Places to Chat
NaNoWriMo idea-throwing!
Chatterbox: Inkwell
NaNoWriMo idea-throwing!
NaNoWriMo idea-throwing!
I know there's still a whole month left, but it's been on my mind.
I don't have a concrete idea for this year. but here are some goals:
- Vary my worldbuilding more. I'm striving toward something more approaching diverging from the standard contemporary fantasy, if that makes sense - not quite magic realism as a genre, but definitely something where supernatural events aren't hidden from the public eye. Or maybe that's just me being lazy, to save myself from doing the "Oh Golly! Curioser And Curioser! Magic May Really Exist!" acrobatics for the third year in a row.
- Maybe write a more functional romantic subplot? Last year's NaNo lacked resolution, only a vague hope/implication of 'something' later - which was fine, because I was writing about middle schoolers! But - while romantic subplots aren't at all necessary - I really would like to include a more underrepresented form of one, and one of the nuances of writing a pair of people the media already sells short is making sure that they're happy, and that it moves beyond subtext. But I can't write it to save my life, so, uh. Good luck, self.
Those are the two major ones, and I'm generally getting more ghosty, supernatural vibes from this one, where my last two were more about alternate universes and whatnot. That's actually my third goal - branching out. Less predictability.
What about the rest of you? Are you doing NaNo this year? Do you have an area you're struggling in that you're struggling to improve in? Do you know for sure what you're doing? Is it absurd to make this thread in late September? (yes. yes it is.)
submitted by Katia
(September 25, 2015 - 6:22 pm)
(September 25, 2015 - 6:22 pm)
I'm doing YWP, which is pretty much the same, I suppose.
Yes! I'm very, very good with ideas. I get myself a few protagonists, an antagonist, and a rough world, and I make a masterpiece. I have every single tidbit of my story mapped out in my brain, along with a bunch of others that I'm too lazy to finish.
Yeah, my author's Achilles: I never finish writing the stories. I start 'em! I get to the point where I'm like, "Wow! I really know these characters! I may just finish this time!" and then I just sloooooowly... stop. Bleh.
That's why I'm doing YWP! If I can finally finish a novel, I may be able to break out of this terrible habit!
A few goals of mine are:
-To make my characters CHARACTERS, and not slowly transform them into a version of me, that usually happens during large periods of time.
-Make a kind of rude character. I hate making mean characters unless they're the antagonist, but I need to beat that down.
-Kill off a major character. SET OFF THE FEELS CREWS. I'm evil, I know.
(September 26, 2015 - 9:33 am)
Ooh, those are good! Definitely keeping oneself and one's characters is a challenge everyone struggles with - heck, there's actual history of author self-inserts with authors of renowned classics - and that's definitely a worthy goal! I need to think about that too, actually - projecting the same lessons/ideals I learned onto my characters every time gets a bit exhausting to read, probably!
I actually have learned to finish projects - at least when I have nano to motivate me, I've finished two! - but I never properly edit rough drafts. It's terrible, that's something else I'll have to work on after November!
And thanks for bringing up killing characters, because I always intend to do it and then, uh, don't. Hm...
(September 26, 2015 - 11:26 am)
good idea!
it's hard for me to work a lot on my creative writing right now, with hectic middle school, and other stuff. but nevertheless, here are some goals for myself and recognized weaknesses.
-I need to give my main characters some more personalflaws. sometimes i make my characters too perfect. i should either make these flaws obvious or, though i might make it seem to other characters in story that the protagonist is perfect or nice or whatever but have the main character silently wrestle with themselves until it builds to an explosion or breaking point.
-i learn LOTS of new vocabulary and their definitonss but the thing is, i forget them. I WANT TO USE MORE HIGH LEVEL WORDS.
-Emotions. I like writing lots of descriptive emotional scenes. and if i do say so myself, the first two emotional scenes in a story are very good. but then as new problems arise and new drama shows itself, i start to get repetetive. Also, i want to include more description throughtout the story, not just in one paragraph every few pages.
-get even more creative. if im writing a new story, i want it to be as different as possible as it was from the last story.
-I want to explore more types of personalities other than:
bully, extroverted, proud (your average mean girl/bully)
extroverted, liked a lot, smart, a leader
extroverted around close friends, introverted around strangers, smart, compassionate
shy, smart
Actually, can any of you please give me some new personalities that are VERY different from these and/or complicated.
(September 26, 2015 - 4:38 pm)
@ Owlgirl
These are good goals! The last one is especially imporant, because varying your personality types is very important and I actually have this problem too - my characters can be sorted into "angry and emotionally repressed", "sweet and emotionally repressed", or "snarky and emotionally repressed". Usually in trios. It's tragic.
Anyway, it's super good to examine these character traits, especially the motif of the "extroverted mean-girl bully" because that archetype is so prevalent that it perpetuates negative stereotypes about women and pits them against each other - deconstructing it has been the main motivation besides my last two writing projects, which is actually what I was referring to when I said I needed to branch out.
As for personalities: if you're having trouble, try making lists of all the positive, negative, or neutral traits you can think of, picking out a few, and then extending them logically based on how they'd affect a person.
Let's say that you decide your character's going to be proud, outgoing, and maybe easily worried or paranoid about something. That's a combination of traits that don't necessarily naturally spring off of each other - so now you're going to have to think about how that affects them. If they're proud, that's good - they're confident in themselves and their ideals, and it could be part of that that helps them approach and meet new people, which contributes to the ungoing part. But pride could also result in overconfidence and in not listening to others - and then there's the paranoia, which points to an undercurrent of insecurity. So how much of the pride is a front? Are they popular due to being outgoing - are they worried about that going away? Do they take pride in their achievements but worry about what their friends think of them? Do they take pride in their popularity, but worry about losing that - does their pride depend on it, or did they achieve it through their pride?
This probably isn't the best example, but the point is: get some initial adjectives in there, possibly conflicting ones, and then spring as many questions off of them as possible - and a character will form before your eyes, with distinctive traits and flaws that could lead to interesting interactions with other characters and contributions to the plot.
(September 26, 2015 - 6:41 pm)
@ Katia
WOw! That is amaazingly good advice! Thank you so much!
*sigh* its so good to be converesing with other like minded people who appereciate and love writing
(September 27, 2015 - 8:21 am)
Wow! You guys all have really good, constructive goals! Taking a risk and writing a personaity type that you don't write often almost always pays off in my experience. (Almost always... We all have dissaster projects, right?) And romance is so ridiculously hard to write haha. But I suppose the only way to get better at something is to tough up and write it.
Some ideas I have:
-Detective Novel. Pros: I have some pretty cool ideas about this, kind of a modern-ish version of that one detective story on the train or Black Butler or Poirot, but grounded in some sort of twisted reality. Aimed at a general audience, all of the characters have colors for names. Has potential. Cons: I don't really understand/feel my main character at all. This is dangerous (if previously mentioned dissaster projects is any evidence). Just creating someone and slapping a name onto them won't make them a good character...
-Returning to the world of The Perfect One. (That was my project last NaNo.) Pros: I like the characters, there are realitvly less of them, they all have pretty defined personalities. I could flesh them out more. Cons: The plot I thought I'd write for one of the characters seems extremely unrealistic now that I'm more educated on the subject I was going to try to tackle. I could still make it work, it just wouldn't be a major plot-point. And I'm also kind of over this project.
-Grand Canyon Comic. Idea I've had for awhile. Pros: I have a basic idea for what I want to happen. Cons: I'd probably have to do research that I currently don't want to do, and I'm not sure how long it will be. I don't want to strech it out.
-Dread. Pros: I could possibly finish the longest writing project I've done so far. Cons: NaNo tends to make you rush/strech out the plot and the last thing I want to do is either of those. The first draft is already huge, and I don't think the story has another 50K in it.
So yes. I've thoght about this A LOT. Since about August. This is the new normal.
(September 26, 2015 - 8:15 pm)
wait......what does NaNo mean? is it a real association in the real world? or just a funny name for a thread we created......
(September 27, 2015 - 8:46 am)
I want to finish my Story.
I have been working on this certain story for a long time and I am sure that of all my stories it is the best- I think it is the best plot I mean.
I need to add more worldbuilding, develope the characters better, ect.
(September 26, 2015 - 8:31 pm)
(September 27, 2015 - 8:42 am)
okay, why do the words in my posts always appear so close together? I put whole lines between them
(September 27, 2015 - 9:44 am)
@ Owlgirl
So NaNoWriMo is, uh, basically one of the best things that's ever happened to me? It's an abbreviation for National Novel Writing Month, and it's a website that challenges you to write a novel of a certain length in a month! There's two websites: the main, "adult" website - for ages thirteen and up, where you write a 50,000 word first draft in one month (so 1,667 words a day!), and the Young Writer's Program, for which anyone can sign up if you're under eighteen and for which you can set your own word count!
Even if you don't win, it's wonderful to do to get motivated with writing, due to all its word-count graphs and pep talks and handy tools for writing, and it just increases the volume by which you write to a great degree: it changes starting the first draft of your novel from something you'd 'like to get around to one day' to something you'd like to 'make considerable progress on over the course of the month'.
And obviously, however many words you write, they aren't going to be perfect - in fact, there's going to be bits you hate. But the idea of NaNo is that now you've got something to work with, you've got a draft you can edit, and you've made that choice: the choice to step forward and actually write for a month!
I love it, anyway.
And re: romance, I'd argue that even thinking someone's eyes "shine like the moon and fill [someone] with bliss" is a bit overboard - it's purple-prose, it's unrealistic like you said - I don't think anybody actually thinks that - and it's fairly uninformative and generic, y'know?
So, like, prepare for CHEESY AND HORRIBLY WRITTEN examples: "Lucy's eyes shone like the moon and filled me with bliss" is a fairly generic statement. On the other hand, we have:
1. "Lately, I had caught myeslf looking into Lucy's eyes more and more, too fascinated by the luminous qualitiy they gained when she was excited to look away quickly enough,"
2. "It was impossible to look away from Lucy, like it always was when she was passionate about something; in the face of her wide smile and the quiet intensity of her shining brown eyes, it made me wish I was able to get excited about the same things."
Now these are tremendously badly written, because I'm the one who was initially trying to improve in this subject, but these two do attempt to establish several things:
a) hints at the nature of the narrator's feelings towards Lucy, and how the narrator feels about these feelings (in the first one, the narrator is more hesitant and unsure about them; in the second one, they seem to have accepted that they like Lucy.)
b) hints at what it is about Lucy that the narrator likes so much besides her physical appearance (Lucy's passionate and persuasive; whether she's excited about reading a new book or changing the world somehow, the narrator enjoys getting caught up in that excitement.)
c) hints at whatever tension Lucy and the narrator have between each other. (In the first one, the narrator is hesitant and unsure, which itself causes tension; in the second one, the narrator's accepted their feelings for Lucy to a greater extent, but they can't 'get excited about the same things'. So what's Lucy excited about? Why can't the narrator be excited about it? (Why do all my character relationships have the same exact dynamic? Why am I so bad at writing?)
Yeah, I should go. I'm thouroughly enjoyint this discussion!
(September 27, 2015 - 11:19 am)
@Katia
yeah, the whole moonshine eye bliss thing was an intentionally bad example. I wouldn't ever really write something like that?
(September 27, 2015 - 6:53 pm)
here are some tips for beginners in creative writing, or really, anyone...they are based off of a website i found.
Try to get into the habit of writing every day, even if it’s just for ten minutes.
If you’re stuck for ideas, carry a notebook everywhere and write down your observations.You’ll get some great lines of dialogue by keeping your ears open on the bus or in cafes, and an unusual phrase may be prompted by something you see or smell.
Work out the time of day when you’re at your most creative. For many writers, this is first thing in the morning – before all the demands of the day jostle for attention. Others write well late at night, after the rest of the family have gone to bed. Don’t be afraid to experiment!
Don’t agonize over getting it right. All writers have to revise and edit their work – it’s rare that a story, scene or even a sentence comes out perfectly the first time. Once you’ve completed the initial draft, leave the piece for a few days – then come back to it fresh, with a red pen in hand. If you know there are problems with your story but can’t pinpoint them, ask a fellow writer to read through it and give feedback.
HAVE FUN! Sometimes, we writers can end up feeling that our writing is a chore, something that “must” be done, or something to procrastinate over for as long as possible. If your plot seems wildly far-fetched, your characters bore you to tears and you’re convinced that a five-year old with a crayon could write better prose … take a break. Start a completely new project, something which is purely for fun. Write a poem or a 60-word “mini saga”. Just completing a small finished piece can help if you’re bogged down in a longer story
(September 27, 2015 - 9:53 am)
can someone please tell me what NaNoWriMo is?
please?
NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. -Admins
(September 27, 2015 - 12:14 pm)
Wow! This thread got really popular!
Owlgirl, NaNo is a website where you write a novel in a month. Come November, I'll be doing it for the first time!
And you also made an excellent point. Most of my characters can either be sorted into "spunky, hot-headed, jokey, and friendly" or "shy, with a really tragic past". That's literally IT. Read some of my RPs, you'll see what I mean. So personalities are something I have to work on.
Romance? Yes. In one of my many stories, that is a plot point. Except I hate sappy romance novels. I want them to get together, but I don't want it to be "Duke Theodore" this and "Duke Theodore" that, because the novel is not about that. Not at all.
And- obviously not for NaNo, but in general- I should really start expanding my genres. Right now, it's completely fantasy. Mermaids, magic castles, magical thieves, UltraMinor gods, and kids with strange powers. I'm no good at detective mysteries, but I could try my hand at Realistic Fiction or Sci-Fi. It wouldn't kill me, once I think fo an idea.
There are a few tips I have, that work pretty well for me:
1. Pit your characters in a random situation. It could have nothing to do with the story- maybe they were thrown to Mars or something! But it's a great way to build them up and figure out what they would do and when.
2. When writing dialogue, just write whatever pops into your head. Altering it a little bit is alright, but really- you don't want to spend hours thinking about the perfect response, because your characters aren't perfect. I know most people say what just pops into their heads. Trust me, it's a good way to do things.
3. Don't be afraid to change things. Write from the heart. Know your characters. If something happens, what would they really do? Run to Crosspaths, or rally the rebels? If you dissagree with something in your original plotline, fix it! Simple as that.
Hope this helped!
(September 27, 2015 - 12:27 pm)