(X-posted to WriMo Ireland)

Still swamped in school assignments, I've hardly the time to work on my novel plot, but I recently found this quick fix in last month's Writer's Forum. Hope these few tips by Vanda Inman (her words in bold) will help me and other writers struggling with their novel's storyline :

1) Keep writing and trust that your creativity will step in - you may be surprised.
(Tested and approved by your humble blogger during NaNoWriMo 2007 :))

2) Transport one of your characters to a completely different situation and see how they react - you might gain some insight which will drive the plot in another direction.
(See what I wrote in How to engross your word count about writing gratuitous scenes ;))

3) Decide on the ending, then allow the middle to unfold.

4) Identify the theme of the story - what it's really about - and how you want your characters to change by the end.

5) Draw a mind-map or flow chart of possible scenarios and endings. Then try making an outline of how the story could work in different combinations.
(That'd be like writing a RP chronicle scenario, wouldn't it ?)

6) Use the 'what if' thought - what if a character does this instead of that ? What if the ending is poignant instead of happy ?
(I'm doing that all the time and I get so confused and entangled I just wanna scream !! >_<  You might also want to follow Cavantucky's advice and ask yourself the following question : What's the worst thing that could happen to your character ?)

7) Don't always go for the most obvious ending - try an alternative that hasn't been used before.
(Aaah... Ye goode olde question of endings, like the one silmelin asked the other day about positive and negative endings...)

Remember - the plot is never is never really lost. It has simply taken an alternative route for a while, and searching for it will take you a number of paths which will make your story all the stronger.
(I totally agree :))

Nothing to do with that, but : They're showing a documentary about arctic wolves on BBC2. I missed the first part yesterday and I hope I'll get the second one tomorrow - if the Poles deignto unglue themselves from the TV set. They don't seem to have anything else than watching polish TV on the satellite - THAT is adaptation.

As I said, NaNoWriMo may be over, this blog is not.  Until next november, I'd like to use it to post some reflections, thoughts, musings, rants and tips I have about writing, even though I'm still a beginner.

As a starter, I want to share a few tips to increase your word count while writing a story that still (kinda) makes sense and in a(n absurd) funny way. I experimented them during this november and they worked pretty well. So here we are :

* Do not abbreviate

If you write in English, write "I do not" instead of "I don't" or "I could not" instead of "I couldn't". You get three words where you usually have two. I know it might sound a bit posh after a while. For that reason, I don't use it in dialogues. I prefer my characters (who are mostly teenagers) to sound authentic and only a few people speak like they write.

* Be more precise in your descriptions

Use more specific adjectives when describing something or someone. For example, talk about your character's jet black long greasy hair and steel blue almond-shaped eyes, instead of his/er just black hair and blue eyes.
You can also have fun in listing things (ike what your character had for breakfast or what she buys at the supermarket) or by describing his/er bedroom in every detail, up to the motive of the wallpaper (I didn't do that because hyperrealistic descriptions à la Balzac aren't really my cup of tea...)

* Be gratuitous

If at some stage, you run out of ideas about how to continue your description, then go write a completely pointless scene involving your characters. Take this opportunity to have some fun with them. If you can't help fantasizing about a torrid sex scene with 2 (or even more !) of your characters, then don't be ashamed and go for it. If some of your characters are football fans, then why not having them play a five-a-side ? Why not having two of your characters speculating about the meaning of life, or writing one of their childhood memory ? - that's what I did. Another good thing about these gratuitous scenes is they can allow you to explore different facets of your character or help you discover things about them.

In case you ask me : no, I didn't write any sex scene - not even for word count's sake.

* Try different possibilities

Ever seen Run Lola Run ? You know, that German film with the same story told three times but each of the versions has a different outcome. I wrote in a previous entry here about how I was sometimes so unsatisfied with the way the story turned out that I wrote an alternate version of a scene. I know it doesn't help your novel progress, but as long as it keeps you writing, there's nothing wrong with trying to fix things. It's like recording a different take of a song - with a slightly different arrangement. That helps too increasing the word count - on condition you don't erase what you wrote earlier.

* Write in a different language

That works only if you are multilingual like me. The good thing about latin languages like French is that they are less compact than the English one and thus, use more words. It would have made much more sense for me to write in French, but the story came in English to me, so I went for English.
OK, I admit it : I actually didn't know you could write in your native language >.<
However, although my whole manuscript is in English, I wrote some sentences in French because I couldn't find how to put them in English. It's quite odd, I know, but I had to keep writing.