Creating a la Nanowrimo
Day 16 word count goal: 1,667 x 16 = 26,672
Current word count: 23,842
I'm plugging along doggedly on my Nano novel, trying not to get stalled out, worrying about silly things like quality. Or continuity - I'm fairly sure my main character's aunt was childless about 5,000 words ago but now has a three year old son named Toby. Ah, the beauty of invention according to need. I'm getting more invested in my MC, a fourteen year old boy named Jason who's watching from the middle as his parents' marriage disintegrates and his relatives begin sniping with each other after his grandfather's funeral.
His parents had already split up at the beginning of Nano, but I found I wasn't as prepared to understand Jason as the child of divorce, age seventeen. So, here I am, backing up to age sixteen, then fifteen, now fourteen. I'm not sure if there is an actual structural decision at work here so much as the phenomenon known as "not having even thought about a plot or a single character prior to November 1st."
Every scene that requires a bit of explanation turns into exploration of backstory instead. In one chapter, Jason aged sixteen was about to get on the phone with his gran, who is still in England, where his family is from. He makes a teasing comment about being sure she's seeing someone special and who is it. Then I thought - what the hell happened to Jason's grandfather? Why would his gran being seeing someone? So, I left him with his gran not having answered the question; I was only going to explain about his grandfather's death in a sentence or two and return to the phone call. And that was about 10,000 words ago.
I know in another time/space continuum Jason's there, holding the receiver. But he's also fourteen, hiding out in the kitchen with his two aunts (one of whom now has the kid, Toby), and avoiding the tension between his parents who are sitting in the dining room, not speaking to each other.
I think Jason's Granddad has left him his car in his will and there will be a big old family set to about it, given that the car is in England and he lives in California now - where his dad has a job and his mum DOES NOT WANT TO BE. And also the fact that he's fourteen and therefore can't legally drive. The sixteen year old Jason on the phone with his gran, I don't know if he's a car owner or not. They find this out at the reading of the will, but that hasn't happened yet. And Jason's mum's just told him he can't go to the lawyers with the rest of the family. His gran intervenes. Or at least I think she does. It hasn't happened yet. Or, it has, but I don't know about it. But who does, if not me? Ah.
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Rosy Cole says:
Seeing it thru'
Ah! You intrepid Nanowriters! I'm sure you'll amaze yourselves at exactly what can be achieved. Some authors like to work that way the whole time, without considering anything beyond a general theme. Me, I wouldn't dare set out without character bios, plot precis, notes on tension points and last sentence, even if some of it deviates.
The problems of sequence and backstory are always a challenge. I really messed up with one novel, which admittedly was written from experimental perspectives, and decided to shelve it. The characters come alive, the prose is mainly good, with pace and atmosphere etc, but it's going to have to be rewritten in a more organised form. I've not handled it well and think I might have merged two different stories!
I hope Jason comes through with stoicism and a forging of his true identity. Fourteen is a crucially sensitive age, particularly for a boy.
The whole business of omniscience is really quite frightful!
Good luck!
Matt Sinclair says:
Nano and backstory
I know exactly what you mean. As happened during my first novel, I feel like I'm writing very little story. Perhaps this is what happens naturally -- at least for me. The exploration into characters is wonderful and rejuvenating. There's no problem with it because this month is about word accumulation. But I have a lot of work still to do on my manuscript. I've gotten my MC out of Antarctica and the germ of love has been instilled, but she still hasn't dealt with her family much less returned to the icy continent. So little time, so much to write. I'm late, I'm late, I'm late....
Lisa Frankfort says:
Hanging out in the same places
Nice to see you over here, Matt! Seems we hang out in the same places:-)
Creation is fascinating to me, how we all think differently and how our process is unique. I think it's so dependent on your genre and where your interests lie. The story vs character exploration tension.
Sometimes I fantasize about teaching a writing class and giving a brief prompt, wondering what each writer would end up doing with the directive. In my Nano novel, one plot point is the MC's family possibly moving back to England where they are from, originally. I could imagine someone who is more interested in plot identifying that the car broke down on the way to the airport, they missed the flight, had to take another, ended up in a different airport. A week later they're told some of the shipped furniture ended up in Morocco instead. Then school starts, the books are different from American schools, the girls aren't interested in the boy and his clothes are too American etc. Someone else (me) might take ten pages to illuminate what the car breaking down means to each character, the angry words and silences between the parents, the son hoping the car never gets fixed so that he won't have to leave his friends.
I love how we would do something different with the same material.
Lisa:-))
Matt Sinclair says:
Same places...
I'll admit that I followed you here, Lisa. I didn't know about Red Room and saw your little plot of electronic land. I felt like replying to your post and one thing led to another...
It may be a male thing, but I've grown accustomed to places like AQC and my blogs: I appreciate familiar surroundings. As a reader and as a writer, I enjoy getting ensconced in imaginary places, so the Web is perfect for me.
I too enjoy the act of creation. (There's a little bit of God in all of us, I suspect.) But I enjoy structure as well. That's one reason my Nano experience is often frustrating. This is an idea I've had in my mind for literally five years, and now that I am taking the chance to work on it, I find that I'm jumping all over the place. Part of me wishes I could start at page one and keep writing till the story is over.
But if I'm honest with myself, I recognize that I rarely ever write straight through. My professional writing often gets constructed like low-income housing -- pieces put together over here, another wall getting hammered together over there. Before long, the skeleton is ready to be put in place and then things go much faster, but in the meantime, there's still an imaginary hole waiting for a home to be built.