News From The Front

Only two more days to go!

I’ve realized that I may not be able to put a wordmeter nor other stuff in my sidebar here, given that I can’t edit the template *sigh* Instead, I’ll just give the news through this post:

• Wordmeter: I’m using the one from Zokutou. I’ll probably include the link to it in each new post here during November, as an update, even though this isn’t exactly convenient.
• Radio Blog. I’ve put online a few of the songs/instrumental pieces I’ve gathered as an “inspiration/keeping-me-pumped-up” playlist. There are many, many more to it, but my bandwidth isn’t unlimited. The radio blog can be found on my writing blog (The Y Logs), in the right part of the sidebar.

Tags: NaNoWriMo | radioblog | wordmeter | zokutou

Some Fun

I can’t remember how I stumbled upon the site, as I usually don’t run after “dollz” and this kind of things. I must’ve been in a funny mood, though, because I gave it a try, and quickly wiped some… well… what you could consider cartoonish versions of my characters in the soon-to-be NaNovel. It feels a little weird, since they actually don’t look that relaxed (nor exactly like this, for that matter), but it was fun doing it. After all, being a writer doesn’t entail me to throwing fun out of my life alltogether.
Here’s one, triggered completely by chance (I liked the haircut).

Jen McAran, a.k.a Tesla. A 20-years old hacker, and a trouble-magnet to boot—she clearly has a tendency to put her nose where she shouldn’t. She’s still young, but talented enough to make her way through the Web without needing to rely on too many people. Her techniques are actually inherited from Fractal, a somewhat elusive Web-avatar who’s been her mentor for years within the Web; she’s never managed to meet him/her in offline life, in spite of her efforts.

The way I see her, she’s quite the spunky girl, living day-to-day, loyal to her friends, and ready to act on a whim. Actually… i don’t envision the story starting with her NOT already being in trouble, so this gives me an edge to start writing next Tuesday.

I can’t wait!

Outlining

So far, I’ve managed to write down an outline for the first six chapters. I haven’t gone further than that, I haven’t forced myself to jot it down, and it doesn’t consist in a dozen of pages either, but I think this will be enough to get me started and pumped up during the first week. I don’t want to feel trapped by this when I’m diving deep into writing the novel in itself; on the other hand, I know myself, and going without any plan at all.

For the moment, this remains close enough to what I had pondered during the first two weeks of October. We still get Tesla, Heiji and Deanna as “main characters”, although Miki is starting to want a go at it too (first Kittin from my “Voyagers” trilogy, now the scientist… what did my characters smoke this month, really!). Also, I still haven’t decided on the ending. I want to keep this free, and see where it takes me.

Good thing that Nov. 1st is a holiday here, I’ll be able to jump on my word processor first thing in the morning without having to worry about office work!

Tags: NaNoWriMo | novel | outline | writing

Magna Carta

I’ve jotted down a few things for my “Magnae Cartae” in the train the other day, and I thought they could be worth sharing here…

Magna Carta I: Things that make a good novel in my opinion

• Balanced scenes (neither too much action nor too little)
• Characters with strong/defined personae (men and women alike)
• Dynamic dialogue
• Characters that hide a secret or two
• Villains with subtle motivations
• Themes about which you can tell that the author did his/her research
• Unexpected plot twists
• Characters with a sense of humor
• “Cliffhanger” chapters’ endings
• Believable rules of magic/science (magic has a price, using psychic powers makes their owner very tired…)
• Heroes/Heroins who aren’t perfect
• Characters with lives of their own (not only there to grant the hero’s wishes or answering questions)
• Characters that could fall in love but simply remain very good friends (not every friendship ends in bed!)
• Clichés that get busted out at some point in the story
• Details given at the beginning, and that reappear later on as important for the plot
• Well-developed fantasy/sci-fi worlds

The Evil Twin (aka “What I think makes a lousy novel”):

• One-dimensional characters (except for very secondary ones, who don’t need to be terribly developed)
• Villains who’re evil just for the sake of being evil
• Purple prose
• Perfect characters (Mary Sues/Gary Stus)
• Characters ending up in bed so that the author can write a sex scenes (or, worse, fulfill sick fantasms)
• Bad description (too long, boring, disrupting the flow of the story)
• If the author tries to convey a message in his/her book: the message becoming predominant, to the detriment of the plot/characters
• Going through several different points of view in the same paragraph
• Flagrant mistakes in a domain I know well enough to notice it (no rapiers in Constantinopolis in the 8th century, thanks)
• Bad stereotypes (every female character in the book dreams of having children, etc…)
• Wangst
• Too developed fantasy/sci-fi worlds! (=That the author likes so much that s/he will try to squeeze as many details as possible about them in the book, to the detriment of the story)
• [Sci-fi] Faster-than-light travel

Tags: nanowrimo | writing

Fighting Titles

Alright, they’re now fighting. The titles, I mean. I used to have no working (or even definitive) title at all, and now I’m poising among the following choices:

1. It’s A Red, Red World: Probably not the best title for a book, but I like the sound of it, the “red” word in it can of course be given several meanings (see the novel profiling for more on this).
2. Red Shadow: Shorter, and I like ‘em short. However, I’m not terribly fond of the way it sounds so… “classical”, not to say “banal”.
3. The Ways of the World: Inspired by a song I like a lot. It would also fit the mood quite well. I’m just afraid it might be… long? (Well, not longer than the first title, that is.)
4. Forlorn Hope: Now that I know where this expression comes from, I also know it’d fit.

I think my liking goes to 1 and 4 so far. Whether as a working or a definitive title, I don’t know yet, but I have this need to refer to my novel by another word than “my NaNovel”, so…