What I learned from NaNoWriMo

My #Fridayflash for the week is in a state that I don't like at the moment, so I'm going to see if I can fix it for next week. In it's place I thought I would muse about some of the things I learned while participating in this year's National Novel Writing Month.

First, I will say that I did not 'win.' I only managed about 30k words, foolishly thinking that when I visited my parents I would find a way to make enough time to get a good word count each day. Instead I ended up with 150 words for the whole 5 day visit. So lesson one would be that I'm not good at writing on the road.

But on a more positive aspect, I did find that NaNoWriMo is actually a pretty good exercise in getting your butt in the chair and writing. It helped me I think to really develop some good habits about sitting down to my keyboard when I get home from work and at least getting something down on the page. Now if I can keep that up, I'm going to be quite happy with myself. I mean, sure I didn't get all 50k words, but just 500 words a day gets you 3 novels each year. And for me, that only takes about 15min to half an hour.

Which brings me to my second point. I took a fair amount of time in October going over my novel's structure so that I had a solid plot, with solid characters, solid goals, and solid well everything. So when it came down to doing the actual writing, I got to pour words out of my head and into the story without having to worry about what was coming next, because the little note card on Scrivener told me what was coming next. I had never written anything with that solid a structure before, and let me tell you that it was a joy. Plus, with a detailed outline, I was able to go through it and revise it a couple times to make sure that the story as a whole worked without having to cut out entire scenes and chapters, rewriting them all over again. Instead it was cutting out a sentence here and there. Outlining rocks.

And finally, I used Scrivener to write my NaNoWriMo novel, which was pretty cool. I learned a lot about it and will be purchasing the full version when my trial eventually runs out. It has a lot of neat tools that let me organize the story better then when I just used my own note cards for instance. I liked having everything in one place and so easy to change. So for the $40 or whatever it's going to cost me (Windows version, not sure about the Mac one quite yet) I think it's quite worth it.

I may not have gotten to 50k words, but I think I won in my own little way.

Inserting the 'Knowledge Gap' into your writing

The last two weeks, I've been reading David Baboulene's book "The Story Book" and I've learned quite a lot that I want to share with you. The book is primarily concerned about script writing for movies, but the same principles apply to any type of story you are trying to tell. I recommend you check it out if you have a Kindle (paperback is listed at like $40!?!?! while the Kindle version is only $1.99) and then go watch the movie Back to the Future since this is the key example that keeps coming back again and again.


But anyways, the key concept of the book that I feel is well worth your time to actually look at and analyze would be the concept of a "knowledge gap" and how it helps create a subtextual plot.


First, we need to lay down the knowledge gaps and what they are. Quite simply, it is a lack of information that either some subset of the characters or the reader is privileged to.


A knowledge gap for the reader might be the lack of knowledge that one of the characters is really a vampire. The character who is a vampire knows this fact and acts accordingly, but the reader does not. This allows the reader's imagination to go into overdrive trying to figure out why this particular character hates the sunlight. All of a sudden, boom, they've engaged their own imagination. And once that is up and running, it's easier for them to apply that to other aspects of the story. (Plus is also gives them a puzzle to figure out without them knowing it. And we all love to solve puzzles, so it keeps us interested)


Once it's revealed to the reader that this character is a vampire, the author might take our vamp into some little village somewhere. Here, the reader knows he is a vampire, but the other characters do not. This again gives the reader some things to play with and imagine all on their own, like how the characters are going to react, or even how they would react in a similar situation.


Now both of those concepts are pretty basic (although you don't really hear them discussed much, regardless of the jargon used to describe it) What you really want to know by reading this post, is how to use that simple concept to create a plot of pure subtext.


I won't be able to teach this to you in a single blog post, but what might get you on the right track is to look at your stories and see what kind of underlying message you want to get across. It is usually this underlying message that really brings out the power in a story, since it is something that the reader 'discovers' on their own without being told bluntly what it is. This makes that underlying message stick a lot longer with the reader because they came up with it 'on their own.'


A simple example I can give you would be if you have a husband and wife in your story, and you want to get across the point that marriage is hard but worth it. You don't have to make the characters fight, make up, and talk about how happy they are. You could write a scene where they fight, say doing the dishes, then at the end have the husband pause for a moment, smile, and blow a handful of dish bubbles at the other right at the point where their argument is at its most intense.


The knowledge gap here would be that the reader doesn't know that this is actually a happy married couple. So their mind is thinking "wow, when will they get divorced. They really hate each other. I wonder if he cheater on her. Does she no longer love him?" But in reality it's just innocent bickering. The other knowledge gap would be between the husband and wife. The husband knows(and so should the reader at the obvious 'paused and smiled' cues) that he's realized their argument is stupid and it's not worth fighting about (which is why he playfully blows the bubbles at her). But she doesn't know this, making the reader feel like they are in on the playfulness.


The plot of my little example is pretty simple on the surface. Husband and wife fight. Husband ends fight by blowing bubbles at wife. The subtextual plot is, Husband and wife have difficulties, but in the end they realize how much they enjoy being around each other. The subtextual plot is the one you feel closer to, and it also has a lot more power than just the superficial one.


What do you think of this method of putting in subtext? Do you already do this or have some other method?

The Joy of the Fountain Pen

I'm really excited today, because I got in two new fountain pens. They are both Lami Safari's with a F and EF nib. Why am I so excited that I'm writing a blog post about this? Because my old fountain pen died because I thought I could be smart and fix the tines myself...fail.

Anyways, I have been without a trusty fountain pen for a couple weeks now, so I've been doing all my writing on the computer. "But Michael," you would say, "why don't you just use a ballpoint." To which I would respond. "Ick!"

For my readers (all 3 of you) who have not had the joy of using a fountain pen, I encourage you all to get one. They write so smooth and requite so little pressure to make a line come out that it's just a beautiful thing. Then when you go back to a ballpoint, it just makes me want to throw the pen against the wall.

And because these pens are so fun to write with, I find I do a lot more of my drafting on paper instead of on a computer. And this actually, I think, has a great benefit to a writer. When you work on paper, you most likely write slower then you type. Or at least I do. So instead of cranking out 3000 words an hour, I'm forced to put the brakes on and think about what I'm doing. Plus it's just a different feeling, and I think I even tap into a different subconscious when working with paper vs. the machine.

Another benefit, is that you can easily curl up on the couch under a blanket with your notebook and brand new fountain pen and have at it. If you're lucky enough to have a fireplace (me, not so much) it can be even better.

So I highly recommend fountain pens for all writers, if only to make the handwriting portion of our work more fun so we do it more often.

I leave you with pictures of my two babies!