24 posts tagged “nanowrimo”
Yesterday, I decided to pull out the MS I completed for NaNoWriMo (working title: Julia's Song) and take a look. I even sent it to my Kindle so I could read it more easily.
I'm not all the way through it, but here are some things I definitely need to work on:
1. It needs a much better beginning. As it is, it kind of starts twice because I changed my mind about both where/how to start AND the pov character partway into the story.
2. There's a subplot that probably has to go. It's out of place in this story and doesn't go anywhere.
3. The romantic interest needs a lot of fleshing out. She's kind of flat and boring.
4. A few other characters need some work as well. There's some backstory that I left kind of vague and undefined, but now I'm pretty sure I know what I want it to be.
There are a lot of things I like about this story, which I suppose is a good thing. I'm not entirely convinced that it's good *enough*, but I guess that's what revisions are for...I'd just hate to do the revisions and then decide it's crap. Meh.
I have another seed of an idea floating around in my head. A paranormal thriller. Thriller? What the heck am I thinking? But there it is, and it doesn't seem to want to go away. I'm thinking of a teenage protagonist, and I'll want to create a sort of Scooby Gang of characters around her. She sees dead people, and solves mysteries. Think Veronica Mars meets Buffy meets The Sixth Sense. Or something. It's still pretty vague and nebulous right now. ;)
My reaction? It's not bad. As I expected, it's messy. There are lots of narrative threads and characters that were abandoned, some that were added late in the story and need to be fleshed out.
Things I like...I like the main character, Sam. I suppose I'd need some male readers to tell me how believable he is. I like the relationship between him and his girl best friend Amanda. (One thing that worries me...I like the relationship between them so much that I'm afraid readers will wonder why he doesn't end up with her.) I like the way the momentum builds toward the end of the story.
Potential problems...well, I need to flesh out Sam's crush a lot more. Why does he like Julia? Why should he be with her? I also need to work on the tone/narrative voice. It's all over the place. I want Sam to be funnier. I want this to be a fun, lighthearted read. It can have angst, yes (I mean, it is about teenagers after all), but I need it to lighten up. It ends on a fun, light, Shakespearean comedy-esque note, and I think it needs more of that throughout.
Looking back at the beginning, and having rewatched the movie yesterday, I realize that I was trying to write Mean Girls. When I described the plot to Rand, he reminded me that it sounded a lot like Some Kind of Wonderful (which I saw, but only vaguely remember...). So there's that to deal with...not that I can expect to tell a completely unique story (I don't think there's any such thing), but how I can make it fresh, make it my own.
What it's lacking is a hook. What Rand calls a high concept. What the movie industry would call a crossroads. What makes it unique? What would make someone want to pick it up? What's the thing that, were I shopping this, would get it sold? Right now, nothing. Hrm.
Well, I've gotten myself out there as a freelance writer in Buffalo. I'm going to be contributing to the next issue of Buffalo Spree magazine, writing a few short profiles for the money-focused issue. Yay, me. :)
I'm also working on the TC article for March. I'm going to do a roundup of grammar/usage resources (particularly books) for the writer. I have these:
And I'm going to make a trip to B&N or Borders to glance through some others.
Because I seem to need a kick in the pants as far as this whole novel thing is concerned, I think I'm going to sign up for NaNoEdMo. The concept, as you may have guessed, is to spend a month editing the novel you wrote in November.
I've been trying to faithfully work my way through The Right to Write, but I'm finding myself impatient to get to the point where she starts the daily morning pages. I'm tempted to skip ahead, but I know that probably defeats the purpose. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
Ah, I've been neglecting this little blog. Time for me to put some new goals down in writing, I think...
- Revise story for submission to WW
- Play around with another idea for WW story (partially written)
- Start wrestling NaNovel into shape
- Read The Right to Write, which I got as a Christmas gift
- Come up with article idea for March Absolute Blankl
- Write March AB ;)
:)
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Which means I'm once again on track. Whoo! :)
Well, I crawled my way just over 30k today. If I do 3000 words tomorrow, I'll be on track, so I'm not that far behind. I have to keep reminding myself that I'm a procrastinator at heart. I do my best work up against a deadline. ;) I won't be at all surprised if I do the last 10k in two days.
I found another possible market for short romantic fiction, which pays, though not nearly as well as WW. But then, who does? ;) I sent them a story today. *fingers crossed*
I just reached the halfway point this morning...I gave up last night just 500 words short. ;)
I posted a short excerpt on my NaNoWriMo page.
Whoo!
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Today was rough going for a while, but I had a few bursts of inspiration later in the day. I think I'm going to end up changing and expanding some of the stuff that happened earlier in my story, so for now, I'm not worrying so much about tying everything together neatly. I'll fix it later. :)
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Still on track...I was hoping to be a little bit ahead at this point, but I'll take it. :)
I want to do at least 2,000 words daily for the rest of the week, putting me at 18,000 before I leave for TO on Friday.
I can do it!
