NanoWrimo 2015: Write Wrong Until There's Nothing Left To Write.

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > NanoWrimo 2015: Write Wrong Until There's Nothing Left To Write.

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

SIgnups are on Monday 10/5 when they roll out their fresh new website.

(A complete copy/paste from last year's thread, courtesy of screenwritersblues)

screenwritersblues posted:

I came here looking for the thread, but it seems like no one has made it yet. Since it's officially the second day of October, I might as well create the official thread.

I took the next part from an older thread that I saved two years ago. I'd like to thank the original poster who took their time to type this out. Whoever you are, thank you, you saved me a lot of time.

What is NaNoWriMo?

quote:
National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo) is a month-long event every November where aspiring writers hunker down, work through their stress and their crippling self-criticism, and churn out 50,000 words of pure prose. The goal of NaNoWriMo is to start and finish a novel (well really, a novella) within a 30 day time frame.

So it's a competition?

Yes and no. There are no prizes for finishing your novel, though in recent years the folks at NaNoWriMo have arranged some small consolations from third-parties for those who hit the 50k word mark (cheaper self-publishing, a shiny badge to put in your profile on the site, etc). The site does track your progress throughout the month and incorporates some social networking features so you can keep up with your friends/local NaNos/goons. However, the real reward is something much more personal -- to know that, in thirty days, you've done what many aspiring writers only dream of doing: chewed on ideas, swallowed your own trepidation, and after digesting everything and spending awhile in the bathroom, plopping out a steaming pile of novel to call your own.

Wait, locals?

One of the biggest themes in NaNoWriMo is solidarity with your fellow writer. It may sound silly, but half the fun of taking part is swapping war stories with your other participants (which is why this thread exists). To this end, NaNoWriMo's staff organize community write-ins across the world, where creepy people writing sci-fi catfox erotica wordsmiths of all types meet up in real life with coffee and laptops and type away furiously (or totally waste time). I've never taken part in one of these, but I've heard good and bad things from those who have. At any rate it gets you out of the house and is a good way to combat the inevitable mid-month writer's block.

Are there rules?

Yes, but there really isn't any enforcement of them except the honor system. The only rules that I'm aware of are:

-No writing may be done before 12:01am on November 1st in your local time zone. You can spend all the time you want before that planning/taking notes/doing character sketches/everything else, but no actual writing of the novel is to take place.
-The work must be some kind of fiction. No monographs allowed. However, you can write literally any genre of fiction that your heart desires. You'll see some people trying to aim for so-called "serious" literature, but the vast majority of the novels that I've seen churned out on the site's forums in the past have been fantasy/sci-fi. Oh, and some erotica. There's a lot of overlap.

Okay, so I think I could do this. Are there any tips you can give to newbies?

It varies wildly from person to person, but if you want to be successful, in my opinion you really should plan ahead of time as best you can. Hitting the ground running with a solid start is the best way to actually keep yourself motivated and not get bogged down too quickly. Then again, I have no idea what I'm talking about, I've never actually won NaNoWriMo.

Here's a list of tips from the official NaNoWriMo site. Otherwise, other goons here will chime in with their own tips/ideas for preparation for prospective NaNos.
NaNoWriMo.org posted:
1) It�s okay to not know what you�re doing. Really. You�ve read a lot of novels, so you�re completely up to the challenge of writing one. If you feel more comfortable outlining your story ahead of time, do it! But it�s also fine to just wing it. Write every day, and a book-worthy story will appear, even if youre not sure what that story might be right now.

2) Do not edit as you go. Editing is for December and beyond. Think of November as an experiment in pure output. Even if it�s hard at first, leave ugly prose and poorly written passages on the page to be cleaned up later. Your inner editor will be very grumpy about this, but your inner editor is a nitpicky jerk who foolishly believes that it is possible to write a brilliant first draft if you write it slowly enough. It isn�t. Every book you�ve ever loved started out as a beautifully flawed first draft. In November, embrace imperfection and see where it takes you.

3) Tell everyone you know that you�re writing a novel in November. This will pay big dividends in Week Two, when the only thing keeping you from quitting is the fear of looking pathetic in front of all the people who�ve had to hear about your novel for the past month. Seriously. Email them now about your awesome new book. The looming specter of personal humiliation is a very reliable muse.

3.5) There will be times you�ll want to quit during November. This is okay. Everyone who wins NaNoWriMo wanted to quit at some point in November. Stick it out. See it through. Week Two can be hard. Week Three is much better. Week Four will make you want to yodel. And we�re talking the good kind of yodeling here.

Are there goon resources/groups for NaNo?

There definitely was last year, and since NaNoWriMo is usually pretty popular here, I'm sure a SomethingAwful group will spring up. Keep an eye on this space, I'll post something as soon as someone sets it up.

They haven't officially opened sign ups for this year, but I assume that it will happen soon. So until then, let's start getting organized and get ready to write.

http://nanowrimo.org/participants/jarrettbrown

If anyone wants to add me, feel free.

So what's everyone planning on writing this year?

Quick personal note: I've participated three years in a row now, and the MS from my second year was published last week on Amazon Kindle, it's my first published book and it took a lot of work to get it from that first draft of nano into the final product, but it all started at Nano. If I can do it, anybody anybody can.

magnificent7 fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Oct 2, 2015

# ¿ Oct 2, 2015 21:46

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 15:57

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

I do a lot of mapping and character backstory and anything I can think of to get me ready for Nov 1, so when I sit down to write, I'm able to focus on what I'm writing towards. Some folks like to just let it flow, but when I do that, 50% of the MS ends up being, "why am I even sitting here this is making no sense I should start over but then I'd lose my count."

Best of luck!

# ¿ Oct 4, 2015 20:08

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

I'm in, committing to write a total poo poo story for the joy of it.

Participant name bootysnatchers
Novel name: Killer Clown Clown Killers.

Blurb:
As the circus train pulled away, the blood, guts, and squeaky oversized shoes on the tracks made one thing quite clear; another clown was dead.

http://nanowrimo.org/participants/bootysnatchers/novels/killer-clown-clown-killers

Slapped together an amazing cover. I'm pretty sure this book will write itself.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2015 19:28

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

For those of you wanting to read some stuff on storytelling, (vs writing words) this is a great blog I found the other day, I've been soaking it up and feeding the ideas into my story.

GOT the link from the screenwriting thread, but the articles are about stories... characters, plot, stuff like that.
http://channel101.wikia.com/wiki/Story_Structure_101:_Super_Basic_Shit

# ¿ Oct 14, 2015 19:04

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

Has anybody already started plotting out their story? Characters? Or are you just going to pants it? I can't do that. Half my MS would be, "why am I doing this jesus I should go back to sleep." over and over.

I wrote 2,000 words today, just world building, characters, key events, you DO at least have your start and your ending, right? At least that way, you have a vague idea of what you're working towards. It really helps when you get stuck.

Four years ago when I signed up, I had no idea what I was doing, except that I was going to redefine the world of literature. And I totally did; at least as far as my own perspective. There is a huge gaping difference between telling a story and stringing 50,000 words together. A painfully huge, boring, confusing chasm.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2015 00:28

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

RedTonic posted:

I've got a very loose outline at this point. Haven't decided all of the central actors yet. So basically I have a beginning and an ending, but I'm still in ???? mode about the middle.

Omnikin posted:

I've got a good lead on the meaty bits but plan on spending a day or two in the next week fleshing out the plot. I've never written this many words before so it's kinda terrifying thinking about November

A good way to figure that foggy middle part out is to think about traditional plot structure, and then ignore it all because that's what new writers do; we redefine the craft.

Think of the basic three act structure:

Act 1: Here We Are
Act 2: Wait Some poo poo's Happening
Act 3: All Hell Breaks Loose and Needs To Stop.

For your beginning, (first part of Act 1) you're introducing characters, locale, day-to-day events, and probably some foreshadowing of the stuff that's coming up in Act 2.

Your ending is the back half of Act 3, where the bombs have exploded, the dust is settling, and that's the story folks.

The rest - Act 1, pt 2, Act 2 and Act 3 pt. 1, is where you carve your story out of a block of wood. There's no rules or strict guidelines, but it's best to know what you're working towards.

I prefer to go granular on that poo poo, so when November comes, I've got the story, the sequence of events, the secrets that my characters are keeping, the monster hiding in the shadows, etc. Once I'm sitting in front of my laptop, I can focus on the conversations and the action of the story and where it's headed next.

Otherwise, I lose track of events, (wait isn't she supposed to be in a coma already?) and character arcs, (I'm pretty sure she's not taking poo poo from that guy by now, she's grown as a person), and most importantly, I've mapped out my pacing; I know (very roughly) how many words I'll need for each event, or else things will run too short.

Running too long doesn't matter in your first draft, that's what revisions are for, but god help you if you're at the end and your word count is 40K.

All of this is what works for me. I've tried writing by the seat of my pants and invariably I lost track of every thread. Other writers - more experienced ones for certain, love to sit down and see where the story takes them. I hope I can do that one day, but not today.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2015 18:54

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

Tayacan posted:

I've got a fairly thorough outline by now. A few parts are still sketchy - I know, for example, that my main character needs to gain a certain piece of information at a certain point in the story, but not how this is going to happen.

Actually, let me just show you what I made today:

Each card represents a scene. An orange post-it means that it's an action-y scene. PoV characters are highlighted in different colors (orange is the main character, obviously). Also written on the cards are what characters are present, what the mood of the scene should be like, and some free text which is just whatever I felt was relevant.

It's incomplete - there's less than 30 scenes so far, which probably isn't enough, but I expect that many of the almost-blank ones will be expanded into multiple scenes. This is mostly the crucial plot-bits.

Right now it's sort of organized in a three-act structure - act 1 is the first column, act 2 gets the next three, and act 3 is the last two. Act 2 is split by major setbacks, act 3 is split just after the final battle - the last two scenes are just winding down and tying up loose ends.

drat that's good.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2015 23:15

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

This year, anytime I hit a slump I'm going to go all LOST and just add something amazing. Time travel, underground bunker, pirates... whatever.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2015 19:53

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

On Nov 1 I'm going to be doing a 5K to raise money for my wife's disability. Luckily, I'll have Dragon Dictation on my phone, gonna write a lot of mis-heard words.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2015 00:17

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

To give a hint of how one hits big rear end word count this month, I give you a snippet from my future NYT best-seller:

Pulizter Award Winner posted:

Poking out of the shoe, (what do you call that? The mouth of the shoe? The hole? The foot-goes-here part of the shoe?) was a hairy ankle, and bones and blood, and a black sock.

The salt-and-pepper hairs on the ankle were thick and wiry. The circumference (diameter? Stump-width?) was much tinier than the (mouth? Foot-goes-here-hole?) of the shoe.

NEVER LET EDITING GET IN THE WAY of your lovely story. GO and go and go. This month, you are not flying an airplane, you are running with a kite in your hand, running fast and hard, trying to get that lovely kite up in the air, one way or another.

You want to find your story. December, and 2016, will be the time for word-refining and tuning. If you do that now, you'll be frustrated and defeated before you hit 1,000 words.

(2,400 today btw, in just 90 minutes of typing).

# ¿ Nov 2, 2015 03:13

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

ahh poo poo I forgot to update the count on nano's site, so it applied my words to today instead. (it's past midnight). Guess that means I'll kickass writing more today.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2015 06:20

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

I couldn't sleep, so I had a glass of wine and knocked out another 2200 words. Much better than the first ones. But I need something to happen. Time for a smoke bomb or time machine or something.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2015 08:52

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

Don't worry about your count on these first few days, we all have to find our groove.

What's important is that I'm up to 5789 words.

I mean what's important is that you just keep writing.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2015 05:58

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

The more I've written this week, the less I am focusing on getting the words to do good.

I'm focusing on capturing the lovely movie in my head, while TRYING to do grammar and punctuation and things. I caught myself slipping between tenses for a while. I could have gone back to fix it, but then I'd lose that moment of the story in my head.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2015 01:42

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

TequilaJesus posted:

Always something. Last night the Internet went out, tonight my car breaks down on the way home from work. Gonna be a late night if I want to hit my goal.

I wrote with a lady who dictated her story on the road (digital recorder? tape deck? Phone? No clue), then typed it out when she got home. I haven't tried it, but she swore by it, and produced a poo poo TON of words.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2015 04:34

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

7268 not so far.

Not too bad.

I'm kind of dialing it in these past couple of days, but it's all good... kind of spending some words to punch up the storyline, add some more deaths and jokes.

This is the fun part of writing, where you're just kind of making stew with whatever. "Oh hey, I found these garden tomatoes! And some cinnamon! And a pair of sandals!"

Not writing linearly yet. I mean, I started out doing that, but it got boring as hell, fast.

I wonder if this is how they wrote LOST episodes.

magnificent7 fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Nov 5, 2015

# ¿ Nov 5, 2015 03:25

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

Hugoon Chavez posted:

Man, not editing is hard. I'm at 13k words due to a lazy starting weekend, but I could have so much more if I hadn't decided to switch to present tense, and then switching back to past.

I know, dumb move, and now my draft is a mess. Oh well, plenty of time for editing after NaNo .

The worst part is that I can't show anyone my work now, I'm too ashamed of my hosed up tenses.

Ignore editing for now. Once you start going back, you can't stop and you'll wear yourself out by 11/30, either giving up, or never wanting to look at your story again.

Just write. Write bad, write lovely. Write shittily bad for now.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2015 16:24

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

My main character now has a super power.

I had to do something. I can not write another story where main character does nothing but reacts to poo poo. "What? Oh my god! I can't believe that just happened! She said what?"

At least I'm excited about my lovely story again.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2015 06:19

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

rotinaj posted:

Super powers are rad. What super power?

Hypnotism! Yes! The weakest of all superpowers!

# ¿ Nov 8, 2015 20:49

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

Knocked out 5000 words today, which would be awesome if it wasn't a complete do-over from the start of the book.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2015 07:03

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

I'm writing in first-person POV, and it's driving me nuts. It's almost impossible to write first-person without sounding like a YA novel.

Or maybe it's just me.

I'm at 17K. I did some solid work a couple days ago and then life got in the way of writing. Hoping to get back on track over the next few days.

# ¿ Nov 12, 2015 05:49

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

RedTonic posted:

One tip for Scrivener that I think some people miss -- there is a project-level find and replace function! You don't have to go scene by scene.

You can also add project level notes and scene level notes.

Tags I'm still up in the air on. I haven't figured out the best way to utilize them.

In my last book I used them on chapter titles because I kept shifting the chapters around mid way through the project. (a lot of things happened simultaneously with different characters).

Initially, I'd update the affected chapters, (Chapter 5: Willy to Chapter 1: Willy) but after a week of that, I had to find a better solution. I was in a writer's group and was sending compiled chapters every two weeks. It got messy when people said "you already sent us chapter 22, but it was called "CH 22: Jim Blows A Chimp", not "CH 22: Claire Stubs Her Toe".

Another tip is using the icons and colors to help visualize your pacing. My story is a thriller, and at some point I wanted to know how often a chapter got violent (exciting). I went through and updated the icon color to red for the violent chapters, green for connecting chapters, (poo poo that happened in order to get to the good stuff).

It's almost impossible for me to remember the complete sequence of events in my story, even after spending a year revising the drat thing. The colors, and various icons, helped me visualize the flow/pacing.

Later, when I was determined to lock down my revisions, I changed all the colors to Red, and as I started a final pass on a chapter, I'd change that color to yellow, and then green when I wanted to stop messing with it.

# ¿ Nov 12, 2015 18:53

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

I've got a long night ahead of me. I'm at 20,137 after skipping a few too many chances to write. I doubt I'll get up to 27K tonight, but I'm hoping to cut the gap in half, and pick up the difference tomorrow. Because I'm just that methodical after the fact.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2015 04:22

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

RedTonic posted:

Eyy we're at about the same point.

The biggest obstacle? "Imma get online for just a sec to update my word count hey what's up on FB/SA"

HOURS LOST.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2015 04:49

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

Cthulu Carl posted:

Kinda half-assed things today, but still got to 30,072

Should do better tomorrow when the poo poo Hits the Fan.

I threw a guy off my train just to make the story interesting. I imagine that's how JJ Abrams writes scripts.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2015 23:34

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

My numbers have taken a poo poo for the worst. I'm not going to blame it on my wife's health, but... well. That's easier than saying, "didn't feel like it."

But dammit I'm getting it back. I may not have the eye of the tiger, but I've sure got one of his nostrils.

# ¿ Nov 20, 2015 03:36

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

i honestly don't know if I'm gonna hit 50K this year, or if I'm going to give many shits about it. Which is bad. Just hoping I've hit a lull.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2015 01:52

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

I'm guessing there was a lot of copy/paste.

# ¿ Nov 23, 2015 07:50

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

Well well. All I need to win is 30,000 words. This weekend. Totally doable. 10K a day. Oh it's possible. I hope.

# ¿ Nov 26, 2015 00:08

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

I need to average 6,500 words each day to hit my goal.

Time to just spew out scenes instead of plots and arcs and characters. And then, come December, I'll wire it all together.

Yeah. That's what I'll do.

# ¿ Nov 27, 2015 17:48

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

I did 6500 yesterday AND today. I'm getting there but it's still a steep climb. To keep the writing momentum going, I'll just summarize a chapter if it's not moving fast and my mind's already on the next big thing. Almost like my attention span is my editor right now. Hope I can keep it up another three days.

# ¿ Nov 28, 2015 23:04

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 15:57

magnificent7: Sep 22, 2005; THUNDERDOME LOSER

It's gonna be a very tough 24 hours.

# ¿ Nov 30, 2015 02:16

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > NanoWrimo 2015: Write Wrong Until There's Nothing Left To Write.