Writing Help

What's worked for me (even though I'm not really doing it this year) is picking the story that won't get out of your head right now. If both stories are like that or not like that, you may want to do the screenplay story, as you have an extra stake in it's completion.

Here's my question: I'm not very good with description. It's partly because I've always looked at things in a very general way, not caring much for details. Any ideas on how to combat that and have successful description?

I started doing an exercise that's helped me with descriptions a year ago.

Take an object lying around the house. Any object at all. Examine it and write about your findings. Elaborate, exaggerate, change and omit things, until something catches your fancy. Come up with a history. Why does the soda bottle have a burn hole? Why does the mug have a notch in the handle? What object did the remote's batteries get recycled to? Think of people involved in its history, places it was used, events it played a part in. Keep going until you run out of things to elaborate on.

Hey, I just need...help in general XD

I've had this idea for a novel for a few months but I have absolutely no idea how to go about writing it. I've never done NaNoWriMo before, so I would love to hear any advice that anyone could give ^_^

1.Don't be too picky about how it comes out. Nothing comes out beautiful the first time. Save the editing for later. I guarantee you won't have time in November. So just forget about making it come out well.

2. You do have the option to outline. You may have already done that. If not, it's a good idea, just to give you an idea of where you want to go. Don't worry, you're not chained to the decisions made in the outline. In fact, you should break away from the outline at every opportunity. It's good for the word count.

3. Kind of goes along with 1, but don't wait for the Muse. You will get to a point where you don't feel like writing or can't think of anything to write. Skip to the next section you have a clue about and keep moving. You can't stop writing.

What kind of book are you writing?

If you want, I can help you along (write-ins and such) when I get to Richmond (second week of Nov)... I've won it three times, all in less than 15 days. I agree with joewrotehaikus wholeheartedly, outlines are just that - outlines. Go wherever your fingers take you, and believe me sometimes it won't be anywhere close to what your brain thought the storyline was going.

Shoot for 1667 words a day and you're golden. If you do word wars (which i HIGHLY recommend) then you can do that within 2 or less hours. If you put your AIM SN on here, I can invite you to Nanochat, an AOL chatroom that does word wars every 20 minutes or so when we're focused. That and they're amazing people who are incredibly supportive. If you even hint that you're quitting, we'll threaten to find where you live and glue you to your computer chair until you've written 50k. You can do it.

My advice is just to write. I find when I try to follow formats or formulas I stop writing and start trying to perfect.

Of course I may just have some obsessive compulsive tendacies that cause my need for prefection, who knows, but I digress.

Just write, it could have nothing to do with your story, it may take you off into another line of thought and when November 30th comes you may have to throw most of it away and start again, but it doesn't really matter. Just write.

This really inspired me, and calmed my worrying head since I still haven't thought of a plot... so many things to do, and I rather not write about this year, even though someone is pressuring me, I might as well start off with it, but not sure.

Anyone else have that trouble? Pressured into writing about something you didn't want too?

Also is a plot really as simple as "A girl gets lost in a forest, which unravels truths behind her past which leads to treasure behind her imagination."? I am having trouble since I am so detailed I can think of a plot, but never end it. And I always come within like 30,000 to even 3,000 words from finishing. (Came within 3 pages of getting ScriptFrenzy, but since I got home late I didn't get to write it all and place it in the generator since I was on East Coast.)

I love writing, and have like a highly stressful life it seems and writing is my only escape, I just need help with those two questions, and just luck to be able to attend a write-in.
Thank you and goodnight.

Sometimes I pressure myself into writing what I'm not really ready to write. I guess that's what this months all about, if you think about how we tear through writer's block with a sloppy wrecking ball. Nonetheless, I found greater success writing the story that wouldn't leave me alone, every time I've done it. So if there's a story that's bugging you, that's on your mind, don't save it for later. Do it this November.

"A girl gets lost in a forest . . ." sounds like a tagline almost, and pretty catchy too. I think you should keep it near you while you write, to remind you what's driving this story when you get lost. The plot is a set of events that makes up the story. Seeing as the co-founder of NaNoWriMo wrote the book called "No Plot, No Problem", don't be concerned if you haven't developed a full plot.

Yeah, you sound like you're much busier than most of us, so I applaud you for coming back time after time and getting so close with so many obstacles. I hope you make goal this year.

Guess what I have? Yes that's right I have a handout on world building. What is world building you ask?

Well every story has a world it exists in and this teaches you what questions to ask to build yours.

For those of us writing in the "real" world (no political pun intented) it is a useful tool as well.

It is copy written so I can't hand out copies willy nilly, however I will gladly let you read mine if you happen to appear at any of the write in places I will be. So that means you will see me Sunday's at the Crossroads on Morris on Sunday, you can find me at Barnes and Noble tomorrow and who knows where I will show up on Tuesday.

Kelli

My own story is set in this world, and requires historical research, but I live with others who do a great deal of worldbuilding. If it's any help, one of them recently pointed out this worldbuilding site.

I have a shortage of neither inspiration nor plot. What I am writing was inspired by a dream, and a fairly thorough one at that. My writing is going relatively well, albeit with the usual stresses. The biggest problem I'm having is that my writing is steamrolling along and the plot with it, so that I risk finishing the story without reaching the word count goal. This weekend I'll be focusing on adding the perspective of another character to what I already have, but I welcome advice on how to deal with the problem. I do not lack for descriptive narrative, and I hate to add more flowery prose for the sheer purpose of extending the wordcount.