The Summer NaNo Post, Writer's Block and the Importance of Characters

I know NaNoWriMo is three months away, yet and we're all trying to enjoy our summers and relax (at least, I hope we're all trying to enjoy our summers and relax), but as I said last year*, August is when I always seem to have NaNoWriMo on the brain.

I have no idea what I'm going to write this year. None. I've been stuck in a perpetual state of writer's block since I finished 2010's NaNo - and even that needs a lot of polishing before it'll be anywhere near ready for public or semi-public consumption.

Just a reminder: three of us won NaNoWriMo in 2010. Therefore, we rock!

Out of everything I've written, Aigaion Girl has to be my favourite long piece (it incorporates my favourite piece of short fiction), so, lately, I've been trying to figure out why I like it so much more than my other work. I think what it comes down to is characters. A/G was relatively easy and extremely enjoyable to write (rewriting is another story) because I was in love with my characters. Even now, I keep trying to come up with an idea for a sequel so that I'll have an excuse to keep writing them. But I think maybe that's the secret - at least for me. I have another story I've been working on, 200 Pages which has a really good (IMO) concept, but I can't get the characters nailed down and it's killing the story. So I guess what I need, before I start trying to come up with a plot and an original idea and all of that, is a group of truly kick-ass characters.

So, NaNoWriMo - will you be participating this year? Do you have any idea what you'll be writing if you decide to participate? What do you think your chances of winning are?

And my bigger, kind of discussion questiony question: how will you find/create your story? will you work out a plot and create characters to fill it, or create characters and build a plot around them, or do it at once, or in bits and pieces as it comes to you - or is your process completely different?

*Can you believe that was a year ago?

OH MY GOD IT'S DONE

Sooo...maybe this isn't as great an accomplishment as Athena's publication of AG (and congratulations to her! I promise I'll order it. One of these days). But it means rather a lot to me personally, and I know you guys'll party with me about it, so here goes.

I have finally finished a short story I began over a year ago.

Yeah, I know, I know. But that's the thing about the way I write. I get the "bug" and dash off a page of self-contained brilliance, or the beginning of a novel that I dream about and plan out and hang out with the characters of, and then for whatever reason, I slowly stop writing about until it's left half-finished and languishing in bottom-drawer hell. So actually getting to write the ending that I've had planned out for over a year (because that's how I plan my stories: I set up the premise and the characters and the backstory, and then I decide how I'd like it to end, and then I start writing and wait and see how everything else falls into place. So far it's worked.) is a really big deal for me. In fact, this might be the first piece of original fiction that I've worked on for longer than one day and that wasn't a school assignment, that I've actually finished.

Maybe this isn't such a great track record, but it pleases me. Why? Because I'm working my way up. Last summer, I completed a twenty-chapter fanfic that I started and posted to ff.net on a whim, and then had to finish. That was an accomplishment for me. Today, I've posted the end of Paper and Ink, and that's a bigger accomplishment. But the reason both of these matter to me is not what they are, but what they could be.

These two small successes mean that I have brought myself to the point where I can finish things, rather than find some small fault with them and let it grow until I can't move forward anymore, or get bored and flutter off to another project. And that means that I can finish a full-length novel.

And that means it's party time.

Ten Rules...

I was poking around Neil Gaiman's blog today, as I am wont to do, and in the recent past he posted a link to an article called Ten Rules For Writing Fiction.

There are more than ten rules/commandments. Actually, there are ten from several different authors. Some of them are complete bunk. Some of them are gems of wisdom. I haven't (yet) come across the one that essentially reads: "Break the Rules", or "Tell the Rule Makers to STFU", but I'm hoping they're in there.

Elmore Leonard (of whom I have never heard, but now I have someone to look up) has two rules of especial note:

3 Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But "said" is far less intrusive than "grumbled", "gasped", "cautioned", "lied". I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with "she asseverated" and had to stop reading and go to the dictionary.

and,

4 Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said" . . . he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances "full of rape and adverbs".

Now, I can somewhat see what he's getting at there - there are definitely those who go overboard. At the same time, I fail to see why I can't use adverbs if I damn well feel like it. I've always used adverbs, to one degree or another. I try to keep them simple, just because I want dialogue to flow properly, but eradicating them entirely just seems...stupid. Plus, it's probably a personal foible, but I've noticed that, in the midst of books that follow those two rules, I find myself wondering what emotions I'm supposed to be feeling.

(One of) the most important thing(s) about writing is to find your own voice, that thread of style and phrasing and diction that screams to everyone that this work is yours, and no other's. Part of my 'voice' is the use of adverbs. So Elmore Leonard can lump it. He also writes westerns. So hah.

Seriously, though...the best rules about writing to follow are the ones you come up with after long years of practice. Everything else is merely a suggestion, and can therefore be treated as such.

I found this interesting.

How to Write a Novel by BarbecuedIguana

It's always interesting to see how somebody else goes about this very, very individualized process. I, for example, cut the number of steps that this person uses in half, usually writing without an outline and hoping for some burst of inspiration to tie it all together. (Oddly enough, it usually works. Sometimes brilliantly. Go figure.) Then I know some people who will start over and over and over again, trying to get it perfect from page 1, and some people who write shitty draft after shitty draft, each one becoming progressively better.

So how do (or did) you guys go about plunging into that novel you're working on, whatever it is? Do you fine-tune every chapter as it comes? Do you start from the end and write backwards? Do you write like a runaway train (like me)? What's in your box of writing tricks? Spill, so I can create the perfect novel-writing robot.

*ahem* I mean, we'd all like to know. Yes.