Dear O'Abby: How do I get unstuck?

 Dear O'Abby,

I'm doing NaNo and I started really strongly.  I flew through those first 10,000 words!  Then this week, I've hit a wall.  I know where the story needs to go, but I can't seem to get there.  Nothing seems to get my characters to the next place they need to be.  

Do you have any advice for me?  

Kind regards,

Stuck

Dear Stuck,

I think we've all had periods like that, where you just can't figure out how to transition from one part of the story to another.

When I'm writing and find myself in a place like that, I just skip that bit.  Especially when the pressure is on like it is when you're doing NaNo.  You can come back to it later.  Just move on and write the next part of the book, the part you are trying to get to.  Often I find that by writing the next scenes, I find whatever it is I need to make the transition smooth.

And sometimes you realise that the issue isn't with the transition at all, but with whatever happened beforehand.  

All of this can be fixed later, when you revise.  Always keep in mind that perfection is not the goal during NaNo.  You're never going to come out on December 1 with a perfect manuscript.  This is a draft and a very rough one at that. NaNo isn't about perfection.  It's about getting that story in your head on the page.  That's it.

Perfection can come later.

So skip the transition that's holding you back and write the rest of the book.  You'll probably find you come up against this same problem again somewhere else in the story, but don't let it be the reason you quit.  Just move on and fill in the holes later.

Best of luck with the next 21 days!  I'm rooting for you.

X O'Abby

Dear O'Abby: How does anyone do NaNo?

Dear O'Abby,

I've tried.  I've really tried.  This is my third time doing NaNo and it's going to be my third time losing.  It's day 13 and I've only managed to write just over 15K.   I started strong (although I feel like the first 8K I wrote only really got to me to the point where my story is supposed to start), but now I'm stuck.  I have no idea how to get my characters from the point they are now, to where they need to be in the next chapter.

How does anyone actually manage to write 50K in a month?  And does anyone write anything good?  I feel like quitting while I'm ahead and coming back to this story when there isn't so much pressure.  Do you have any advice?

Yours, 

NaNoWriWon't

Dear NaNoWriWon't,

NaNo isn't for everyone, so if it doesn't suit you, there's no shame in quitting.  It hasn't been a waste of your time because you have words there that you didn't have before.  And if you're feeling under pressure and it's making you stressed or unhappy, please stop.  

Some writers thrive on pressure and find the competitive nature of NaNo suits them.  But many others don't find it helpful and don't do it as a result.  Some writers like to edit and tinker and get things right as they go and NaNo is not going to suit writers like that because to reach that word count you need to forget what's behind you and just keep moving forward.

If this is all coming from a feeling of being stuck, my suggestion is to skip the bit you're stuck on and move to the next part of the story where you know what's going to happen.  You can fill in the blank spot later.  I always find that skipping to a part of the story that I'm excited to write helps even if it's way ahead in the book.  So write that action scene or kissing scene you really want to write and keep going.  Writing in order is highly overrated in my opinion...

As for writing anything good, well, NaNo isn't about good.  It's about exploding that story onto the page and  I don't know if anyone's vomit drafts are any good.  I know mine aren't!  I literally just finished editing my 2020 NaNo book to a point where I was willing to send it to readers for feedback.  And now that I have it, I know I still have more work to do on it.

If something here resonates and makes you want to get your butt back in your chair, then good.  If you're still feeling overwhelmed by the whole thing, then stop.  If you're not enjoying the process, it's not worth it.  At the end of the day, you're the writer and you know how you like to work.  Winning NaNo is not worth your sanity!

X O'Abby

Dear O'Abby: Can you help me win NaNo?

 Dear O'Abby,

This will be my third year attempting NaNo and I am yet to actually hit that 50K target.  I have spent the last two months preparing this time, and feel like I'm in a better place than I have been previously - I actually have an outline this time - but am still feeling a little daunted.

Are there any tips you can give me that might help me actually win this year?

Thanks so much!

NaNoNaughty

Dear NaNoNaughty,

You do realize NaNo isn't actually a competition, right?  Winning isn't everything and if your primary goal is to win, then I think you're looking at this the wrong way.  The goal is to get a book written and any words you get on the page are helping to meet that goal, even if you don't get to 50K.

As for tips, I do have a few after having done this a few times myself, so here goes... I've probably given these before, but a refresher never hurts.

Try and bank over the baseline word count in the first week while you're still fresh and excited by your story.  I always try to hit 10K within the first three or four days because it gives you a cushion later in the month when you may unexpectedly get de-railed for a day or two.

Don't stop if you get stuck on a word or a plot point or a place you're uncertain about.  Leave a note for yourself, highlight it or change the font color so you can find it again later, and move on.  You mentioned you have an outline, so if you're stuck somewhere, look over the stuff you've plotted, figure out the next place you do know what's going to happen and skip to there.  You can fill in the rest later when you've figured it out.

Don't be afraid to jump around and write random scenes if that's what's going to work for you.  You don't have to be linear at this point.  You're just getting the story down, so if there are specific scenes you're excited to write, go ahead and write them.  You can add the connecting tissue later.

Don't go back over anything you've already written.  It's too easy to get bogged down in trying to fix things and at this point you're not here to fix things.  Just keep writing.  There will be time to go back and fix things later.  The last time I did NaNo I decided to change a huge plot point I'd set up in the first three or four chapters in later ones, so I just left it, wrote myself a note, and kept going without the school play that was going to be a huge element in the story up until that point.

And despite what everyone probably tells you, you don't actually have to write every day.  I "won" NaNo the last time I did it by taking a day or two off work a week for the four weeks of NaNo and wrote most of the 50K words I got that year in those 6 days, with a little bit added in the weekends.  If writing in big chunks works for you, then maybe consider this as an option.  Or if you can't take days off, but your weekends are reasonably clear, set those aside for bulk writing and adjust your goals for the week to fit your schedule.

Hope that helps!  And good luck.  I'm rotting for you to finish.

X O'Abby

Dear O'Abby: I'm stuck. Can you help?

Dear O’Abby,

I’m doing NaNo and I’m stuck.  I’m at a point where there are multiple choices for my MC and I can’t for the life of me figure out which way to make her go.  I’ve tried skipping beyond this point, but because it’s a crucial decision, what happens next depends on this choice and I can’t write what happens next without her making this decision.  I’ve been going back and forth with different ideas for days, but I’m not happy with any of my choices.

Any ideas how to get past this?

Yours,

Stuck.

Dear Stuck,

I know this feeling all too well.  When there are 155,000 options for your character and you’re not sure which one is the right one. 

Well, my advice is to choose the wrong one.

Fiction is better when characters make mistakes.  So whenever your character is faced with a decision, make her pick the one that is going to create the most trouble for her.  Pick the thing you would never select personally if you were faced with the same dilemma. 

I’ve had the same problem with the book I’m writing this month.  As a grown woman, I know the right thing for my protagonist to do in his particular situation is to call the police or some other authority figure and tell them what’s going on.  There will be a whole string of consequences from this choice of course, but all of them lead to the main problem he is facing being dealt with.  So as a writer, I’ve made him stubbornly refuse to go to the authorities, preferring to deal with the tricky, illegal situation on his own.  And of course making that foolish decision will lead to a whole lot of other, trickier situations for him to deal with. On his own.

That's important too.  To be interesting, your character needs to be active and really driving the outcomes from any decisions she makes.  If doing something one way puts the outcome into someone else's hands, choose another direction, one that forces your MC to solve her own problem, or places another one directly in her path.

So be decisive.  Never let your character dabble in her options.  She needs to pick the wrong path and navigate it, however feels natural for her.  And each time she reaches another branch in the road, she needs to choose the direction that leads to the most trouble, the most conflict.  It’s hard, I know.  We grow to love these characters like our own children and it’s hard to send them off in the wrong direction, especially when we know their choices are going to lead to them or someone else getting hurt.

I hope that helps!  Now, I’m off to give my MC some unexpected consequences for his poor decision making. Poor guy!  He doesn't know what's coming at him...

XX 

O’Abby

Dear O'Abby: Should I do NaNo?

Dear O'Abby,

As you are probably aware, NaNoWriMo starts next week.  I've thought about doing it in the past, but I'm a pretty methodical writer and I like to research and edit as I go, so I've always thought it wouldn't suit me.  

Now I'm published and on deadline for my next book, I'm wondering if doing NaNo might be a way to get this second book my publisher is expecting finished.

Should I give it a shot?

X NaNoWaRy

Dear NaNoWaRy,

NaNo isn't for everyone and it's really up to you to decide if it is for you.  Personally, I love it, but I'm a 100% pantser and have no problem at all with reaching a point where I need to research something and just leaving myself a note in red or highlighted in yellow saying "look up the Korean word for Grandma" or "do combine harvesters really work like this?".  If this kind of thing is going to drive you batty and keep you up at night because you don't feel you can keep writing until you're certain you got that detail correct, NaNo might not be for you.

NaNo is a great way to vomit up what I like to call a "zero draft".  It's not even a first draft, really.  It's a bunch of words that may one day end up as a story.  It's a way to get that story out of your head and onto the page where it can begin its life.

Some people outline and prep meticulously before NaNo begins, and I imagine they might write something closer to a first draft during the month because they know what they're going to write ahead of time and have, in some cases, outlined exactly how their book will be structured and how to fit writing 1,667 or so words a day into that structure.

If you're someone who likes to go back and read over what you wrote yesterday and polish it up, moving commas and removing extra words, NaNo might not be right for you.

But as I say, it's a personal choice.  Maybe trying something different might be good for your creativity.   And you know what?  It doesn't matter if you don't make it through the whole month.  At least you've started.  You've written something.  Those words don't disappear at the end of November when you don't "win" NaNo.  You've started your book, and that's the best way to get to the point of finishing it.

So good luck, whatever you decide to do.  I've rather stupidly signed up to do NaNo again this year, so I'll be in the trenches with you, trying to write a book that at the moment has an outline that says only, "Fifteen years after Chasing the Taillights, Lucy and Tony are still struggling with their relationship".

Let's catch up in December to see how we did.

X O'Abby

Making the Most of Your Writing Time

Today's post was inspired by this post from McKelle George (@McKelleGeorge), who was our Mystery Editor a few months ago.

In McKelle’s post, she talked about how she wrote a whopping 61,000 words in 18 days! This got me thinking about whether a feat like this was a possibility for me. With my schedule (and needy children always expecting crazy things from me, like food and my attention), probably not, but there are ways I can stifle my inner editor and increase my word output.

I'm one of those wierdos who loves editing and revising. I hate drafting. It's messy and ugly, and so daunting at times. I wish I could just hook up a machine to my brain, have it record the the first draft in all its awfulness, and get right to revisions. That device hasn't been invented yet, unfortunately, so I'm stuck with finding ways to more efficiently extract the words manually so I can get to revisions faster. :)

One thing I did during NaNo 2013 and haven’t done enough since then is word sprints. Our local NaNo group held them on our Facebook page, but they're also happening all the time on Twitter--check out #WritingSprint and #WordSprint. Word sprints are great for powering through those parts of the story where you feel stuck. The worst that could happen is you end up with a bunch of words that you cut, but you could also come up with some really great writing and maybe even a spark of an idea or two that will make your story even better.

Another thing I do sometimes is write it out in a notebook. By the time I'm done, there are usually notes and doodles all over in the margins, but this usually keeps me from editing as I go and, in turn, keeps me from getting stuck on the same scene for days, revising and rewriting--my favorite form of procrastination. And I don’t care if it sucks because I’m going to edit it when I transcribe it anyway. This is a great way (for me, anyway) to circumvent my inner perfectionist. She’s crazy neurotic, so I try to avoid her whenever possible. Plus, this gives me an excuse to buy lots of notebooks and that's always a good thing. :)

This post also has some great suggestions for apps that help you avoid distractions and stay on task. 

Those are just a few of the things that work for me. What about you? What helps to get the words flowing when you're stuck?

NaNoWriMo Tips- Fresh Eyes

A little while ago, I talked about fast drafting and ways to power through a draft without second guessing yourself. One of my tips was turn your inner editor off.

Well, as I've discovered this NaNoWriMo, that advice is much better applied to completely new projects. When a project is fresh, its a lot easier to go crazy without checking back to make sure you're pacing it right or that your characters are likable. Though I always say outlining helps a lot with NaNoWriMo, no matter how much you outline, the story is still a surprise. You have nothing to compare it to yet. The editor in you won't really make an appearance until a few months later.

Not so with rewriting. This month, I decided to finally rewrite, from scratch, my first ever novel. This is my baby. The thing that, in effect, has been in progress since seventh grade. Yeah. That long. Seven years I guess. I didn't actually finish the first novel until I was fifteen, and ever since then I've been editing and rewriting and trying new things with it.

Well, this month I said, enough. I decided I would look on the story with fresh eyes and write it completely from scratch. But its hard to do that when the story is so close to your heart. You already know your characters and story so well, you judge every single word you write. Several times over this month, I've wanted to change things because I didn't feel like my characters were coming across in the right way. Four days into NaNoWriMo, I completely started over to change the point of view. Usually, starting over is a big no, no. And while I like the changes I'm making, writing them can be like wading through mud some days.

Long story short, I won't be using NaNoWriMo for a big redraft like this again. While I have powered through and I expect to hit 50,000 words today (thanks in part to a few 10,000 word sprints that have left me in a writing coma), its been a lot more of a struggle than usual. Next NaNoWriMo, I'm definitely going to start with a fresh concept.

So what is easiest for you to fast draft? Do certain genres work better for you when you speed write? And how is NaNo going for you so far?

Soldier on writers! You can hit that 50,000 words! And if you don't, that's okay too. At least you wrote something, and that is always a thing to be proud of.

Fast Novel-Writing a la Melissa & Joey

It's Nano month, and even though I'm abstaining because of my serious need to re-outline a previous project, I understand the frenzy of writing that takes place while trying to eek out 50,000 words in 30 days.

It. is. hard.

That's why last night's Melissa & Joey-watching yielded some disbelieving scoffs from me. It's not the latest episode. The hubz and I are catching up on hulu. But basically what happens on the show is that Mel's teenage niece gets in an argument with her English teacher about her writing. He's very critical about her 200-word novel sample, maybe more than any teacher in high school should be. So in order to prove to him that her 200-word sample would extrapolate into a fabulous, life-changing novel, she decides to write it.

Before the end of the quarter (when the grading period ends).

That deadline is in a week and a half.

Not that a fifteen-year-old couldn't write a novel in that length of time! It's possible! It just reminded me of Nano and how difficult it is to keep a solid structure (at least for me) while I'm writing at that pace. Sure enough, our heroine ended up lying on her bed with a cough drop in her hair dreaming about the mess of note-cards and pages taped to her wall in random order while her teacher popped into the nightmare to remind her that she would fail, that she would never be a great writer and she should just give up.

In the show, her little brother, who has a stake in her happiness, helps her organize her thoughts so she can get all those wall-taped pages and note-cards into a massive pile resembling a manuscript.

I thought, How sweet! And then I thought, This is what I need.

I need a little brother to tell me I have a cough drop in my hair and ask me which came first, plot point A or plot point B. Everyone does.

I have a great critique group (see About Us tab above). But we all live in different places. Sometimes I wish I had somebody in my house who could look at my manuscript and point to the things that need to be fixed. Basically, I want someone else to do the really hard work of organizing my brilliant flashes of brilliance.

Sometimes my husband meets this need. I hope in the future, my sons will get in on the fun of telling me what works and doesn't in my middle grade or young adult projects. For now, organization is something I struggle with, especially when I've written something in a month or less.

Who's your little brother? Or how to do you keep the organizational demands of a novel from driving you to cough drops?