Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Cassy on Maintaining Momentum

Keeping a story going is probably one of the hardest things to do.  You have a few key ideas that you want to hit, but everything in between is completely blank.  And, if you're like Alex and I, you're trying to get through these lulls in thirty days.  Which is really hard to do.



Momentum also depends on the kind of writer you are.  I know Alex is an extreme planner, so I know when she talks about this on Friday, she'll probably tell you how to keep up momentum with all that planning you're doing.  But I'm not a planner when it comes to my writing.  I'm a pantser.  I do everything on the fly as it comes to me.

So how do I keep the story going when I don't always know what it is I'm going to do?  Well, that's easy, by dear Watson.  Since I don't really have a plan, I can put them anywhere.  Do anything.  Create anything.  I put them places that are insane (right now my characters are trying to escape from a cinderblock building that houses thousands of human slaves who do nothing but serve their Dinosaur overlords.)

I kill characters.  I'm not afraid to do it.  In fact, one of my NaNos, I killed half the cast!  Killing people changes the whole game plan, so go ahead.  Kill a character.  I bet you the story will be hoppin.

Bored of your character who is incredibly mundane?  Give them super powers!  Why not?  It will change the entire dynamic of the story, maybe even get you into a genre that you've never written before and that is, after all, the whole point of NaNo.  To be incredibly crazy and creative.

I have found that sticking to a script just doesn't work for me and sometimes, stories require a drastic change.  In fact, they prefer them.  So when you're stuck and don't know how to continue your story, do something that you never thought you'd do in a million years.

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