Anita, Katie, Noel and I sallied forth to San Francisco tonight to attend The Night of Writing Dangerously. 250 NaNoWriMo writers raised $250 apiece to attend this fundraiser for the Office of Letters and Light. This group supports writing programs for kids, and this fundraiser is an opportunity for some NaNoWriMo-ers to have some fun.
Marcie was unable to attend, being in Toronto and all, but we saved a seat for her. Just in case.
Oh. My. God. We wrote so incredibly dangerously, you wouldn't believe it. It was pretty darned fun, and I actually got some writing done. The food was good, and the drinks were strong. I asked dear husband to drive me to BART, and he agreed to pick me up when it was over, so I indulged a little bit. His little joke was, "oh, so you might have two, eh?" and in fact that's what I did - I drank two Cosmonoveltons.
Someone in the room had a manual typewriter, which pecked away through the evening.
I finally got my word count back up into the 'you will finish in November' realm, but as hard as I tried, Katie was always 1000 words in front of me. I'll never catch up.
So now I am at 33,370 words, and we (the writing group) have been having conversations about "the novel". The standard novel is 100,000 - 150,000 words, so the NaNoWriMo goal is just a little short. Longer than a novella, but not a full-length modern novel. It's a quandary. I am approaching this truly as a lousy first draft [expletive deleted], so there is potential for enlarging the work. However, in the meantime, I'm at the 66% mark, and Jane Smiley taught us that the turning point of the novel is at 75%. Oh my, it's coming up pretty quickly. And then, as Noel says, it is followed by the denouement. She uses big words.
And I think that I have lots and lots of experience writing beginnings, but practically no experience - Well, actually no experience - writing endings.
Tonight, I asked Anita, "What advice would you give me about endings?" and she was disarmingly modest. First she disclaimed any major experience in the area, and then said, "don't try to wrap up all the ends, and tell us what's going to happen over the next 20 years." She also said, "I usually have an ending in mind, and then there comes a point where I have to write towards that ending.
Someone in the room had a manual typewriter, which pecked away through the evening.
I finally got my word count back up into the 'you will finish in November' realm, but as hard as I tried, Katie was always 1000 words in front of me. I'll never catch up.
So now I am at 33,370 words, and we (the writing group) have been having conversations about "the novel". The standard novel is 100,000 - 150,000 words, so the NaNoWriMo goal is just a little short. Longer than a novella, but not a full-length modern novel. It's a quandary. I am approaching this truly as a lousy first draft [expletive deleted], so there is potential for enlarging the work. However, in the meantime, I'm at the 66% mark, and Jane Smiley taught us that the turning point of the novel is at 75%. Oh my, it's coming up pretty quickly. And then, as Noel says, it is followed by the denouement. She uses big words.
And I think that I have lots and lots of experience writing beginnings, but practically no experience - Well, actually no experience - writing endings.
Tonight, I asked Anita, "What advice would you give me about endings?" and she was disarmingly modest. First she disclaimed any major experience in the area, and then said, "don't try to wrap up all the ends, and tell us what's going to happen over the next 20 years." She also said, "I usually have an ending in mind, and then there comes a point where I have to write towards that ending.
My response, "oh no! I'm going to have to come up with an ending!" and then she talked about distressing endings, where things don't work out for the protagonist(s), and I began to panic. "OH no!" I said. "Do you mean it might not work out for my characters? There might not be a happy ending?" I had assumed there would be a happy ending. But here we are, with 4500 words before the turning point, and then I will want to come up with an ending around 12500 words later. Yikes!
Any suggestions for the neophyte? It makes me want to go read some writing books.
Any suggestions for the neophyte? It makes me want to go read some writing books.
1 comment:
I use big words that were drummed into my head in high school. "Denouement", the "untying of the knot" of the plot, was a 10th grade literature test word. Somehow it stuck, because it was a very appropriate and French word. :-)
Also, what is a happy ending? What is a satisfactory ending?
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