Roadtrip to NaNo: Ask Your Characters "Why?"

November is nearly here, and our Road Trip to NaNoWriMo is winding down. On the way, we’ve heard from so many great writers about how their cities can inspire your novel. Today, we stop in Los Angeles, where volunteer Municipal Liaison Xander asks you, “who are you?”: 

Writing in Los Angeles isn’t as glamorous as it sounds (unless you’re writing on Rodeo Drive. That’s about as glamorous as it gets). It’s hard, dirty, gritty work. So then why are you here?

The answer to that comes back to hard, dirty, gritty work, too. People come to Los Angeles seeking many things. Some come seeking careers in showbiz, some come looking for sunshine and palm trees. Some people are born here, privileged and underprivileged alike.

Think about motivation as you plan your NaNo novel. Watch people’s faces as they pass by and imagine where they are coming from and where they are hoping to go to. Think about the uncertainty that surrounds the darker and lighter sides alike, in a city like Los Angeles.

Sitting around the Hollywood and Highland Center (home to three premiere-sized movie theatres, and the Academy Awards) you can see a thousand people walk past you in an hour, which is something like two thousand stories (one has a happy ending, the other has a tragically dramatic ending that may or may not involve a high-flying death. The trick is to not get stuck in the rut of making all the tourists secret ninjas).

Venice Beach, Santa Monica Pier, the La Brea Tar Pits, or that large cylindrical building in the middle of Downtown are all possibilities for pondering people’s many motivations. Maybe spend a day imagining the inner lives of people at the Laurel Canyon Dog Park, or revealing that uber-prep school Harvard-Westlake is secretly a school for ninjas (yes, we have ninja theme. It only ends when the dinosaurs show up).

I suppose you don’t have to travel all the way to our glamorous city to do these things, you could find similar places near your own home where they have ‘weather’ and don’t sell Mexican Coke by the bottle, that would be up to you.

Good luck, and good writing!

Xander Bennett (artofcheatery) has participated in NaNoWriMo since 2009, barely succeeding every year. In 2011, he became a Municipal Liaison to facilitate meeting people after moving cross country on a whim and dumping his inner editor at an undisclosed location somewhere in Middle America. He has never looked back, because then the ninjas would know he knows. To procrastinate, he helps moderate the Plot Doctoring forum and he swears that this year he’ll actually do Camp NaNoWriMo, not just sign up and forget about it.

Top photo by Flickr user novastarlet.