Tag: building a writing platform

NaNoWriMo Day 19

the kingdom

Day 19 How much do you need to describe your character’s appearance? I asked my son how he approaches describing his characters;

“I intentionally never described Nevaeh’s appearance in detail. Partially because it wasn’t necessary, but also because I didn’t want to make people see my idea of “attractive” when they pictured her. I just described her as “attractive” and let people decide for themselves what that meant. Guys could picture loved ones. Women could picture themselves or someone they admire. If I’ve written the character’s personality right, then people will picture her as a beautiful person without me needing to describe her features.” – Benjamin T. Collier, referring to his female protagonist in The Kingdom.

I used this approach to describing my characters unless, as Ben explained, the external details will later be revealed to be of significance to the story. For example, I wrote the clothing transformation from dreary to expressive that my female protagonist went through, to ‘show-don’t-tell’ her inner transformation from depressed to confident. So, usually, it’s unnecessary to describe all the physical features of a character. Leave that to the reader’s imagination.

My blogs through the first half of NaNoWriMo were mostly subjective. During this second half of the process I’m hoping to bring you some useful writing insights too – as well as my personal struggles and triumphs. On that note, today was grocery shopping day and I added some Christmas shopping in there too and lunch at Boston Pizza. Word count? I’d rather not say.

Back to hitting those keys at breakneck speed tomorrow! Good Night from the NaNo Novice.

Lynne

 

Character Costume Creation

Creating a Costume

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

Day 17 of NaNoWriMo 2015

“Costumes” was the word of the day for my next chapter. I had to narrow down a list of seven, then decide on my hero’s superhero name and add a costume description.

I wanted the superhero name to fit her personality and superpowers.

The costume had to look the part. Modern–not tights and a cape type! She’s getting her pieces at a staff discount, so they must be regular everyday items.

I managed to finish it, but I’m a little late to bed. Feeling good about the writing all the same. Good Night from Ontario, fellow writers and readers.

–added after NaNoWriMo: I named my hero after a bird because of her transformation during the story. Here’s the rough draft of that scene–

“She went to the dressing room to try on her costume pieces; taupe skinny jeans, her fawn-coloured t-shirt, fitted long brown leather jacket, and her long pull-on boots with a low heel.  Cassy put some extra pieces together to make the costume more special; wrist bands with extra pieces she’d sewn on to hold knives, a leather belt to hold the ball bearings in a pouch and wooden balls on a thick leather thong, leather ankle bands large enough to go over the boots and hold more knives, and two leather belts to crisscross her chest and hold a short staff behind her back. All she needed now was a mask!”

Lynne

NaNoWriMo Day 15 – Half Way!

 

Chocolate. yanin-vismistananda2
The Movie ‘Chocolate’

 

Day 15 I just wrote my first fight scene ever! My antagonist is a female and this was her first fight too. I called upon a friend who’s in the security business to give me some tips on weapons and such. Thank you, my friend – free book when I publish it! I must say it felt good to unleash the inner superhero. And I have two more fights to choreograph with my mighty pen. I’m at the halfway mark and feeling pretty good. On a personal note, I enlisted my son’s help prepping the garden shed for Fall. It was full of stuff we don’t need and I have a vision of a tidy garden shed to work in and store my garden art. So we loaded up the pick-up truck ready for the tip – or dump – depending on where you live. He also helped me choreograph the fight scene ‘cos he’s good at that too. I haven’t quite caught up on my word count, but I’m confident I will. If you’re novelling along with me this month, keep it up. We can do this! (Apparently, by Grammarly standards, ‘novelling’ isn’t a real word – my bad).Word count to date 21,110. Have a good sleep.

Lynne

NaNoWriMo Day 14 – Almost Half Way!

Next Year
Next Year!

Day 14 Today was a writing/gardening day. I was supposed to have my gardens all finished so I would only need to help with the raking of leaves in November. Well, that didn’t happen. So today my son helped me with tidying the garden shed and I put away most of the toys. Then we started on the leaves. We still need to upturn some pots so they don’t crack in the winter, but Monday will be a good day for finishing that and doing some more raking because we’re expecting a high of 13! I probably won’t catch up with my word count until Tuesday. I think I’m about 5,000 words behind at present. Ughhh. I am enjoying the experience, though. I’ve learned a lot about plotting (not my forte as a Pantser) and flow. There’s a great deal of figuring out to do to make scenes flow. I have a greater respect for fiction writers now I’m aspiring to be one. It is not easy. NaNoWriMo is an amazing place to test and hone your writing skills. I’m so glad I decided to do this. I think next year I’ll start by purchasing a few stacks of sticky notes and posting them all over my office wall so I can rearrange them when I realize the protagonist shouldn’t be revealing her super powers till the next scene. Two weeks to go – will I make it? Yes, I will! (Well now I have to, don’t I?)

Have a good sleep everyone. I’ll be away from writing tomorrow so I can go to church and visit my daughter and her family (not necessarily my son-in-law, he’ll be glued to the football game).

– Lynne

NaNoWriMo Day 12

Praying for France

What a tragic day this has been. For my fellow NaNoWriMo novelists in Paris – My prayers are with you today. I can’t imagine what you’re going through. I can only pray for your comfort today.

I will give just a quick update for those of you who are following my NaNoWriMo blog:

Day 10 was a very busy day with personal commitments, so I only wrote a few hundred words.

Day 11 was Remembrance Day so we went to a service at the local cenotaph. This year my husband visited Belgium with his brother to see the grave of their grandfather who died in battle, so the day was especially memorable for him. Again I only managed a few paragraphs.

Day 12 I wrote quite a bit and reached 13,304. My story was coming together nicely as I approached the ‘muddle in the middle’. A particular scene was very rewarding, and I was pleased with my work. But before I could update my word count we had a four hour power outage.

Today I worked feverishly all day to try and get my middle going well. I was pleased with it again today, although I felt like I needed to change a few bits and pieces. So I did as instructed by the mentors and wrote a reminder into my novel to change those sections later if I have time and just press on to the goal. However, we had another power outage. I hope this isn’t going to be a continuous thing. I’m below the daily average needed, but I’m hopeful I can catch up and still take Sundays off.

Word count to date: 17,197.

Till next time – Lynne