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.