Sunday, November 02, 2014

Hoy.

Two days into nano. Just over 20,000 words of crazy-awesome fun. Things that are working:

1) The pacing. I am pacing this nano a lot, lot better than other ones. I re-read the first magician series novel [last years nano] twice, pulled apart what worked, didn't failed to work etc. I had a plot for it, and at some point figured certain elements and characters were slowing it down when really they gave the story room to breathe. Room it needed.

So this year I have an outline (4,500 words) that covers roughly the first 3/4 of the novel and the very end, leaving a lot of room to juggle, alter, twitch things and such in the end scenes. I figure those will need the most work, since I tend to rush endings.

2) The characters. Things bounce together well, and how things are explained (to the reader and between the characters) seems to be working well. Jay is a veritable gold-mine of adorable, and his attempting to explain the concept of OTP to Dyer (while trying to get the 100-year dead ghost to join tumblr) is awesomely fun and more than a little crazy.

I wrote one scene I refuse to google, just in case that OTP does exist somewhere.


I read a great quote recently that people read a story once for the plot; if they return to it, it's for the characters. So I'm focusing on that, trying to make what happens in the plot follow the characters and the story to natural conclusions. We shall see how it all goes, but for now it's a blast.

Now for a break and sleep before tomorrow :)

3 comments:

  1. You're doing well :) I've caught the flu, right on schedule ;) But I did manage to get in about 500 words of research material/notes on the Roman physician/surgeon Claudius Galen... parts of which will certainly work themselves into the story.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ah, yes. I ended up doing research last night on how many chickens there are (and how many dinosaurs ever existed) as part of a discussion Charlie and Dyer are going to have on ghosts later on. Which boils down to: 'slaughter yards mean the world should be crammed with the ghosts of dead cows at least'. Was fighting off some bug, but at least got a few scenes done.

      (My) Jay is exhausting to write, since I have to catch ever ess and he is determined to make Dyer His Friend via sheer force of personality and non-stop chatter. Dyer is rather amazed Charlie never killed him at this point....

      Delete
    2. Good thing Dyer is already dead...

      Delete