What NaNo has taught me

I stole this idea from Soleil. After reading her blog post on what she learnt, it made me think about what i'd learnt, and I discovered it was a lot more than I actually thought.

This was my second NaNo and I can safely say that both years I have learnt alot. First year I discovered that I need an outline, and various other bits and pieces to help the story flow.

1. This year I discovered I need to pace myself, before I get into the writing part. I have always been the same. I am plot driven when it comes to stories, rather than character driven. Still am, I like that way. But I found that my characters were no where near as strong in this story, as they are in Pirates of Hcallaec. Although there are characters in Pirates of Hcallaec that have just randomly been created, they all seem to have more depth. Even though the characters in Poison had more depth than characters from previous stories I have written, they still don't seem as 'real' as the characters from my 2yn. So I need more character building.

2. Instead of sitting down for a writting session with a goal to get to a particular word count, I should sit down with a goal of getting at least one scene done. My writing has changed a lot. I can no longer sit down with my little outline and write exactly whats on it, things happen. I find myself splitting one scene planned in my outline, into about five or six in the actual writing. So I no longer limit myself to the scenes I have in my outline because I create scenes as I go, which helps with pace. Some of them are really long, others are really short (And I'm talking like 400 words short.)

3. I like small chapters. NaNo really opened my eyes to this, even though I had started to see it with pirates. I also don't like to write with many POV to one chapter. The reason I say small chapters is, I find them easier to write. For most of my books I plan for Chapters to be about 5000 words long, which is a good length, one that I can reach with three or four scenes in the one chapter. Only problem is, those three of four scenes begin to split and can almost be counted as one chapter all on their own. I also love reading books with really small chapters, such as Jennifer Fallon's books. I'm totally for a book of 200,000 words that ends up with 300+ chapters. I find it easier to read. Maybe that's why I find it easier to write.

4. Trust in my muse. My little muse gets excited about 30,000 words into the book. The first 30,000 words are often boring to me, and don't sit right, and I begin to get the whole negative thoughts. Once past this 30,000 my muse begins to have fun, and I realise it has already set up things to make other events possible. Characters start to appear and ignore me and do what they want. Such as Gerard, the chimney sweep of Opaix castle, a minor character, I have to stress the word minor, teaming up with Chrisander and bringing up a whole scandal about hunters and Ganix. Let me tell you, it is not an easy storyline to work out, and was never part of my original outline. But I have to trust my muse, he's led me alright so far during the story. Things are more interesting.

5. Just like Soleil, I will say the same thing. Never attempt two stories at the same time. Guaranteed I will do it next NaNo, but still. It's not advisable. I'm just lucky my characters in Pirates of Hcallaec have such a great sense of humor, and I left at such a dangerous time in the book. They need me to get them out! lol.

6. And last but by no means least, again the same as Soleil (Which actually a lot of what I learnt is the same, but hey.) Trust in yourself. It's always the first 30k that are the worst for me. In every book I have written it has been the same. (Which is by no means alot. Most of them didn't even reach 30k for this very reason. Only 2 actually got complete. Both incomprehensible, but both teaching me a lot. And last years NaNo, which is still not complete. but has 50k and a lot of learning.) I have to just learn to get over it, even if it's bad, tell myself I can fix it in second draft and edits and move on with the rest of the story (which I have been getting very good a doing!). I need to trust myself more.