NaNoWriMo 2012 - Day 12

[ladyseishou]

Day 12 - 18 days remaining



If you tell the reader that Bull Beezley is a brutal-faced, loose-lipped bully,
with snake’s blood in his veins, the reader’s reaction may be, ‘Oh, yeah!’
But if you show the reader Bull Beezley raking the bloodied flanks of his weary,
sweat-encrusted pony, and flogging the tottering, red-eyed animal with a
quirt, or have him booting in the protruding ribs of a starved mongrel and,
boy, the reader believes!

— Fred East






Today's word count is 20,004! A banner day and time to indulge in a 10k reward if you got one. Otherwise, congratulate yourself on a job well done coming this far!

And if you are a little short, no need to dispair. Could be time to indulge in a little word padding. No, not the kind where you write out contractions or quote long passages of poetry - time for that later, maybe.

No this is the kind of "padding" that might actually add a little 3D to a character that might feel a bit flat. Read through today's quote again and see where "showing" (instead of "telling") infuses a little bit of reality into your fictional people.

So instead of writing: "He was happy to see her come through the door" for a total of ten words, why not write the scene as: "He felt the smile come over him, like the sun chasing shadows, worries about the day's troubles fading too as he watched her push the door open and come into Lucky's Laundromat carrying that ridiculous red Santa sack of what he could only speculate was elf unmentionables, assuming elves even had what one might stuff into unmentionables." Fifty-seven words.

Purple prose? Maybe. But it's got words. And some of it might even survive the editor's pen later down the road.

Questions? Comments? Your best purple prose? It's all good! So keep writing!