Tonight was our first regional Nano-prep session. The topic was Plotting. Fortunately we just talked about what we were doing and no plotting. So I was thinking earlier, how do you make story without planning it out beforehand? There are some questions I use consciously or unconsciously. Starting with the basic: What’s stopping them from…

I don’t outline. Anything resembling an outline invariably turns out to be a bad idea (presents as evidence, Evil Fantasy Novel). Last year reminded me that even having plot points can be problematic. I am happily writing along when I remember Something Has To Happen at this point. It makes things harder, slower, ploddinger. (Is…

Walked down to Tailrace Park, about twenty minutes walk away, to do some reading. Had a thought about names & secondary fantasy worlds. To make they’re believable and sound like they’re from the same culture, I like to find lists from actual times & places. Ideally, a list from a census or something. So you…

I have two stories/ideas that I’m developing for Nano this year. One is a secondary world fantasy that has opening scenes (they’re from something I wrote years ago) and then some sort of vague ideas for later things & a general direction for the plot. This is good. It’s about where I want it to…

As November comes along again, I am thinking of doing a Nanowrimo Journal. Where I can put thoughts about preparing, grumble out uncooperative characters and, in November, record progress. So I’ll be posting things here (which is this blog, but that category).