this being my 6th NaNo I'm finding this year that hitting the word count is no big deal. last year I was busy as hell and wrote the last 15k in the last 3 days. this is the first year though that I am getting totally bored with my outlined plot so early in. any ideas from the locals? I'll keep going of course, but I want it to be a novel, you know? if I steered it way off course now it would become more interesting to me, but it would (or could) lose all cohesion.
NaNo 07 and 06 for me resulted in two marketable novels. and last year was way too complicated to be even a couple more drafts away from...
whatever. thoughts?
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22,930 / 50,000
Nov 3, 2009 - 17 25
Last year was the first time I "won" NaNo. And while I haven't tried marketing the novel yet (I really should, I know I should), it was the year I tried something a little different.
In previous years, I plotted out EVERY last little detail of what I planned to write. And got so bored while actually writing that I just sort of petered out.
Last year, I had a rough outline, some notes, good character details and a solid setting. I put my characters on the path...and if they diverted from that path, I went with it. The end result was organic, and I never got bored while writing. The good news is, my characters ended up right where I wanted them to, and didn't need to be jabbed with a cattle prod more than twice to get them there.
;-)
Having an outline is good. But don't be afraid to let your characters stray from the path for a little while if they feel so inclined. It'll keep you interested, which'll keep readers interested.
20,030 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 09 34
thanks amigo. your "win" year sounds a lot like mine now that I think about it. last year I was overly outlined and it got overly complicated. this year I have a half of too much outline and half of nothing but an endpoint. the years I won I had a list of prompts and a central plot. anything else was fair game. totally forgot about that.
so, the corner I'm painted in now is that my whole novel is about (seemingly) randomly selected people being recruited for a transcontinental contest which has no clearly stated goal. they follow clues from one location to another and are kept engaged by the fact that the person orchestrating the whole thing knows all about them somehow. so at every new checkpoint there is something very personal- there's the idea of a prize, but most of them are just curious/scared/etc. because their personal histories are being brought up and exposed.
it sounded way more fun than it's turning out. everyone is sorta marching forward and I'm finding it hard to do anything random and fun.
I am taking your advice though. today I divided everyone into two teams (Survivor style- the irony being I hate reality television and never watch it) and hope that two groups will allow for some fun with characters.
42,093 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 10 00
I had a similar experience. While I finished the novel I wrote in 2006 with over 50000 words, there was so much filler that when I went back to edit I couldn't see the story through the drek.
This year I'm ahead of the game with no outline. Sometimes my characters commandeer the scene in ways I don't quite expect, and things have gone from a story of a rejected young man whose unrequited love was murdered, to a young man who'd just lost his girlfriend finding out she was murdered and... well, other things, but it's flowing so much faster and freer this year. I like my characters better and love my story. I'm looking forward to seeing what road blocks wind up in their way before its over.
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Nov 7, 2009 - 15 46
Hi, I read your thread about 'marching forward,' and losing fun in the story. THis is my first Nano, so You might already have this, the Lazette Gifford Survival guide for Nanos? It's a free download (lots of pages) and the part that I liked in particular was about "almost random events," and it just kind of struck me. That might give you some food for thought.
It's called Nano for the New and the Insane: http://www.lazette.net/Free%20Stuff/NaNo.htm