Chris Baty's Blog, page 180
October 13, 2014
Road Trip to NaNo: Uniting Description, Plot, and Motivation for Your Novel
NaNoWriMo is an international event, and the stories being written every year reflect our hundreds of participating regions. We’re taking a Road Trip to NaNo to hear from our amazing volunteers and writers all around the world. Today, Sonia, our Municipal Liaison in the India region shares how to unite the diversity of description, plot, and motivation to write a great novel in November:
India is a land of diversities: physical features that range from the Himalayas to the oceans, weather that traverses the extremities; and cultural differences that encompass dress, food and language. These dissimilarities aside, there are three topics that make most Indians’ hearts beat faster: Bollywood, politics and cricket.
Bollywood, or How to Fill Your Novel with Song and Dance
Bollywood, as the Hindi film industry is known, is located in the city of Mumbai which is the financial capital of India. It is also the capital of beauty and emotions, which form the base of Bollywood. Hordes of starry-eyed youngsters throng the film studios with the hope of making their debuts in films whose earnings are inching closer and closer to what the Indian Mission to Mars cost. Emotions rule us Indians, and Bollywood turns those emotions into things we sing and dance about, no matter the genre.
Your NaNoWriMo novel, too, needs song and dance. Make sure every scene that you write involves all the senses. Make use of smell, taste, hearing, touch, and intuition to add depth to your novel. As you prepare for November, observe, recognize and evaluate the various senses you experience in daily life, then jot them down for future use in your story.
Politics in Delhi, or How to Plot an Ending
If Mumbai is the financial capital, then Delhi, the capital of India, is the political hub. Delhi has been witness to clashes, both ideological and physical, from the Mughals of yore to the British when they ruled India to the latest electoral rout. Plotting and planning was definitely rife.
And that is what you will do in your novel. But like the roads of Delhi, which form a circular network, you could end up going in circles with your novel. That can be avoided if you know how your story is going to end. Not knowing that is one of the main reasons for stories being left half-finished. Be like the commuter in the Delhi Metro who knows which Lines will lead her to her destination. She takes detours, too—the Yellow Line for a quick visit to the bookstore or the theatre—but knows that she will take the Violet Line to return home at the end of the day.
Cricket, or Embracing Team Spirit
India is a cricket-crazy country. Here, cricket is not just a game, it is a religion and its God is Sachin Tendulkar, widely acknowledged as one of the greatest cricketers of all time. Sachin, a child prodigy, began his cricketing career at age eleven, under the guidance of his coach Ramakant Achrekar. He polished his innate skills with hours and hours of daily practice. Like Sachin, your novel-writing, too, needs both a coach and regular practice.
But Sachin’s success also lies in embracing team spirit. NaNo’s team spirit are the write-ins, both online and offline. Pledge to participate in them because the motivation and the team spirit in those events goads you, and encourages you to push forward and complete your story.
And so, in the rich diversities we also see unity, same as in any well-written novel.
Sonia Rao lives in the busiest of cities, Mumbai, which gives her innumerable opportunities to learn more about life, and then share this knowledge in her sometimes-humorous, sometimes-poignant way on her blog. This is her fourth year as an ML and if there is anything that gives her great joy in life, it is motivating Wrimos in India to reach their writerly goals.
Top photo by Flickr user Meanest Indian.
NaNoWriMo 2014: The Site Is Live!
NaNoWriMo 2014 is finally live and ready for your novel! We are heart-stoppingly excited, and so thankful that you’ve been patient with us this year. As participant Kris Bower said, “NaNoWriMo always helps to bring the fun back.” So, in case you weren’t sure, it’s true! The fun is back!
You have stories to tell. And like the very best of trusty sidekicks, we’ve been preparing all year to help you tell those tales. Here are just a few things we’ve gotten ready for you:
A brand-new dashboard, full of enhancements and new badges to help you take full advantage of the NaNo experience. Check out the differences between 2013 (left) and 2014 (right):
Blockbuster 2014 pep talk authors, including: Veronica Roth, Jim Butcher, Brandon Sanderson, Tamora Pierce, Kami Garcia, and Chuck Wendig. Plus, we’re cooking up a special webcast with the one and only Scott Westerfeld.
Virtual Write-Ins: When else do you get to write alongside thousands of other folks? Join our Virtual Write-Ins to try it out. (Spoiler alert: It’s fun and productive! Fudructive!)
NaNo Coaches and @NaNoWordSprints! Our NaNo Coaches—authors Kelly Gilbert, Lindsey Grant (our own former programs director!), Cari Noga, and Jessica Taylor—and @NaNoWordSprints team will urge you on all November long.
What you can do right now:
As the Sherlock to our Watson, the Batman to our Robin, the Katniss to our Cinna, here’s what you can do now that you’re on the scene:
Create your 2014 novel! Need a walkthrough? Check out our FAQ.
Look for pesky bugs. Our new site features may not be perfect yet. If you’re the eagle-eye type, head to the Tech Help forum with any issues you notice.
Recruit a fellow writer. Every hero is better with a team. Rock one of our new web badges, and ask a friend to join you!
Are your friends more supporters than writers? Create a fundraising page for your novel so they can invest in your writing and support our programs!
Build your NaNoWriMo Emergency Kit. Check out the NaNo Prep page, then peruse the equipment we’ve curated in our store.
This is only the beginning of your epic doings. By writing your novel this November, you’ll be making the universe just a little bit bigger. By supporting NaNoWriMo, you’ll make our world right here a whole lot more creative, open, and engaged.
Also, last thing: Would it be, like, weird to get our hair cut like yours? That’s something sidekicks do, right?
Tim Kim
Editorial Director
October 12, 2014
October 11, 2014
We Need Diverse Books: Novels that Get Representation Right
Throughout October, we’ll be partnering with We Need Diverse Books to bring you a series of blog posts full of helpful advice, tips, and suggestions for writing diversity convincingly and respectfully in your fiction—from people who know what they’re talking about. Today, Aisha Saeed spotlights great diverse books, and what you can learn from them:
With all the important conversations about diversity happening among readers, writers, and the publishing industry, the number one question most authors have is: how can I write diversity—and do it right—without falling back on tired tropes and stereotypes?
While there are many ways to prepare before diving into writing diverse characters, one of the best methods is to read the works of authors who have written such books successfully. Below are five books that feature diverse characters. Some are written by diverse authors, some are by people writing from outside their experiences, but all are done fairly and respectfully:
Borderline by Allan Stratton
What It’s About: Stratton writes from outside of his experiences in this tale of an Iranian-American teen whose father is accused of being a terrorist, and does it exceptionally well.
How It Gets Representation Right: On its face, a story about Muslims and terrorism could be rife with stereotypes. Allan takes care to create characters who are not defined by one aspect of who they are, and so the story and the people contained within are written in a genuine and well-rounded manner.
Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
What It’s About: A memoir in prose about the childhood of the iconic author Jacqueline Woodson. This book gives writers insight into how an author writes their personal experience of diversity onto the page.
How It Gets Representation Right: While the memoir does deal with matters of race and racism, Woodson creates a fully complete and complex world in which she is not reduced to the racist instances of her childhood but that instead reflects the fullness of her humanity.
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han
What It’s About: A coming-of-age story about a teen figuring out first love and her place in her family after her oldest sister goes away to college.
How It Gets Representation Right: While the main character is half Korean, and the author does highlight and honor her culture, Han also makes sure that nothing about this story exoticizes the main character’s ethnic background.
Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea
What It’s About: The journey of a group of teens heading into the United States from Mexico.
How It Gets Representation Right: A book like this could have many problematic aspects, but because Urrea paints each character vividly and with nuance none of them could ever be seen as anything but as depictions of fully realized human beings.
The Night Watch by Sarah Waters.
What It’s About: A gorgeous historical novel trailing the lives of four Londoners—three women and a young man with a past—whose lives change irreversibly in the shadow of a grand historical event.
How It Gets Representation Right: Waters writes this lovely story featuring LGBTQ characters in a manner that allows us to immediately connect with them through universal emotions that result from love and loss.
Aisha Saeed is VP of strategy for We Need Diverse Books™ and author of the upcoming Written In the Stars .
She wrote her very first novel thanks to the inspiration of NaNoWriMo. You can follow her on Twitter here.
We Need Diverse Books (WNDB) is a grassroots nonprofit organization created to address the lack of diverse, non-majority narratives in children’s literature. WNDB is committed to the ideal that embracing diversity will lead to acceptance, empathy, and ultimately equality.
In October, the group will be launching its inaugural Indiegogo campaign to support its future initiatives, including a Diversity in the Classroom program, diverse author grants and awards, and the first ever Diversity Festival in 2016. Volunteer & sign up for its mailing list at diversebooks.org, or follow WNDB on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, and Instagram!
Top image courtesy of Wikimedia and Rebecca King.
October 10, 2014
Road Trip to NaNo: Make Your Novel Waterproof
NaNoWriMo is an international event, and the stories being written every year reflect our hundreds of participating regions. We’re taking a Road Trip to NaNo to hear from our amazing volunteers and writers all around the world. Today, Liana, one of our Municipal Liaisons in the Philippines region shares how you can make your novel waterproof:
Hello from the Philippines! We’re a country of over 7,000 islands, and though we lay claim to the title of “Typhoon Capital of the World,” we also have some of the richest coral reefs in the world, a culture where our way of saying “How do you do?” is asking whether you’ve eaten, and a festival somewhere in the country virtually every week of the year.
So you can imagine that we’re all about living up the good things in spite of the bad. “The Filipino spirit is waterproof” has been our rallying cry every year once monsoon season starts. In fact, when Typhoon Haiyan hit us during the first week of NaNoWriMo last year, many of us kept chugging on, pounding out scenes and chapters in between sessions volunteering at relief centers or raising money to send to the affected provinces.
We wrote with the news on as the death toll climbed. We wrote while our backs and arms ached from hauling sacks of relief goods. Not even one of the worst typhoons in recorded history would keep us down or trample on our dreams—many of us we wrote just to prove even Mother Nature couldn’t grind us down.
But we learned that while the Filipino spirit might well be waterproof, our novels often aren’t. Many of us (myself included) failed to get that purple bar last year. So I’ve decided that, this year, our novels need to be “waterproof” as well, and I’m hoping to help my Wrimos don their noveling raincoats this year:
Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Back up your novel religiously, preferably in the cloud where the rain (or a spilled cup of coffee) can’t fry circuits and your words along with them.
Find yourself a safe place. Most folks who live in flood-prone parts of town have go-to friends they can crash with when the waters start to rise. In the same way, many writers have a place they go to when they need to churn out chapters, whether it’s just a certain state of mind or a specific desk. That said…
The best tool you can have is the one that’s in your hand when you need it. A stick could save your life when you find yourself knee-high (or worse) in murky water. So there’s no reason you can’t write your next scene down on a paper napkin or the back of a receipt. Just because you’re not in front of your computer doesn’t mean you can’t keep writing.
Strangers can become your best friend in the space of a moment. Just as the neighbor you’ve never said two words to might be the guy who saves your life, some random Wrimo in the forums could very well help you untangle the knots in your plot—possibly without even realizing it. Don’t forget you can find answers (and inspiration) in the unlikeliest of places. And don’t forget to pay it forward—that’s why we have mentors!
Pretend the sun is shining, even when it’s not. Don’t talk yourself into writer’s block. Don’t even let yourself believe there’s any such thing. Just keep writing. If you can tap out those chapters even when that spark hasn’t been struck, imagine how your fingers will fly once the fire’s been lit!
At the end of the month, it doesn’t matter so much that the novel in your hands is a little wrinkled or damp in places. What matters is you’ve got it. And if it needs drying or ironing out, well, that’s what NaNoEdMo is for, right?
Liana Smith Bautista (AKA Purplyana) has been one of the Asia :: Philippines NaNoWriMo MLs for four years. Since she first joined up, she’s written fantasy and romance novels as well as hot messes that wish they could be called novels. She makes a living writing articles and copy editing books, and she dreams of one day taking her red pen to her own novels’ proofs.
NaNoWriMo Plot Party 2011 photo by Asia :: Philippines ML Anton Chua (Flatlander). Personal photo by Jose Miguel O. Bautista. Top photo by Flickr user Joyce T.
October 9, 2014
Road Trip to NaNo: How Connecting with Fellow Writers Can Expand Your World View
NaNoWriMo is an international event, and the stories being written every year reflect our hundreds of participating regions. We’re taking a Road Trip to NaNo to hear from our amazing volunteers and writers all around the world. Today, Edrei, one of our Municipal Liaisons in the Australia :: Elsewhere region shares how you can grow your writer’s perspective:
“Elsewhere”… the word usually invokes a sense of displaced origins. Where everyone else has a homebase, those of us who belong to the Elsewhere communities are people who don’t have a central locale big enough to host their own NaNoWriMo group.
Here in Australia, where cities and regions have a spirit in which they can take pride, we of the Elsewhere community pride ourselves on something a little different. As a community of Wrimos gathered from all parts of Australia, our spirit, our voice, and our strength is found in our diversity.
Over the years, I have learned that the less exposed you are to the world around you, the more likely you will encounter the dreaded writers’ block. The ability to see things from a different perspective helps you define contrasting elements of your story, whether it be the voice of a character, a culture of a township, or a life force of a world…
It can be hard to see things from another perspective. That is where we have to rely on the diversity of collective experiences. The Elsewhere region in Australia has the ability to represent the diversity of Australia as a whole. We take steps to connect to one another in as many ways as possible, through social media, old school IRC chatrooms and the good ol’ NaNoWriMo forums.
The benefit of this is that we have the perspectives of many people from many walks of life. Country towns, urban areas, people who have lived their entire lives in one place, people who have traveled to many places, people who have immigrated to come live in Australia. It is always mind-expanding to learn how other people see things, even if you don’t necessarily agree with them. It is a treasure trove of knowledge waiting to be put to good use.
Connecting with writers of different backgrounds helps grow your view of the world. All of a sudden, the limitation of writing a stale protagonist and cookie cutter antagonist fades. With a broader perspective, you are able to picture a world beyond the one you are used to seeing. Your novel becomes a little more full, whether it’s of sweeping landscapes and urban metropolises, or metaphorical deconstructions of a hero’s love life.
So, as a challenge: make it a point to get to know people whom you don’t normally associate with. Don’t exercise a simple tolerance for the unfamiliar, but develop a real understanding of it. Learn from them, expand your view of what is possible, and use it as inspiration for your next NaNo-novel. Before you realize it, your characters and locations will have a distinct originality to themselves, with an individual voice that isn’t just pulled from a hat.
You will find that you are never short on inspiration for new things to write about when your world keeps filling with different perspectives.
Edrei Zahari plays NaNoWriMo ML to Elsewhere in Australia for the third year running. He writes speculative fiction, mainly in the subgenres of urban fantasy and biopunk. When goofing off from writing, he works as a medical scientist for a pathology lab, and plays computer and tabletop games.
Top photo by Flickr user NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.
October 8, 2014
Road Trip to NaNo: Interrogating Your World-Building
NaNoWriMo is an international event, and the stories being written every year reflect our hundreds of participating regions. We’re taking a Road Trip to NaNo to hear from our amazing volunteers and writers all around the world. Today, Jamie, our Municipal Liaison in the Australia :: Sunshine Coast region challenges you to look at your world-building from every angle:
Hello from the beautiful Sunshine Coast of Australia! To those of you on the other side of the world, just think: as you get colder we get hotter and more humid here. We may be one of the smaller regions, however our members passionately strive to pass the 50,000-word challenge in November. They may not always make their goals but we’re a group that’s willing to write it out until the end of November!
From my region’s spirit, I’ve learnt that NaNoWriMo is not just about winning. It’s about challenging ourselves, and encouraging each other. Even if sometimes that means teasing the ML when she’s attending a write-in via Skype with a far-away packet of Tim Tams! I’ve also learnt that there are many different ways to view one’s writing… especially your world-building.
This November, I’m planning a sequel to a novel that I wrote during previous NaNoWriMo months. I must know the world well, right? Well, while role-playing with a friend, we found that there were massive holes in my world-building when it came to the size of my dragons versus the size of my cities. Seems something I never really considered when world-building the first time.
It makes you think though, how important even the smallest of things are when it comes to novel writing. I now have to go back over that first novel and make sure things are plausible and have an internal logic. In this case, I’ll either have to make my cities one hell of a lot bigger, or shrink my dragons.
It just goes to show that creating a setting, even if it’s a world that includes fantasy elements like dragons, isn’t so easy. Think about the specificities as you’re world building. Study real-life civilizations thoroughly, or research ones created by other authors. Whatever you do, make sure your setting maintains its internal logic and reality, else people won’t believe a word you’ve written in all those long hours.
So here is my challenge to you. Find a book of the same genre that you’re writing and look through it to see what sort of world-building works and doesn’t! Then ask yourself the same questions about the world-building in your novel. You may be surprised at what you find.
Jamie Wilson is returning to ML for the Sunshine Coast for the third time this year and 7th NaNoWriMo year. When she’s not organising events for her regional members, she’s working on one of many novel projects she has on the go at once. She hopes to get published one day with her first NaNoWriMo winner, Forces Collide.
Top photo courtesy of Wikimedia user Vanderven.
October 7, 2014
Road Trip to NaNo: How to Add Texture to Your Setting
NaNoWriMo is an international event, and the stories being written every year reflect our hundreds of participating regions. We’re taking a Road Trip to NaNo to hear from our amazing volunteers and writers all around the world. Today, one of our Municipal Liaisons in the Otago-Southland region in New Zealand shares how his home inspires him to add texture to his settings:
I probably don’t have to explain to anyone who’s ever seen Lord of the Rings how beautiful New Zealand is, and how rich and varied the landscapes are. I live in Dunedin, and it’s impossible to go anywhere in the city without rolling green hills or the wide sprawling coastline in your view, and more often than not you get a good helping of both.
The more inland parts of the city often smell faintly of the rich damp wood of nearby subtropical rainforests, and closer to the coast, when the wind is right, the salty smell of the ocean fills your nostrils and you can feel the sea on your skin. The countryside is just over the hill, and every so often (especially when sheep trucks pass through town) you get a sudden strong waft of earthy country air.
It’s easy at times to take for granted when you experience it on a daily basis, but every location has texture. There are sensory factors that are completely unique to every place, and some that are universal. Really grabbing hold of that texture and putting it down in words is a great tool to draw audiences into the world your characters inhabit…
This can be on a grand scale, like the description of my home up there, or a smaller, more personal level. For example, everyone knows the scratchy fabric of waiting room chairs, so when your character is stressed and anxiously running their fingertips over the rough arm of the chair, the reader can really inhabit that moment with them.
Sprinkle your descriptions carefully, though. Too much all at once can overwhelm and potentially alienate a reader, but just the right amount (and used consistently) and readers will step into your story like it’s a real place they’re visiting for the first time.
Take some time to think about the places you go in your day-to-day life. What does the air smell like? What are the sounds and textures you experience? How do they differ from what your characters experience? How are they similar?
Before you sit down this November to battle your way to 50K, try to really feel out the sensory aspects of your story’s world, pinpoint specific things that you want to stand out, and think of ways you can best express them through writing, so readers will be drawn in and feel every footstep alongside your main character.
Rowan Stanley is returning as ML for the Otago and Southland region for his fifth and final year in 2014. He mainly writes young adult fiction, dabbling in fantasy and science fiction. Away from the keyboard he is a dancer, and spends an increasing amount of time training, choreographing and performing. One day he hopes to master the difficult art of sleeping.
October 6, 2014
Road Trip to NaNo: Inspired Ideas Require Passionate Action
NaNoWriMo is an international event, and the stories being told every year reflect the hundreds of participating regions. We’re taking a Road Trip to NaNo to hear from our amazing volunteers and writers all around the world. First up? Our Municipal Liaison in Hong Kong:
I adore my city, Hong Kong, and would have absolutely no problem filling up pages with what I love about its spirit. The only trouble I’ve had is focusing on one aspect of Hong Kong. Should I talk about its history, a century and a half under British colonial rule slowly evolving into a thriving metropolis? Should I talk about its unique East meets West culture, with my group of Wrimos split neatly in half between locals and expats, but fusing together under our goal of 50,000? Or, I could even declare my profound love for Hong Kong milk tea, and how its sweetness and caffeine content keeps me going even when I dearly wish my body would just go and take a rest already.
Then word broke out all over social media that this beloved city of mine was spiraling into fear and panic.
On Sunday, September 29th, students who had been occupying public space in front of the government offices as an appeal for their democratic rights were assaulted with pepper spray and tear gas in an attempt to make them disperse. I spent the evening reading the incoming news with horror and messaging friends—including some fellow Wrimos!—to make sure they were safe.
Come Monday, and the crowd had not lessened. Indeed, the result couldn’t have been more different: more people had thronged into our streets, showing support for the peaceful protestors and donating food, supplies, and themselves for the cause. They joined the demonstration because they love Hong Kong and share the same passionate spirit.
So I am finally inspired to write this post sitting on the curb in Causeway Bay, one of the protest sites, under a hand written sign urging me to “Be a Hero for a Better World” and surrounded by determined Hong Kongers, young and old alike. Their passion inspires me to stop procrastinating and write all the things I am passionate about while I still have the freedom to do it. They make me so proud—of their courteous behavior, their immense bravery of a level I couldn’t even get close to matching, and of the incredible passion keeping them out of classrooms and offices.
Our situation here is specific and unique, but I still think all the Wrimos out there can somehow relate as they prepare for their own month-long sit-in: we may have all the ideas in the world, but we need to be inspired to go through with them. If ever that begins to ebb, retrace your journey back to the beginning and find what started it all, and write with passion! It doesn’t matter if it’s risking arrest and injury to stand up for your rights or writing 50,000 words, keep whatever drives you alive and kicking hard until you reach your goal!
Whenever doubt lurks near, your passion for writing, for your characters, and for the ideals they live for will inspire you to keep on going.
Amanda returns for her second year of ML-ing the Hong Kong region with great excitement. Her favourite things to write about are vignettes from her childhood, theatre shenanigans, and fairy tales involving bears.
October 5, 2014
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