Learn from the Masters to Prepare for NaNo

Recording, chat, slides

In attendance

  • Jenn, Jenny, Sam, Tim
  • Julie, Leslie
  • Daniel, Elaine Fisher, Jennifer W, Gertrude, Kiea, Thea W, Catherine Brennan, Katherine Lato

Intro

  • Magic NaNo Bus
  • 17 minute word wars
  • nanowrimo.org
    • naperwrimo.org/region - regional home
    • naperwrimo.org/forum - regional forum
    • naperwrimo.org/logistics - logistics thread
  • Writing with others makes it more fun
  • Story Wall Party (3rd workshoo)
    • you get help with your story
    • share what the story is about
    • indicate where you might need some help
  • Kick-off party: Oct 29th, 1-3 PM
  • Magic Bus Race - with a trophy!
  • All-day write-in (online event) (Sugar Grove is hosting as part of it)
  • TGIO Party Dec 10th
  • Events at naperwrimo.org/events
  • Library Crawl (several libraries are involved) - naperwrimo.org/crawl
  • ACTION: Update the naperwrimo.org/wordcount spreadsheet
  • writingjourney.org (for after NaNo)

Workshop

  • Need to peek behind the curtain
  • Be careful about going too far

Inspirational Authors

  • Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett
  • Eoin Colfer and Scott Westerfeld for me. Also I have learned a lot of awesome story telling from various anime and manga I have read.
  • Rick Riodian and Diane Duane for me and Novik
  • Jack Vance and Roger Zelazny
  • Meg Cabot
  • Alix Harrow, Naomi Novik, Ursula Vernon, Karen Joy Fowler, Jane Austen
  • Stephen King
  • Joe Barrett, Maeve Binchy, Douglas Adams, Robert Heinlein
  • Neil Gaiman, Stephen King
  • more recently Charlie Jane Anders and Becky Chambers

NaNo linkage

  • Focus on planning/writing
  • Revisit favorite passages
  • Get inspired, make yourself fall in love with the story you’re about to write

What can you learn?

  • How to write better, more beautiful prose
  • How to build up a character
  • world building
  • novel structure
  • Great openings, endings

Example: The Great Gatsby

  • I like the sensory descriptions in the passage (powdery air)

You can learn from things you don’t like

  • Famous authors you don’t like
  • (Learn what you like and how to write)
  • Realize what authors are doing that other people do like (what are they doing right that others like)
  • Look at other novels and genres that others do like
  • What if it is in a genre you like but you didn’t like it? Why didn’t you like it? E.g., Christopher Moore (Shakespeare for Squirrels) –> there is a lot of sexual humor that didn’t work for Sam.
  • Good to learn why other people might like this
  • How would I change that to make it something I would like/enjoy? What could I have tweaked to make it better?
  • I really like Charlie Jane Anders but I could not finish her book All The Birds in the Sky. I like everything else she has written but that book did not work for me.
  • Sometimes I don’t like a book, but a year or two later, I do like it. It can depend on what I finished right before it.
  • like if I ready a few books with similar themes, if the first one did it better the second feels worse
  • I really expected to like Priory of the Orange Tree, but just couldn’t get into it
  • Justice League was a movie in how to not write a movie
  • I’ve never read a John Steinbeck book that I liked.
  • Or if I just read something really heavy, the next one needs to be lighter or I’ll hate it because I’m not enjoying the books even if they’re ‘good’.

Writer’s Voice

  • Exploring your own writer’s voice through the voices of the authors you like

Little Prince excerpt observational study

  • Add beats, physical movement, action tags in the dialogue (scene feels rather static)

Questions to ask when dissecting the author

  • What could have been left out in a book

Go Beyond the author

  • How can you apply what a master did
  • What would you change from how the author did it to improve it
  • You can always find something to improve on

How did they do it? (a streamlined approach)

  • Identify what worked well
  • Break it down – study the components
  • Apply that to your writing

Learning from authors

  • Jim Butcher
  • Lloyd Alexander
  • Douglas Adams
    • will get into the head of a character (even a dog) – for humorous effect
    • subtle foreshadowing
    • a hidden ship uses the technology of it’s somebody else’s problem – people don’t notice it
    • humor and/or absurdity in every description and every conversation
    • memorable characters but the main character, Arthur Dent, is a bit dull
    • author has no idea what is happening, so the story is often told via characters explaining to Arthur what is happening
    • Tim: Neil Gaiman uses that technique (of people explaining things to a main character) in Neverwhere (novel)
    • Jenny: I feel like it’s common in portal fantasies
  • Terry Pratchett
    • Brings in a lot of characters
    • has flawed openings
      • lots of characters introduced
      • unclear who the main character is
      • jumps between seemingly disjointed scenes
  • Leslie: Middle grade fiction novel with a heavy topic done lightly: how to steal a dog, crooked kind of perfect. Main character has a little sassiness, hard topic, book feels light.
    • “How to Steal a Dog,” Barbara O’Connor, “The Thing About Georgie,” Lisa Graff, “Crooked Kind of Perfect,” Lisa Urban. They also all have a “break the fourth wall” type of intro as well.
  • Jenn: An Anime: Kotara lives alone–presented in a very light point of view. Story is told in a series of short vignettes that don’t necessarily go together. A little 4 year old boy lives alone and navigating the world. Through the series (spoilers), you learn little glimpses of his life (he was in an abusive household, his mom dies because of his dad). Very interesting storytelling because it isn’t told in the traditional series way. It’s like a collection of short stories and learning about a character’s life.
  • Jenny: One author: paragraphs are chunky/huge, does a lot of telling, doesn’t integrate it to what is happening in the story (action); but despite this, still blazed through it. Still trying to figure out why I am trying to do that.

Going beyond novels

  • You can learn from other media as well
  • Video games are not mentioned but also another great place to look at stories
  • TikTok
  • podcasts
  • Reading books on writing, interviews with authors

Blink (Doctor Who)

  • Very inspiring episode–incredible (horror, sf, mystery, romance, )
  • NaNo tip: don’t sweat the first draft
  • The first draft of the script didn’t include the word blink; Russel T. Davies suggested using the word over and over again.

Rick and Morty - Exponentializing

  • Taking the premise and not only escalating but exponentializing
  • When you get an idea, build on it (great method for increasing your wordcount)

Setting rules

  • Create rules for your novel
  • e.g., how magic works or rules for a character’s behavior
  • meta-rules for your novel and its story
  • Helps you focus
  • Seinfeld: no hugging, no learning
  • World building rules, fantasy restrictions
  • Batman doesn’t use a gun or kill
  • Leverage tv show: rules for the characters (things their characters would never learn)
  • Defenders, Dare Devil, Jessica Jones (wouldn’t kill)
  • World building: two kinds of thought processes (how far you want to go)
    • hard: Tolkien, detail-oriented with history
    • soft: you have loose rules (J K Rowling did this; people would ask her how plumbing works in the Wizarding world and she would come up with answers on the fly because she didn’t think that part through)
  • Leslie - character rules can also help distinguish characters in a novel, so it’s certainly something I’m thinking about

Monty Python

  • Monty Python and the Holy Grain – funny but weak plot and a horrible ending
  • Life of Brian: much stronger story, rated by the British as the best English Comedy of all time; stil has some unnecessary scenes
    • “Roman Guard correcting Brian’s Latin” - fits in with the plot
    • Stoning scene - hilarious but didn’t add to the movie
  • Tip: run with the comedy, world building, think about making it relevant later

Characters First

  • Don’t skimp on character development – need to know more about these people
  • Consider working primarily on character sketches between now and Nov 1st
  • Alternately, you can jump in and learn about the characters in the first draft

Read good writing books

  • Like Karl Iglesias’s book

Listen to the masters

  • Authors can offer advice that is useful for you.

What will you do in the next two weeks?

  • Leslie: write the rules for my characters (rebel’ing with editing) or make up rules.
  • Jenny: Will find a manuscript to editing
  • Tim: Will prepare for the story wall next week
  • Jenny: Re-read my novel so I can bring questions to the story wall next week.
  • Julie: Do a couple of character sketches (for a novela)
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