Shameless word padding is a wide-spread phenomenon during the month of November, but who knew you could actually get some real story benefit out of it?
Having trouble fleshing out your characters? Wanting to get to know them better, without taking time away from that frantic push towards 50k? Set up an interview with your MC's. Sure, it’s a bit of a detour from the story, but it’s amazing how much more you’ll know about your characters once you’re finished. Best of all, you can write it right into the story! MC lost in space, or wandering through medieval Germany? Not a problem. It’s NaNoWriMo, after all, where spontaneous purple elephants and other random gear shifts into ridiculous improbability abound – who says Oprah isn’t waiting around the next corner, just dying to interview our (in)famous protagonist(s)?
To help get you started, I’ve compiled a list of interview questions over the past couple of years, many of which were gleaned from a forum on that very topic over at the April Fools NaNo-spinoff site. Clicking on this link here will get you to a PDF version of the interview questions.
Have any other tricks of the trade that help get you out of the help-my-plot-has-fallen-and-can't-get-up dilemma, without sacrificing the all-important wordcount? Share them here!
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Peterborough & The Kawarthas Municipal Liaison
