Friday, October 19, 2012

The Return to Arowdae: NaNoWriMo and Writing Styles


Now that I've temporarily wrapped up Tornado C and Will Vullerman, I'm finally freed up to focus on The Prophecies again.

The Prophecies is what I would now describe as a prose-ugly saga that will require so much revision that it's not even funny. (That being said, it has some good points, among them being cool names and really fun dialogue.) It is a wild tale, which may be one reason why it's an almost exclusively NaNoWriMo-written series.

After working on the heavily descriptive prose of Tornado C, however, the style of The Prophecies is radically different. Like Tornado C, I tend to focus on dialogue; however, the prose is very sparse and describes just enough to move the story along, a result of my 2k-a-day writing rushes. Thus, the focus of the novel is not on character or theme (although there is some of both in this novel, especially theme) but plot. It's my dabble in plot-first writing, so to speak.

In some ways, this is refreshing. Writing in one style can be boring, in the same way that reading the same style for a number of different books can become tedious. (For instance, Bryan Davis's prose is almost the same in every single one of his fantasy books, his first two novels excluded. It gets old after a while.)

Right now, however, I have to finish last year's NaNoNovel, The Prophecy of Einarr, before I can continue brainstorming for Book Three in the series, The Voice of God. (Unfortunately, once I reached 50k last year, I completely dropped the project...in the middle of a scene.) A couple days back I finished that scene. It was somewhat difficult, since I had to switch my “style glasses”. Imagine what it would be like if I suddenly switched styles mid-book! Yagh! No, sir! So I'm getting used to brief prose and little description again.

Right now, I'm not quite focusing on excellence, like I did with Tornado C – I have to finish the book in less than two weeks, and I have at least four to five sizable chapters left to write. (Don't worry, they're not Tornado C-sized chapters. The Prophecies, also unlike Tornado C, is characterized by fairly short chapters.) Then, I brainstorm!

How are you preparing for NaNoWriMo? Is anyone else trying to tie up loose ends before starting? (Is anyone else starting to panic because they have zero ideas for their NaNoNovel? :P)


9 comments:

Storyteller SilverLoom said...

Oh, whew, I'm not the only one panicking!

Kismint said...

Good ideas are hard to come by... =(

I've never been able to finish a story before. Which raises the question: What will make this year's NaNo different?

So maybe panicking isn't the right word choice. Maybe we're looking at something more along the lines of "deep, slow agony of the non-inspired".

K-Minty

Abbey Stellingwerff said...

I literally learn something new about writing on (almost) every one of your blog posts... And I thought I was a pretty good writer before!
It never even occured to me that I can write in different styles... When I write the words just tend to flow out. Sometimes it's more descriptive. Sometimes it's more dialogue focused.... But it's definitely me.
I guess it makes sense... In writing class, we're learning about essays and my teacher gently told me I had to step out of my personality to write my essays because you can tell that my essays are written by me and essays are supposed to be general, not personal. Hee hee whoops...

Anyway, good luck with NaNoWriMo! I can't quite decide if I want to take part in it or if I'm too busy this year. I'm planning my novel just in case.
Don't you hate it when you stop writing in the middle of a scene, leave the project, come back to it later and can't remember where you left off? That happens to me all the time. Except that instead of stopping in the middle of scenes, I stop in the middle of sentences. Extremely not good.

Unknown said...

This is going to be my second year to do NaNoWriMo. Last year, I decided to do it three days before November 1st. o_O Needless to say, I am finding this year to be a lot easier because I have a lot more time to brainstorm and outline my novel.

But I am rereading last year's novel so I can get back into those character's heads and my old writing style. I am writing the sequel to last year's, which I wrote in 3rd person limited. The novel I am currently working on is written in alternating 1st person.

Good luck with your novel! And good luck surviving NaNo! :P

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