So, how is your LitFic going so far?

Sucks, man.

I found a triptych structure is working pretty well for me in terms of generating word counts. Three MCs (and one DJ ... we be gettin' down with no delay) means I can bounce around from plot thread to plot thread. I zoom in, write a scene for one character, jump to another one, jump to the first one, then to the third one. I move the plot a little ahead for each character on each scene. If something feels too long, I'm cutting it into two scenes.

There are two problems with this:

A) Time contracts noticeably at and around the climax. More chapters, more words, which means a slower meter for my pacing. I'll look at it again in editing, but I'm not sure if this'll be too much for my readers. I think I want to structure the pacing in an A - A/B - B - B/A -A method, as in: Fast -- Moderate -- Slow -- Moderate -- Fast. I don't know if that pacing will destroy the narrative flow or what. As it stands, first third of the novel takes place in about a week or so, the second third takes place in the space of three days, and the final third will take place in the space of about a week or so.

B) Continuity errors are cubed, and the structure is still a little messy. For example, two of MC's are clearly on course to become the classic antagonist/protagonist characters, though you could really label either one the antagonist and the other the protagonist, since they're antagonism springs from an ethical/aesthetic dilemma. The third MC isn't related to this continuum, but I still feel makes a valuable contribution to the novel. In other words, I'm loathe to cut him because his plotline serves as a needed counterpoint to the hefty and self-involed nature of the other two MC's. It's not really light-heared, either, but in the end, it's more farcical and insightful (I feel) than the antag/protag "argument about what to do" dilemma.

So what do you think? Too much? Am I piloting the Hindenburg in too hot on the Death Star? Is my goose collapsing like a house of cards? Checkmate?

Cheers,
B.

____
Sasquatch hunting should never be undertaken professionally.

UUUUURGH.

Not very "lit"-y, that's how.

I've never done NaNoWriMo before, so this is all new to me... I'm ready to shoot my story at this point, because my Inner Editor is normally quite loved and respected, thanksverymuch, and is NOT taking well to being barred from the premises at this point...

At the moment my characters are too weak to take the story anywhere; I try to strengthen them (WITHOUT editing), and then my plot suffers...

HOORAY! I'm not complaining!

"I just write what I wanted to write. I write what amuses me. It's totally for myself." -- J.K. Rowling

I am desperately waiting to get out of the beginning and into the meaty yummy lit-y part. Al. Most. There. Once I hit the real story (which begs the question of what the heck am I doing now and the reluctantly provided answer is building a foundation and letting my history degree talk too much) then this will be sooo easy and the word count will fly.

Until then, I'm gritting my teeth and plugging ahead.

What am I doing still awake?

...Oh wait.

My main character didn't know what happened next and she was like, "No, no, just trust me on this one," and decided to get "artsy fartsy" (her words) and start telling stories from people's past she shouldn't know in third person, when the rest of the story is first person. I kinda like it though, but still... It's just strange.

I just finished the first encounter between the two main characters of Part One, and skipped ahead to write the climax (because I'm impatient and can never seem to write a story in chronological order) and now I'm filling in the three year gap between those scenes with some character development filler. Half my brain is screaming that I already know the characters, and the other half is arguing that just because I do it doesn't mean a thing because no one else does. And I'm writing maybe a paragraph at a time before getting distracted by the internet, like right now.
Aside from all that, I'm a couple thousand behind my daily goal (no excuse) and plan to spend tonight cranking out enough words to break even with yesterday's word count goal.

Midnight - 7AM drabbling : 2/6 days
Writing cubbyholes : 3
Most words in one sitting : 1596

Currently listening to : Portugal.The Man

I'm writing 2000 word chapters - one chapter is from my MC's now, the next is from his youth (to get to understand who he is, why he keeps certain things secret etc).

Not too unhappy with what I've written so far (though I wish I'd written more words, and that I liked my MC better), but so far, they're very separate chapters, rather than glued together in a novel.

Hopefully, I'll be able to glue it all together in the last week, as well as getting the 50 000....

For the moment, I think I'm doing good. I'm ahead of the word count, my story develops as I want it, I love my characters and I think my writing itself isn't too bad.
I'm just a little anxious because I still don't have a clue on how the story is gonna end.

NaNo 09 : Attends et tu verras [Literary Fiction, 57k+, Terminé]
Trench-Coat Dude [Science-Fiction, for fun and boosting wordcount]

I pretty much think that all I've written so far is a load of cr*p, I'm struggling to write my word quota and the structure is not yet fully formed ... other then that great!!!!

but seriously, I've left all those questions for December and am now determined to just write and write, put the basic flow of the story down and then go back next month and work out through all the mess.

Mine is coming out even weirder than I hoped it would. I have no idea if it's good-weird or bad-weird, but it's on-target wordcount-wise weird, so I'll worry about that later.

I seem to want to write about a throwaway character a lot more than some of the main cast, and I am starting to thoroughly dislike my MC, but I always expected I would if I were to spend too much time with her.

In conclusion, I think I'm doing OK.

ZoZo, I fergin' love your sypnosis.
I think I've expressed that already.

Now the angle of my novel is hella inconsistant and my characters are boring me to death. THANKFULLY, I'm getting to a jucier part. xD

I want to switch MCs but I'm not sure. I've written in a drug dealer Christ figure and I'm not sure what that means for the rest of the novel. My current MC might be the Devil but I love her and don't understand why and how she's doing this. The secondary character is just an idiot and I want to kill him off but I can't think of a fun way to do it that maintains verisimilitude. And, oh yeah,
I just had a highly symbolic drug trip that suddenly turned my novel on masks and power into one about temptation and religious bull.

In short, it's fucking nuts.

well, I'm finding it difficult to do more than one scene per night. Everything I'm writing is so emotionally charged that I can't seem to do more than one scene at a time. It's like it's emotionally draining. Anybody else feel this way?

In the beginning I was way ahead of myself and wanted to keep that pace up so that I might end up at 60,000 or 70,000, but now I feel like the tortoise (not the hare) and I think that slow and steady will win the race.

I am excited about reaching 10,000 - probably not tonight - perhaps tomorrow. That will be a huge milestone for me. I have never written any fiction this long in my entire life so I already feel accomplished. But i won't stop until I win. This is it.

Anyhow - I'm working with a very loose plot structure and kind of seeing where the thoughts of each character take me. Start a scene - see where it goes etc. Because just when I decide that it's going in one direction my characters decide it has to go in a different direction and the conversation that I thought they were going to have - that i replayed in my head on the bus the whole way home - doesn't end up happening at all.

Zen and the art of writing a Lit. Fic. novel...I'm lovin' it!

How about you guys? Any similar experiences?

- Rena

Rena-
I've been feeling a little drained by my story, due to the dark angle, but also I'm just bored.

Try incorporating some Dares. It'll add wordcount and lighten the mood a little. Just include some lightness in general, because if it's hard for you to write, it'll be hard for people to read.

I know exactly what you guys mean! Haha! I'll literally spend all of school planning out what my characters should do, then when I sit down to type I realize that actually something entirely different happens. It's ridiculous.

And yeah, it's mad draining. All of my friends have noticed that I'm much less dramatic (that's the nice way to put it) than usual. My theory is that we're investing ourselves into these characters, at least 2k words a night (in many cases far more), through some pretty crazy scenes. And all of these characters are, in a way, manifestations of ourselves. So we do sort of experience these emotional rollercoasters through writing.

yeah...all of my friends have already started saying: where you? haven't see you around.

Not to mention my house...Experiencing serious laundry backlog.

Maybe that's a topic for next year - a kids story - the laundry that took over my house....

- Rena

YES. Oh god yes yes yesyesyes. I wasn't expecting mine to get emotional, as in putting a lot of myself into the novel. To boot the novel has a good amount of emotional scenes to lead up to its sad ending, so I always have to pause and let myself recover. I haven't started writing the descriptions yet. The novel is 90% dialogue so far but I'm so comfortable doing that. I enjoy writing random scenes without thought -- the good thing is that they're organized in the order I want. Three unexpected twists came out and I love it. But yes, emotional? Yes.

Day #1 of 30 Days, 30 Covers

I'd say it's going relativley decent as far as word count goes--I'm behind, but not horribly, and I'm managing to write some every night. I'm thinking that any hiccups in my word count can be remedied when I visit my friend's tonight for a mini write-a-thon.

I'm just going to say that I'm a little boggled by the fact that something as simple as tearing a teddy bear beacme the turning point from melancholy to somewhat cheery in my novel. That was unexpected.

My MC seems to want to hang out with the butler more than the guy she should actually be interested in getting to know: the uncle that's supposed to be taking care of her. Silly Ellie--you need character growth! Stop taking to Colin. -Sigh-

Anyway, that's the dumbed-down version of how my novel is going, hehe. C: Now I'm off to school, where I'll totally spend my brainpower listening to the teacher and NOT writing...yeah. That's right... -Cough-

Mine is dreadful. This is a rewrite, and as bad as the original version is, this one may be worse. It's just...blah.

And I've pretty much decided that I'm not meant to write 50,000 words in one month. I can't make myself write something that's not an improvement. So I've decided to continue working on the organizational manuscript and count the notes and summaries, etc. as part of my word count, and I'll rewrite the beginning when I'm ready. This may be cheating, but nano is about getting stuff done. I'm getting stuff done, just not in the way most folks are. I'm just glad I'm working on it again. I haven't had any progress for the past few months, and that's never good.

Metaphors be with you.

I'm slightly behind, but not terribly so. But I'll catch up on the weekend. I just don't have too much time to write when I'm teaching all day. My even numbered chapters are gonna be the tougher ones, because they're more real-world dramas. My odd numbered chapters are easier, because it's more mystical there (not to mention a bit of romance).

I've written three chapter so far, so I'm now on an even numbered chapter. And I can't skip around, because i always feel like i'll write something important in the chapter I'll skip, which could change the entire outcome of the later chapters. Not to mention the character development.

Mine's going well. Had a few emotional scenes that were a bit hard to do. Finally getting to the event I've plotted, and the dark part of the novel. We'll see how this all goes as I hit the pivotal scene in a matter of minutes. :(

'06: Flowers Of Blood (police procedural): Winner
'07: Fade & Remain (18th Century Historical): Winner
'08 The Art Of Dying (Mystery/Suspense): Winner

Pretty good. I'm actually posting it on blogspot and facebook each day, too. I have kind readers who encourage me. But the daily posting has made me end each day on bit of suspense. I'm getting wonderful complaints about how they want to read more. Nice little trick.

Beauty is truth. Truth beauty

Honestly pretty good. I just killed off the main character's semi love interest in a school shooting. I had to take some time out to polished that because I realized that it's so much better to have the story behind the gun rather than to just make it a heartless cold approach. I think that turned out to make it a lot more fun to read, honestly. My character suffers from random delusions, sometimes they intermingle with his day to day reality. It's hard for him sometimes, I'm thinking the climax of the story is going to be having the mc go completely bat-shit nuts. Have him go into a coma or something and then all his delusions will be gone once he comes out of it. He'd have to destroy his inner demon though. God I'm so glad I typed this up, I just got the end of my story written in my head a little more now! Awsome!

Hope you have a wonderful day, on those clattering keyboards! Best of luck!

Overall, I'm very proud of the prose I've written. I think some readers are going to think it's a little too rich and literary (for the sake of literary) but I don't know, it's just the way I like to write it, and the passages look good and classical. It is of course still a little Adverb Island in a Sea of Comma's and Semicolons, but even that, I think, is manageable. I knew when I started a Literary Fiction novel that it wasn't the most marketable move, so I'll cope with readers who can't get through to it.

The biggest problem is that amongst all this old-timey prose some sentences stick out, and not in a good way. I can't use a sentence like "The place hadn't changed much", because it's too modern and casual. So eventually I'm afraid I'll get exhausted from pondering over every little sentence-structure and word-choice and slip into a normal, highly descriptive 'he said'/'she said', and the literary merit just slowly washes out. And I don't want that!

I know this is all hardly worth the trouble and should be the least of my worries in November, but I don't know. I'm a quality over quantity person, I guess.

I also ramble on Twitter (though sometimes in Dutch).

2008: Junior Boys (won)
2009: Guilt (...?)

japiee-
i used to be like that. like, anal about prose and big words and fancy-ness and all. it got a little too stuffy for me after awhile, but whatever works for you works for you.

and right now i'm happy because i managed a scene that manages to bring a bit of humor to the story/flair to the character, while still foreshadowing coming social conflict and difficulty.
yay life.

I'm 1500 words behind, but I spent yesterday working on the plot and chapter outlines and I'm happy with what I've come up with so far. Time to get back to the grind...

Mine's going okay. I've finished one year of the story (five more to go!!).

My structure is kind of strange: I have the main narrative that runs from 2004 to 2009 in storytime. That's all told in 3rd person, limited omniscient. However the prologue and several "interludes" are first person bits from the other characters in the story, and these bits run back from 2012 and will finish up (hopefully), meeting the narrative in June 2009.

My heart, my life, my praise is all for You

Terrible, I have no fucking plot.

Welcome to the world of Lit Fic :P .

I'm afraid my LitFic is turning into Adventure, but i hope they can live together, because my plot is way too exciting for it to only be LitFic, but it still has a lot of deep stuff (now that i put it that way it doesn't seem like it but i promise)

Main Characters: 5
Characters: 7
Chapters: 7
Plot: starting to sprout

i'm having some serious problems focusing and just getting words on "paper". i think the story might be too close for comfort.

"the difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."
- mark twain