National Novel Writing Month 2015

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Chozon1
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I'm planning on finishing my story first, trying to end it as close to 50K as I can, then padding it out afterwords with extra detail, more dialogue, ETC.

Like...if I finish my story at 43K or so, I'ma go back and add stuff to hit 50. Or write an epilogue composed of various insulting phrases to hit 50K. >_>

That said, I already know what Sstavix is talking about, and I can attest to the very real danger. I reread my last pages to remember what I was doing, and started editing, changing, adding text, and had to force myself to stop and keep writing the story. XD

But I do jump back and forth from time to time. Like I needed my character to have a reasonable excuse to still have his weapon after plummeting over the side of a ship. So I went back a bit and wrote in said reasonable excuse. :P
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Deepfreeze32
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I'm definitely guilty of editing to preserve continuity. Had to do the same thing today, actually.

Realized a character had no setup for a particular scene, so I had to backtrack and add something in. I managed to not touch anything else.


As far as revising goes, I'll make a pass or two in December or January, but then I plan to actually sit on it (metaphorically speaking) for a few months while I write something else (I'm thinking of writing a story about a D&D character I played that recounts our party's exploits), then I can come back to it with a fresh mind and make better edits, I hope.
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Sstavix
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Deepfreeze32 wrote: As far as revising goes, I'll make a pass or two in December or January, but then I plan to actually sit on it (metaphorically speaking) for a few months while I write something else (I'm thinking of writing a story about a D&D character I played that recounts our party's exploits), then I can come back to it with a fresh mind and make better edits, I hope.
I - and others - recommend this as well. Time and distance helps with the editing process. You probably shouldn't touch your NaNo again until January, at least. You'll have a much more critical eye then, and will be more receptive to making changes.
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Deepfreeze32
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Point taken. I'll probably still go back and add (And resist the temptation to modify) exposition to certain areas. I already know a few places I want to do that, may as well knock them out while they're fresh (and so I can critique a larger draft, with more cutting options later down the line). I figure it's easy to modify a longer rough draft by cutting unnecessary scenes than to add them later when I'm unsure what I had meant for it. :P
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Chozon1
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Depending on my confidence level, I might go whole hog and let some of my family read my first draft. It's a matter of patience on my part, or lack thereof.

Haven't decided yet. :D
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Deepfreeze32
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I didn't get much writing done yesterday, only about 300 words. Frankly, I'm a bit impressed I managed that many at all, given how lethargic I felt all day. I'm not sure if I'll get much writing done on the weekdays this week, but we shall see.

On the other hand, I'm off of work until the end of November a week from today! That should give me time to really crack down on some of this. Hopefully.

I've definitely hit a slump, though. I'm faced with a divergence plot choice, where one introduces a whole heaping of character development opportunities, but also may not make much sense for the characters to actually do. The other feels like I'm injecting Mission: Impossible into the story, and I'm not convinced that makes sense either.
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I would go for the character development route. It should give you more material to work with in the long run.
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Deepfreeze32
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So how's everyone feeling about their stories?

I'm not sure that anyone would enjoy the story, even if I edit it. I'm keeping at it...but it's hard not to feel like I'm sacrificing a certain level of quality by merely dumping words onto the page that don't always seem to fit with what I had in mind when I conceived of this novel.

That said, I'm at least over halfway there, so there's that! I'm starting to coalesce the story threads, and have stopped adding significant new ones. I'm sometimes flipping back to refer to what I had written to try and resolve some plot points from earlier, and provide some sort of meaning/purpose for their introduction (A Chekhovian resolution, if you will).


I think I can comfortably "complete" the story (Resolving plot threads in a meaningful fashion with sufficient or extra detail) in 60,000 words, so I think I'm going to keep going past 50,000 to try and reach a state of relative completion.
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Chozon1
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I'm not sure. I like my story, and I've been toying around with this particular hero for the past decade or so. At first, he was just one hero. Then I realized he would be too powerful. There was no reason to write a story about a hero who could essentially flip an "I win" switch at the beginning of every battle. So I separated the various aspects of the hero into multiple heroes, an Avengers/Justice League type group, and I'm telling the stories one at a time.

And I'm finding that I really like it. I'm enjoying telling the story, even if I find it a botheration to actually form it. I think, even though this is rough and probably dry and repetitive, there's something likable in it. Like vegetable covered candy; once you scrape off all the vegetables, there's something tasty inside. There's gold in them there hills of words, at least in my mind. :P I hope that doesn't sound arrogant.

As for word count, well...I dunno. I'm definitely scraping and pondering and verbosing it up in order to buff the count, but also to provide enough detail to pull someone into the world. I don't know if I'll be finished at 50K, honestly. It really depends. The first section was short, the second was long, and the third seems to be wrapping up in short fashion, so...I'll see. :D
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Deepfreeze32 wrote: I'm not sure that anyone would enjoy the story, even if I edit it. I'm keeping at it...but it's hard not to feel like I'm sacrificing a certain level of quality by merely dumping words onto the page that don't always seem to fit with what I had in mind when I conceived of this novel.
Focus on the quality later. It's like the analogy I use with the block of marble. Don't expect your first draft to be perfect. You can work on refining your work and making it suit your tastes and increasing the quality as part of the editing process.
Deepfreeze32 wrote:I think I can comfortably "complete" the story (Resolving plot threads in a meaningful fashion with sufficient or extra detail) in 60,000 words, so I think I'm going to keep going past 50,000 to try and reach a state of relative completion.
That's great! I'm in the same boat, actually. Although I'm closing in on 30,000 words right now, I have a feeling that I won't be able to resolve everything in another 20,000 words. As long as you hit 50,000 before the end of the month, though, you can consider yourself a winner. :)
Chozon1 wrote: And I'm finding that I really like it. I'm enjoying telling the story, even if I find it a botheration to actually form it. I think, even though this is rough and probably dry and repetitive, there's something likable in it. Like vegetable covered candy; once you scrape off all the vegetables, there's something tasty inside. There's gold in them there hills of words, at least in my mind. :P I hope that doesn't sound arrogant.[/quote[

Don't forget that vegetables can be tasty, too. ;) You may just need to tweak it until it's the flavor of vegetable you'd like.
Chozon1 wrote:As for word count, well...I dunno. I'm definitely scraping and pondering and verbosing it up in order to buff the count, but also to provide enough detail to pull someone into the world. I don't know if I'll be finished at 50K, honestly. It really depends. The first section was short, the second was long, and the third seems to be wrapping up in short fashion, so...I'll see. :D
I divided my novel into three parts as well. The middle section did turn out to be longer than I expected as well (about 50,000 words alone - as a reminder, this is a continuation of last year's novel). I want the third section to be about the same length as well, since this is where a bulk of the action is going to take place.

For me, things are progressing well. I'm starting to conclude the second section and I have a feeling the third section will be quicker to write, since it will be a lot more action scenes.
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Chozon1
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Well, when I finish I think I'm going to end up with 6-8 sections...they're a tad too long to be a chapter, but not entirely long enough for a proper section. I may end up removing them entirely, but currently they're what I'm using to delineate smaller story arcs.
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Wow, Chozon1! Look at you - late to the race, but you've got a solid lead on us now. :) Keep it up!
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Deepfreeze32
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I'm falling behind because, well, being in a car accident sucks. I've tried to channel it, but it doesn't really fit with /this/ story. Ugh. I'm too distracted by the possibility that my car is totaled, leaving me really deep in it (Since that means I can't go to work, or if I do with public transportation, my boss will be mad at me for leaving earlier than expected because of crappy timetables). Oy...
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See if you can make it fit with this story. It could be a minor plot point, or even an irrelevant (to the total story) side plot. One of the characters gets into an accident. How would he react? Would he act in a way that you would want to act? You may not be able to scream and yell, take a baseball bat out of your trunk and go to town on the other guy's windshield... but nothing is stopping you from having your character do that. Or, if your character is a cold-hearted monster, he could go to town on the other guy... while his wife and kids are watching from inside the wrecked car. Being pursued by the police could be an interesting plot twist to keep the audience's attention and to complicate the existing plot, too.

Often, things happen in real life that aren't expected. They don't go according to plan. You can do that in your stories, too. You might be surprised by what happens when you surprise yourself, take your stories (temporarily) off the rails, and run with it.
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Chozon1
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Maybe use it symbolically; like when trying to break into a computer for some reason, one of your characters is stonewalled in such a way that it breaks his/her connections.

You can doo eet. ^_^
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