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[D][BST] RaNaNoWriMo Prep/Brainstorming
Post:
This is a follow up to this post about writing Rational/Rationalist novels for National Novel Writing Month. Everyone still hyped? Preparations coming along well?
Comments:
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u/alexanderwales:
I'm doing the psuedocode verison of my NaNo novel right now. There's a one-sentence description of what happens in each of the 52 chapters, and I'm in the middle of the second pass, where each of those sentences gets expanded into a paragraph, with one sentence descriptions of every scene within that chapter. The three/four magic systems have been worked out about as much as I think they need to be to serve the plot. The main characters each have their own little descriptions (physical and mental) so that I can keep track of motivations and attributes. Honestly, I'm probably ready to start writing now. My biggest issue is that I don't want to focus on anything else in the next two weeks to distract from NaNo, but I also don't want to start NaNo ahead of time, which leaves me with nothing to write - and I do think that there's such a thing as overplanning. Edit: I pretty much take it for granted that no one would want to read any of the prewriting stuff I've been doing, but if I'm wrong about that, here's [part 1](http://thingswhichborepeople.blogspot.com/2014/09/pre-writing-for-national-novel-writing.html) (high-level plotting), [part 2](http://thingswhichborepeople.blogspot.com/2014/09/pre-writing-for-national-novel-writing_25.html) (magic), and [part 3](http://thingswhichborepeople.blogspot.com/2014/09/pre-writing-for-national-novel-writing_28.html) (characterization).-
u/super__nova:
Of course we want to read your prep stuff, Mr Wales. You wrote one of my fav histories! I want to know everything about your production process. In this case, I'll watch closely because I vaguely want to participate RaNaNoWriMo, but I don't have any solid plan yet. I'll take a loot and imitate what you did, thanks. -
u/None:
Seems like the links got a bit scrambled up. * [Part One: High-Level Plotting](http://thingswhichborepeople.blogspot.com/2014/09/pre-writing-for-national-novel-writing.html) * [Part Two: Magic](http://thingswhichborepeople.blogspot.com/2014/09/pre-writing-for-national-novel-writing_25.html) * [Part Three: Characterization](http://thingswhichborepeople.blogspot.com/2014/09/pre-writing-for-national-novel-writing_28.html) That should be right.
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u/ciderk:
After lots of helpful advice in the prior thread, I realized that, given my inexperience with writing, I need to focus on writing first, 'writing rational' second. I'm still going to move forward with my plan to write something that starts out as a standard Fantasy dungeon-crawling type of story and then begins to deconstruct the common tropes (without becoming too GenreSavvy). My goal has been to use the month of October for planning and outlining so that I have a solid foundation to build upon when I dive into the actual writing on Nov 1. I meant to start an outline last week, but got sucked into the worldbuilding aspect and probably spent a lot more time than I should have doing things like figuring out the best way to create real-looking tectonic plates so that the ensuing continents and geogolical structures would be reasonable. The last few worldbuilding-related things I want to take care of before I really dive into my characters and my actual story are Gods, Magic and Races. I want to think carefully about these things and lay a good rational ground work for my world.. Hopefully that will make things easier later. The main thing I struggled with for a while was trying to decide whether to make my magic and my gods "explainable" or just "rational". That is, there are some stories that would try to explain magic by attributing the effects of magic to some other elementary particles or fields that don't normally interact with matter, etc. The other path to take I guess is the way HPMoR does it where magic works and it has rules but we're never going to find out the rules or the mechanisms by which it works, etc.-
u/alexanderwales:
> The main thing I struggled with for a while was trying to decide whether to make my magic and my gods "explainable" or just "rational". That is, there are some stories that would try to explain magic by attributing the effects of magic to some other elementary particles or fields that don't normally interact with matter, etc. The other path to take I guess is the way HPMoR does it where magic works and it has rules but we're never going to find out the rules or the mechanisms by which it works, etc. If you haven't already been introduced to Sanderson's Laws, here they are: * [First Law:](http://brandonsanderson.com/sandersons-first-law/) An author’s ability to solve conflict with magic is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic. * [Second Law:](http://brandonsanderson.com/sandersons-second-law/) Limitations are greater than powers. * [Third Law:](http://brandonsanderson.com/sandersons-third-law-of-magic/) Expand what you already have before you add something new. These are all good rules to follow. All those linked articles are good articles to read. I could offer more advice if you'd like, but the most important thing to keep in mind is that you're trying to tell a story, not put out thousands of words about how your magic system works, which is one of the biggest problems that beginning writers fall into. I helped read through the slush pile (unsolicited manuscripts that publishers get sent which are looked through by interns), and that doesn't just go for fantasy, it happens in science fiction and other genres as well. People get caught up in having done their research or world-building, and want to present that to the reader but unfortunately forget that they have to make it compelling (and that most of the time, readers don't tend to care). -
u/eaglejarl:
There's also Tayler's First Law: > If the energy you get from your magic is cheaper than having the donkey do it, your economy just fell apart. The particular example he gives: if "Create Light" is a trivial cantrip that almost anyone can cast, then you've put all of the candlemakers out of business.
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u/None:
I've got what I think is a fun idea. Interestingly, started when I was entertaining some kids at a summer camp. One of them said that creativity is just plagiarism, so we started designing some insanely messy world by lifting characters from other works and slightly changing their names (or combining them, in a few cases). So there's Harriet Stark (Harry Potter + Iron Man + Iron Throne kinda), her enemy Var Garmellort (with a hi-tech army and no nose), and her weak allies, the Smiffs (Smurfs + Keebler elves) and the Smuffles (Snorks. Exactly Snorks). In other news, I don't know whether to post it on fanfiction or fictionpress, or what to tag it with on either site. So I took these characters and kinda threw them together into a setting divided into Golden, Silver, Iron, Bronze, and Stone Ages, each with inversely proportional levels of technology and magic (due to a fun definition I worked up). Originally, Var Garmellort was a time traveler trying to conquer each time period, but I'm not quite ready to do much with a full-on time travel story yet (since I'm saving that for my Doctor Who fic-in-stagnation). So they're physical zones. Islands, or something. It seems like it'll be fun to write, and I actually have a rational-ish ending in mind from the beginning (rare among my projects), so I'm optimistic, to say the least. -
u/AmeteurOpinions:
I'm going after my Rational!Mecha. I have most of the plot, setting and characters worked out, and just need more research on military tech and strategies. And a title. I'm terrible at titles.-
u/alexanderwales:
My favorite method of title generation is quoting the Bible, in part because it allows you to add some gravity without having to work too hard. Just go to biblegateway.com, search for a word vaguely related to humongous mecha, and find something like: * Underneath the Everlasting Arms * Each Arrow a Flaming Missile * If By the Missile They Fall * The Weapons of Our Warfare * A Flight in Winter * Take Flight By Your Wisdom * Delivered From Prison By An Angel And then you can start your story with the full epigraph, if it's cool enough. > For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts. No idea what that really means, but it sounds cool. -
u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer:
The title is less than ten words. Don't bother. That time is better spent on word count increasing prep.
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