ace character

Now What?

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So you finished NaNoWriMo and have a 50 000 word novel on your hands. Now what?

I won NaNoWriMo this year, and now I have a novel, the same as so many other NaNo winners. Some people need to actually finish their novels, because although they won NaNoWriMo, their novel is going to be longer than 50 000 words long. Good luck to you. Don’t slack off on your writing just yet.

As for the rest of us, now we have to get beta readers and start revising. I’ve got at least two beta readers who are running through my novel to find pacing problems, plot holes, characterization issues, and anything else that doesn’t make sense and needs to be fixed.

So, do you have a beta reader? I did a post on beta readers a while ago. But to sum it up, a beta reader is looking for loose ends in your draft and letting you know so that you can tie them up. Sometimes that means adding or deleting scenes, changing things around, or throwing your computer out the window. Try not to do that last one, because as frustrating as revisions can be, they are still necessary.

I already have tons of revisions in mind, because my draft was very bare-bones. All I was doing was trying to get those words down. Sometimes I got writer’s block, but I still had to forge ahead to get to the next milestone. This is the problem with a lot of NaNoWriMo drafts, because you’re plugging away and need to just spew the words on the page.

Well now is when you fix the problems you created during the writing process. At least you don’t have such a huge deadline for revisions. I would suggest, however, creating your own personal deadlines in order to make sure you actually finish it.

Revisions are hard, and sometimes you have to be hard on your draft. Like I said in my beta reader post, make sure you choose readers who aren’t afraid to hurt your feelings by pointing out problems.

I’m doing that right now, so fellow writers, we’re all in this together. Hang in there.

NaNoWriMo Close

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This is it, everyone. The last day of NaNoWriMo 2015. I did it!

NaNo-2015-Winner-Banner

Some of us finished in the third week, like my friend Laurence. Some of us were madly writing away on the very last day with only a little bit more to go, like me. Some of us weren’t even close to finishing, but kept on writing anyways.

Congratulations to all of us. It’s a difficult challenge to write 50000 words in just one month. Even the decision to try to write a novel is a hard challenge to face, so I hope that you can look back on your work this month and be proud of yourself for what you have accomplished.

I had an interesting time of it. I wasn’t expecting to follow the set pattern of 1667 words a day, but I’ve stuck to it, which I haven’t done before. This is my third year participating in NaNoWriMo, and in the past, I’ve fallen behind and tried to finish thousands of words in one day. One year I managed to finish, and one year I didn’t. So I’m proud that I made a goal and I stuck to it this time.

This was definitely a year for firsts. This time, not only did I attend a write-in for NaNoWriMo, but I was the one to organize it. Now that I’ve done it once, I think I can possibly do it again.

Also, I did the first third of my writing in the hospital by hand, which was yet another challenge. I think that I’ve done pretty well.

So, yet another year comes to a close. I’ve got an entire 50 000 word novel to revise and get beta readers for. I already have all sorts of additions in mind, and it was difficult not to go and correct them during the writing process. But now I have scads of time to go do that.

So I’ll see you again next year everyone, and until then, I hope you can meet all your writing challenges with determination.

NaNoWriMo Crunch

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It’s day 21 of NaNoWriMo, and I’m 36313 words into my NaNo novel. It’s been a steady upward battle for me this year, but at least I (probably) won’t be writing 12000 words in one day like I did one year.

I’ve found that my model of planning two chapters in advance works quite well for me because quite often, if I write a whole outline then sometimes the story will veer far off course and I’ll have to scrap it anyway.

I will definitely need to revise and edit a lot before I’m satisfied with my story, this one will be pretty bare bones when I finish it. Also, the story arc is nowhere close to being finished, so I’m thinking that this is definitely going to be a series. I haven’t written a series before, so this is going to be a steep learning curve for me, I think. I’m looking forward to it, and even have possible titles in the works.

Speaking of titles, I only have a working title for this story, so I’m going to need to try and figure out if I’m going to stick with that or change it. As a few of you may know, one of my strategies of coming up with a title is to create a mind map to try and figure out themes in my story and then find a title from that. I’ll probably wait until I’m done the novel to do that.

I got to host a write-in last night, which was fun. I’m starting to get the hang of organizing things, and I’ve often found it’s the taking of responsibility that is hard, rather than actually setting things up. That part was actually fairly easy. I also got to meet some local writers, which was great. I’m hoping to host another write in next week, so I’ll tell you how that goes later.

As for now, I’ll just keep plugging away at my word count. I’m a bit ahead of the game now, but there’s no time to relax until all 50000 words are done.

World-building on my Current Project

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I’m at that stage of my current project when I’ve just finished with my preliminary world-building and starting to write. World-building is important for the writing that I like to do, which is fantasy and science fiction, because neither of these genres come with a built-in framework like contemporary work does.

There are so many things that one has to consider for world-building, and these details might not even make it into the story.

The story I’m working on right now has dragons that interact with humans. They are on a somewhat equal political and social standing, which affects how this world developed, and how it develops in the future.

Questions I have to ask myself:

How does having aerial power affect their world?

Why are dragons and humans on equal political and social standing?

What kind of social structure does this world have?

Is that social structure different in other parts of the world?

Industrial_revolutionThere are many, many more questions to ask than just that, but those are an example of the types of in-depth questions a writer must ask themself. This world isn’t just a facade, it must still be able to function if you go rooting around behind the scenes if you want it to feel real to the reader.

My setting is an important thing to consider: where is this story taking place?

I’ve decided on a late 18th century to early 19th century European-esque country. What does that mean? This is the Industrial age – think trains, factories, advances in science and medicine, fancy balls. It is also the age of revolution – The Revolutionary War took place in 1776 and the French Revolution in 1792-1802. This is Romantic era literature – Jane Austen, William Wordsworth, Mary Wollstonecraft. This is the age of Mozart and Beethoven.

pride-and-prejudiceNow imagine that, except dragons.

Think of steam power created by dragonfire. Think of the fact that the easiest way to travel, move goods, or explore is to hire a dragon. Think of the type of building that would need to exist in order to house dragons.

I wanted to explore the idea that dragons can have a social hierarchy similar to humans, and that there are dragons that have privilege and dragons that are working class. After all, this is also heading into the age of worker’s rights.

It’s a lot of work to put together a world like this, and it should be mentioned that not everything a writer thinks up will end up in the novel. I am in the middle of inking a map for this world, and most of the story takes place in the northern half of the continent. However, I know where all the cities of this world are located, what those cities do for revenue, and what path a dragon would take to get there. But no one really needs to know about exports out of a southern port town, do they?

I also may have accidentally created a family lineage that is far too complicated that won’t really be explored in the story that much. That was probably a mistake I will have to fix later.

If a story is supposed to seem as authentic as possible, a lot of world-building needs to go into it.

That’s it for now. I hope a lot of you are out there writing about fantasy worlds!

Dragons? Dragons.

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I’ve been a bit out of the writing game for a while. I had a lot of work which took up so much of my energy that I didn’t do almost any writing at all for six months.

I’m trying to get back in the game, and I’ve decided to start off by writing an ace/aro queerplatonic relationship for the Solitary Travelers collection. I’m always looking to expand my character diversity, and asexual and aromantic characters are definitely in the minority.

ace_aro

Added note for definitions on these terms:

Asexual: experiencing little or no sexual attraction (note: does not necessarily mean that an asexual person never experiences desire, nor does it necessarily mean that person would not have sex for some reason or hasn’t had sex.) Ace for short. Asexual people can have romantic attraction and a romantic relationship.

Aromantic: the opposite of asexual. Aromantics experience little or no romantic attraction. Aro for short. Aromantics are not necessarily asexual. Some might have sex just because they want to, without the need for a romantic attachment to their partner.

Ace/Aro: someone who is both asexual and aromantic.

Queerplatonic: a very strong, intense relationship that is not necessarily sexual or romantic. Not quite the same as having a strong friendship.

I’ve also wanted to try and expand on my writing voice and style. So I’ve decided to try writing something a bit different.

I want to write a story about dragons.

Right, I know what you’re thinking. Everyone and their auntie has written about dragons, and a LOT of people have written stories about dragonriders. Everyone loves dragons, and I really can’t blame them, because dragons are awesome. And being a dragonrider is probably the childhood dream (or adulthood dream?) of our generation.

I want to write the story from the dragon’s POV. And in this case, the dragon is also the ace/aro character, and the queerplatonic relationship is between the dragon and their rider.

His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik alternate historical fantasy

His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik alternate historical fantasy

If any of you have ever had trouble defining exactly what a non-romantic and non-sexual queerplatonic relationship actually is, the bond between a dragon and their rider in fantasy novels is actually a pretty good example. And if you’ve read fantasy, you’ve probably read about how important a rider’s dragon is in that person’s life and vice versa. In a lot of cases, the rider’s dragon is even more important than the romantic interest, if there is one.

So look forward to that, I definitely am.

I’ve put a lot of projects on the back burner, including my genderqueer villain story. I’m still going to write that one, even though I missed the deadline for the Villain’s Inc anthology.

Anyway, that’s my current writing project. Hopefully there will be more to follow once I get this one underway.

So dragons. Yes.