Tag Archives: Draft

Lessons Learned from NaNoWriMo 2015

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  1. It helps to have a very vivid view of the opening. The concept of writing 50,000 in thirty days isn’t quite so daunting at the outset when you can start without writer’s block.
  2. There are characters, and then there are the cut outs you know will have to have things to do at some point with the plot but that ain’t happenin’ in this thirty days. Yay literary abandon!
  3. Dialogue tags? Who needs dialogue tags?
  4. Some scenes feel horrible as you write them. Write’em anyway. You may discover a fantastic bit of dialogue or visual that would have never appeared otherwise.
  5. The world building may look like a three-year-old with blocks, but hey, it’s still standing.
  6. If you remember the clues for the mystery, awesome. If not…well, that’s what footnotes are for.
  7. Focus on the scenes you can really, REALLY see. Piddling around with filler may boost the word count, but face it: you’re avoiding the hard stuff in that plot arc. Stop screwing around and muck through it.
  8. So your protagonist is starting to sound like an antagonist? Go for it. That kid sounds more like a teenager? Ta da! The miracle of puberty works wonders. Don’t be afraid to just switch up a character or an event.
  9. It helps to have a very vivid view of the ending—all the more reason to crack on and GET THERE.
  10. Remember, it’s not like anyone but you will have to read this draft. The folks of NaNoWriMo call it “thirty days and nights of literary abandon” for a reason. Don’t worry about form, strictures of genre and narrative. Just let the story go where it wants. Like a toddler’s antics with finger paint, you will see a massive mess at the outset, but some beauty, too. Imagination. Unexpected contrasts that just seem to work somehow. Trust me: the mess is worth it.

#Lessons Learned from #DianaWynneJones for #NaNoWriMo: “Just Bash On & Do It.”

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With National Novel Writing Month just a few days away, I think it’s worth pausing my own nonfiction and lessons from my favorite writer until December. However, to help those who also revel in the Thirty Days and Nights of Literary Abandon, I shall continue sharing Writer’s Music posts throughout the month.

That said, I wanted to talk about something from Diana Wynne Jones’ Reflections that feels especially appropriate on the cusp of NaNoWriMo.

13140843In 2011, Charlie Butler interviewed Jones in her home. At one point he asks about her writing process, and if others, such as editors, see the work in progress. Jones is very clear that this is NOT how she works:

I hate being edited, because my second draft is as careful as I can get it. I try to get it absolutely mistake-free, and absolutely as I feel the book needs to be. Then some editor comes along and says, “Change Chapter Eight to Chapter Five, take a huge lump out of Chapter Nine, and let’s cut Chapter One altogether.” And you think, No, I’m going to hit the ceiling any moment. Then I call for my agent before I get my hands round this person’s throat.

…

Thank God it was the days before computers. I said, “Send me the typescript back and I’ll see what I can do.” So she did, and I cut out the bits she told me to alter, in irregular shapes, then stuck them back in exactly the same place with Sellotape, only crooked, so it looked as if I’d taken the pieces out and put new pieces in. And then I sent it back to her, and she rang up and said, “Oh, your alterations have made such a difference.” And I thought, “Right! Hereafter I will take no notice of anybody who tries to edit my books.”

Now while I can only dream of having this woman’s confidence and ability to write sideways and backwards and ALWAYS create something awesome (such as Hexwood), she still marks the point that it is the SECOND draft she makes perfect. Her first draft was always written by hand, and she accepted that chunks of it would need to be done over: “If you want to make your story as good as you can get it, you have to go over it and get it right.”

For some of us, who are on draft #8 (ahem), “getting it right” in only one or two rewrites still sounds like a miracle. But it is nice to know that one whose plots knot every which way and still produce these beautiful woven works does not expect it to be right the first time. Yet another reason NaNoWriMo is so wonderful for writers: it forces us through that first draft–in Jones’ words, “Just bash on and do it.” Then, with the time crunch gone, we can take our time, pick the story threads apart, and concentrate completely on “getting it right.”

Click here for more on Diana Wynne Jones and her article “Hints on Writing.”

Click here for more on National Novel Writing Month.