forum Preparations!!!

Started October 18, 2022 by @larcenistarsonist group

tune

Back with another random question. Since I feel like recognizing weakness and strengths is an important skill.

What do you feel like your strength is in writing? What do you find constantly falling short in your writing, and do you plan to use this November to improve it? How do you overcome challenges?

my strength, human behavior and dialogue. settings are alright.
weakness, pacing (again) and i often get distracted or realize i dont know where i was going with a character

I envy you haha, I struggle with human behavior and dialogue. I really just tend to have a hard time making things feel natural.

its mostly cause i overanalyze people-

I think for me, my biggest struggle is sentence variation. And maybe vocabulary.

But I think I'm pretty decent at pushing past blocks in all of my creative mediums, so it's a trade-off I'll take! I hope to improve my sentence starts/variation this November, and I've already made some progress with fixing it (according to a very lovely beta reader). That being said I think asking for the critique is the best way to overcome any challenges. Though it's a bit nerve-wracking.

its mostly cause i overanalyze people-

HAHA. Wait- I do that too, so where does the magic happen? wwww

yeah, those are definitely difficult. a lot of my older work starts every sentence with "[pronoun]" "it" or "the" and it drives me crazy

Yeah, that's a problem I ran into. Most of my sentences before I revised them were [pronoun] then {verb}. But it's gotten better. I've only got a draft, but I've been correcting it a lot. I wonder if I'm correcting my draft too much.

You might be overcorrecting the draft, particularly if your goal is to get all of a thing written, then edit.
I do the same thing. My drafts take foreve but I do way fewer cuz they come out squeaky clean. Ultimately, it's not good because it gives me less overall time to revise.

Understood. I guess that's another weakness of mine, I have a hard time leaving my works alone if I see even a slight issue. Even in drafts where issues are usually guaranteed.

I have all my details set, like main characters, setting and plots of separate chapters.
But I'm not 18 yet so I'm doing the YWP and my goal is only 11k because I don't believe in myself that much.

I'm not eighteen either, but I completed the entire 50k last year! It was pretty tough, but it is completely possible. I have so much faith in you to not only crush your goal, but also go above and beyond your expectations aklsdjf

Back with another random question. Since I feel like recognizing weakness and strengths is an important skill.

What do you feel like your strength is in writing? What do you find constantly falling short in your writing, and do you plan to use this November to improve it? How do you overcome challenges?

My strength I would say is a message. I love weaving metaphors and consistent themes throughout. I love symbolism so much. Imagery and character building/arcs are also big strengths of mine.

My weakness…. ooohg. That probably has to be syntax and not starting every sentence with a pronoun ;-; I'm trying though and I'm slowly getting better aksdlf

So valid, starting a sentence with a pronoun feels like the most tempting thing in the world sometimes.

its just so much easier! but also looks bad when it happens often

I only found out about this recently and I have no idea where to start…

Got an idea? Like an idea for what kind of story you wanna write?
After that, got a person in mind? Like who it happens to?
After that, got a where? Like a location for it to happen?
If not, those are good places to start. My creative impulses kick in when I'm trying to figure those things out, usually.

yeah, it's hard to get started but here's some tips!

• find what you want to write and decide how you want to
  This can be a short story that's been circulating around in your head or even a fanfiction that you've been wanting to write for the past little while! (I wrote a fanfic last year and it's one of my greatest achievements!) Hell, the plot doesn't even have to be that great. If you want, you can fly by the seat of your pants. I know of a bunch of NaNo writers who had the vaguest plot and characters imaginable and just went for it. If you just found out about this recently, I think the "Winging It" approach might be best for you. There are some writers who plan out months in advance and others who, well, wing it! In the next few days, you can try bullet plotting to get a semblance of plot!
• make sure you have time
  NaNo is a large commitment for the entire month of November. If you're going to be busy for a lot of it, you should probably lower your goal to something more manageable like 20k or 15k! There's absolutely nothing wrong with a smaller goal.
• plan, or not!
  Like I said earlier, you can try out bullet plotting and that's just literally writing down plot events in chronological order. You don't have to be specific with the plot points as long as you have some idea what's going to happen within them. There's still a few days left before NaNo starts so you can easily pound out some plot on a google doc or piece of notebook paper. Or, if you're into winging it, just go for it as soon as NaNo starts.
• get a head start
  In early November you have a ton of motivation for the project, but as the month goes on, it will without a doubt dwindle. I always recommend writing as much as you can in the early days of November without getting burnt out. Not only will this give you a cushion for future dates, but it will also help you get a feel for the intense writing and see if you should raise or lower your goal.

and those are some of the tips I have!! happy writing and I hope you figure out if you want to participate or not

The thing is that I have a handful of ideas about characters and settings as well as a few random scene ideas that I could work on pulling together for this. I was going strong for a while coming up with stuff but lost momentum when I couldn't progress much with the plot. I started struggling because I can never decide where to take the characters next as there are infinite possibilities for where they can go and I find it really hard to commit to one idea without feeling like I am missing out on the others. I'll try get something together before November starts…We'll see how that goes.

And thanks so much for the tips :)

1 (or 2 depending on timezone) days until it's time! Is everyone ready?

not really but im gonna try!

as ready as I can be aldskjf I have 32 hours until Nov. 1st so that's 32 hours to get as much as I can done!!!

Honestly, for me it's the mental psyching up to it. And I think I'm as pumped as I can be

Is everyone ready?

Ready-ish. I finally decided that I'm going to just bounce back and forth between different projects, and hopefully finally finish something. I have so many NaNo projects that I've started but never finished and the thought of starting another WIP to collect dust in my Google Drive is a little overwhelming. Plus I feel like I've barely written anything this year. I still don't really feel ready, and maybe that's just because usually at this point I'm outlining and such but I don't really need to do that this year.
I was kinda hoping to finally start on the prequel to one of my other stories that I mentioned earlier but I haven't done any outlining for it, and since I'm planning on it being not in chronological order I feel like I'd have to be really organized since I've never written anything like that. I may start it if I get caught up with some of my other stories but I honestly don't see that happening.

Is everyone ready

I've got a plot line, a world and a heck ton of scene prompts. we are good to go.

Good luck, Relsey!