Killing Off NANOWRIMO The Right Way
While I take pride in being on the first page of the Chicago authors on NANOWRIMO, I do it with reserve. The reason for this is that I know how many people reach 50,000 and then just stop. I'm sure many of them could get to 60 or 70 thousand or even more if they kept going.
And there are also those who got to 55,000 and actually finished their novel (*cough* novella) and they're the ones I'm really jealous of because they keep more in the spirit of the competition than I do.
But this year, as I've mentioned before, is going to be different. I'm going to write "the end" during this month because I'm killing off all of my main characters. In fact, I've grown so enamored with the idea that I've proposed it to the boards in the thread "Kill Off Your Characters Day (November 30)."
I even made some pretty simple rules:
Every one of your main characters must die.
They should die as close to 11:59:59 local time as you feel comfortable with.
You can delete the whole thing on December 1 and have them come back to life.
It's part of NANOWRIMO so you can pretty much disregard rules #1, #2, and #3.
I figured people would just love the idea but I can't believe how many people have said, "I can't kill of my characters, I want to use them for the sequel, to finish the novel in January, etc."
I have to keep explaining to them that the delete key (or well the highlight text and delete function) can be your friend after December 1. I don't think it's anyone's fault. I think NANO has hardwired everyone into thinking that when it goes on the page, it stays on the page, inner editor be damned. But that all goes out the window tomorrow.
Thank goodness.
---
Though I do have to say that I've been writing a lot slower since I hit 50,000. Yesterday I actually only wrote about 1,500 words. Now that seems like a lot (it's almost daily pace, after all) but that was in 3.5 hours. I wrote more on the train this morning I think (well at least pace-wise).
During my mini-write-in (is that too many hyphens?) with rosemilk, I spent more time jibber-jabbering than actually writing.
The problem was that I have two characters trying to break into separate buildings (one into a warehouse in Chelsea and one into a doctor's brownstone in Gramercy Park) and not being a thief myself, I was having a hard time figuring out how either thing would be accomplished. One of the characters is a thief so he's figured out what to do but the other one is just shaking a fence trying to force a lock to come off.
I actually ended up writing "STUPID FENCE! STUPID FENCE! STUPID FENCE!" in my novel in frustration.
Which gave me an idea. I've often wrote a bit post-modern in that events from my personal life make it into the novel as they happen. For example, a reader could always tell which sections I wrote on an airplane because it will be a character using either a flight metaphor or actually discussing being on an airplane or just flat out being on an airplane.
Next year I'm taking it a step further. I'm going to go flat out post-modern and write in my frustrations, wonderments, etc. right into the novel as a narrator. It will be like NANOWRIMO meets RETENTIVEWRIMO.
Of course I'll have to figure out what the real plot is so I don't just write some sort of literary free rant for 50,000 words. That's what my LiveJournal is for. :)
Speaking of which, one of my favorite topics from the forums is this one: Comparing previous novel(s) to this year's: Better or worse?.
Take a guess what I said.
---
Remember a few entries back I talked about wanting to get on the forums more? Well maybe that wasn't such a good idea. Almost immediately I got into a bit of a spat in the Polling Booth about using quotes from your own novel in your signature.
Now I've been in the middle (and caused) some nice wars on the forums in my day but this is the first one that ever got the attention of Cybele. It wasn't for comments I made, it was a battle between two of the super-posters.
Well I did say that I wanted to get the attention of the NANOWRIMO staff, right?
Mission, I guess, accomplished.
And there are also those who got to 55,000 and actually finished their novel (*cough* novella) and they're the ones I'm really jealous of because they keep more in the spirit of the competition than I do.
But this year, as I've mentioned before, is going to be different. I'm going to write "the end" during this month because I'm killing off all of my main characters. In fact, I've grown so enamored with the idea that I've proposed it to the boards in the thread "Kill Off Your Characters Day (November 30)."
I even made some pretty simple rules:
I figured people would just love the idea but I can't believe how many people have said, "I can't kill of my characters, I want to use them for the sequel, to finish the novel in January, etc."
I have to keep explaining to them that the delete key (or well the highlight text and delete function) can be your friend after December 1. I don't think it's anyone's fault. I think NANO has hardwired everyone into thinking that when it goes on the page, it stays on the page, inner editor be damned. But that all goes out the window tomorrow.
Thank goodness.
---
Though I do have to say that I've been writing a lot slower since I hit 50,000. Yesterday I actually only wrote about 1,500 words. Now that seems like a lot (it's almost daily pace, after all) but that was in 3.5 hours. I wrote more on the train this morning I think (well at least pace-wise).
During my mini-write-in (is that too many hyphens?) with rosemilk, I spent more time jibber-jabbering than actually writing.
The problem was that I have two characters trying to break into separate buildings (one into a warehouse in Chelsea and one into a doctor's brownstone in Gramercy Park) and not being a thief myself, I was having a hard time figuring out how either thing would be accomplished. One of the characters is a thief so he's figured out what to do but the other one is just shaking a fence trying to force a lock to come off.
I actually ended up writing "STUPID FENCE! STUPID FENCE! STUPID FENCE!" in my novel in frustration.
Which gave me an idea. I've often wrote a bit post-modern in that events from my personal life make it into the novel as they happen. For example, a reader could always tell which sections I wrote on an airplane because it will be a character using either a flight metaphor or actually discussing being on an airplane or just flat out being on an airplane.
Next year I'm taking it a step further. I'm going to go flat out post-modern and write in my frustrations, wonderments, etc. right into the novel as a narrator. It will be like NANOWRIMO meets RETENTIVEWRIMO.
Of course I'll have to figure out what the real plot is so I don't just write some sort of literary free rant for 50,000 words. That's what my LiveJournal is for. :)
Speaking of which, one of my favorite topics from the forums is this one: Comparing previous novel(s) to this year's: Better or worse?.
Take a guess what I said.
---
Remember a few entries back I talked about wanting to get on the forums more? Well maybe that wasn't such a good idea. Almost immediately I got into a bit of a spat in the Polling Booth about using quotes from your own novel in your signature.
Now I've been in the middle (and caused) some nice wars on the forums in my day but this is the first one that ever got the attention of Cybele. It wasn't for comments I made, it was a battle between two of the super-posters.
Well I did say that I wanted to get the attention of the NANOWRIMO staff, right?
Mission, I guess, accomplished.
posted by incendiarymind at 8:50 AM
3 Comments:
Amusing idea about killing off characters. But I've been killing off characters throughout the month. It's probably a bit, well, overkill if I killed off everyone at the end.
I did it and it wasn't as cathartic as it should have been. Thinking of unique ways to kill them off was painful.
No-one dies in my novel, but I killed off my two main characters' relationship. Does that get me any points? Probably not, given that I'd reached the end of the story and I'd always planned to end it that way.
Yeah, Novella, I know. One of the points in my "todo" editing list is to find another theme, subplot, or character from somewhere to make it longer. But I did break 51K this year!
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