Here's my strategy for the month.
It's just a few days until the start of November, so I'll be doing prewriting exercises to effectively 'train' for NaNoWriMo. What I mean by this is:
-Rough Outlining
-Character sheets
and, most importantly,
-INSANE OOC SIDE STORIES.
This my friends, is the time to be playing with possibilities and getting some FUN in there! For example, in order to help me write my 'Audreyllis' story, a high fantasy starring the gods of the realm, I took two of my main characters, the gods of Winter and Poison, and put them smack in modern day NYC. It's crazy, but it's hilarious, and okay to be absurd. But even if you don't take your characters off world, try playing around with the silly stuff. Have some character develop a friendship with your favorite character outside your own work. Have them catch a rare jungle disease. Put them in marriage counseling (again, what I did to my own characters).
The possibilities are ENDLESS! And it's amazing how much you learn about your characters this way!
And of course, if anyone else has any preping ideas, now's the time to say it!
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50,024 / 50,000
Oct 21, 2009 - 03 17
Thanks for the tips :D I’m going to try this and see what I come up with! The marriage counselling one sounds fun to write.
----------2009: Into Something Good- Winner!
2010 (WriYe): ZDAY (15,915 so far)
50,091 / 50,000
Oct 21, 2009 - 05 52
Thanks for the suggestions. This sounds like a great idea. I might do some dialogue only counseling sessions for my characters. xD
50,261 / 50,000
Oct 21, 2009 - 10 12
What does OOC stand for?
14,932 / 50,000
Oct 21, 2009 - 11 29
Out Of Character
73,643 / 50,000
Oct 21, 2009 - 19 47
... Considering I'm doing way more than 50K, and I haven't written in months, I really should be warming up for it.
Thanks for the idea! I'm now going to put my pre-nano not-a-couple-yet-and-are-still-strangers chars in marriage counseling.
This is going to be ridiculously fun.
----------Nanoing with the zombie muse, Daramor!
2005: Musical Scales (53K)
2006: Myra (50K)
2007: Dark of Day (50K)
2008: TKH, SS, FW & CaP (200K total)
2009: Lucidity, ??, DaC & ?? (Going for 200K again! \o/)
0 / 50,000
Oct 21, 2009 - 19 50
I love writing random OOC pieces during NaNo, especially when doing word wars with other people, because it doesn't matter if you ever use that piece about the time your main character learned how to wrestle an alligator - the point of the OOC piece is to give you a chance to really explore your character in a loose setting, and let them grow and flourish as individuals.
-----------K
2007: "Awaken"
2008: "The Trials and Tribulations of Ami S."
2009: "Lips Like Morphine"
~third time's the charm~
53,829 / 50,000
Oct 22, 2009 - 03 50
I've thought about writing the story of how my character's parents met. Because let's face it; when a swan-folk princess and a human sculptor hook up, there's got to be a story there.
----------The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everyone else.
- Umberto Eco
50,418 / 50,000
Oct 22, 2009 - 08 12
If November is National Novel Writing Month, then for me October is Personal Pre-Writing Month. PerPreWriMo, if you will. =] At least it is this year. I've never really done very extensive pre-planning, and that's part of the reason I've fallen short each year, I think. I'm prewriting instead of actually writing.
But this month I've been working my butt off writing rough-outlines, doing characters bios, writing the names and histories of different places that appear in the story. The month is almost over and I feel more in touch with my characters than any others I've written (but that may also be because several of them are recycled from other abandoned projects).
But I feel good. All I have to do is add meat to the skeleton I've created. Can't wait for November!
----------2007: Blue Hill (Fail)
2008: The Missing Half (Fail)
2009: The Wings Of Shadows (WON!)
Happy Dance Will Now Ensue!
<(^.^<) <(^.^)> (>^.^)> ^(^.^)^
50,201 / 50,000
Oct 22, 2009 - 08 53
I tend not to do many ooc exercises, but I do like to do prewriting sometimes. This year I'm trying to figure out whether or not to make my book urban fantasy or more realistic, so I'll probably just write some scenes with the character pre-novel timeline to see what feels best for her. Of course, I also don't really KNOW her yet, so this will help with that too.
ooc exercises can certainly be fun, but I think that place and context really inform a character, and I like to know who she is within her own world. =D
20,200 / 50,000
Oct 22, 2009 - 09 58
Last year I really knew my character well, so the story was easy to write. I want to get to that point this year, so I'm going to start filling out character profiles, finding pictures and scenery for the story, any thing to get my mind going!
----------2008: The Traitor's War (50033 words)
2009: Haven... Do you believe the lies? (as of Oct 22)
150,196 / 50,000
Oct 22, 2009 - 15 14
I plan to spend the last week before NaNo crafting short back stories on characters and situations (like, why is my MMC's 34th Century AI co-pilot/sidekick a 'Tickle Me Elmo'???) And I may find time to rewrite some scenes from my 2007 masterpiece, since it ties directly to this year's effort, and I can work out the tie-ins and do necessary rewrites at the same time. If you check out my Novel Info, you'll see the first one I've done, for Mr. Ian Woon.
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Glynes
I am not wasting time day-dreaming.
I am plotting and characterizing.
50,020 / 50,000
Oct 22, 2009 - 17 10
Well I have outlined my wall, and done countless character sketches. I have tried to do OOC but I don't really enjoy them very much so I don't do them.
Now that I have a basic plot and solid characters, plus other basics like a setting and idea about the beginning I am thinking it might be best to try my best to forget about my story till the first and then plunge head first into its icy goodness.