In my last NaNo wrap up post I talked about preparation and tips I wanted to remember for the future to make the month easier. Now I will examine some things I learned about my writing.
It seemed like I spent a lot of time on scene set-up and descriptions. It generally took awhile before I got into any action or dialogue in a scene. I tried to mix it in, and I'm guessing that if you just straight out read any given chapter it wouldn't feel like too much description, but when I was writing and pondering each sentence as I wrote it seemed to take a long time. I'll have to go back and read some of it after I've let it sit awhile and see if it reads too heavy on the narrative.
I found myself getting stuck with one character around the end of week 2. I was going along all fine and dandy when I thought, 'you know, almost everything I wrote is following this one character and we never get to hear from anyone else or see any of their character development.' After that I started writing scenes featuring other characters, so I think this got better, but I naturally had slipped into a very narrow focus with just one person.
Almost all of the dialogue was between two people at a time. I didn't realize this until the very end. My sister had locked me out of my room and while I was waiting to be let in I scanned over a list on my door. It's a 'guide to introverts' list, and I've obviously read it before since I posted it on my door, but it's been awhile since I took the time to read it. One of the points said something like introverts don't dislike talking, they just enjoy meaningful conversations with one person at a time rather than feeling like they have a group of on-lookers. Personally I like to stay with a group so that I can observe more than actively participate in the conversation, however if I have something specific to tell someone, want to discuss any given topic or when I'm with people I know and feel comfortable with I think I prefer one-on-one conversations. I guess it really depends on how well you know the other people, but anyway, I read that and it dawned on me that even when there are more than two people present in a scene the dialogue tends to be between two of them at a time. I thought it was interesting how my personality came out in that aspect of my writing.
Now, even though I completed the 50,000 words. I didn't actually complete my book. Not even really close. I'm guessing I could easily fit another 50,000 into the story line I've started. I thought I would end up skipping around quite a bit, but I mostly continued on in order. As things developed I thought of some scenes that should be inserted earlier on to help explain later events, but I never went back and put those in. At the very end in the last couple days I just really wanted to write two future scenes that I'd been thinking about so I dropped the current scene and jumped ahead to write those before the end of the month. So the main characters are left in hospitals and prisons in the end, but it's all good. Maybe I'll make it my goal to finish it next November if I can't manage to work on it before then.
It really is so much easier to write when you're completely focused on it. It's always on your mind, so every time you sit down to write there's at least an inkling of an idea that you can use to get going. It's hard to make excuses to ignore it when you have such a rigid goal staring you in the face.
It was great fun, and I'm glad I decided to go for it and persevered to the end. I rather like the story I've got going and I really do want to finish it. The rest of the main plot is worked out and some scene details, but there's still quite a bit to do and all of it to write. So we'll see where it takes me.
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