More Vantage Point NaNoWriMo Tips to Close out November!

We are barely awake from our Thanksgiving turkey-comas, and suddenly it is the last week of November! For all the aspiring authors participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), this most likely means a mad dash to finish their 50,000 word novels. To light that final spark, here are our final NaNoWriMo tips from Vantage Point Books’ authors–tips that we believe to be important advice to any new writer, any month of the year. Congratulations to everyone who has made it thus far!

Joseph Pittman, author of TILTING AT WINDMILLS, A CHRISTMAS WISH, LONDON FROG: A Todd Gleason Crime Series, and the upcoming Todd Gleason Crime novel, CALIFORNIA SCHEMING.

1.       Stay focused.  Figure out who your protagonists are and keep the book in their point of view.  Don’t go overboard by using all your characters POV—this can make for an unnecessarily long book, and can affect the pacing of the book.

2.       Before writing a chapter, figure out which characters will appear, what you wish to accomplish in the chapter in terms of plot lines and character reveals, and how all of this pushes your story along.

3.       Don’t go back and rewrite.  Write the book first, then go back and adjust.  You learn new things about your characters as you write, most likely things you never anticipated.  You can work any necessary details back into the text when you go over what you wrote.

4.       Have fun.  Some writers prefer to have a full outline at the start; but what’s the fun in that, knowing all the details ahead of time?  It’s amazing how your story can change when you allow yourself some flexibility.

5.       Read your dialogue aloud.  Your ear can tell better than your eyes, so when you speak your characters’ dialogue you’ll be able to tell if they sound authentic or not.

 

 

Nancy S. Kyme, author of debut novel MEMORY LAKE: The Forever Friendships of Summer, out now.

Here are some tips to streamline the creative process and elevate writing quality:

• Avoid beginning sentences with; Then, Suddenly, Afterward, or Next.  Think them, but do not write them.  Avoid multiple adjectives and linking ideas with ‘that’.  For example, do not write a sentence like this: “Suddenly, we found ourselves in that state of mind that always renders the newcomer dumbfounded by the chaotic, deafening, raucous activity that is inherent in any large city.”  Do write a sentence like this; “We were dumbfounded by the city’s chaotic activity.”

 

• Grammar is important.  Punctuation is important.  Consistency is even more important.  If you decide to place your character’s thoughts in italics, without quotation marks, carry this style throughout the entire work.

 

• Don’t believe in ‘writer’s block’.  If you are staring at a blank page, just put something down.  All first drafts are basically awful.  If you have some pages written and can’t get motivated to move forward, do some editing.  Check your grammar.  Choose more descriptive words.  Take a walk and think about it.  There is always some work you can do, even when you’re not in front of the computer.  Most likely if you are having trouble moving forward with the story, it is because you need to go back and fix something.  Read what you’ve already written and you will find something to expand on which will pave the way to moving forward.

 

• Most everything can be saved with some thoughtful editing and proper grammar.  Suppose you spent hours on a section and decided later it deserved to be scrapped.  Don’t hit delete immediately.  Be optimistic.  Perhaps it just needs to be moved to another place, attributed to a different character, or expanded, or trimmed.  Then again, sometimes a passage just needs to be deleted.

 

• Don’t micro-manage the physical activity of action scenes.  In other words, don’t assume your readers know what your characters are thinking.  Do assume they know how your characters are moving.   I once spent weeks, and pages, on two characters climbing a cliff.  Every foot placement, every hand hold, was painstakingly described.  It was a waste of my effort and theirs.  When the characters’ fears were described instead, and the action streamlined, the reader was allowed to imagine their own foot placements and hand holds.

 

• Having a plan B helps reduce stress when the deadline looms.  As a last resort, (only if a finely-crafted denouement absolutely eludes you,) remember this plot device:

DEUS EX MACHINA: a person or thing (as in fiction or drama) that appears or is introduced suddenly and unexpectedly and provides a contrived solution to an apparently insoluble difficulty. (www.merriam-webster.com)

• There is no limit to creativity.  You can do this. It’s fun. Breathe!