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Copyright © 2013 National Novel Writing Month :: All posted novel excerpts remain copyright to their authors.
This thread is for people to share writing tips, advice, useful blog articles and other resources they've found/enjoyed.
To kick things off, here's something Contemplative Cat posted in the ML forum:
Larry Brooks has a very informative 11 part blog series on story structure. In it, he describes the 4 parts to every great story and what moves stories forward. It's one of the best descriptions of story structure I've seen.
Jamie Gold made an excel spreadsheet with the major points from this. Plus there is a corresponding beat sheet worksheet that is available here.
These were very helpful for conceptualizing my novel this year. (I've never been this prepared for a NaNo.) I plan to discuss this and pass out the worksheets at our plot planning workshop this month.
This is what I've compiled so far:
Newbie NaNo Info/NaNo Survival Guide
WikiWriMo:Unofficial NaNoWriMo wiki written by Wrimos, for Wrimos
Generators:
Plotting/Prepping/etc.:
Write Now! (aka move your plot forward):
Writing Prompts Sites:
Programs For Writers:
Procrastination/aka Research:
Post-NaNo (Editing/Revision):
Thank you for sharing that, Lindsay! Very nice list!
There is a helpful thread in nano-technology about the snowflake method, complete with a nice planning spreadsheet.
NaNOdessa Resources, as shared by isis_athena
Lots and lots of great links!
Also:
Found in nano-technology: online Writer simple text editor. Think of focuswriter or Q10 or dark room but available through the web any time you're online. Some people apparently have used it to write their novels.
Write About Dragons: Brandon Sanderson uploaded his creative writing lectures from Brigham Young University to this YouTube page. They tend to deal with science fiction and fantasy writing and some of the Q&A part of the classes is hard to hear, but overall they're pretty good.
Wow, what an incredible list of resources! My head is spinning. The character charts are really cool.
I use Scrivener, which is pretty great. I'm trying to use more of its features for pre-planning this time around. Though I tried that last year and ended up with a pretty messy story, haha.
I was googling Neil Gaiman first person because I dimly recalled that Neil had written some books in the first person (and I was too lazy to stroll over to my shelf to check it out) and stumbled upon this wonderful blog that explores how he writes his novels. It might be helpful to some of you to see how Neil Gaiman does it; I know as I read what he wrote, it gave me dimensions in which to consider how I do it.
Might as well share again my Writing Advice notebook, where I collect interesting articles, tips, motivational quotations, and links to writing resources.
And for when you need a break from planning and writing: puppy cam (golden retrievers, impossibly cute)
I am a huge Chuck Wendig fan and wanted to share his post about NaNoWriMo. Enjoy!
http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2011/10/04/25-things-you-should-know-about-nanowrimo/
Not sure if anyone else saw this, but Malcolm Gladwell's rejection letter for his most recent work, David and Goliath, had a wealth of feedback and commentary on book development, focus, and presentation. I found it fascinating.
http://writing-hacks.com/2013/10/21/malcolm-gladwells-rejection-letter/
Might want a last minute look-through some of the resources found at:
http://naperwrimo.org/wiki/index.php?title=Preparatory_Workshops
This has the material from the four prep sessions this year (at the bottom of the page) as well as material from previous years.
50 Ways To Kill A Character:
from 2013 Winners of the Kantar Information Is Beautiful Awards
Saw this today: How to Hook a Literary Agent: 16 Agents Share What Gets Them Reading
Seems to mostly focus on openings, which is one great place to begin editing, especially with the deadline for the free hardcover from Lulu.com coming up later this month.
--Tim
Thanks to Dreamers Cove (J A Marlow, Arizona Elsewhere ML) for this great tip:
Here is the forum where folks post to sign up.
ooo! I am so doing this! Thanks for the link!
If anyone is interested, I'll be on Jabber on Monday evening (Dec. 16th) starting at 6:30 to answer questions people may have about editing. Let me know if you're interested. I'm available until about 9:00.
I'm in the middle of working on Barry's recent first draft, and jotted down how I'm getting it to the second draft, which in this case means identifying 20-50,000 words that he'll write next November.
We can talk about my process, specific issues with editing, or even share the first 150 words of a scene if people want to try that once before committing to that Editing Path. If you've been 'meaning to' work on editing, join me on Jabber on Monday.
Here's my process:
Getting From First Draft to Second Draft
Especially when the Novel needs Major Scenes
Even though I write 100K for my first drafts, I add scenes in the second draft, and sometimes entire subplots need to be woven in. Since Barry is a discovery writer, we usually need to add significant portions of the novel in the second draft to his first drafts. This is the way I do it.
1) Run spell-check. Seriously, it doesn't take that long to fix basic spelling errors, and you may learn that you don't know how to spell certain words. I find errors distracting, so I fix them as I encounter them. This is easier to do up front, and it gets me in the habit of changing things in the novel.
2) Download the novel to a Kindle, and read through it to get a general feel for the novel. I don't usually do this for novels I've recently written since I usually remember what I wrote. But I do this for Barry's novels, or if it's been a few years since I looked at a novel. Take just a few notes of things that worked, things that didn't, and if the ending is satisfying.
There's something about seeing it without the ability to edit that makes structural issues easier to spot which is why I use the Kindle. You can also print it out, or just read it fast online. Up to you.
3) If the ending doesn't work, figure it out. This may take time to get right, but it's worth it. By the second draft, you need to have an ending that works or you don't have a complete novel. It can be good to take a walk and think about it. Or you might want to talk it through with someone, or sketch it out and think about it. Work on getting an ending that you're satisfied with--and jot down any issues that brings up with earlier chapters.
You will probably revise the details of your ending several times, but if you don't know how your book ends, you're really not going to be able to tell what scenes are missing.
4) Because of the pressure to finish during November, you may have an ending that you like, but you rushed significant portions of the book. No problem. If you know you need scenes and where they're needed, take your spell-checked version and where you need them write ADD SCENE -- a line or two about what the scene should cover. I don't recommend writing the entire scene quite yet. Just write a little about the scene--maybe a few paragraphs, a bit of dialogue or description, whatever you think the book needs. For some books, you can do this easily. If not, don't panic.
5) If you know your book needs scenes, plot work, character development, etc, but you're not sure where or how to write them, I recommend going through it a chapter a day. (Or ten pages if your chapters are significantly longer than 3,000 words.) You can take the occasional day off, but if you try to do this work once a week, you're going to spend too much time trying to get back into the novel, and you won't be as productive. You don't have to rewrite the entire chapter, but you do need to identify if it needs more scenes, or scenes moved, or scenes cut. This is the time to be ruthless.
I do this by first reading the chapter on my Kindle, so I'm clear what it covers without being tempted to tweak little things, and because I can read it while taking a walk, blow-drying my hair, or eating breakfast. Once a chapter is fresh in my mind, I go to the computer version and start editing, line by line, paragraph by paragraph. Anything I can cut, I cut. I've already saved an earlier version of the novel, so I don't save things that I can't think of an immediate place to put it. Yes, I might be able to use it 'some day' but right now I don't want to think about scenes that don't belong in the novel. I want to work on making this novel coherent. So I cut things that don't belong.
I don't write whole scenes at this point, but I often add a paragraph or two, especially if two scenes need a transition, or it needs a better introduction or ending to the scene. I add beats to the dialogue. (Little actions that the characters do to avoid the 'talking heads' issue.) I add description, cut excessive words. But for longer scenes, I write ADD SCENE -- a bit about it. END ADD and move on. The idea is to ensure I can get through the chapter in an hour or two.
If I find an over-used phrase, I go through the entire novel and delete almost all of them. (Sometimes I delete them all--I have a 'bad word list' at the end of http://www.katherinelato.com/journey/edit-advice.pdf Some of those words are almost never needed, so I just delete them all. (I do this for the words: really, very, just, still.) If I used still as in 'still water', I'll notice and can put it back. It's quicker, I find than wasting the time looking at each use of still. You don't have to do it that way. I'm rather ruthless about cutting things.
I work on a chapter a day (or more) until I'm done. As I progress through the novel, I find stuff in later chapters that would work better in the first third of the book. I move it, and may add a transition to the earlier chapter. Sometimes I luck out and it fits perfectly with an ADD SCENE that I wrote earlier. Because I'm working on the novel daily, I'm familiar with the novel. I don't have it all in my head, but enough that I can quickly find where something goes.
While going through each chapter, I tighten the language. I cut sentences, paragraphs, words, and add sentences and paragraphs. I don't worry about making it perfect, just better than it was in the first draft.
6) What if it just doesn't work? It's possible that as you go through your novel, you realize that you're making it worse, not better.
If this happens near the end, do you best to ignore your inner critic and finish. If you've never finished a novel before, it may just be your fear of success, or fear of failure. Ignore this and push on if you can.
If this happens early on, and you're pretty sure it's not a fear, just a realistic appraisal of your novel, you need to make a choice. Do you want to keep working on this story? If you have a better project, you might want to work on that instead.
If you love your novel, but need help, try to get feedback.
a) One way is to polish your first three chapters and giving them to people who read the type of story this is, and ask them for ideas for what should happen, especially the ending.
b) You can bring it to a Journey Meeting for the Storyboarding exercise, where you lay out what you have, and ask people questions..
c) Polish a chapter or two and post on Critique Circle--be sure to ask people what they liked and where they got bored. From the feedback, you may be able to think of what to do next.
Note: a and c both require polishing the chapters. Putting out a chapter with typos, grammar problems, etc makes it too difficult for your readers to focus on the structural issues you want addressed. It's also possible that you're just feeling lazy, and once you polish it, you might realize what is needed next. There's no point in asking other people for advice if you haven't put some work into making the beginning as good as you can.
7) Assuming your revision pass worked, you now have a second draft with a number of scenes identified to write. Decide if you want to work on them now, or save them for NaNo. (You'd be a NaNoWriMo rebel, but many people in our region are.)
8) When writing the scenes, be sure to read the scenes before and after them. I recommend going through the novel again, improving the existing scenes, and writing the new ones. Then go back the next day and revise the scene you wrote before moving onto the next scene.
9) Once you have all the scenes written, you're ready for the third draft. Don't be shocked if you find out you need another scene, or still need to move things around. I've changed things around on the sixth or seventh draft.
10) Good luck!