{"id":388,"date":"2013-10-19T11:15:05","date_gmt":"2013-10-19T11:15:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/geraldhornsby.wordpress.com\/?p=388"},"modified":"2013-10-19T11:15:05","modified_gmt":"2013-10-19T11:15:05","slug":"nanowrimo-my-top-tips-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/2013\/10\/19\/nanowrimo-my-top-tips-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"NaNoWriMo – my Top Ten Tips. Part II Tips 1-3"},"content":{"rendered":"

BEFORE NANOWRIMO<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Write what interests you as a reader.<\/b><\/p>\n

There\u2019s no point choosing a genre that you don\u2019t enjoy and know nothing about. Some people like to choose books which might be \u2018popular\u2019 (e.g. sparkly vampires or very naughty businessmen with a penchant for violence). This is a recipe for disaster. There is an old saying\u201d \u2018Write what you know\u2019. This is obviously not true in all cases, because there would be no science fiction. But you need to write with authority about a subject. I can\u2019t write humour, and I can\u2019t write romance. I\u2019ve tried, but it just doesn\u2019t work. So I don\u2019t, no matter how popular those genres have become. I know I enjoy writing short dark fiction, crime novellas, and longer thrillers. I find them to be the most enjoyable. So for this NaNoWriMo, I\u2019m either writing (you\u2019ll never guess) short dark fiction (to make a set of short stories); crime novellas (for my crime series books); or a long novel-length thriller (either techno or political – I have ideas for both).<\/p>\n

2. Plan<\/b><\/p>\n

Benjamin Franklin said: \u201cBy failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.\u201d Variations of this abound all over the internet, but the idea is the same. People who don\u2019t plan are called \u201cpantsers\u201d – they write by the seats of their pants. I\u2019ve tried this, but it just doesn\u2019t work for me. I have to know where the story\u2019s going, who the bad guys are, and who gets killed in the end. That\u2019s not to say I stick rigidly to the plan. Characters change sides, gender, even sexuality sometimes. Good guys get killed, bad guys prosper, and the creepy guy from up the road with the camera turns out to be a hero. But you must have the plan, the outline. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve had a NaNo where I haven\u2019t deviated from the plan. But that\u2019s okay, because by then, I know where my story\u2019s going. Create some story \u2018beats\u2019, from a few lines to a couple of pages that says who does what, to whom, and with which unearthly creature. Believe me, this will help you later on in the month.<\/p>\n

3. Have backup ideas<\/b><\/p>\n

Ha! Yes, I have some great story ideas. Some wonderful characters jumping and screaming in my head to tell their story. Beautiful locations, cunning plots and twists.<\/p>\n

And then, 25,000 words in, I see it all is rubbish. The fascinating characters are paper thin, the plots are boring and stereotypical, and the locations are less interesting than that dark and smelly place behind my garage. It would be easy to throw my hands up in horror, and go and sulk. But when stories stagnate, I turn to my \u201cideas\u201d folder on the computer, and zoom through a few of my story ideas, and start writing a new story. It\u2019s okay, The NaNoWriMo people don\u2019t mind. You then become a \u201crebel\u201d, but you can still count all of your words towards the total, and get access to that all-important badge at the end of the month. It\u2019s much better to have succeeded, and have 50,000 words under your belt, than to fail mid-month.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow: Tips 4-7 Writing During NaNoWriMo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BEFORE NANOWRIMO 1. Write what interests you as a reader. There\u2019s no point choosing a genre that you don\u2019t enjoy and know nothing about. Some people like to choose books which might be \u2018popular\u2019 (e.g. sparkly vampires or very naughty businessmen with a penchant for violence). This is a recipe for disaster. There is an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nanowrimo","category-writing-on-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5y3CH-6g","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}