Blog on the Lillypad
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
5000 words by the end of the day, people!
If you are participating in the NaNoWriMo contest, you need to have 5000 words written by the end of today to be caught up.
I'm doing two novels at once, though neither is available for public viewing unless you are also in NaNoWriMo. I am happy to report that both novels have passed the 6,000 word mark, so I am slightly ahead of schedule.
I've perused several excerpts from different NaNo writers, and there is a broad scope in what I've read. Some of it is quite good and some is absolutely appalling.
Initial observations:
Stories that are written without a strongly organized plot tend to have weak wording and disorganized sequencing of ideas. A strong, detailed outline (either in your head or on paper) leads to strong, clear writing.
Avoid repeating clear ideas with needless words. That's called overwriting. For example, "Hey get your stupid hands off my car!" he shouted angrily. The word "angrily" is redundant. The reader can tell from the sentence that the speaker is angry. If you multiply that redundancy to five times in a paragraph or 15 times on a page, you have overloaded writing.
Keep sentences clear. Long sentences can be clear, and short sentences can be unclear. What obfuscates sentences is poor logic in the wording. For example, The captive needed rest and to be fed. The broken parallelism is not that distracting in a short sentence. But in longer, more complex sentences, it brings the reading pace to a halt and forces the reader to struggle just to decode the narrative.
Avoid cliches. More on this later.
If you are participating in the NaNoWriMo contest, you need to have 5000 words written by the end of today to be caught up.
I'm doing two novels at once, though neither is available for public viewing unless you are also in NaNoWriMo. I am happy to report that both novels have passed the 6,000 word mark, so I am slightly ahead of schedule.
I've perused several excerpts from different NaNo writers, and there is a broad scope in what I've read. Some of it is quite good and some is absolutely appalling.
Initial observations:
Stories that are written without a strongly organized plot tend to have weak wording and disorganized sequencing of ideas. A strong, detailed outline (either in your head or on paper) leads to strong, clear writing.
Avoid repeating clear ideas with needless words. That's called overwriting. For example, "Hey get your stupid hands off my car!" he shouted angrily. The word "angrily" is redundant. The reader can tell from the sentence that the speaker is angry. If you multiply that redundancy to five times in a paragraph or 15 times on a page, you have overloaded writing.
Keep sentences clear. Long sentences can be clear, and short sentences can be unclear. What obfuscates sentences is poor logic in the wording. For example, The captive needed rest and to be fed. The broken parallelism is not that distracting in a short sentence. But in longer, more complex sentences, it brings the reading pace to a halt and forces the reader to struggle just to decode the narrative.
Avoid cliches. More on this later.
