Thoughts on NaNoWriMo

[willowisp]

I've been watching a lot of people on my friends list posting word counts and such. I think it's a neat idea, and I know I could never do it myself; not enough self-discipline. I also have a problem with novel-length works; every time I've tried to write them I seem to run out of ideas in the short story range or soon thereafter. Thus I have the utmost respect for someone who can finish a novel, especially in the space of a month.

One thing I've noticed recently though is that everything seems to be geared around word count. Now, I understand that for something of this scale there has to be some subjective means of measuring. Still, several people have mentioned being done with their story, as in a conclusion and all, but they're short on words. They talk about writing extra scenes and ask for ideas, and since they already have the thing done, it's not going to add anything to the story, really. I'm not so sure that's something which should be encouraged; I know I really hate reading something which has been added as an afterthought or to pad word-count, and I can usually spot such passages from a chapter away.

I probably should go look at whatever official page(s) NaNoWriMo has up; perhaps their word limit is what strictly qualifies for a novel in the publishing world. Maybe after November is over they have people edit and remove any extraneous word-padding. If those are true, I have less trouble with the concept. If it is, however, a case of measuring the story by means of word count alone, I don't know that that's the best idea; people need to learn to write so that what they write makes sense, conveys the meaning, and ties up loose ends. Word counts hearken back to the bad old days of English essays wherein a brilliant analysis received a lower grade then a mediocre summary because the former was half a page short of the required page count.

Comments

[tallest-spork.livejournal.com]

Most people put in lots of padding to reach 50,000 and then delete a lot of it later.

[platypus]

NaNo is all about volume, about writing something and just making yourself sit down and do it, regardless of whether you think it sucks. A lot of writing exercises are about volume, and to some extent that's good, because a lot of people out there who'd really like to write something end up being perfectionists who end up working on one chapter forever and never getting anywhere. 50,000 words is about 200 pages, and anything less than that would be an extremely slim book; below that you're into novella or very-long-short-story territory. This site has some handy definitions, though I don't know if they're the generally accepted ones.

[gconnor.livejournal.com]

Mainly what platypus said. Of course word count is not King in the Real world, but causing you to focus on word count for a short period of time has some advantages. (Mostly stealing from www.nanowrimo.org here)

1. The difference between writers and non-writers is: writers WRITE. They don't stop writing when the mood doesn't strike them to write, not when writing is what puts food on the table. Real writers have to deal with deadlines, unless they are independently weathly. Therefore, being able to sit down and churn out something is a necessary skill. Deciding not to write for a few months (or even years) because we don't have an idea or ten that we are quite in love with, or aren't in the mood, or whatever, is what turns people into non-writers. (Or "casual writers" instead of "professionial writers" I guess)

2. Focus on quantity and not quality forces you to write without looking back, without worrying about whether it feels awkward, etc. Sometimes writers get tied up thinking about what's the right order, does this feel right to the reader, etc., and the focus is too much on quality, so much so that there is no material really there or it comes out stilted.

3. 50k is actually short for a novel, more like a novella. I found it's a lot easier to write the first 50k words (or any selected 50k words) of a 100k word story, than it is to write a story complete and have it be exactly 50k. So, I am done for the month but not done with my novel. It's almost like it was *not* meant to be a finished work, but a *significant* fraction of the first draft.

Most stories have a beginning, middle, and end. Mine is half beginning, half middle, and no end :) Therefore, I'm not in the "wow my story is over and I need to come up with more material" camp, I'm a bit down the street from those people :) But, I do know what is meant by "fill in more details" - even if the world is well-imagined, the writer can forget to tell key details, just assuming that the reader knows them. It also adds value, realism, depth to the setting. If the story is done before 50k, it is probably heavy on plot and light on characterization and setting, and would make a good second book in the series :)

[spenceraloysius.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I signed up and only wrote once.

[turnberryknkn.livejournal.com]

My guess is that the word-count thing was to encourage people to think big. The hope would be that in trying to come up with a story that takes 200 pages to tell, you end up overshooting...