)
I may go,
(HA)
Excuse me,
(der ner ner NER)
Excuse me,
(der ner ner NER)
I've got to be direct,
If I'm more please--correct,
You're standing on my neck, '
You're standing on my neck,
YOU'RE STANDING ON MY NECK!!!
(Der ner ner ner ner)
La la la la la,
(La la la la la)

"We're not losers! We're not losers! We're not losers! Lawndale rules!"

-

Progress is still being made, slowly but surely. I hope to hit 20k before going off to work today, and then get a bit more written after I get back. I know Lithy's already at 200k, and I've committed myself to staying within a factor of 10. That may end up being a losing battle, but I'll do my best. I tend to use these posts as a bit of warm-up for the day, and a lower-stress outlet that can potentially be used to boost my WC with "author notes". Hopefully that goes okay.

Topic for the day - Inner Editors. I don't know how other people do these things, and I hardly know how I do these things myself. It seems some people (Lithy, Errol, I'm looking at you two) have absolutely no filter. Thoughts come and they pour straight out onto the page. Me, it's more painstaking than that. I think it comes in these steps for me...

1) The idea for the immediately next action follows (ie "Bill's lying down now, but he should be up and talking to Ham")
2) I compose a sentence structure ("Bill [getting-up-verb]ed and [movement-verb]ed over to Ham")
3) I start writing, inserting adjectives, adverbs, and other specifics as I go.
4) [Sometimes] I hit a fill-in-the-blank that has no appropriate word that I can think of.
5) I go back to step 2.

Now, I'm guessing that the highly prolific authors (anyone who finished by day 10, I'd say) totally lack step 2. I can't do that, I can't think that way, at least not yet. The pause between sentences usually isn't long though, so I'm guessing that the truely pro ones are also way faster at typing, and somehow avoid step 4 or have some better alternative than step 5. If anyone can shed light on this, I'd appreciate it. Even if you're not an ultra pro, if your series of steps is different from mine, I'd love to see it.

I can't speak for the highly prolific authors, since I only finished around 60,000 last year, but here's what I do.

Step 1. I'm writing along, doot doot doo.... everything's going fine, then BAM! I hit a name or a word or a fact (i.e. I need to know how many gallons of milk a dairy cow produces in a day, or something like that). Basically, I hit a snag.
Step 2. I either do what you (insert basic words like "ran," when what I will eventually want to put in is "sprinted") or if I'm really stumped, I put in my favorite three symbols: ***
Step 3. Then when I need to go back and fill stuff in (or when I really don't want to write and am looking for something else to do that will help out my novel in the long run), I can just use the Find function and search for the three asterisks.

So that's my shtick. It helps me because I don't get caught up in thinking of a basic phrase or word to use in the meantime and can just blow by it and deal with it later. :)

"Maybe I should just take Lithy's advice and replace the character with Errol.... hmmm....."

Of course you should! I'm not biased at all...

Why did it take you so long to point this thread out to me?

I should kick your ass.

Oh, and I think you're just shy of being within a factor of ten of me. Lucky for you I didn't get much done.

And if you kick my ass, I might stop writing this, and THEN where would you be? ;-)

-

Well, I made my goal of 20k before work, which is a good thing because when I got back I was totally unmotivated and ended up frittering away the time on various games. I'm back on track now (I think), but apparently that did give Lithy a chance to pass me briefly, so I can't let that happen again!

The story's shaping up too. Mr Werewolf Dude got hungry right on schedule, froglings died and others fled, they almost met a swamp dragon who fortunately was too busy to mess with them, and now the medicine woman witch person is peddling khat to the Mr Werewolf Dude person. Now they're entering Dwarven territory, and I have no idea what's going to happen. I should probably work on that. Any ideas?

A word on words. Specifically, on words that aren't words. XKCD recently criticized books with too many made-up words ( http://xkcd.com/483/ ) and I suppose I agree. Using made-up words distances the reader from the story. Even when they learn what the words mean, it'll tend to jar the reader back into reality and unless you're writing A Clockwork Orange then this is probably a bad thing.

This is not to say that creative use of words is bad! Unique use of words is one of the easiest and best ways to make something feel new and interesting. In the fiction I've read, nearly ever time I've seen a group of people with a unique accent and lexicon, it's almost always felt compelling and evocative. There's a reason young children like books being read to them "with all the different voices"; making things speak differently in a way helps make them more real to the listener. However, it should be done with caution.

I, in my hubris, propose a set of guidelines that I think make sense.

1) Invented words are an asset in dialogue but a liability in narration (even if it's 1st person or there's an explicit narrator). In dialogue it's folksy, in narration it's disconcerting. Exceptions can be made for nouns that are introduced in dialogue before being used in narration.

2) Words which are actual archaic or otherwise unused words, or are straightforward distortions of real words, are preferable to entirely invented words. They'll often share roots with real words, make intuitive sense within a certain context, or be recognized by the occasional reader. This will ease the transition of getting the reader on board and up to speed with what your new words mean. And besides, English is a broad enough language as it is, chances are there's a word that'll serve your purpose somewhere.

3) Any non-standard word should be short and intuitive to pronounce (unless you're Lovecraft). Being able to pronounce a word is a big help in remembering it, and makes the reader feel less alienated.

4) Any non-standard word should fill a definite purpose. With the exception of proper nouns, which in my opinion are always fair game to change (as long as you adhere to the other rules), if there's a standard and accepted word for something, then the reader may feel cheated by your replacement. Exotic words produce an exotic feel, but if you're using them for mundane things then the reader may feel deceived and be resentful. And you don't want resentful readers.

Now, I just rambled those off the top of my head, so totally feel free to disagree, offer an expansion or contradiction or special case, etc. Still, I think that's a good starting point. Let's see how it works in practice.

Example - I'm writing along in my fantasy story, and one of the characters is talking about how wizards aren't so touch, how a normal person without magic shouldn't be too scared of them. Problem is, I don't want to say "normal person without magic", as that's exactly the sort of thing a person in this world would have a word for. Or more precisely, it was exactly the sort of thing I wanted that character to have a word for. So what I did was to start with "mundane" and work through MS Word's thesaurus, and quickly came up with "chestnut". Success! It's in dialogue, it's an actual word with an actual and appropriate meaning, it's easy to pronounce, and it expresses the sentiment succinctly. I think using that word there keeps the rhythm of the dialogue better, and helps evoke the sense of a world where magic is common enough that there was a need for such a word to become commonplace.

Here's the final line of text (which may be revised in the future) - "“Ain’t never been a wizard that a good chestnut like us couldn’t take in a fair fight."

I get it now. You go through that process EVERY sentence. My inner editor must be much lazier than yours. Mine only pops up when I hit one of the aforementioned snags, or if I'm not exactly sure where I want the next chapter to go (plotwise). But you seem to be doing great wordwise anyhoo!

- Any time I'm at all in doubt of whether to edit or not, I won't. If something really feels stupid and wrong then it's okay to change it, because otherwise it contributes to stress and frustration and just isn't fun. But if it's a choice I actually have to consider, I automatically go with what came out on the page first.

- After finishing a sentence I'll never go back and remove more than a word (unless I immediately replace it with cooler, shinier words). I probably shouldn't do this at all, but some times I find a better spot for a verb or adjective, or realize something sounded totally stupid. Otherwise though, if it's just a matter of phrasing, it stays. Like the first one, this is designed to strike a compromise between my Inner Editor and my Outward NaNoer.

- Once I've finished a paragraph, it's DONE. I don't look at it at all anymore, except for reference to keep continuity. On rare occasion I'll let myself add an extra sentence, but I try to avoid even this. Once the paragraph's finished, I try to forget it's even possible to change.

This, combined with the sheer amount of free time on my hands, has gotten me to where I am now. Which is half way done! Woooo!

So yeah, story's kinda dragging a little. The characters keep getting derailed on "side-quests", or repetitive internal monologues, but I've stopped caring so much. I suppose that's a good sign. The heroes have met their first dwarf, who is an all-around shmuck, but has (or says he has) something they need. There's also an annoyingly chipper faerie that they'd run into before who seems to be stalking them.

This feels like a totally different story than the one I set out to write, but meh. =P

This surprises you? *G* Trust me, that always happens. Characters get pushy, events lead to one another in ways you didn't expect, characters get pushy, weird things start happening, characters get pushy... did I mention the characters?

Me? Issues with my main characters? Whatever gave you that idea? Just because Brendan got himself shot....

;) TrudyG
(Hope to see you at the Overnight Session?)

Still, they serve as a decent vehicle for the plot so far, and things should get more dynamic when they start all gaining superpowers. So far one has had powers for a while but is still learning about them, and one just gained them about two paragraphs ago. The third has lycanthropy, and I believe he'll eventually learn to harness it, but I haven't worked out the details yet.

I'm finding that the farther I get into this thing, the more I steal from other sources. I used an entire scene straight out of Princess Tutu (which is now visible in Novel Info on my NaNo page), and now I'm borrowing a major aspect out of Cordwainer Smith's works. I also stole the red spiders from XKCD (man those are ancient), and had an entire dream sequence based on the Mandelbrot Set. Is it a bad thing if all the most vivid sections of my book are actually from other people?

Note to self : put up a musing-rambling-type-thing about borrowing from other sources at some point.

---
http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3057517

I left a lot of things unresolved in my previous post, so here goes.

I said my problem wasn't the characters misbehaving, and this is true. The problem is not the characters at all, the problem is the style and content of the story. The farther I get into this, the more the style drifts from a dark, gritty realism to a silly, random surrealism. I don't particularly mind, but it does seem rather out of place. I'm starting to borrow key plot points from progressively sillier sources, and the general tone seems rather schizophrenic. All I can do at this point is trust in my second draft to tie it all together and weave some order out of the chaos that is my novel right now.

Borrowing from sources! I heard a quote somewhere - if you steal from one source, it's plagiarism; if you steal from twenty, it's research. I don't know how accurate that is, but it does describe my style fairly well. I tend to weave influences from dozens of different sources, consciously or unconsciously. I do try to break paradigms and change things up, handle things in new ways. But if TVTropes has taught me anything, it's that there's no such thing as a new inversion, aversion, subversion, or invocation of a common trope. Everything I can do, at least in reference to common archetypes, has probably been done in some way by someone before... which is rather depressing, really. But it does mean that mimicking a structure found somewhere else is okay. If your dashing hotshot character has a big hairy silent sidekick who's prone to being the more cautious of the two, it's okay if they remind you of Han and Chewie with the serial numbers filed off. That's perfectly normal and a part of how these things go. On the other hand, if the rest of your cast is from Star Wars too, you may have problems.

My approach is to lean on any particular source for no more than one major character or plot element, and work it in with stuff from other my own imagination and other sources. For example, I wrote one short story type thing involving a character who was more or less Morden from Babylon 5, transplanted to a steampunk fantasy setting and representing demonic cultists instead of Shadows. Different name, different look, different situation (this character wielded much more direct power over the characters than Morden usually did), but any time I was stuck about what he'd do, I'd think of Morden. That helped me create a richer voice for the character than I otherwise would have had, and I think it ended up being a good choice. If the rest of the plot had been remotely connected to B5 it might have been a mistake, but I didn't so it wasn't. Yay!

Long story short, I think literary allusions are cool and a useful tool. Well-read readers will note the parallels consciously or subconsciously and end up with a richer understanding of the dynamics of what's going on, and you get to save yourself some work and give a friendly shout-out to something your a fan of. But the important thing is to mix them up and not keep harping on themes from the same source.

And yes, I do plan to be at the Overnight Session!