Insane Scheme
So here's the deal: I'm about seven thousand words in. I've created three protagonists. I don't have any idea how these protagonists are going to meet each other or what they're going to do when they do, because I don't really have a clear idea of my antagonists' Evil Scheme (it apparently involved exploding boats, though). Instead of working on these issues, I'm introducing a fourth protagonist. In short, my novel is a train wreck, and I have the urge to restart. But one of the foremost rules of NaNoWriMo is "Thou shalt not just throw away seven thousand words, you dumb bastard."
So here's my plan: I'm going to finish this novel by mid-month. I will motivate myself to do so with the promise that, if I succeed, I'll then get to write a different, much better (or so I tell myself) novel during the month's back half.
Who's with me?
So here's the deal: I'm about seven thousand words in. I've created three protagonists. I don't have any idea how these protagonists are going to meet each other or what they're going to do when they do, because I don't really have a clear idea of my antagonists' Evil Scheme (it apparently involved exploding boats, though). Instead of working on these issues, I'm introducing a fourth protagonist. In short, my novel is a train wreck, and I have the urge to restart. But one of the foremost rules of NaNoWriMo is "Thou shalt not just throw away seven thousand words, you dumb bastard."
So here's my plan: I'm going to finish this novel by mid-month. I will motivate myself to do so with the promise that, if I succeed, I'll then get to write a different, much better (or so I tell myself) novel during the month's back half.
Who's with me?
posted by "Steve Smith" at 12:28 PM
8 Comments:
This is in now way related to the precision plan for failure that Steve just outlined, but could someone (Steve) turn on the ability to have post titles? Having to slap them in manually is really dumb (and doesn't archive very well) and I haven't heard a single salient reason why they're turned off. This isn't 1998 god-damn-it. We have running water we should have post titles.
Done.
Where does it say in the rules that the novel can't be a train wreck? Because if that's in the rules, I'm really in trouble.
Wait I've got it! You haven't been writing about four protagonists and a villain ... you've been writing about ONE character with FIVE personalities.
You can thank me later.
Adam: It doesn't. But I'm really not enjoying writing this train wreck as much as I enjoyed writing last year's car-crash-without-casualties.
Dan: I certainly *could* thank you later, but it seems to me to be unlikely that I will.
Make it so that one of the characters has actually been dead all along. That gets them every time!
"Make it so that one of the characters has actually been dead all along. That gets them every time!"
But keep the five personalities bit too.
Obviously, your fourth character should be related to the other three, and he dies under mysterious circumstances. In his will, he leaves a sizeable fortune and a lovely old manor to whichever of his last three willing relatives can stay in the home the longest.
And the house is haunted, of course. See...just like how Dean Koontz does it.
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