 Drama: October 16, 2013 Issue [#5928] |
  Drama
This week: Getting Ready for NaNo Edited by: Joy  
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For me, writing a novel is like having a dream. Writing a novel lets me intentionally dream while I'm still awake. I can continue yesterday's dream today, something you can't normally do in everyday life.
Haruki Murakami
A novel that does not uncover a hitherto unknown segment of existence is immoral. Knowledge is the novel's only morality.
Milan Kundera
A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Hello, I am Joy , this week's drama editor. This issue will try to take an objective look at the NaNo experience.
Your Drama Newsletter Editors: zwisis NickiD89  kittiara Joy
Thank you for reading our newsletters and for supplying the editors with feedback and encouragement.
Note: In the editorial, I refer to third person singular as he, to also mean the female gender, because I don't like to use they or he/she. |
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Welcome to the Drama newsletter
Nano, National Novel Writing Month, is about fifteen days away. Insane as it is, the drama of banging out 50,000 words in a month, hoping to get something worthwhile from it, is the idea behind this practice.
I like writing a novel with NaNo because, for me, it is a lot of fun and, as misery loves company, I know I am doing it with many writer friends. I also like the fact that I am coming up with a novel, a long piece of writing, which otherwise, I’d probably not attempt. I did write a novel a long time ago, way before the concept of NaNo, but its first draft alone took me six months, and it wasn’t half the fun I had with my NaNo novels as flawed as they were.
One positive point about NaNo is that writing the first draft of a novel so fast gives the writer permission to take chances and make mistakes. The creative process, however rarely, may feed on flaws and taking chances.
In addition, it is a great discipline to write a certain amount of words each day, and 1667 words could be written in a matter of few hours, but the caveat is, you have to know what you are writing about with the story clear in your mind, regardless of your not-up-to-par diction and your grammar flaws and typos. If you don’t have a clear enough idea before you start, you’ll flounder at one time or another. If you don’t, hats off to you.
NaNo can be done acceptably enough without any preparation if you are Isaac Asimov, and you have your own writing place with no family or a day job. Just think that even Hemingway wrote only 350-500 words a day…
Then, as much as I like participating in NaNo, I find, on the NaNoWriMo site, the craft of writing a novel is overlooked and oversimplified. There is a blog on the NaNoWriMo site, a very encouraging one though not exactly true-to-life, at least not true for me.
http://blog.nanowrimo.org/tagged/nano-prep
In one of the entries, it says: “Writing 50,000 words of fiction really doesn’t take that much time. Slow writers find they can write about 800 words of novel per hour; a speedy writer (and good typist) can easily do twice that. Which means that the whole novel, from start to finish, will take an average writer about 55 hours to write.”
Yes, a good typist could probably do that if he is taking dictation, and he doesn’t have to figure out what he is writing about. If I typed just any word for an entire month, I’d probably put on page more than 500,000 words. But should that be the goal of a good novelist? In the years that I participated in Nano, I could write only about 2000 words a day, more or less, but while neglecting my real life.
In another entry, it says:“It may be counterintuitive, but when it comes to novel writing, more preparation does not necessarily produce a better book. In fact, too much preparation sometimes has a way of stopping novel writing altogether.”
Not necessarily correct, and I don’t agree because we have "October Novel Prep Challenge" in WdC, which I find it very helpful. I am sure many of you do, too, if you have done the Prep.
Then, another NaNo Site advisor said in an e-mail, "No prep is necessary but if you are so obsessed, do your preparation and research during the last week of October." Are they promoting unpreparedness? I wonder.
I can’t think of any writer who could come up with at least minimally acceptable characters and plot, just by taking the pen in hand or sitting at the keyboard as the case may be. I did try the pantsing method earlier, before Prep, and although I had great fun, the results were less than okay, and I won’t even bother to rewrite those novels.
Then in another entry, another WriMo gem: “Most stories are ultimately about the same thing—the journey a protagonist goes on to get what he or she wants.”
Right and wrong. If this is exactly true, why not come up with a template, and have a computer program write the novel? There are such programs available already. I dare think that a writer’s trek is something more personal, and what he can produce cannot be written according to a formula. Yes, we do use the above formula, and it works, but we use formulas as beginning writers and only for practice.
NaNoWriMo is hard, and its goal is to write a lot, though not necessarily to write well. NaNo site says not to look back and correct anything. This may not fit your personality; it doesn’t mine. I can’t help but look over my daily dose and fix, at least, the typos.
Even so, with its warts and all, I do recommend that you take a stab at NaNo, but adapt it to your own style. If for nothing, the practice alone is worth the trouble, and you’ll receive lots of encouragement from friends who are going through the same thing with you. More importantly, you may gain the habit of writing every day. 
A few links that may help with your NaNo project:
WdC-Prompts
Step-by-Step
30-ways-for-a-stronger-novel
Detailed-Character-Chart |
 Enjoy!
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A Few Contests and Activities in October and November
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Have an opinion on what you've read here today? Then send the Editor feedback! Find an item that you think would be perfect for showcasing here? Submit it for consideration in the newsletter!
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 This Issue's Tip:
Pay attention to the internal reactions of characters. When the internal reaction is intense, the external events will reflect it. Likewise, the greater the effect of conflict inside a character's head, the more graphic the events in the story.
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 Reading Recommendation: A book with drama
If you have a recommendation, a few words on a book or a product review, send it to me or to this newsletter. I'll highlight it here.
Feedback for "The Drama of Writing: Trial and Error"
blunderbuss
A great newsletter. Editing and major changes are so important - I agree and also wish that so many did not see it as 'failure'. I have learned so much from WDC reviewers (not all of them - but that doesn't matter). Most of the helpful reviewers give you some credit for at least one aspect of your writing, so the criticisms are acceptable, as well as necessary. We should see them as a plus - a writing aid.
Thank you, Diane.
Yes, a good critique is golden.
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Quick-Quill 
I loved this NL. When I first started on Wdc I had some harsh reviews and I didn't know how to take them. I sent out MY BABY to the sitter and got back a bad report. I then had to take a hard look at my writing. I took classes! That is the clue and now I've had 3 stories published. If you admit you aren't as good as you could be and open up to learn, you might find an acceptence email in your basket. I hang them on the wall to motivate me to always do better.
So true, and thanks for the input.
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Pepper 
Great advice—especially getting other opinions. I try to never automatically dismiss a reviewer's opinion even if I disagree. Instead, I wait to see if others will mention the same thing. When reviewing, I often suggest this same strategy to the authors. Reminding them to do this often makes swallowing constructive criticism a little easier.
Yes, I agree. That is a great approach. Thanks.
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BIG BAD WOLF is Merry 
Submitted item:"Zena's Interview"
Characters just come out sometimes.
Lucky for you. It isn't always easy.
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