Caroline Novel Writing Month

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 04:51:32 GMT

Have a character who will only communicate with a hand puppet.
BP if the hand puppet is the villain.
DBP if the character has no idea that the hand puppet is the villain.

Have a character with a glass eye.
DP if the reason the character lost his/her eye is never given
TP if it falls out every time he/she sneezes
QP if it has a mind of its own

Include a walrus named Gerald.
BP if he's a TV newsreader.
DBP if he wears a top hat and a monocle.
TBP if he speaks German, but in a 1950s BBC accent.

If you have a fire scene in your story, have a passerby come up to the firefighters and ask what is going on. Have the firefighter explain that it is a shark attack (when it most obviously is not).

include a fortune telling goldfish in your story.
BP if it's actually a wee little mermaid living in a goldfish bowl, complete with tiny plastic castle.
DBP if she swears like a sailor.
TBP if she only tells fortunes in exchange for stuff for her bowl.
QBP if she makes up her information, but is actually right all the time.

Have a character that in every chapter, yells a different well wishing, like "Merry Christmas!" even though it's no where near the season.
BP: If the character actually thinks that it is the holiday and cannot be convinced otherwise.

-Robin Hood must appear somewhere in your story
BP if he doesn't tell his name and you don't tell it either
DBP if he doesn't steal money but something else, for example dried food or clothes for the poor
TBP if your story takes place in a urban area and not in historical milieu
+an apple if he helps your MC somewhere in the book

-Peter Pan must appear somewhere in your story
BP if he doesn't tell his name and you don't tell it either
DBP if he has grown up a bit (for example he is 18 or something alreay), but can still fly
TBP if Tinkerbell is also included
QBP if Peter Pan saves one of your characters when she is falling down and in danger to get crushed
+ a carrot if the girl recognizes Peter

Include a purple moose

Have your character go to the library to get some obscure book,
and when she/he opens it up...

Sophomore Slump.

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 02:21:09 GMT

My plot's changing. The elevator is not what wants to be written. I want it to, but it just, doesn't. So we're returning an idea, to the prince/princess idea of some sort. Because that's what wants to be written, not the elevator thing. So that's what's going to happen. Lily told me not to write it if I didn't read it, but yes, I have read prince and princess stories before, I'm thinking of one in particular. This is what wants to happen, alright? So I gotta. I was sobbing earlier because I couldn't write the elevator story. And that's not okay, that's not okay at all. So I'm doing what I trust need to be written. If I've learned nothing else about writing this year, it's that crying about it isn't okay. If I'm crying, something's wrong. Not saying crying can't be helpful, and when writing is good and sad and I feel it and it makes me cry, that's great. I just mean that if something's upsetting me so much that I'm crying, that's a sign I'm fucking up in my thinking about it.

I'm not making sense, but I know what I mean.

Only I don't know if I can write my 1667 words for today, because it's the middle of the week and I'm tired stuff, but hopefully I can catch up this weekend and not be too behind already.

Look, it can suck. I'm too focused on all the ways my writing has improved this year, and thinking a lot about how much I hate writing narrative, but tough. I'm doin' this, and it can suck, but I'm doing it. *nods*

This might work . . .

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 02:48:31 GMT

I took it from the 2005 NaNo forums' Adopt-a-Plot thread: people stuck in an elevator. It's just a simple setting, and now I can find people and back stories, explore a bunch of different characters/settings/histories and run with it. It's kinda like running with scissors, only more psychologically damaging and hopefully no physical damage. The thrill and the danger are there, though.

So now I have questions, and questions is good. For me, don't you dare answer any of these, but feel free to add any if they come to you. Where is the elevator? Why is each character on it at this particular time--where are they going?, which leads into, why is it good or bad that a character is stuck here?

Right at this moment, I think I want to start with the background stories of each of the characters, give each of them so many words as they rush onto the elevator (or take their time?). Not a lot of information, have there definitely be some mystery. Then the elevator stopping, then what happens, then we'll see how far I am, but I'll probably go into the "rescue" and if people form connections, how those play out. Well, they better form connections, it's going to be really really boring if they all sit there in their own heads for however long it takes to get the elevator fixed.

I'm thinking that there's going to be lots of different types of scenes, and different characters, and that's exciting. I can kind of get out a bunch of issues and characters through the elevator people's background stories.

I don't know how many characters to have. Five is the number that keeps flashing in my head, but we'll see. A kid, maybe? I want the elevator to be the one in the USX Tower in Pittsburgh--that's our tallest building, the black triangle one. But maybe it'd be more interesting and focused if it were in a hospital or something. Only that kinda makes it too focused because everyone is thinking about visiting sick people, or they are doctors/nurses, and I don't wanna write that.

Actually, is the elevator going up or down? I have the idea of up stuck in my head, but it changes a lot if they're going down. Hmm . . . What if the elevator were in a hotel? I don't think I like that, either. I like the USX building 'cause it leaves it really open for what the people are doing, and personalities created by them not so much the situation, you know?

I like it.

T-Minus Four Days

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 02:51:26 GMT

Well. In four days, November starts. And we all know what that means.

Edit. Well, folks. In just four very short days, the wonderful month of November is going to begin. And each and every single one of us understands the implications of that.

From 13 words to 30 in just a few seconds. It's a skill. Learn it, use it, love it. Don't make your writing crappy, but you do have to write 50,000 words in 30 days, so sometimes a 'lil ~~cheating~~ fixing really helps.

It means I will run off from dinner with my friends for a reason other than hockey. It means I need to buy a timer. It means my schoolwork goes further towards hell, and thank God for that.

It means I have four fuckin' days to figure out what the bloody hell I can write FIFTY THOUSAND words on in THIRTY days. Right now my best idea is talking animals and, uh . . . that's not gonna fly. No pun intended.

Whatever. The idea will come. The idea may come later tonight, or October 31st, or November 10th, or, hell, November 30th, but the idea will come, and I will do everything I can to get 50,000 words on it by December.