NaNoWriMo 2006 Update
I’m really kicking along with it.
There are tricks to increasing word count without (I’m thinkin’) compromising quality too much.
First, don’t use five words when ten will do. But choose those those ten words judiciously.
Next, if you’re stuck or stricken with “writer’s block” when you’re writing, perhaps when you make a reference to an event in the past, make more than just a reference to an event in the past. Remember the 6+6 Rule, which I just made up (and which like Christianity and Communism should be, isn’t really a rule, it’s more of a suggestion…): Run a check list that looks like this in my head.
- Touch?
- Taste?
- Smell?
- Sight?
- Sound?
- Feel?
And:
- How?
- Who?
- What?
- Where?
- When?
- Why?
Why? Well, since I write in the first person a lot, the character’s emotional state is the main filter to record the action, whether in the present or in a flashback. One or more of these will trigger an idea or even ideas that will get you through your block, and raise your word count. Works for me all the time. Caffeine helps a lot too.
C) If you have a list of suggestions/ideas from your friends and you can’t seem to integrate one or two of them into the story (as you promised you would when you solicited those ideas in the first place) just take that idea and make something up out of the blue sky. Then do what humans have done with something new ever since the Pleistocene, and just shoe-horn that new concept into the storyline wherever the hell it will fit, and damn if you don’t find out you’ve got something that really gooses the rest of the story along, like the discovery of fire, the Silk Road, or General Relativity.
Then, keep in mind (and put a sticky on the monitor if you have to in order to keep it in mind), the reader will not - ever - have in their head the same exquisite picture of the scene that you do, all the background noises of the alien bazaar, the rushing of the river by the bridge, or the hum and whoosh of the bowels of the space-station access tunnels, not necessarily even early 21st Century office sounds. Provide lots of details while respecting the reader’s own imagination. The alien bazaar will simply not look or sound the same to the reader as it does to you in your own imagination, no matter how much detail you provide. Balance the desire to fit and fix them right then and there, where and when you want them to be, with the absolute fact that they wouldn’t be reading science fiction if they didn’t have a functioning imagination of their own. But keep that word count climbing.
Finally, you are - that is to say, in this instance I am - in charge, and if the reader stays with you - me - then they’re going where I say they’re going. Period.
Oh, and pander to the base.
<hr />
Edited for typos and fine-tuning, Tuesday, November 27, 2007, 12:31pm