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NaNoWriMo No No! November 3, 2003
Actually, my NaNoWriMo project is coming along better than I had hoped. I'm really starting to like my main characters, and more importantly I'm starting to like writing about them. I'm pretty much at the end of my premeditated material, though, so it's going to be mostly new stuff from now on out, minus an odd scene or two.
I don't really want to say too much about my novel yet, though. If you're really interested you can read for yourself. What's really interested me is some of the activity on the official NaNoWriMo forums. Now, being a gamer, I'm used to having my messageboards smeared with vitriol and served with a side of hate. It just seems normal that way.
The NaNoWriMo forums, on the other hand, seem very much abnormal to my callused sensibilities. People there are nice. They're friendly. They cheer each other on with kind words. It's weird.
That aside, I'm getting kind of addicted to them. It's fun to look the Character and Plot Realism Q&A board, for example, and spend some time answering random questions that I may happen to know the answers to. Questions like "What's a good euphemism for 'whore'?" or "What kind of liquor would a teenage boy go for?" or even "How do slide rules work?".
It's also fun to poke through the other forums looking for advice on writing. Notice I said "fun" and not "educational". Some of what people advise is shockingly bad, yet they say it with the virtual air of a learned college professor (which is interesting, since I'm convinced many of my college professors didn't know what the hell they were talking about, either).
One fellow, for example, insisted that it was important to avoid overuse of the word "said". As in "he said" or "she said". Better to swap in some flashier, sexier, MTV-approved verbs like "exclaimed" or "questioned" or "vocalized". (This is, actually, contrary to every other piece of good advice, my own experience as a reader, and my own simian judgement).
Another would-be sage suggested that having characters constantly say each others' names would give you a healthy boost towards that 50,000 word goal. I imagine her novel will be filled with phrases like "Get the door, Barry." "I can't, Julie, my hands are full." "Here, I'll hold the milk, Barry." "Thanks, Julie."
Others suggested that if you don't have an original bone in your body you can still achieve literary greatness by writing fan fiction (that is, taking characters from a TV show, movie, or another book and using them in your story). Apparently, Buffy's having sex with Xena: Warrior Princess qualifies as "making the characters your own."
Amusing as it all is, though, I find it quite comforting. There are also plenty of sensible people on the forums, people with the patience of saints and the demeanor to match. And while some of the novel excerpts I've read are pretty good, most of them are just as amateurish as mine. It's just friendly people enjoying themselves and stretching their boundaries. That's fun, and it's all good.
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