24 Days until...

[ladyseishou]

Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success.

Henry Ford




So Nano Writer, there are still 24 days until the start of NaNoWriMo, will you be ready?

This week we talked about genre and theme and wrote out a one-sentence premise. If you haven't had time to try out the exercises before now, try starting here.

With premise in hand, let's have a little fun this weekend! Write out your story sentence on an index card (or anywhere where you can keep an eye on it) and go through your music libraries and CDs and assemble a playlist of music that speaks to your theme and premise. Work with song titles or cover artwork or the music itself, anything that inspires you!

For me, I love movie soundtracks. I'm thinking the score for "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" or "Fantasia" might work well with this:

In a world where magic is commonplace, a young man discovers that his life has a sense of purpose when he learns to do things for himself rather than have things handed to him on a magic platter.

Another challenge you might want to try your hand at this weekend: rework your one-sentence premise, this time using only 20 words! Yes, that's right! 20 words - or less. Give it a try! It can be tough but it's a good exercise to get to the real, unadorned kernel of your story. Here's my attempt:

A teen discovers life's purpose doing things for himself rather than having things handed to him on a magic platter.

20 words on the nose. Can you do it? Share yours here!


Next week, we'll talk about the characters that will bring your story to life! Until then, keep writing!

Comments

[dragonjournal]

The weird thing about my soundtracks is that they just kinda... occur after I've started writing. Since I'm avoiding my NaNo - save a few snippets of backstory - I'm going to have to avoid the soundtrack too. :(

Why isn't November here yet?

[ladyseishou]

20 more days!

[charamei]

I have a bunch of generic playlists that I use as the backdrop for non-character-focussed scenes: Generic Scary, Generic Action, Generic Pub etc. I do have character/chapter-specific lists, but I find they often get in the way a bit: I can't count the number of times a nice creepy 'Drunk Seer timejumps and thinks she's going mad' scene has been spoiled by the Seer in question's playlist cycling back onto 'Positive Thinking' or her circus-based theme tune, for example. (Certain Other Characters are even worse: Irien goes from 'quiet and sneaky' to the Laughing Song in about five tracks...)

Movie soundtrack recommendations: Of course you can never go wrong with John Williams, but I'm increasingly finding that my writing heart belongs to Charlie Chaplin. So much mood, so subtly conveyed.

[ladyseishou]

LOL, I know what you mean by an inappropriate piece of music coming up in a playlist! Good thing that most of the time when I'm really into the flow of writing, marching bands could walk by and I wouldn't really notice ;-)

I love John Williams! I will have to look up the movie music of Charlie Chaplin! Thanks for the rec!