NaNoWriMo - what's it all about?

[Twine88]

I know roughly the idea behind it, but I wondered if anyone had actually taken part and had any thoughts to share?

My novel is already in excess of the 50k but, is still all over the place and needs much editing.

Any thoughts appreciated, even if you considered it and decided no.

I quite like that the t-shirt looks like a Wonder Woman t-shirt
I'm on 32,000. I'm having to look really closely at my plotting and pacing. I've introduced my main characters and their main 'dilemmas' but I'm wondering if I'm spending too much time scene setting. I need to look at how many incidents I'd expect in a novel.

Starting to get behind again - but managed about 1800 words today. Had a few plot revelations while on a bike ride - quite obviously my ex-villain deserves to go and live the high life with a fabulously rich older woman in Paris. I just have to detach him from his annoying fiancee.

Do you think MrsFiona that doing this creative project is bringing out more creative impulses all over the place? I had an idea at work the other day, which I normally never do. Very interesting.

Charming are you in the UK? How long will shipping take for your t-shirt?

I didn’t order one in the end, I didn’t think I’d actually wear it.

annadale possibly, I get lots of creative ideas but never normally act on them. Possibly NaNo is encouraging me to actually do some of the projects I dream up, but it’s more likely I’m looking for ways to procrastinate from writing!

I’ve just checked my author stats and need to do some serious catching up, I’m currently due to finish on the 2nd December.

Hey all. I hit my 40k today and made a donation to celebrate. I figured they deserved it as I have now written more than I ever have for a single piece of writing ever, plus I seem to have made a new writing buddy who I have coffee with every week while we do some nano, which is pretty nice.

I was tempted for a moment by the t-shirt, but will never wear it. I might see when I actually reach the 50k. I'm hoping I might make it by the end of next week if I keep steady.

Oh, and I have an actual genuinly nice character! Hurrah!

I've hit 40K and I'm losing the will to carry on.
The beginning is too long, I haven't decided on the ending and I don't know how to fill out the middle. Argh.
I might just type 10K of random words between now and the end of the month!

You’re so close to winning Distant, don’t give up now!

I’m on 37k, but I’m running out of story!

I looked up the word counts of 2 books I think have a similar feel and target audience and they’re 80k and 110k, so this is definitely on the short side!

DPs helpful suggestion was to add a bear.

I was going to suggest kittens Charming, maybe you could go with kittens riding a bear...or a bear on a chariot being pulled by a little army of kittens.

My story has hardly even got going! I seem to either write really short stories or an epic twelve book series.

Don't give up guys! You can do this. ( Pleas imagine I have pompoms right now). Yeah! Go you! Whoop!

You are all doing amazingly well!
I'm just over 32,000 and am floundering. I know what needs to happen but I'm worried I've fallen into describing every little detail. I'm also not entirely sure when stuff needs to happen. I need to bring my two story strands together, tie up a third sub-plot, introduce my main 'baddie', create some jeopardy and then tie everything up in a way that doesn't feel unbalanced. Help!

I don’t understand how you’ve all written so many words, but still have key characters / plots to introduce!

I'm on 40K, and am right at the end section. But I'm writing middle grade so that's about right. I'm slightly spinning it out to get to 50K I think, but maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Got into a sudden groove last night and am only 500 words behind. Finally spent some time with my heroine and was rewarded.

Is anyone else starting to think about life afterwards? I'm thinking about a writer's group - I'd like to finish and edit the manuscript properly.

How about just writing your baddie's first scene jos even if it's not really in order?

A bear sounds good @MrsFionaCharming

I’m going to fuel up on coffee this morning and then dip into some later scenes...hopefully that will give me some inspiration and direction.

Well done everyone!

And yes to the idea of a writing group or something. I know NaNoWriMo do a jan/Feb editing promise so I’m hoping to do some work on it then too

I read a lot of epic SF and Fantasy charming where a standalone 50k book is a rare beast. I won't even have finished the first book in a series at 50k. I have a nice battle scene in mind for the end of this book and a main character that turns up right near the end. I think I would be looking at maybe 90k to get to that point. I'll still have loads of story to go after that though if I continued.

To be honest I don't know what I'm going to do once this is done. I might very well just end up dropping the whole thing. I only did this as an exercise to see if I could and what would happen. I've really enjoyed it but never really intended to get a finished work out at the end. I also really need to focus on some uni work which has been left on the back burner a bit over the last couple of weeks. I think if I can get the 50k done next week I'll spend a bit of time sorting out my character list and plan and then see how I feel. If I have all that up to date than at least I can pick it up again later if I fancy.

I just had a writing frenzy as I finally got to a scene I have been waiting for since I started. I am now on over 45k!

I can almost taste the winning!

annandale thanks for your advice. There was a scene that brought the main character into contact with the baddies for the first time (although the baddie doesn't actually appear) so I wrote that today and am now at 37,000. It's a scene, I had been playing with in my head for a while so once I started writing, it was fairly quick.
Charming I guess it does seem odd to have written so much but not introduced all the characters. But I'm writing a crime novel so 50,000 would not be a complete novel. It's also fairly common for the bad character to be introduced but not in a way that signals 'he's evil'. I did that fairly early but I haven't written any scenes of him being obviously bad. It's a balance to make it worthwhile for the reader. I hate books that throw up a sudden villain who has never been mentioned but on the other hand, if it's blatantly obvious who did it then it loses a sense of urgency and jeopardy imo.
I guess I'll write scenes with the villain being evil and I can always cut them later if I decide it alters the focus.

Oops I almost forgot - Bigly well done on the word count! for you - that's brilliant!

I think I've figured out why it's not quite working. Currently all my scenes are really important to the plot, whereas I think most book have scenes which don't move the plot along, but help build a sense of world and characters.

In Harry Potter (as an obvious example), yes there's a lot of scenes which are about him ultimately defeating Voldemort, but there's also scenes of him playing Quidditch, doing homework and thinking about girls. All important to make the wizarding world seem real, and him believable as a teenage boy.

My 'world' was seeming very flat and 2D, so I'm hoping adding some extras will fix that as well as boosting the word count.

Charming I think that's a good point and Harry Potter is a perfect example. It's actually quite exposition heavy as most of the action suddenly happens in the final third of the books.
I've been reading about three act structures tonight and six-part structures too. One of them says that the first quarter is really about world-building. If most books are 60,000 words then that means 15,000 words of introducing the main characters, the seeds of the main character's conflict and finishing with an 'inciting' incident or call to action.

Oh that's interesting. I think I've got the opposite problem; I'm having a lovely time putting my characters together in pairs or at a pinch threes, and having them discuss things, but there's not much plot happening. Though I've finally managed to get my hero to break up officially with my older woman, so that she's free to get off with the chap who's currently engaged to one of my major minor characters. If you're with me. Trouble is, I think my hero has been a bit of a cad. If I'm not careful I won't be able to let my heroine marry him.

Time for an Austen move. I'm going to hold a ball. Wish me luck.