Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Tortoise & Hare
NaNoWriMo starts today!
I had to write about it for class, but I thought I'd share a little with ya'll too.
Sorry to all the Hare-writers out there.
I’m one of 43,917 amateur writers registered with the National Novel Writing Month website, NaNoWriMo.org. Between November 1st and November 31st all 43,917 people are striving to write 50,000 words.
That’s about 1,667 words a day.
Someone on NaNoWriMo compared writers to Aesop's Tortoise and Hare. I've been pondering that a bit, and here's my interpretation of it:
The Hare’s process is the most direct, and many find it to be the most simple. A Hare-writer has massive spurts of creativity followed by long spells in which little or nothing seems to happen. Some writers use those restful times to reflect on what they’ve written and evaluate their next goals. Others just ignore the story for a few days or weeks before coming back to it. With short pieces I’m often a Hare. There’s a continuity to writing in one sitting that is difficult to capture otherwise.
The Tortoise writing approach is much more methodical. I practiced it for the first couple of weeks of October, and am embarking on it again now. With the Tortoise, you sit and write until you have your number of words per day. Some days this takes hours, other days it may get done in just a few minutes. Since I have several days in which I will be nowhere near a computer, no matter how much I’d like to be, I’ve set my minimum daily word count right at 2,000. This means that at the end of the month I should have 60,000 words or more written. With a convention this weekend and Thanksgiving later, I’m not sure that’s going to happen, but having a budget of 5 days off makes the going a little easier.
Some Hare-writers will use “day markers” to track their progress. They’ll see that since they’ve written 20,000 words in their first few days, they can take the next few off. These days off are when the Tortoises catch up.
So the Tortoise has a set number of words per day. Next is the outlining. This began 3 weeks before the contest for me. Each character has an 8X5 inch profile card filled with all kinds of relevant information about them. The basic plot outline is written –scene-by-scene–, and then each scene is graphed on a scale of 1-10 for emotional intensity. Once the graph lined up with a model flow for pacing, I examined my theme. My particular story examines conflicting loyalties between different characters, and how it affects their relationships to each other and their families. I’m a minimalist when it comes to scenes and especially dialogue. If part of the outline doesn’t somehow add to the theme, it’s cut immediately.
Once the outlining is done, it’s time to re-evaluate. Does everything fit? Is it a plausible story? And, most importantly, is there room for change? Everything changes once the words start hitting the paper. This is where the Hare-writers tend to get the lead on the Tortoises. They’re blitzing through with wild abandon, and letting intuition drive the story. When they stop, it’s often because they’ve worked their story into a situation they hadn’t expected and now have to find a way out. With the Tortoise approach, you want to see every snare coming. And if one sneaks up on you, then you want to be ready for it. Knowing your characters is the key to this. If you’ve spent enough time outlining them and really getting to know every aspect of the character, you can imagine how they’ll react to any situation. Try to think of as many situations as possible before Day 1 so you’ll have an idea of how they’d solve things before they face them.
When day 1 rolls around, everything changes. The commitment to a daily minimum is a lot harder than simply stating that you’re going to get it done and then working when you have the time. But this steady devotion to the daily word count and patience through the rougher spots will not only get you through the race, it’ll give you a way each day to examine and improve your own process.
Slow and steady wins the race. ¶ 0 comments
I had to write about it for class, but I thought I'd share a little with ya'll too.
Sorry to all the Hare-writers out there.
I’m one of 43,917 amateur writers registered with the National Novel Writing Month website, NaNoWriMo.org. Between November 1st and November 31st all 43,917 people are striving to write 50,000 words.
That’s about 1,667 words a day.
Someone on NaNoWriMo compared writers to Aesop's Tortoise and Hare. I've been pondering that a bit, and here's my interpretation of it:
The Hare’s process is the most direct, and many find it to be the most simple. A Hare-writer has massive spurts of creativity followed by long spells in which little or nothing seems to happen. Some writers use those restful times to reflect on what they’ve written and evaluate their next goals. Others just ignore the story for a few days or weeks before coming back to it. With short pieces I’m often a Hare. There’s a continuity to writing in one sitting that is difficult to capture otherwise.
The Tortoise writing approach is much more methodical. I practiced it for the first couple of weeks of October, and am embarking on it again now. With the Tortoise, you sit and write until you have your number of words per day. Some days this takes hours, other days it may get done in just a few minutes. Since I have several days in which I will be nowhere near a computer, no matter how much I’d like to be, I’ve set my minimum daily word count right at 2,000. This means that at the end of the month I should have 60,000 words or more written. With a convention this weekend and Thanksgiving later, I’m not sure that’s going to happen, but having a budget of 5 days off makes the going a little easier.
Some Hare-writers will use “day markers” to track their progress. They’ll see that since they’ve written 20,000 words in their first few days, they can take the next few off. These days off are when the Tortoises catch up.
So the Tortoise has a set number of words per day. Next is the outlining. This began 3 weeks before the contest for me. Each character has an 8X5 inch profile card filled with all kinds of relevant information about them. The basic plot outline is written –scene-by-scene–, and then each scene is graphed on a scale of 1-10 for emotional intensity. Once the graph lined up with a model flow for pacing, I examined my theme. My particular story examines conflicting loyalties between different characters, and how it affects their relationships to each other and their families. I’m a minimalist when it comes to scenes and especially dialogue. If part of the outline doesn’t somehow add to the theme, it’s cut immediately.
Once the outlining is done, it’s time to re-evaluate. Does everything fit? Is it a plausible story? And, most importantly, is there room for change? Everything changes once the words start hitting the paper. This is where the Hare-writers tend to get the lead on the Tortoises. They’re blitzing through with wild abandon, and letting intuition drive the story. When they stop, it’s often because they’ve worked their story into a situation they hadn’t expected and now have to find a way out. With the Tortoise approach, you want to see every snare coming. And if one sneaks up on you, then you want to be ready for it. Knowing your characters is the key to this. If you’ve spent enough time outlining them and really getting to know every aspect of the character, you can imagine how they’ll react to any situation. Try to think of as many situations as possible before Day 1 so you’ll have an idea of how they’d solve things before they face them.
When day 1 rolls around, everything changes. The commitment to a daily minimum is a lot harder than simply stating that you’re going to get it done and then working when you have the time. But this steady devotion to the daily word count and patience through the rougher spots will not only get you through the race, it’ll give you a way each day to examine and improve your own process.
Slow and steady wins the race. ¶ 0 comments
