NaNoWriMo 2010 - Day 27

[ladyseishou]

Day 27 - 3 days remaining

NOVEL, n. A short story padded.

- Ambrose Bierce,
The Devil's Dictionary



This is it. Crunch time, Nano Writer. Maybe you're a little behind on your word count, maybe a lot. But this is when you discover what you've got, what you can do when you really want it. So sign into Write or Die, sign up for a Word War with a friend/rival or just find a quiet spot, you and your writing tool of choice, and finish your story...

Today's word count is 45,000. But before you panic and decide that it time to throw in the towel/quit/swear a lot and fire up Halo, take a few minutes and really look at what you need to do...

How many words are you behind? Now instead of staring at whatever number you've got, divide it by 4. Go ahead. That's the number of words you need to write sometime this morning. That's it. Do it and then give yourself a little reward. Something chocolate is always nice. Or go for a walk. Then do it again before lunch. And again before dinner. And then one last time after dinner. The secret here is to divide and conquer your scary-looking word count. Make it small, make it bite size.

So now, possibly, you say you: (a) don't love your story anymore, (b) have lost your way and don't know where the story's going, or (c) need to start over and is that crazy or what?

Short answer: yes, that's crazy but you know best what you can do under pressure. How about this instead: "start over" but build your new story over the smoldering pile of bones of your old story, every word of it. Without deleting anything, introduce a new MC who rides into town and takes over. Just like that. And then write the rest.

One last strategy you might consider: padding. It's not against the rules for the NaNoWriMo challenge. And it's not a bad thing - you are simply adding detail/background/color to your story as any good writer will do to make the story interesting and to come alive for his or her reader. Sure, it will probably be something that you'll reconsider later (after December 1) and take out but the fact is that you won't know until you write it. And every word counts now.

You might also...

Add chapter titles and an appropriate introductory quotation for each chapter. Add in short side stories between chapters. It worked for Neil Gaiman in American Gods, make it work for you.

Add recipes for meals, biographical information for a character's dossier or job/school application, weather reports, shopping lists, newspaper articles, song lyrics, poetry, crossword puzzle clues... our world is filled with words. Make them a part of your story world!

Excerpts, comments, questions, padding advice? It's all good! Keep writing!

Comments

Congratualtions and Cheers!

[ladyseishou]

You did it! Cheers! Your Nano writing should be a good warm-up for the big bang and bingo fics! Good luck!

Re: Congratualtions and Cheers!

[welfycat]

Thank you!