NaNoWriMo 2023 - Week 2 (November 8 - 15)
Update: Keep on trucking!
Where has the time gone?! Here we are, halfway through November, halfway through NaNoWriMo, halfway through an idea I’m still struggling with writing.
Oh well, ‘tis the season!
I worry a lot about dialogue when I write. I want it to sound natural and am always second-guessing myself when writing it. Not to mention the how of a character speaking, whether they’re shouting or whispering or screaming. But I always remember that in On Writing Stephen King mentioned that it’s best to just stick with good old said, there’s really no need to get any fancier then that. Or you can do what I did and for the remainder of your writing remove the dialogue and have the character just speak in a monologue.
I love a good monologue.
Back in 2020 author Mona Awad did a virtual writing workshop through gritLit and one of the things she suggested when hitting a hard spot with a character or with the novel was to write a monologue from the character you wanted to focus on and let them explain their thoughts and feelings through the scene. As someone who’s always loved theatre, monologue writing isn’t too difficult for me and I definitely see the benefits of it. Monologues are a great way to help with finding the voice of a character and sometimes through that voice other things are revealed. Again, I’m a pantser, I don’t plan what I write. I might have an idea of what I want to do but a lot of times my original thought ends up veering off in another, unexpected direction that ends up perfect.
So I’m monologuing and working with that right now and I’m still not a fan. I still don’t know the character very well, even with her present-day monologue and I think that’s the problem. This story has always been focused on something that happened in the past and how it’s affected the future, and originally, I wanted to move between the past and present, but aside from a brief look into the past I’ve settled in the present. I started thinking that maybe making inferences to the past without showing it would be better, but I just don’t think it is. Long after NaNo when this story has more like to percolate, I’ll do a rewrite where I spend more time in the past, or once I’ve gone through my chicken scratch of notes for NaNo write the remainder set in the past. Maybe it will help with the voice.
I’ve stayed on par during the second week and have reached the 25,000 halfway point. I should backup my writing, am notoriously bad at it and I’m sure this will ruin me someday. I’m not very attached to the story at this point so that’s probably why, but I should back it up somewhere and be a responsible person.
In theory.
I guess I’ll keep trucking along until then, 1667 words at a time. Maybe I’ll have a more enlightening update next update!
What I’ve Been Doing When Not Doing NaNoWriMo:
Reading: Finished Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby van Pelt, That Way Madness Lies ed. by Dahlia Adler, and Moon of the Turning Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice. Currently reading Pervatory by R.M. Vaughan and Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume.
Listening To: The Official Yellowjackets Playlist and My Dopamine When The World Is Mean Playlist
Watching: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (2023, dir. Wes Anderson), Poison (2023, dir. Wes Anderson), The Swan (2023, dir. Wes Anderson), The Rat Catcher (2023, dir. Wes Anderson).