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December 02, 2005
End-of-NaNo thoughts
Well, it's over. The TGIO party was last night (and it was awesome!) and now NaNoWriMo is over for another year.
I completed it, making me five for five in the years attempted/years won department. Go me. I even got a couple fans at the party telling me how much they enjoyed my excerpts and reading! Wow!
I am now really determined to work more on my fiction this coming year. I want to finish outlining my reworked Jaspa novel and actually write it. Interestingly, one of my pals, Mitch -- a supporter but not a NaNoer whose wife does NaNo every year -- told me that he realized I concentrate on characters when evaluating movies/tv while he concentrates on the story, and he thinks this is the source of many of our disagreements.
Upon reflection, I think he is right. I have a really tough time coming up with plots for my stories. I adore creating characters, though. And when I watch a show or movie, if the characters are interesting and engaging, I will like it, even if the story sucks (case in point: Num3rs, one of my favorite guilty pleasure TV shows. The stories are stupid, but I love the characters!). He is exactly the opposite. A crappy story ruins the movie or show for him, even if the characters are interesting.
This tells me a great deal. I think the reason I have become obsessive about plotting my novels out thoroughly is that if I don't, I can't generate a complex and interesting plot organically. At least, not well. I didn't plot out this year's NaNo very thoroughly and found myself dreading writing it at times. It was really hard. I loved the characters, but the story was weak.
So, that's something for me to work on. Maybe I'll spend some time this year analyzing the stories of novels I love, diagramming their structure and stuff. Something to think about, anyway.
And next year for NaNo, I am damn well going to have a detailed plot!
Posted by Ealasaid at December 2, 2005 12:46 PM
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