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Tricks for getting you over the line
Posted by: cottreau
One thing that I've learned is that while you are padding, useful, lovely stuff can come along with it. It's worth spending the time sitting and writing, because you never know what might come up!
I got these from "No Plot? No Problem!", by Chris Baty, founder of NaNoWriMo, which KiwiWriters is based on. They might might not seem serious, but they work and add lots of words to your word count!
Are you sitting there, fifteen or twenty thousand words to go? Only a few days left? Don't know if you should bother? Well bother! There are lots of ways of padding out your word count, getting you across the line.
Here are a few padding techniques:
1. Add a character who stutters... it double the word count. If you are stuck, put him into an awkward situation where he has to give a speech, or is doing a play.
2. Someone goes deaf in a rock concert or has turned up their stereo too loudly and they keep saying, "What?", and people are repeating themselves over and over. You can make it a loud party or loud restaurant and a few characters are trying to have a conversation.
3. Do a dream sequence. An MC goes to sleep and has a dream about something. It can be relevant or not. That's ok. And the dream sequence had a younger brother - the hallucination. Imagine what their mind might come up with. It's your character - you know their mind and what might come out of it.
4. Create a character who quotes Shakespeare or the Bible and put lots and lots of quotes in. These are free words, sitting out there that you can add to your novel. And, they can really spice up the writing. There are lots out there to quote, not just Bill Shakespeare and the Bible, quote your favorite author.
Just a few ideas to get you moving. You can get that extra 10,000 words and more. The best thing is that these will get you writing again, get you putting words down and that will fire all the right neurons to get you to unstick your story. There is nothing I want more than all the SoCNoC participants to keep writing.
All the best in the last week.
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27 Jun 2007 23:21:54
Comments
On 27 Jun 2007 23:43:47 Andy Chilton said:
I like the stuttering character. Especially the idea of him or her making a speach.
On 28 Jun 2007 09:16:31 Kerryn said:
In my last NaNo my characters were in a cave and I had the echoing ing ing every time they spoke spoke spoke. lol.
On 28 Jun 2007 11:47:15 Maggenpye said:
I had a quoting character in the last story, shakespeare and Voltaire! He got caught out this time and had to quote Simon and Garfunkel - the shame! Wikiquote is a great source, so is the Victorian Studies hyper concordance. Google for the links.
On 28 Jun 2007 12:59:00 Travis said:
I didn't add all the ideas from that section, but found that these were the most useful and likely to get the most bang for your buck. Most of them can be added in after the fact too, without affecting the rest of your story.
Maybe something traumatic causes the character to gain a stutter, same with all the others. You can add it in with 10k to go and is can still make sense.
On 28 Jun 2007 15:22:33 Travis said:
I just thought of another one that I used a lot in my 1st Nano novel.
I have the MC think something and then say the exact same thing.
So, something like:
Looking at this design, I thought that it was completely unstructured and ill-thought out. It was complete crap.
"This design is crap!", I said out loud, even though no one was listening.
I did it a lot, even went as far as to have the MC observe that someone else was probably thinking something and then having that other character say it. It does add words and get your fingers moving over the keys, that's for sure.
On 28 Jun 2007 16:46:23 Maggenpye said:
Another thing that worked for my first nano (haven't needed it this time) was to have actual events, Guy Fawkes, Christmas -huge word counts on fireworks and presents under the tree! One of my characters is the very devil for comparing whatever he's seeing with how his late wife would have done it differently! With examples!
On 29 Jun 2007 22:22:06 gaye-belle said:
I like the stuttering one, amused me.:)In my story,(a NZ one)I'd finished with the characters, and decided to make the old house an issue (with too many memories) so it needed bulldozing down. I brought Transit NZ in to create a new motorway. Woman stays in house until the fateful day. It also bought a conflict and resolution into it.