Hello everyone! I haven’t made a post since…the beginning of August!? I really need to work on that.
Since November’s getting closer, I’ve been plotting out an idea that’s been swimming around my head for a couple of months. It’s coming along very nicely, except for a few things. Most importantly, the title.
I have such a hard time thinking of non-obvious titles.
Normally I have something in mind – last year’s NaNo & this year’s Camp NaNo projects were pretty easy to name – but I’m completely drawing a blank on this one. I’ve thought about naming the novel after a character, but that wouldn’t work – there is no one character where this would work. I’ve thought about naming it after the setting…which still wouldn’t work. The main conflict, perhaps?
Maybe once I flesh everything out a little bit more something will come to me. Or maybe I’ll just go with something allegorical.
Anyway, plotting my unnamed NaNo novel isn’t the only thing I’ll be doing. I recently finished The Gate at the End of the World, a script I’ve been working on since the 8th of June. I’ve let it sit for a few days, and now I’ve got an idea of how to edit it.
Unfortunately, that idea is “change the setting and plot entirely and go back to the original idea I had”.
So I really won’t be editing at all. I’ll just be writing a completely new story in a completely new setting, and I have to do more research and create an entirely different conlang.
I’m actually pretty happy about this, since I wasn’t feeling too good about The Gate when I was writing it. This change should make for a much better story.
So is anyone else plotting for NaNo?
I’m doing a bit of plotting, but for now I’m mostly working on training myself to write large quantities of words every day. I’m hoping to come up with a decent outline in October.
Yeah, I’ve been thinking about training myself to write more, too. Right now I’m not writing very much.
I’m thinking of a second draft of the novel I wrote last year. I’ve got some new characters and new world building that I want to work in, and that alone will be a lot of changes.
I just finished a chapter-by-chapter outline for my NaNoNovel, but I’m totally with you on the naming issue! How do you usually find a non-obvious one? Does it just come to you later? (The Gate at the End of the World is an amazing title though, and good luck on reworking it!)
Yeah, it usually ends up coming to me later. Once I’ve written a bit, I have a better idea on how the story’s going to go (since I often end up ignoring the outline), so it becomes easier to name.
I just have the teeniest, tiniest tickle of an idea right now. Maybe three characters and a situation that interests me. But then, I think that’s more or less all I ever have when I start writing.
For several years, that’s all I started with for NaNo. And those novels turned out pretty okay!