'Padding' Your word Count ~ You can make it, just believe! :)

Don't (oops! that should be 'do not') forget about contractions.

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Oral tradition is like Chinese whispers, so what you end up with probably bears little resemblence to the original tale.

I have to say,
In my experience, it takes longer to pad your word count than just to write things. And while altering punctuation may make the numbers go up, it's not making you work harder. If you typed "a a a a" you could make word count too.

That is to say -- don't shortchange yourself. This is something you CAN do. Write real words, write real stuff. It doesn't have to be good or sensible, but let it be words you wrote. You'll make the numbers. Just do it.

I don't use padding.

I only put in words that I think work for my novel. Some of it may be characters trying to decide what to do next while I'm trying to figure out the same thing, but it's what's in the story, not a trick.

When I'm done with my draft, it's one I can say has the word count I'm happy with. If my characters would normally talk without contractions, fine. Otherwise, contractions are used.

In the amout of time it would take to figure out a trick to increase my wordcount, I can add another 200 - 500 words of keepable words to my novel. And I don't have to go back through my manuscript later to change them back. (Was that what I wanted the character to say, or was that a trick? Hmmmm.)

Every Nano I finished with at least a little to spare, or more, and I have always felt good inside about having accolpished it in a way I was proud of. So it took me until 1am instead of midnight one night, I'm happy with it.

I have enough trouble with changing character names, wrong forms of to and two, nouns and verb plurals not matching and such, I don't need anything to make it any harder.

I may spend 500 words with my MC cooking the tacos for the evening meal, but four chapters later I will have turned that into something the reader has to know because it's important to the novel.

I want an award for something I earned I can be proud of myself about, not something I padded just to get the title of Winner.

My two censt.

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Nanos:
2006 (W): I Can't See Myself!--SciFi/Fan--Invisibility
2007 (W): The Amber Pendant--SciFi/Fan--Time Travel Murder Mystery
2008 (W): The Conspiracy Class--Suspense--Conspiracy
2009 (W): The Gap Year--Suspense-Thriller

This, of course, is for the people who don't care too much at all about substance, they just want to have a lot of fun during their NaNo experience, and also make the word count.

We all have different goals, to each his/her own...his and her own blah "..."

Good-luck everyone! :) Lol

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Orangetuna

The thing about not using contraction is that sometimes the tactic can actually be useful to the story line, as in the case of a character who speaks English as a second language, or any non-native speaker. Because English is not my first language, not even the second, I tend to have lots of characters of that nature showing up in november.

But other than that, when it works within the novel, I agree that padding by various manipulative tactics actually takes more time and is less productive.

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Oral tradition is like Chinese whispers, so what you end up with probably bears little resemblence to the original tale.

I agree with what bookworm140 says, except in my case, these sentences are not true. I'm putting in tons of words that don't work for my novel. Most of my sentences offend my ears. At times I feel the entire thing is a suckfest that ought to be flushed. But my strategy is a page of inane dialog. Hopefully I throw in enough relevant information to keep the story rolling. It's much easier for me to have a character talking to her aunt, emailing her best friend, having a random conversation about the awesomeness of Buffy, etc, than to replace my periods with BLAH.

I've got nothing against the people who use tricks like this to pad their wordcount, or whose characters sing 99 bottles of beer on the wall, it's just not for me.

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"There's an old folk saying that goes: Whenever you delete a sentence in your NaNoWriMo novel, a NaNoWriMo angel loses its wings and plummets, screaming, to the ground.

Where it will likely require medical attention. "

Sure, again this is a post to add your bit of 'blah' HELP for those who don't care what they put into their novels, they just want to have a completely fun time with their NaNo's.

Lives are so complicated and time-consuming, let's have a bit of fun helping those who don't care. :)

It wouldn't make sense other than for those who don't care, right? LOL!

I finally finished going through a copy of my entire manuscript doing all of the fun Blah suggestions, and the total 'padding' amount was a whopping 19,699 difference! I say again, the total, with all of the BLAH and such padding was a whopping 19,699. For those who care or don't care, that is a stellar difference when you are struggling.

Now I'm back to my original manuscript, trudge on everyone, to each his and her own. Good-luck! :)

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Orangetuna

I wasn't trying to say it's always bad to pad the wordount. I was saying how I approach it.

If you can't meet the goal without it and it keeps you going, it at least keeps you going.

I've been editing my 2007 Nano, I'm planning on finishing editing after November and submitting it. Since I didn't use padding, the editing didn't dramatically change my novel and I didn't have to make wholesale changes. Editing was fun, not a pain.

Also, I wasn't having trouble making it to 50K. If I was at the last days and needed a few hundred at the last minute to make it, I would have. But I didn't feel I had to when I had about 72K at the end of November 2007.

I also wasn't being a legalist. Nano is about having fun, and I had no intention of trying to take that away.

I was referring to how I was approaching Nano. And I do have fun the way I do it. and I enjoy hearing about the ways others reach their goals, especially if their approach is different than mine.

See you at the finish line!

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Nanos:
2006 (W): I Can't See Myself!--SciFi/Fan--Invisibility
2007 (W): The Amber Pendant--SciFi/Fan--Time Travel Murder Mystery
2008 (W): The Conspiracy Class--Suspense--Conspiracy
2009 (W): The Gap Year--Suspense-Thriller

Eeek, wherever you go there they are. Have blast everyone! :)

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Orangetuna