Nanowrimo is upon us!

Every year I keep meaning to do the Nanowrimo event / challenge. In case you have never heard of it, the idea is to write 2000 words of a novel every day for the month of November. At the end of the month, you have a 60,000-word book! Good for you. It stands for 'National Novel Writing Month' and is a kind of mutual support online program and challenge for budding authors. It is now a global thing, so frankly it should be renamed.

Last year, I thought that I was definitely going to sign up for it and went to the website only to find that I had signed up several years previous and had logged in every year since. Good intentions and all that. Well, it starts today and although I have an idea for a scifi book that would be roughly that length, I haven't plotted it out yet and while I am not a strict plotter, in this case, I think it might be a good idea.

If you are hearing about all this for the first time, then I encourage you to get going. I know from bitter experience that if you fall behind a day, it is ridiculously difficult to catch up. The website is here. Good luck!

From short stories to epic fantasy

I think I have made a mistake in the way I am working toward writing fiction. I started with short stories, which is great. Some were published elsewhere and then I was able to bundle them all into a couple of small collections. I also wrote a longer short story called Cooperworld which I self-published. Unless you are famous, there really isn't much of a market for a 17000-word story.

So essentially I went from something which was a standard 2000-5000 words in length, to something 100,000 words and up. I am currently at 130,000 words and although the end is in sight, I am still having to squint to see it.

I keep feeling tempted to write a quick scifi novel but know that if I stop, I will never finish the epic fantasy book. If there is one thing I have read numerous times, it is that you should always plough on until you are done, otherwise you never will. This is good advice and I fully agree. So additional advice would be - start something shorter and finish that because there is a mild feeling of despair when you look ahead and see the story stretching away into the dim distance.

I'd better get back to it...

Plotting vs Pantsing debate. Do what you want.

If you have written, thought about writing, or are currently writing a novel, you have probably come across the slightly daft debate of whether to 'pants' or 'plot'. If you haven't then:

'Pantsing' is when you write 'by the seat of your pants'. In other words, you make shit up as you go along. Stephen King is a famous 'pantser'.

'Plotting' is when you plot everything out to a greater or lesser extent. You probably guessed that by its self-explanatory name. James Patterson is a famous 'plotter'.

To be honest, I think it just depends on the author and, to an extent, the genre. An epic fantasy novel could be 'pantsed' as could a lot of contemporary character-based fiction, with just a vague ending in mind. A thriller or ideas-based science fiction novel would be harder, as the ending pretty much has to be known so that it can be worked towards.

I also think, taking the above examples, that the effect can be noticeable. I like both King and Patterson. I think Stephen King has better ideas and explores them and his characters a bit more in-depth but I often find the endings a bit of a letdown. Like 'It', for example, had a bollocks ending. Whereas Patterson writes a more complete and satisfying story but the characters and writing are a bit more fixed and less appealing. Just my opinion and I will probably never sell as many books as either.

My background is in print journalism and that comes with its own structures and rules that can be learnt. I have yet to write a single book but am working on a fantasy novel right now. I had some vague ideas but it was only once I was 100,000 words in that I realised I needed to work out a bit more lore and background. Also, the central premise didn't quite work and the story ground to a stop. So I decided to plot the rest and it has worked out brilliantly. If I had plotted it all out from the start, however, I doubt the characters and mood of the book would have come across in the way they have. It would have been too structured and certain characters just wouldn't have happened.

So now I have the whole plot but basically, I need to rewrite the whole beginning section again. I have to insert characters and gods and backstory. But without having written 100,000 words by 'pantsing' I am not sure I would have been able to plot the story I have.

So what is the point of this post? I guess it is just that you don't have to be one or the other. I read something about Neil Gaiman who said he has a vague idea of where it is all going but that is all. Stephen King says he just 'pants' it but he has already written a ton of books and probably has an idea of where it is all going to go - a killer car or dog story for example, already has something of a structure built in. Patterson, on the other hand, writes such a detailed plot that he has essentially just 'pantsed' a short story which is then fleshed out. I don't think anyone is entirely in one camp or the other. At least, no one I like as a writer.

In summary then - do what works for you and keep doing it.

Another tendency I have is to procrastinate with other writing. So for now, that is all. Write on and good luck.