So today we were going to talk about some ideas for NaNoWriMo. Is anybody here thinking of participating in NaNoWriMo? Is anyone committed to participating this year?
@GraceNote Creepy stalkerlike observation is probably OK too.
@DForck42 Well, this is what I'm thinking. I know I can't do NaNo this year. There is just too much going on in my life right now. But I think it will be a good motivator for me to explore what the necessary steps are when beginning a big project like a novel.
Larger projects will warrant an actual outline but if it's just "Let's flesh out this particular system of this world's mechanics", then I just figure out the scope of goals and work within that
Over time, accumulating enough of these tiny passages creates an entire world system that is a lot better than trying to tackle the whole package in one session
So today we're going to talk about that process. How do we set the scope for a novel so that it is manageable and not intimidating? How do we outline an interesting, complex plot that can fill a novel and yet that can be broken down into bite-sized pieces?
Now, I've never written for NaNoWriMo, so for my own education - is every 2500 segment supposed to be part of the actual story? Or can it be considered "prep"?
@GraceNote You are not supposed to write any part of the actual novel before November, but you can write all sorts of prep. For NaNo, you have 30 days to write 50,000 words, which is about 1,670 words a day, I think.
@KitFox Okay, so the portion that is actually done during the month is the actual novel. You can't spend any of those days doing associated work towards the novel
Well, the first step would be to figure out how much spacing you get out of one night's worth of writing. Obviously you can't use your actual material plans, but one thing I often like doing is backstory.
Things which sometimes aren't even relevant to the story you'll write, but which help make the characters more realized in your mind, and easier to work with.
I usually start off with a world basic entry (for some this might be as simple as modern day), then see what people populate that world, and from there, determine why these people have any relevance
I came up with a general plan of how I'd break up a story and thought about how I would want the story to go, but I don't have any characters jumping in to take the parts. It's kind of irritating.
In the same fashion that writing the whole plot in one session is generally faulty, so too is trying to make all your characters fleshed out from the start.
> In this story, two protagonists will move through each of these stages. The first will begin as a scientist and end as a philosopher. The second will begin as a worshipper and end as a logician. The idea will be to contrast the benefits of science and religion.
I think in the manner of "belief systems". In a sense, philosophy can be said to be a religion of its own, and likewise religion is the following of a sort of philosophy
From a personal report - I started a particular world setting with an interesting cast of characters coming from nine different nations. They had a lot of motivations and agendas to accomplish within the span of it, which made for a very large story
But then it turned out there was extremely low interaction between the characters in all of their agendas. Basically, what was supposed to be several intertwining stories, was just a couple stories that sometimes you'd see one of the others. Only about four characters even had any real reason to know any other character.
@KitFox the basic idea of what i have in my head is: a world where life is an rpg. to advance in society you must level up. and the main protagonist was put into a coma at a young age and is now years behind in leveling
questions i've got so far, but haven't actually answered any of them: Who is the protagonist? Who/what is the antagonist? How do they determine when they level up? What lets them see their progress? What is society like? How do they level? What skills can be leveled? Do people fight each other? Do people die? Is there murder? How does healing work? how does magic work? Are there guns?
Oh, quite, which was an intentional goal of the project. These weren't the only characters - the whole thing was about stories in itself, these 17 were actual protagonists. "A life that passes is finite. A legend remembered is infinite." was the tagline for that project.
Even though there was some measure of interaction between the associates of the characters, even that was strained in parts. The characters were interesting individually, but the plot as I originally planned it wasn't.
But the content of that document ranges from: taking a character and specifying their background and personality and quirks; identifying a system of the world (adventuring guilds, exuberance, phantoms) and solidifying it; geographical mappings; actual portions of the story including a pre-segment that takes place years earlier
healing works only to an extent. most "duels" are stopped before serious injury, and brain injuries are the hardest to heal. although thanks to advanced healing, major brain trauma can be cured overtime and the body can be kept mostly functional
So it's not as if it's one giant coherent document. But, to me at least, jumping between a lot of things is more productive. It not only keeps me from being bored with "Ugh, how many more times am I going to talk about Mystical Energy?", but also as each part develops individually, you see what raises inconsistencies or problems in your earlier drafts that you wouldn't have noticed in knocking it out at the start
To that end, especially if you're just prepping yourself for the real writing, don't be afraid to write about stuff that may never be mentioned in the stories or even be relevant to any motivations behind events or characters.
I always say begin with a basic world premise ('In this world, "Folk" are beings who can wield Mystical Energy to perform interesting feats. But there exist creatures known as "Fiends", born from Mystical Energy itself, who exist only to exterminate Folk), then work out just the start of basic characters, then get ready to develop a skeleton of a plot
World, then characters, then plot, then dance between characters and plot, working on the world as you see it necessary.
The development of the characters and the plot influence each other, while those two will influence the world just as much as the world influences the characters and the plot.
Remember the ultimate goal of structure in your plot, though. Don't get carried away with a cool story idea and end up with something that'll take four months.
I remember in a comic I made that went through lots of character development and little plot or world development (in fact, almost nothing is known about the world, even though I implied in most of my comic strips there is one)
Or maybe I'm just confusing "world" with "environment"
I wonder if world building is most essential for sci-fi/fantasy plots, where the assumption is that the world is different or works differently than ours.
@MattЭллен So, one key thing about my world, as an example. The number 9 is a very lucky number. This is why there are nine nations. But the number seven is unlucky - it's a number highly associated with Fiends. One major thing that results from this is that people never travel in numbers greater than 6
@KitFox Well, you have a lot more work when you have to build from the ground up, from the start of history to all sorts of systems that don't exist in our world. But you can't forget that cities and such still exist in a contemporary setting
That's true. I suppose if I want the characters to inhabit a particular kind of reality, I need to spend time on developing that feel, even if they live in 'the real world.'
@BoltClock "World" is the setting in which things take place. The time period, what technology is available, what resources people have available, the culture of those involved, the government, the economy... in a casual writing setting, you won't have to delve into the complex parts too much, especially if they are entirely irrelevant. The "world" is the scope of what happens in your story - if the local king is unnecessary, it isn't needed as a part of the world.
It's more than just the geography - things like family style (do people prefer to live with family until they marry, or do they seek independence the moment they become adults?), what trades people practice, the roles that people fall in outside the scope of your plot
The Overlook Hotel
The Overlook Hotel