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NANOWRIMO HOOOO

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Posts

  • EncEnc FloridaRegistered User regular
    I'm thinking about doing a composite novel for Nano, following seven character living in the same city that do not meet each other but directly influence each others lives. Anyone try something like this before and have any tips? Most of my work follow a single protagonist.

    "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
    — Robert Heinlein
  • AmaliaAmalia Registered User regular
    Quoth wrote:
    Amalia wrote:
    Quoth wrote:
    Mine will feature Giselle, the sassy young psychic recruited by the gubbmint to help find monsters. She's sassy! And psychic! How can this go wrong?!

    YESSSS! I liked her so much. With the third eye and whatnot, right?

    Yup. Gonna do it. Gonna novel her good.

    Do you think you can do Heracles without the labors?

    Not sure yet! But if there is a time to try and fail, it is Nano! Ideally, I'd like to write something that doesn't end in total tragedy, but... well, I have to comb through his myths still, like I said, and see what mini stories there are to explore.

    Sometimes I blog. Other times I tweet. But I'm always writing. (and so is that other Amalia)

    Forged by Fate, March 5, 2013! (And it's on Goodreads!)
  • VanityPantsVanityPants Registered User regular
    @Amalia I'm tempted to write a Cuchulainn novel now to have COMPETING HEROIC NOVELS.

  • NogginNoggin Registered User regular
    Enc wrote:
    I'm thinking about doing a composite novel for Nano, following seven character living in the same city that do not meet each other but directly influence each others lives. Anyone try something like this before and have any tips? Most of my work follow a single protagonist.

    I enjoyed doing something like this in one of my creative writing projects. 3 separate stories in which each protagonist was a hitman in the same city, but one of them was a mouse! The stories stood on their own but it was very fun to throw in references.

    Thanks for the reminder, i might really enjoy doing something like that again.

    If you haven't seen Crash (2005 film), definitely check that out.

  • VThornheartVThornheart Registered User regular
    Hey guys! This weekend I'll try to get the new NaNo Tracker Site geared up for another run!

    $14,276 for Child's Play from the Cookie Brigade at PAX Prime 2011!!!
    Join the Cookie Brigade Forum for PAX Prime 2011 now! We need your help! If you decide to join, sign up at the Cookie Brigade website!
  • VanityPantsVanityPants Registered User regular
    Can we just preserve the old one with me having more words than @Amalia so I'm free to gloat?

    BAHAHAHA.

  • chiasaur11chiasaur11 Never doubt a raccoon. Registered User regular
    I remember that.

    You two were insane. I was in, what, the number three or four spot and I didn't get half what you guys did.

    2MyOx.png
  • AmaliaAmalia Registered User regular
    @Amalia I'm tempted to write a Cuchulainn novel now to have COMPETING HEROIC NOVELS.

    GRUDGEMATCH PART TWO.
    Let's do it, VP! Then we could write a short story together HERO vs HERO after! or something.

    Sometimes I blog. Other times I tweet. But I'm always writing. (and so is that other Amalia)

    Forged by Fate, March 5, 2013! (And it's on Goodreads!)
  • VanityPantsVanityPants Registered User regular
    Hahaha, okay, it is ON.

    ... I'm going to have to learn a lot of things about the history of Ireland between now and November.

  • AmaliaAmalia Registered User regular
    Don't sweat it. I suck at worldbuilding even when I know the historical context. We'll be even-steven!

    Sometimes I blog. Other times I tweet. But I'm always writing. (and so is that other Amalia)

    Forged by Fate, March 5, 2013! (And it's on Goodreads!)
  • KatarineKatarine Registered User
    I am saddened. I shall probably not be able to do NaNoWriMo this year! I've done it the last few years but this year is going to be difficult. I have way too much other stuff that needs to happen. Who knows. We'll see. I don't even have any ideas of what to write!

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  • smofsmof The meanest dinosaur Registered User regular
    I have decided to attempt this. I found out about it too late to take part last year. I have ideas that have been rolling around in my head for what feels like my entire adult life, but I suffer from chronic writer's block due to being way too aware of how much anything I produce will suck. I'm hoping this might finally get some of them out. The prospect of having to write 50,000 words is actually pretty terrifying though.

    Also Skyrim comes out in November and that may be the biggest spanner-in-the-works in the entire history of spanners, but we'll see how things go.

    smof on
  • EncEnc FloridaRegistered User regular
    Don't buy Skyrim until December 1st, it will be a reward for winning! That's my plan anyhow, and it's helped push me through each year.

    "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
    — Robert Heinlein
  • QuothQuoth the Raven Miami, FL FOR REALRegistered User regular
    I think maybe I will write about... Vampires?!

    Definitely don't buy a game you want before December unless you are ready to fail.

    “Hic non defectus est, sed cattus minxit desuper nocte quadam. Confundatur pessimus cattus qui minxit super librum istum in nocte Daventrie, et consimiliter omnes alii propter illum. Et cavendum valde ne permittantur libri aperti per noctem ubi cattie venire possunt.”
    vis a tergo | Blog | Twitter | Blip.fm | Dropbox
  • VThornheartVThornheart Registered User regular
    lol, yeah you guys did great last year! I totally sucked. I started and stopped two different story ideas, and then just let it collapse entirely. =( I've got to take a bit of time in the leadup to give more thought to what I actually want to write this year...

    $14,276 for Child's Play from the Cookie Brigade at PAX Prime 2011!!!
    Join the Cookie Brigade Forum for PAX Prime 2011 now! We need your help! If you decide to join, sign up at the Cookie Brigade website!
  • WankWank Registered User regular
    Nanowrimo is going to kill me this year. After it I will be dead

  • EmperorSethEmperorSeth Registered User regular
    If I can survive Nano (and the two months that follow it,) I can do anything. I like to tell myself.

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  • smofsmof The meanest dinosaur Registered User regular
    Enc wrote:
    Don't buy Skyrim until December 1st, it will be a reward for winning! That's my plan anyhow, and it's helped push me through each year.

    I can almost guarantee that I won't have the willpower to do this. I have it pre-ordered and everything, Steam will install it on release day and I am weak. It's a great idea and I'd like to say I will try but I would probably be lying. I will try to try.

  • EncEnc FloridaRegistered User regular
    smof wrote:
    Enc wrote:
    Don't buy Skyrim until December 1st, it will be a reward for winning! That's my plan anyhow, and it's helped push me through each year.

    I can almost guarantee that I won't have the willpower to do this. I have it pre-ordered and everything, Steam will install it on release day and I am weak. It's a great idea and I'd like to say I will try but I would probably be lying. I will try to try.

    All depends on how you look at it, smof. Skyrim will be there in December for you, unchanged, patiently waiting. Nano only comes once a year.

    "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
    — Robert Heinlein
  • AmaliaAmalia Registered User regular
    I'm passing at normal-persona Nano levels right now with this Orc romance, but if I am serious about winning Nano this year, I kind of have to get to 50K before November 15th since Thanksgiving-family-events start waaaay early for me this year.

    Sometimes I blog. Other times I tweet. But I'm always writing. (and so is that other Amalia)

    Forged by Fate, March 5, 2013! (And it's on Goodreads!)
  • BEAST!BEAST! Adventurer Adventure!!!!!Registered User regular
    Quoth wrote:
    I think maybe I will write about... Vampires?!

    Definitely don't buy a game you want before December unless you are ready to fail.
    The last two years I've bought the new CoD in november and still made it through nano early because I AM A BOSS

  • Munkus BeaverMunkus Beaver Registered User, ClubPA regular
    I am going to do this this year, because I have no exams to study for.

    I'm gonna use the environment from the SE++ phalla I ran, since I had a lot of fun doing that.

    "Advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice."
    "Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but it dies in the process."
    Imagine all of my posts being spoken by Alec Baldwin
    GamerTag: MunkusBeaver ||||| Steam: munkus
  • KatarineKatarine Registered User
    smof wrote:
    Enc wrote:
    Don't buy Skyrim until December 1st, it will be a reward for winning! That's my plan anyhow, and it's helped push me through each year.

    I can almost guarantee that I won't have the willpower to do this. I have it pre-ordered and everything, Steam will install it on release day and I am weak. It's a great idea and I'd like to say I will try but I would probably be lying. I will try to try.
    Same. It'll be shipping to my door day-of-release. Luckily the husbeast will probably steal Skyrim away for most of November from me.

    And who knows? Maybe those insanely boring shifts at work with absolutely nothing to do will prove handy. Now I just have to come up with some sort of plot because right now I've got absolutely nothing.

    158?.jpg
  • smofsmof The meanest dinosaur Registered User regular
    Katarine wrote:
    And who knows? Maybe those insanely boring shifts at work with absolutely nothing to do will prove handy. Now I just have to come up with some sort of plot because right now I've got absolutely nothing.

    Yeah, this. I have come up with a character I want to write about, now I need 50k words worth of stuff for him to do. But at least he's the most interesting character I've ever managed to come up with (Quoth your NaNoWriMo blog posts were really helpful for that so thanks!)

    This does feel like a crazy thing to try and do, since I'm basically going from not having written anything to attempting a novel. I have no idea what I'm doing. But I've just joined the modern era and bought a smartphone, so I can now type away wherever I am in any free seconds I have, which hopefully will help.

  • QuothQuoth the Raven Miami, FL FOR REALRegistered User regular
    Glad to help! Next, try figuring out your antagonist maybe? Or your premise? Once you have a premise, you've set up your beginning and ending so you can work backwards or forwards from there.

    “Hic non defectus est, sed cattus minxit desuper nocte quadam. Confundatur pessimus cattus qui minxit super librum istum in nocte Daventrie, et consimiliter omnes alii propter illum. Et cavendum valde ne permittantur libri aperti per noctem ubi cattie venire possunt.”
    vis a tergo | Blog | Twitter | Blip.fm | Dropbox
  • BEAST!BEAST! Adventurer Adventure!!!!!Registered User regular
    Stop lying, Quoth is unhelpful!!!!!! Fuck what you heard (unless it was from me)

  • KatarineKatarine Registered User
    smof wrote:
    Yeah, this. I have come up with a character I want to write about, now I need 50k words worth of stuff for him to do. But at least he's the most interesting character I've ever managed to come up with (Quoth your NaNoWriMo blog posts were really helpful for that so thanks!)
    Totally agree. The first couple of years of NaNo were the hardest for me because it's like, I would write short fiction, probably about 10 pages, and then I didn't know what else I needed to do in order to make my 50k words because I'd already said it all. How was I supposed to stretch this out to 50,000 freaking words?!

    What I found that really helped in my third year (first year of ever finishing it) was to envision that I was actually reading this novel. Not that I was writing it. I would mentally read what I wanted the book to say and it helped me build a novel-length piece much better because I wasn't telling everything so quickly that it was all over before I'd truly began.

    This afternoon a friend came over and I was able to actually get an idea for a piece that would be awesome to read. Now I'm just trying to figure out how I'd really write it. The issue is that the story would (I think) work much better as a comic than a novel. But it's National NOVEL Writing Month not National COMIC Writing Month so... I guess I gotta work with what I got so far.

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  • MagellMagell Registered User regular
    I am totally going to plan a little bit before I start writing this time. I think it's going to help. Plus I'm going the sci-fi route this time and I've got some ideas already so it should work out okay. Need to remember to use Call of Duty as an incentive after finishing a days worth of writing.

  • tapeslingertapeslinger utter Yog-Sothothery mmm, soulsRegistered User regular
    @Katarine-- write the novel, you can always do a script from the novel later!

    Hey! You! Go bid on awesome things! http://solidsaints.com
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  • Nova_CNova_C Sniff Sniff Snorf Yellowknife, NTRegistered User regular
    I'm going in with a plan this year. I'm going full world building this time, pulling out all the stops. My story is a sci-fi tale that takes place in the 24th century after mankind has established a few dozen colonies. To prepare I'm writing wiki pages for each colony summarizing the history and culture. Even if I don't use 'em all in the book, I can establish a kind of organic political landscape for the characters to wander through.

    It's kind of fun, actually, speculating on what kind of worlds would be colonized and how their unique environments would influence the evolution of each colony.

  • smofsmof The meanest dinosaur Registered User regular
    I love word building. I have a sci-fi setting I've been mulling over for a few years and I've come up with all these different societies, histories, people and places, and I'd really love to write some stories about them. But I can never think of anything to write and I'm not sure why.

    Quoth wrote:
    Glad to help! Next, try figuring out your antagonist maybe? Or your premise? Once you have a premise, you've set up your beginning and ending so you can work backwards or forwards from there.

    I spent all of yesterday trying to come up with a premise but I haven't got it yet. Stupid brain.

  • chiasaur11chiasaur11 Never doubt a raccoon. Registered User regular
    smof wrote:
    I love word building. I have a sci-fi setting I've been mulling over for a few years and I've come up with all these different societies, histories, people and places, and I'd really love to write some stories about them. But I can never think of anything to write and I'm not sure why.

    Quoth wrote:
    Glad to help! Next, try figuring out your antagonist maybe? Or your premise? Once you have a premise, you've set up your beginning and ending so you can work backwards or forwards from there.

    I spent all of yesterday trying to come up with a premise but I haven't got it yet. Stupid brain.

    Don't go for a full premise, then.

    Just take your protagonist. Drop them in an awful, awful situation. And laugh as they struggle to escape.

    2MyOx.png
  • EncEnc FloridaRegistered User regular
    My problem is that I have a setting but no characters, it's rather terrible. Been banging my head against my inspiration rock for about a week and haven't come up with much. Maybe I should go for a different angle?

    "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
    — Robert Heinlein
  • ruzkinruzkin Registered User regular
    Tell me your setting and I will give you characters.

    KqOm9Bt.jpg
  • EncEnc FloridaRegistered User regular
    A fifteen minutes into the future tropical city, on a fictional pacific island. In the late 80s a revolution from a British landholder oligarchy regime ushered in a corporate interest backed, quasi-democratic junta government that accelerated the nation from a small Oceanic 3d world state to a Dubai-like hub of technological innovation and tourism. The entire island is pioneering a massive amount of technological experimentation, including banning all cars in favor of mass transit, having nearly everything digital/digitized, and tracking all residents and visitors via their phones and camera systems via central network.

    My conflict circulates around two "unknowns" in the digital system, someone using it to contact individuals (emails, texts, phone calls, without trace-back information) to warn them of various ominous events right before they happen, and another using a similar system to murder people under the guise of other people, with all cameras automatically "blurring" him. Ideally it's going to run less of a cyberpunk thriller and more of a modern version of Mothman Prophesies/Slenderman Mythos using mostly existing technology to achieve a similar end.

    Problem is I can't decide on main characters to follow. Everything I come up with seems way overdone or not fitting the setting.

    "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
    — Robert Heinlein
  • KatarineKatarine Registered User
    @tapeslinger -- Yeah, that's essentially what I'm going to attempt to do. I think I'll develop the full novel as a series of short novellas, similar to comic trades that get built into a full volume, and work from there. I have the premise for about 5 different novellas, so about 10,000 words a piece, that's not too bad for a few short, maybe two or three chapters, pieces.

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  • KatarineKatarine Registered User
    @Enc -- You have a setting with no characters, well what do you mean by setting? Do you mean a world or a conflict or a situation or anything in particular? Characters should arise from the situation at hand, so if you have a world but nothing to populate the world with, what is the event that's happening that you're building your novel around?

    Whenever I try to build a character I try to look at the situation and then think about who would be involved in the situation and why. Not an exact "who" but more of a general "who", because there should always be some sort of a link between a character's personality as well as whatever else (circumstance, profession, connections to other characters, etc) is bringing them into the plot of the story. You can easily flesh out a character as an individual once you understand WHY they are there. Does that make sense, I guess?

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  • EncEnc FloridaRegistered User regular
    Yeah, it does. I think I've been focusing too much on world building and too little on the conflicts and situations. I may shelve this idea for now and focus on a different plot of some kind.

    "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
    — Robert Heinlein
  • KamarKamar Antivillain In The BasementRegistered User regular
    Man, you guys. NaNo is only like an hour of writing a day if you prep right. So play your games and finish NaNo, too.

    On that note, I'm aiming for a full novel output this year, something like 90k. Even if that means starting a second piece (depends on whether I'm doing something fresh from the start or finishing my current project).

    Either way, I'll be trying my hand at YA Fantasy; it'll be set in my space-opera-but-with-actual-magic universe. The mundane will be the sort of your typical 'poor kid finds out he has ridiculous magic talents, goes to magic school deal. The fantastic/twist will be the setting (magitech and futuristic) and the hero himself: a heroic asshole who never gets over the arrogant and imperious thing, even if he does soften up (not too fantastic, but at least a little less mainstream).

    I figure my simple, over-the-top, sometimes-animesque style will work well in YA.

  • BEAST!BEAST! Adventurer Adventure!!!!!Registered User regular
    Well yeah it's only an hour if you make sure to write shitty stuff.
    Have fun with that, Kamar.

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