NaperWriMo Blog

I just wanted to thank everyone who came out last night for this Pre-writing session. We had about 16 people, a good mix of the old-timers and the newbies.

I thought I’d post what we did, in case any of it interests you. Our focus was on doing some brainstorming in general to warm up our thinking muscles. So to speak.

1. Things that “set you on fire”: This was an exercise to get us thinking about things we like, with perhaps the eventual goal of coming up with ideas to put in our novel. Each participant listed at least 10 things they find interesting or that they love.Tim made the suggestion that this exercise might be even more useful if we brainstormed for things we love to read about in books–for example, I’m a sucker for werewolves.
2. Cliches. If, as they say, everything’s been “done already”, then how do you make your novel feel “new”? By twisting genre cliches. We listed five or so cliches for each of our genres and then laughed about them. For example, Chris had a great list of mystery cliches–the hero/heroine is a loner, struggles with relationships, has a drinking problem, etc. The next step is to figure out how to twist those cliches to make them different. For example, Brian brought up that it seems like information is given to the hero/heroine very “conveniently” sometimes–they turn on the tv and the program immediately relates to the hero/heroine’s situation. Maybe you could twist this by making everything that seems “too convenient” a red herring.
3. Themes. Although just the word “theme” brings up images of third grade book reports, the idea of developing themes in the very beginning of your novel planning can go a long way in shaping your novel–particularly the characters, plot, and ending. Holly Lisle, a prolific author, says that every writer has two types of themes: personal themes and novel specific themes. For example, if you personally think that most people are basically good, then that’s a personal theme and it will likely show up in your writing somehow. A writer with that “personal theme” will likely write a very different novel than someone who’s worldview is that people are basically bad. It might be worthwhile to spend a few minutes thinking about what YOUR “personal themes” are.In terms of novel themes, to use myself as an example, my Urban Fantasy Nano novel was about a woman who had no super-special abilities but was surrounded by people who were supernatural. My theme was that “normal people can do extraordinary things.” (This was a “twist” on a common Urban Fantasy cliche where the hero/heroine has some special ability that makes them different from everyone else.) This year, I wanted to write a romance novel that celebrated the strange–a twist on a common cliche of the normal, readily identifyable heroine. So my theme would be “normalcy is overrated.” (I actually brainstormed about ten themes, including “appearances can be deceiving”, “Being yourself, even if it’s difficult, is a lot easier than pretending to be like everyone else” and “women can be their own worst enemies”, but I think that “normalcy is overrated” is my over-arching theme.)

   So what do I do with this theme now that I have it? I found some questions online that can help.

   1. What do I want my novel to say? (Here’s where you brainstorm themes.)
   2. Who is best able to say what needs to be said?
      My examples: “Appearances can be deceiving”–my hero and his sister are going to embody this–they look scary, but are kind on the inside. “Being yourself, even if it’s difficult, is a lot easier than pretending to be like everyone else”–my heroine is going to come from a really strange background and be, well, a bit strange, but she spends amazing amounts of time and effort trying to “fit in”, with disastrous consequences. “Women are their own worst enemies”–my heroine’s coworkers are going to drag her down.
   3. How can these messages be conveyed to the reader? Here’s your opportunity to start thinking of scenes, plot points, etc– (I’m still working on this one, myself.)For example, if the hero is going to embody “appearances can be deceiving”, there are going to have to be some scenes where people judge him before they know him. Does the heroine do this? Could that be a conflict in the novel?
4. Character Development:
   One of the easiest ways to start thinking about this is to think about characters in movies and books that you love. Suzanne Brockmann, a NYT bestselling author, once said all her heroes are based loosely off of Han Solo. Think of some favorite heroes and heroines and list out the characteristics that they embodied. (Sharing this with other Nanoers was particularly funny, since every single one of my heroes was described with the words “loner”, “morally ambiguous”, and “intense”. Hmmm…)We passed out some “character surveys” as well. You can find lots of these types of things on line, or you can just write out a character interview–pretend you’re doing a story on the character, and ask lots of odd questions. Of course, as discussed above, using themes is a great way to develop characters.
5. Plot planning:
   The “vets” shared their plotting strategies with the rest of the group. I personally enjoy notecarding, which is the process of writing out each scene on a different notecard with a basic outline. Tim used a brainstorming map. The snowflake method is also popular, as is “Phasing”. All of these can be googled online if you need more info, or you can check the Plot Doctoring section of the Nano forums, as there is always a good discussion about this topic there.

I hope this pre-planning session was helpful for everyone–it definitely sparked some ideas in my brain!!

Thanks

Meredith