Remember guys, if your characters start doing and saying things you didn’t plan for , there is a silver lining: it’s a sign you characterized them well! They don’t do what you planned for them, they do what makes sense for their character. Who cares if they start derailing your plot with their pesky personality? At least they have one!
Definitely feel this. It was time for my villain redemption arc main character's turning point into a good guy, but when I wrote out the scene where he and his brother reconcile and MC commits to righting his wrongs, my MC decided to be a stubborn ass and soured the beautiful catharsis of emotional vulnerability he'd just finally shared with his brother, all because he's still in denial about wanting to change after all. I think it definitely improved my story for the better, though, and it made it all the more satisfying to write this blockhead crawling back to his brother to "try being good for real this time" after circumstances forced him to finally accept the need for change >:)
In other words, you're the DM to your characters' tabletop campaign? This year, late in the story I introduced what should have been a bit-part monster for the party to battle (not necessarily to _kill,_ just fight/fend it off) except that my main character must've rolled a few "natural 20"s because he recognized the monster was under a curse (in part because _he's_ under a curse himself, allowing their two curses to essentially talk to each other) and not-exactly-befriended it, then the monster ended up fighting someone else, and in the end that monster accidentally became a member of the party! Oh, and I should mention that my (1st-person) narrator in fact IS the curse that got placed on the main character, not the actual character themselves. It turned out to be an interesting perspective to write from....
I just tell myself I can’t always control them they just run around and do what they want now and I can’t stop them from simply being themselves! this must be how parents feel 😭
...does a very unhinged Twitter reply chain that's practically a whole fanfic set in the universe of a crossover a friend on said site came up with count as writing?
@@dingowarrior815 Me and an irl friend had a massive RP over emails a while ago, it was also our main form of communication because said friends phone is always having problems
I'm writing a story I abandoned for a contest, and it just consists of me making puns in a serious story every five seconds "...haha... artificial humans go brrrrrrr" context: the main character is an artificial human, and apparently I realized I enjoy the concept of artificial humans so I'm just laughing about it to myself.
Fun fact: I had no clue NaNoWriMo existed until today, but also have an unfinished first draft of a novel on my backlog. I'm not saying I'm gonna pretend that I was doing it the whole time, but I'm not gonna say I wasn't either
I've literally been working on my first novel for 3 months and this makes me feel so much better. The three stages actually make me feel so much better about writing the first draft
SAME, my first draft was uhhh- bad- but that's the point. Braindump everything, summarize chapters, change POVs if you have to just to get it out. My second draft isn't great but it's much better and actually functional so far. Good luck on your story!!
@@doukzu Hard agree. I've spent a few years where I literally just recycle/rewrite a previous year's story, and while it's always a risk, sometimes it pays off quite well. Last year's pants is next year's outline!
Well I hope you finish it and I bet its going to be great. I'm sitting on a pile of given up on projects and also three months into another novel. There are so many people in out boat so you better feel good about yourself. (not a threat I promise)
I decided to try getting some fanfic writing done this month. Not loony enough to push for a full novel though. Damn, I barely manage 250 words a day on average with all my work and chores. Still, it's something right? I still have trouble making the first draft truly rough. I have a deep mindset of "don't rack up too much technical debt you dingus!".
you’ve awoken a memory I didn’t want back, I absolutely DESPISED nanorimo 😭😭 it was a requirement in 8th grade and my brain hadn’t evolved the capacity to properly write like that yet, but since the grading was based on word count and not coherency, the thing ended up as a ton of nonsense sentences 😭
I don't think I would love Nanowrimo the way I do if somebody actually assigned it for me. For comparison, I took art class every year I could and the recurring homework assignment was to keep a sketchbook to draw things in. But for me those two goals were fundamentally counterproductive -- I ended up drawing things in there because I _HAD_ to for the assignment, not because I actually _WANTED_ to. (In contrast, the pocket school syllabus/calendar planners we got at the start of the year were what I _actually_ drew for fun in. I should probably scan it sometime...)
5:22 didn't realise how much control the characters had until i started writing myself and woah, why are you two arguing? Break it up! No don't break up, I said break IT up!
8:55 This is the most relatable thing ever. I’m such a big fan of my characters, I love making au’s of them and imagining random scenes with them and making memes of them. One time I was about to search an oc’s name on google because I wanted to see fanart and fanfics of them but as I typed their name into the search bar I realized that there would be nothing there because only me and my friend know this character exists, it’s kinda devastating that I can’t find fan content of my characters until I actually finish making it since I’m the only fan. Why can’t people just read my mind and make fanart and fanfics of the blorbos in my brain? It’s a cruel world.
I made a discord server dedicated to my characters (I like the layout) and it feels great even if I'm the only one there. I have channels dedicated to art (they are empty) and channels dedicated to AUs (they are not)
This hit home for me too. I’ve always sort of dreamed of having my own little fandom for my stories that has people that love my writing as much as I do. I don’t like sharing my stories with people, but the people I do want to ramble on and on about them with never seem to be interested-and as someone who’s used to being dismissed, as someone who’s always had the most obscure interests in media that nobody knew or cared about, it really kind of just hurts. These things have lead me to create this whole world inside my head. I often fantasize about talking on and on about my stories with my friends, having a whole fandom with people that express true interest in my writing, sharing my character art online and having people know who it is. It’s kind of just bittersweet. I love how there are people that can not exactly but still relate to this, it sorta makes me feel seen in a way. ..welp that was a really long paragraph, sorry lol
No because me and my friends literally started the fandom for our characters. Like there’s legitimately more fanfic and au content for them than actual story and canon stuff. I mean I’ve actually thought about what those movie and show review RUclipsrs would say about our story, but it’s not even close to finished
That’s awesome. I had an idea for a self-insert fanfic rolling around in my head along with the dozen other story ideas, I was thinking that if I actually did write it out that it might not be worth uploading to to the self-indulgent nature and that it would probably only appeal to me, but this helps convince me otherwise. People are too hard on self-inserts, it can easily be done badly (although if the writer has fun that doesn’t matter) but it’s not an inherently bad trope, Luke Skywalker was a self insert and people like Star-wars. I think the key to well written self-inserts is to have enough self awareness and introspection to be able to fully see yourself as a person and not heavily dilute your self imagine through an overly positive/negative lens as many people are inclined to do, you have to be able to acknowledge strengths and weaknesses in yourself to make the version of yourself you create in your head as a character be well rounded. This comment got longer than I thought it would be, but yea, self-inserts aren’t inherently bad.
As a wattpad writer who found this out on October 10th and usually only write 1,300 words a week- I can’t wait to jump in and put myself in a writing slump!
During the weekdays, I'm always so busy that I can only get 500 words in per day, so now my daily required word count is up to 2085. Yesterday I decided I wanted to bring that down a bunch and ended up writing 3127 words. I was so proud of myself, I had broken my personal record, and I was also nearly dead from all that. I logged on to NaNoWriMo today and saw that my daily required word count was now 2030. *Screams in pain*
3:49 Fully agree. For me, "show don't tell" and other popular writing rules doesn't apply to the first draft, sometimes not even in second. How are you going to show the scene if you don't even know what is it trying to tell? Do all the info dump you want in the first draft. You can move them in your outline later.
I'm a writer who is only vaguely aware of Nano and I'm perfectly happy keeping it that way Edit: I didn't even know it stood for National Novel Writing Month 🤯
I wouldn't call myself a writer but I've been working on my first multichapter fic for a small webcomic fandom I'm in and someone tagged me and brought up my fic unprompted as a recommendation to someone on the fandom discord server, and it's made me smile every time I think about it. it might even give me motivation to work on the next chapter, or maybe I'll use nanowrimo as an excuse
Normal people writing a 500 word essay: Omg this is the longest and worst thing I've ever written. Me adding 500 words to a chapter of my novel: More... *MORE!*
7:30 i started nanowrimo on the 15th of november bc i purposely forgot about it, but ended up with nanowrimo brainrot anyways. i went to a nanowrimo thing at a library down the road and i was the only one booked which was sooo out of my comfort zone, but whatever. i got a bingo thing from the person running the write-in, and ive turned it into a week challenge. day one, write 1667 words. day two, go for a brainstorming walk, etc etc. next year i might actually give nanowrimo a fair go but for now im just using it as an excuse to get some writing done and have a bit of fun. writing *is* meant to be fun. 💗
9:43 Okay, if I may add to this post, anytime I worry about the grammar in my writing, I remember that published novels break rules all the time. Cormac McCarthy has multiple published books and he considers quotation marks and commas unnecessary. So absolutely do what you want.
At least the short smut fanfiction I was writing has turned into something with serious plot where immortal entities who share different titles are just casually conversing about things.
I'm not doing NaNoWriMo and i never will - i don't need that stress - but I am slowly making it through my first draft of a story and this is givjng me the motivatiom to continue. It is making me feel bad about the fact that i started it last year and i'm no where near finished and i'm still only on the first draft and i really want to rewrite the first chapter arrghhhhh
I didn't know this was a thing. Coincidentally this is when I decided that I need to actually write down my fanfiction ideas. I plan on starting a fic soon.
5:52 scared me so bad. I was watching this video while multitasking and I was like „Huh, that wording sounds familia- oh my god“ The draft that post was about was ripped up and thrown in my trash can because thinking about it‘s existence made me cringe so bad. I made that post during sixth grade nanowrimo 😭 crazy my old post got included
Listen, you write your first draft however you can. Then, after that, if you're not bothered by the down-sides, keep the style. Do mind, on the other hand, that there is often AN ACESSABILITY REASON TO WRITE LONGER TEXTS AS PROPERLY AS YOU'RE CAPIBLE. People with reading disabilities already have a hard time with the "right" way to do things. You might have run into one such persons who your stylistic choices help, but that isn't all of them. Text-to-speech programs don't understand style choice, they understand the rules that have been input, so people with certain levels of blindness are going to have a hard time getting into it. People with a neurodivergence that sees them hyper fixate on inconsequential things (certain autistic fixations, ADHD, and ODC for example) could be stopped dead by your 10th refusal to use punctuation as taught. "he depressed as he saw the rain he ate the rain he remembered he was a frog he was whole again" That's simple enough to brain-reformat for, but a 70k piece is a LOT harder to keep that up with.
I have a tip for writing. When you are thinking about a scene for your characters, as in thinking it out in your head, but youre away from your computer, just pull out your phone, open the notes app and start writing. the want to write will fade when you sit down in front of your computer so just write!
I was writing like 1k words a day and then NaNoWriMo came around and I stopped existing entirely. LOVE the bit at 2:00 though, very good advice. Braindump your story!!!
Nanowrimo isn't going great for some us. If you also feel like you're too far behind, remember you're not alone 🫂 me and my braincell are there with you
Yeah! If you're ever having trouble with a scene or wordcount, pick a random thing in the scene and invent a description for it. It honestly helps : 1. Boost your word count 2. Get the creative juices flowing, because you can get ideas of: A. how the characters can interact with the place B. how they feel physically (are they hot, cold, is the wind whipping their hair into their eyes, etc) C. how they feel emotionally being there (is it dark and creepy, is it getting late and they have some kind of time limit for something that will make them forcefully end this scene early? etc) D. Give you ideas of random stuff you can introduce to change the flow (ex: "a dog runs past, trailing a leash and a human trailing after it, yelling from afar "Spotssss come back!!" Random little prompts that can help you explore your characters, add something spontaneous to the story, and Up Your Wordcount Woooo) Its so easy to boost wordcount by just skipping around to scenes that give you more inspiration. You don't need to write in chronological order. I tend to start writing a random scene I like in the middle of my book, then a different bit all over the place every day. Whether you have an outline or not, if you have a scene idea today, write that instead of forcing yourself to slog through a scene that won't cooperate! You can always fill in the middle bit later once you've written other stuff. And if a scene is really fighting you, but you don't want to lose your inspiration, just write what you wanted it to do. Something like : "In this scene X and Y have an argument about something related to Z. They storm off, but Y comes back later to apologize and finds that X left a cryptic note saying something about the plot related to A. Y is confused and runs off to find X." Then you can continue from there, writing the next scene you actually have inspiration for or jump to another and know that when you come back you'll know where to start off from. As for me, for once my Nano seems to be going well! I'm writing two short stories based off of weird dreams I had with a simple outline for each. Currently at 19K but I haven't written yet today, I usually do that late at night. Yesterday was an amazing 3K day woo! But wednesday was a big fat zero because I was super sick. Hope my tricks help someone hahah
I started out well and then came home one day after a long day and passed out before i could write. Ended up losing my streak and now my "words needed today" has gone up from 1667 to 1900 something to 2002. And yes i'm watching this video instead of writing 👍
I appreciate these writing meme videos because I get to think about writing and laugh without actually having to work on my story. Wonderful escapism 👍
I remember doing nano for the first and only time and I literally decided to do it a couple of days before it started and somehow I actually wrote over 50k... to this day i don't know how i did that, teenage me was just built different lol
A slight lifehack for those who are better at editing than writing, or have the 'fear of the blank page.' Get a lorem ipsum sample of 500 words, copy-paste it into your blank document, hit Insert, and start typing. This bypasses your inner editor wanting to get it right the first time, because technically you already are in editing mode. Combine this with the snowflake method for getting quick outlines, and you're good to go. Pros to this method: you more easily get past the hurdle to start typing, the end result tends to have more consistent pacing. Good if you're writing show-style fanfic, for cartoons especially, since you can use the ad breaks as scene breaks. It's also a good way to break up the writing process, since you've already marked where you'll be when this one section is done. Repeat three times and you hit your daily goal. Cons: consistent pacing can also mean output that looks formulaic. The lack of breaks within the lorem ipsum sample can lead to scenes dragging on more than they should. Also, this approach solves a particular problem not every writer has. May work for you, may not, but it's not a common advice I've seen, so just tossing that out there.
5:40 Based. Also, I'm working on a Series that's inspired by Wings of Fire. Several characters are modified OCs from Wof. Now if you'll excuse me, I need go write more. Thanks for the motovaion!
I don't do nanowrimo but I do try to write every day. Definitely not 1600 words but.. writing gets done I guess. Edit: I only wrote 12,000 words but I did write every day.
Yeah, no. I totally forgot about Nanowrimo. Soooo now it’s to late. I will write my story next november. Well, I will probably forget about it again, but I will think about it for the next three days?
I was literally working on my first NaNoWriMo when I saw this upload. Currently sitting at 17962 words. It's been a fight to keep my pace going but I'm here for the fight. Loving the writing memes.
I'm not doing anything on NaNoWriMo, just writing out what is basically a jojo fanfic, but I'm currently on my first draft and it is heavy on detail. Add in that it swaps things over and there's a second idea (a part 4 and fire emblem engage crossover) lodged in my brain and I have an essay and problems arise.
I'm writing a typical horror story with bratty girls that are in the middle of a giant murder... But the girls are the real murderers and the big nerd is actually just a major douche which is why they got killed.
no joke, nanowrimo is actually how i met one of my best friends ever, like we’d be talking about what we were writing and build up on our ideas, and we still do!! hes basically my brother we did not end up fin-ishing nano. at all. but atleast i got one of the best people ive ever met as my bro now!!
I actually wrote over 1200 words for my film studies exam, so while i'm not taking part in NaNoWriMo (i didn't even know that was a thing tbh), i think i've filled most of my quota for that day.
I thought about doing NaNoWriMo this year. Then I thought I don't know if I have the time for that with school. Then I thought I could probably pick a different month when Im not busy and try to write 50k words then. I don't know if I'll do that tho.
Me halfway through NaNoWriMo with a short stories collection: Wait, that’s not what novels are? Uhhh… (adds cameos of other stories into each other to pretend it’s one world) ye thatll do
For your first draft: Do NOT GAF about "how it SHOULD be written"! If someone tries to hassle you about it, tell them you're going to fix that in the second draft. First drafts suck. That's actually a GOOD thing! You can focus on getting the story out without having to worry about "getting it right" the first time. Perfect is the thing to avoid, and "good enough" is, for a first draft, PERFECT.
I decided that for my short story I would write about what it feels like to have mesaphonia, something I have. It’s very rare and I wanted to spread awareness about it. It’s a mental problem where certain noises can be painful, most commonly the trigger for people with mesaphonia is bass and eating noises.
I’m split between writing 3 different things right now. I mean I have made blurbs in 3 different documents that are intended as novels, none of them are going to become a novel this month.
My key when writing first drafts is I don't have to write all of it right now. I don't feel like researching the court system for a trial scene? I just write (insert court scene here). Will I ever get back to that and insert it? Probably not. But it helps me not get stuck.
Also, I'm still writing my book. Just one question. How do you make a villain with Soundwave type powers from a metal suit a dangerous villain for you're superhero book?
Is anyone else ready to throw hands at the "you cant write in all lowercase" person on behalf of unmellowyellowfellow? Cause I already got the Denny's parking lot picked out and just got some new Doc Martens with the throw down sole.
I took my favorite trope from a fanfiction I read years ago, characters me and my friend made up when we were like five and playing pretend, the dynamic between me and my step father and this one neighborhood girl I made fiends with, plus my little bit of experience with fostering children from when I had a foster sister when I was nine. I wrote 3.6k words today alone, and about 50-75 words on the rest of the days of this month. My total word count is a whopping 6.8k. And we are almost half way through November already. The only reason I wrote so much today is because I got rid of basically all writing rules like said is dead and show don't tell and just wrote, doing my best not to care what it looks like because I can edit later. Did it work today? Yes. Will it work for the rest of November? Absolutely not.
wanting to write a story about one of my characters. she's a half-demon who just learned that she's a demon, and has a lot to catch up on. somehow she befriends an angel and a budding medium along the way. it's supposed to be a vaguely light-hearted story. think good omens but replace the gay pining with magic wielding shenanigans. ... however, im currently at that point in the year where my motivation for words escapes me. they need to move this to may or smth lol.
There's camp Nano around april every year if that's a time that's better for you! You can set whatever goal you want, be it 50K or 10K etc. and you'll still get the rewards at the end
Remember guys, if your characters start doing and saying things you didn’t plan for , there is a silver lining: it’s a sign you characterized them well! They don’t do what you planned for them, they do what makes sense for their character. Who cares if they start derailing your plot with their pesky personality? At least they have one!
Definitely feel this. It was time for my villain redemption arc main character's turning point into a good guy, but when I wrote out the scene where he and his brother reconcile and MC commits to righting his wrongs, my MC decided to be a stubborn ass and soured the beautiful catharsis of emotional vulnerability he'd just finally shared with his brother, all because he's still in denial about wanting to change after all.
I think it definitely improved my story for the better, though, and it made it all the more satisfying to write this blockhead crawling back to his brother to "try being good for real this time" after circumstances forced him to finally accept the need for change >:)
Now i know how god feels
In other words, you're the DM to your characters' tabletop campaign?
This year, late in the story I introduced what should have been a bit-part monster for the party to battle (not necessarily to _kill,_ just fight/fend it off) except that my main character must've rolled a few "natural 20"s because he recognized the monster was under a curse (in part because _he's_ under a curse himself, allowing their two curses to essentially talk to each other) and not-exactly-befriended it, then the monster ended up fighting someone else, and in the end that monster accidentally became a member of the party!
Oh, and I should mention that my (1st-person) narrator in fact IS the curse that got placed on the main character, not the actual character themselves. It turned out to be an interesting perspective to write from....
I just tell myself I can’t always control them they just run around and do what they want now and I can’t stop them from simply being themselves!
this must be how parents feel 😭
all my characters have the same personality 🥲
...does a very unhinged Twitter reply chain that's practically a whole fanfic set in the universe of a crossover a friend on said site came up with count as writing?
Congrats on your threadfic ❤
OMFG THREADFIC
Yes
And I'm looking at the giant-ass multicrossover RP I participated in almost 2 years ago with two friends, on *Messenger* of all places
@@dingowarrior815 Me and an irl friend had a massive RP over emails a while ago, it was also our main form of communication because said friends phone is always having problems
Well it's a fanfic
I'm writing a story I abandoned for a contest, and it just consists of me making puns in a serious story every five seconds
"...haha... artificial humans go brrrrrrr"
context: the main character is an artificial human, and apparently I realized I enjoy the concept of artificial humans so I'm just laughing about it to myself.
Fun fact: I had no clue NaNoWriMo existed until today, but also have an unfinished first draft of a novel on my backlog. I'm not saying I'm gonna pretend that I was doing it the whole time, but I'm not gonna say I wasn't either
“Napping is part of the writing process” this speaks to me.
Somewhere, out there, there's a person who casually pumps out 50,000 words in a week and has no idea Nanowrimo exists.
Stephen King?
I've literally been working on my first novel for 3 months and this makes me feel so much better. The three stages actually make me feel so much better about writing the first draft
girl you completely got this o7 whats it abt if youre ok sharing?
SAME, my first draft was uhhh- bad- but that's the point. Braindump everything, summarize chapters, change POVs if you have to just to get it out. My second draft isn't great but it's much better and actually functional so far. Good luck on your story!!
@@doukzu Hard agree. I've spent a few years where I literally just recycle/rewrite a previous year's story, and while it's always a risk, sometimes it pays off quite well. Last year's pants is next year's outline!
SAME HERE
Well I hope you finish it and I bet its going to be great. I'm sitting on a pile of given up on projects and also three months into another novel. There are so many people in out boat so you better feel good about yourself. (not a threat I promise)
I decided to try getting some fanfic writing done this month. Not loony enough to push for a full novel though. Damn, I barely manage 250 words a day on average with all my work and chores. Still, it's something right?
I still have trouble making the first draft truly rough. I have a deep mindset of "don't rack up too much technical debt you dingus!".
you’ve awoken a memory I didn’t want back, I absolutely DESPISED nanorimo 😭😭 it was a requirement in 8th grade and my brain hadn’t evolved the capacity to properly write like that yet, but since the grading was based on word count and not coherency, the thing ended up as a ton of nonsense sentences 😭
I am so sorry that was a thing. It sounds like the kind of thing that my mom might’ve come up with (I was homeschooled)
my high school did this once. one of my friends wrote 15,000 words on nov 30 by inserting " a " after everything
I don't think I would love Nanowrimo the way I do if somebody actually assigned it for me. For comparison, I took art class every year I could and the recurring homework assignment was to keep a sketchbook to draw things in. But for me those two goals were fundamentally counterproductive -- I ended up drawing things in there because I _HAD_ to for the assignment, not because I actually _WANTED_ to.
(In contrast, the pocket school syllabus/calendar planners we got at the start of the year were what I _actually_ drew for fun in. I should probably scan it sometime...)
5:22
didn't realise how much control the characters had until i started writing myself and woah, why are you two arguing? Break it up! No don't break up, I said break IT up!
8:55 This is the most relatable thing ever. I’m such a big fan of my characters, I love making au’s of them and imagining random scenes with them and making memes of them. One time I was about to search an oc’s name on google because I wanted to see fanart and fanfics of them but as I typed their name into the search bar I realized that there would be nothing there because only me and my friend know this character exists, it’s kinda devastating that I can’t find fan content of my characters until I actually finish making it since I’m the only fan. Why can’t people just read my mind and make fanart and fanfics of the blorbos in my brain? It’s a cruel world.
I feel this on a spiritual level...
I made a discord server dedicated to my characters (I like the layout) and it feels great even if I'm the only one there.
I have channels dedicated to art (they are empty) and channels dedicated to AUs (they are not)
This hit home for me too. I’ve always sort of dreamed of having my own little fandom for my stories that has people that love my writing as much as I do. I don’t like sharing my stories with people, but the people I do want to ramble on and on about them with never seem to be interested-and as someone who’s used to being dismissed, as someone who’s always had the most obscure interests in media that nobody knew or cared about, it really kind of just hurts. These things have lead me to create this whole world inside my head. I often fantasize about talking on and on about my stories with my friends, having a whole fandom with people that express true interest in my writing, sharing my character art online and having people know who it is. It’s kind of just bittersweet. I love how there are people that can not exactly but still relate to this, it sorta makes me feel seen in a way.
..welp that was a really long paragraph, sorry lol
I realize some of the grammar issues that long ass paragraph has now and I’m so sorry 💀
No because me and my friends literally started the fandom for our characters. Like there’s legitimately more fanfic and au content for them than actual story and canon stuff. I mean I’ve actually thought about what those movie and show review RUclipsrs would say about our story, but it’s not even close to finished
Apparently over 600 people decided to read my self-insert fanfic, so it does seem likely that there's an audience for anything.
That’s awesome. I had an idea for a self-insert fanfic rolling around in my head along with the dozen other story ideas, I was thinking that if I actually did write it out that it might not be worth uploading to to the self-indulgent nature and that it would probably only appeal to me, but this helps convince me otherwise. People are too hard on self-inserts, it can easily be done badly (although if the writer has fun that doesn’t matter) but it’s not an inherently bad trope, Luke Skywalker was a self insert and people like Star-wars. I think the key to well written self-inserts is to have enough self awareness and introspection to be able to fully see yourself as a person and not heavily dilute your self imagine through an overly positive/negative lens as many people are inclined to do, you have to be able to acknowledge strengths and weaknesses in yourself to make the version of yourself you create in your head as a character be well rounded. This comment got longer than I thought it would be, but yea, self-inserts aren’t inherently bad.
It’s a good day when Tonkajoey posts
Ikr!!
real!
Yep
ture
Veryyyyy ❤
As a wattpad writer who found this out on October 10th and usually only write 1,300 words a week- I can’t wait to jump in and put myself in a writing slump!
I'm doing NaNoWriMo for a second time this year, aiming to achieve 50% by the end of this week. Good luck, fellow Nanos!
During the weekdays, I'm always so busy that I can only get 500 words in per day, so now my daily required word count is up to 2085. Yesterday I decided I wanted to bring that down a bunch and ended up writing 3127 words. I was so proud of myself, I had broken my personal record, and I was also nearly dead from all that. I logged on to NaNoWriMo today and saw that my daily required word count was now 2030.
*Screams in pain*
"today i'm going to start nanowrimo!'
[does not start nanowrimo]
i literally just realised it existed from this video today and i'm curious
I’m always so convinced I’ll be able to just know how to write a novel out of nowhere while having no training whatsoever
I wrote smut today.
Congrats
good job sport
Are ya winning, son?
@@Zuzu00000 aye aye capt'n!
I am planning to write smut later today.
3:49 Fully agree. For me, "show don't tell" and other popular writing rules doesn't apply to the first draft, sometimes not even in second. How are you going to show the scene if you don't even know what is it trying to tell?
Do all the info dump you want in the first draft. You can move them in your outline later.
I think participating seriously in NaNoWriMo is one od the easiest ways to give yourself an acute stress disorder.
I'm a writer who is only vaguely aware of Nano and I'm perfectly happy keeping it that way
Edit: I didn't even know it stood for National Novel Writing Month 🤯
Each and every single year I lie to myself that I am going to finish NaNoWriMo and then I don't even start
I wouldn't call myself a writer but I've been working on my first multichapter fic for a small webcomic fandom I'm in and someone tagged me and brought up my fic unprompted as a recommendation to someone on the fandom discord server, and it's made me smile every time I think about it. it might even give me motivation to work on the next chapter, or maybe I'll use nanowrimo as an excuse
I am watching this video instead of writing my NaNo project
I gave up on the 1667 words a day goal a long time ago
Normal people writing a 500 word essay: Omg this is the longest and worst thing I've ever written.
Me adding 500 words to a chapter of my novel: More... *MORE!*
This video is giving me the impulsive thought to start NaNoWriMo halfway through the month 😅
tbh i thought the no part literally just meant "no", like "national no writing month"....
7:30
i started nanowrimo on the 15th of november bc i purposely forgot about it, but ended up with nanowrimo brainrot anyways. i went to a nanowrimo thing at a library down the road and i was the only one booked which was sooo out of my comfort zone, but whatever. i got a bingo thing from the person running the write-in, and ive turned it into a week challenge. day one, write 1667 words. day two, go for a brainstorming walk, etc etc.
next year i might actually give nanowrimo a fair go but for now im just using it as an excuse to get some writing done and have a bit of fun. writing *is* meant to be fun. 💗
9:43
Okay, if I may add to this post, anytime I worry about the grammar in my writing, I remember that published novels break rules all the time. Cormac McCarthy has multiple published books and he considers quotation marks and commas unnecessary. So absolutely do what you want.
At least the short smut fanfiction I was writing has turned into something with serious plot where immortal entities who share different titles are just casually conversing about things.
I'm not doing NaNoWriMo and i never will - i don't need that stress - but I am slowly making it through my first draft of a story and this is givjng me the motivatiom to continue. It is making me feel bad about the fact that i started it last year and i'm no where near finished and i'm still only on the first draft and i really want to rewrite the first chapter arrghhhhh
I've been working on a novel for about 3 months, and this makes me feel so much better about the measy 17k words I've managed to write so far
I didn't know this was a thing. Coincidentally this is when I decided that I need to actually write down my fanfiction ideas. I plan on starting a fic soon.
5:52 scared me so bad. I was watching this video while multitasking and I was like „Huh, that wording sounds familia- oh my god“ The draft that post was about was ripped up and thrown in my trash can because thinking about it‘s existence made me cringe so bad. I made that post during sixth grade nanowrimo 😭 crazy my old post got included
Listen, you write your first draft however you can. Then, after that, if you're not bothered by the down-sides, keep the style. Do mind, on the other hand, that there is often AN ACESSABILITY REASON TO WRITE LONGER TEXTS AS PROPERLY AS YOU'RE CAPIBLE. People with reading disabilities already have a hard time with the "right" way to do things. You might have run into one such persons who your stylistic choices help, but that isn't all of them. Text-to-speech programs don't understand style choice, they understand the rules that have been input, so people with certain levels of blindness are going to have a hard time getting into it. People with a neurodivergence that sees them hyper fixate on inconsequential things (certain autistic fixations, ADHD, and ODC for example) could be stopped dead by your 10th refusal to use punctuation as taught.
"he depressed as he saw the rain
he ate the rain
he remembered he was a frog
he was whole again"
That's simple enough to brain-reformat for, but a 70k piece is a LOT harder to keep that up with.
I have a tip for writing. When you are thinking about a scene for your characters, as in thinking it out in your head, but youre away from your computer, just pull out your phone, open the notes app and start writing. the want to write will fade when you sit down in front of your computer so just write!
Neil Gaiman on tumblr said that he wrote Coraline at a rate of 50 words a day.
I was writing like 1k words a day and then NaNoWriMo came around and I stopped existing entirely.
LOVE the bit at 2:00 though, very good advice. Braindump your story!!!
I love watching this video while I'm procrastinating my nanowrimo...
does scripting count as writing
smiles
I'd say that counts!
Holy heck, thank you. ❤
Havent written anything for years and this inspired me.
Nanowrimo isn't going great for some us. If you also feel like you're too far behind, remember you're not alone 🫂 me and my braincell are there with you
I feel so motivated now. Not gonna do nano this year because I have too much on my plate but regular writing, I am motivated
Yeah! If you're ever having trouble with a scene or wordcount, pick a random thing in the scene and invent a description for it.
It honestly helps :
1. Boost your word count
2. Get the creative juices flowing, because you can get ideas of:
A. how the characters can interact with the place
B. how they feel physically (are they hot, cold, is the wind whipping their hair into their eyes, etc)
C. how they feel emotionally being there (is it dark and creepy, is it getting late and they have some kind of time limit for something that will make them forcefully end this scene early? etc)
D. Give you ideas of random stuff you can introduce to change the flow (ex: "a dog runs past, trailing a leash and a human trailing after it, yelling from afar "Spotssss come back!!" Random little prompts that can help you explore your characters, add something spontaneous to the story, and Up Your Wordcount Woooo)
Its so easy to boost wordcount by just skipping around to scenes that give you more inspiration. You don't need to write in chronological order. I tend to start writing a random scene I like in the middle of my book, then a different bit all over the place every day. Whether you have an outline or not, if you have a scene idea today, write that instead of forcing yourself to slog through a scene that won't cooperate!
You can always fill in the middle bit later once you've written other stuff. And if a scene is really fighting you, but you don't want to lose your inspiration, just write what you wanted it to do.
Something like : "In this scene X and Y have an argument about something related to Z. They storm off, but Y comes back later to apologize and finds that X left a cryptic note saying something about the plot related to A. Y is confused and runs off to find X."
Then you can continue from there, writing the next scene you actually have inspiration for or jump to another and know that when you come back you'll know where to start off from.
As for me, for once my Nano seems to be going well! I'm writing two short stories based off of weird dreams I had with a simple outline for each. Currently at 19K but I haven't written yet today, I usually do that late at night. Yesterday was an amazing 3K day woo! But wednesday was a big fat zero because I was super sick.
Hope my tricks help someone hahah
I started out well and then came home one day after a long day and passed out before i could write. Ended up losing my streak and now my "words needed today" has gone up from 1667 to 1900 something to 2002. And yes i'm watching this video instead of writing 👍
I appreciate these writing meme videos because I get to think about writing and laugh without actually having to work on my story. Wonderful escapism 👍
I remember doing nano for the first and only time and I literally decided to do it a couple of days before it started and somehow I actually wrote over 50k... to this day i don't know how i did that, teenage me was just built different lol
A slight lifehack for those who are better at editing than writing, or have the 'fear of the blank page.'
Get a lorem ipsum sample of 500 words, copy-paste it into your blank document, hit Insert, and start typing. This bypasses your inner editor wanting to get it right the first time, because technically you already are in editing mode. Combine this with the snowflake method for getting quick outlines, and you're good to go.
Pros to this method: you more easily get past the hurdle to start typing, the end result tends to have more consistent pacing. Good if you're writing show-style fanfic, for cartoons especially, since you can use the ad breaks as scene breaks. It's also a good way to break up the writing process, since you've already marked where you'll be when this one section is done. Repeat three times and you hit your daily goal.
Cons: consistent pacing can also mean output that looks formulaic. The lack of breaks within the lorem ipsum sample can lead to scenes dragging on more than they should. Also, this approach solves a particular problem not every writer has. May work for you, may not, but it's not a common advice I've seen, so just tossing that out there.
5:40 Based. Also, I'm working on a Series that's inspired by Wings of Fire. Several characters are modified OCs from Wof. Now if you'll excuse me, I need go write more. Thanks for the motovaion!
I don't do nanowrimo but I do try to write every day. Definitely not 1600 words but.. writing gets done I guess.
Edit: I only wrote 12,000 words but I did write every day.
Yeah, no. I totally forgot about Nanowrimo. Soooo now it’s to late. I will write my story next november. Well, I will probably forget about it again, but I will think about it for the next three days?
Doing NaNo for the fifth time this year! My plot is spiraling widely out of proportion but I'm having fun and beating my records >:)
The juxtaposition of "inktober" and "NaNoWriMo" in every sense is very funny
I was literally working on my first NaNoWriMo when I saw this upload. Currently sitting at 17962 words. It's been a fight to keep my pace going but I'm here for the fight. Loving the writing memes.
4:13 This is probably the best advice I have ever heard. This advice helped me get onto a flow with writing my rough draft
Watching this as I procrastinate on my writing.
I FORGOT THIS MONTH WAS NANOWRIMO
The first one got me XD XD I will try and write for nanowrimo and then lose motivation or get distracted, and it's torture!
the bingo one was a complete story right there.
I'm not doing anything on NaNoWriMo, just writing out what is basically a jojo fanfic, but I'm currently on my first draft and it is heavy on detail. Add in that it swaps things over and there's a second idea (a part 4 and fire emblem engage crossover) lodged in my brain and I have an essay and problems arise.
Writers: Writing 50k words a month is so hard! 😭
Me, who already wrote 80k before November: 😶
Thank you very much (I have no motivation)
I’m sure your book is great!
I'm writing a typical horror story with bratty girls that are in the middle of a giant murder... But the girls are the real murderers and the big nerd is actually just a major douche which is why they got killed.
no joke, nanowrimo is actually how i met one of my best friends ever, like we’d be talking about what we were writing and build up on our ideas, and we still do!! hes basically my brother
we did not end up fin-ishing nano. at all. but atleast i got one of the best people ive ever met as my bro now!!
Why did no one tell me this at the beginning of November? 😭 Now I'm feeling competitive.
NaNoWriMo sounds like absolute hell
I actually wrote over 1200 words for my film studies exam, so while i'm not taking part in NaNoWriMo (i didn't even know that was a thing tbh), i think i've filled most of my quota for that day.
This is a very inspirational video, especially near the end. I will tell my story in a humble resembling my own thoughts and it doesn't matter
me when the nano mods have been making the forums an unsafe space to the point that the board had to step in
Writing a novel? Nah making 50 incomprehensible election graphics that the story for is stored in my mind and only in my mind? Hell Yeah!😂
This year I had the unwanted experience of needing to have a backup copy of my Nanowrimo draft.... also 8:53 BINGO down column 2!
I was wondering what that meant lol
I thought about doing NaNoWriMo this year. Then I thought I don't know if I have the time for that with school. Then I thought I could probably pick a different month when Im not busy and try to write 50k words then. I don't know if I'll do that tho.
I didn't even realize this was a thing! I'm behind!
am I the only one who had absolutely zero idea November was a writers month.. 😭😭😭
Me halfway through NaNoWriMo with a short stories collection: Wait, that’s not what novels are? Uhhh… (adds cameos of other stories into each other to pretend it’s one world) ye thatll do
For your first draft: Do NOT GAF about "how it SHOULD be written"!
If someone tries to hassle you about it, tell them you're going to fix that in the second draft.
First drafts suck. That's actually a GOOD thing! You can focus on getting the story out without having to worry about "getting it right" the first time.
Perfect is the thing to avoid, and "good enough" is, for a first draft, PERFECT.
I had no idea NaNoWriMo was a thing - I was writing constantly in November anyway lol
I miss the days of when I could write 2 thousand words in the span of a few hours. I don’t know what 13 year old me was on
I decided that for my short story I would write about what it feels like to have mesaphonia, something I have. It’s very rare and I wanted to spread awareness about it. It’s a mental problem where certain noises can be painful, most commonly the trigger for people with mesaphonia is bass and eating noises.
I’m split between writing 3 different things right now. I mean I have made blurbs in 3 different documents that are intended as novels, none of them are going to become a novel this month.
5:49 omg I remember killing my first character in middle school and I was BAWLING in the study center
Hits a bit differently with all the shit going down
Me, who is 23 days late to nanowrimo: Mmmyeah I can do it 😀🔫
My key when writing first drafts is I don't have to write all of it right now. I don't feel like researching the court system for a trial scene? I just write (insert court scene here). Will I ever get back to that and insert it? Probably not. But it helps me not get stuck.
Also, I'm still writing my book. Just one question. How do you make a villain with Soundwave type powers from a metal suit a dangerous villain for you're superhero book?
hearing damage. and sound waves can shatter glass at the right frequency
180db is lethal, if they can make sounds that loud
@@azurekutella3812 Yeah, that's going to be very dangerous for Quickstrike
Me after a 24-hour write-a-thon:
Just want to let you guys know, that yes, comic sans does work as a first draft font.
Is anyone else ready to throw hands at the "you cant write in all lowercase" person on behalf of unmellowyellowfellow? Cause I already got the Denny's parking lot picked out and just got some new Doc Martens with the throw down sole.
I am!
Right now, I'm in the middle of two requests on Wattpad and updating a f1 fic on AO3. Wish me luck!
(Wait, I don't think they count as novels though...)
I took my favorite trope from a fanfiction I read years ago, characters me and my friend made up when we were like five and playing pretend, the dynamic between me and my step father and this one neighborhood girl I made fiends with, plus my little bit of experience with fostering children from when I had a foster sister when I was nine. I wrote 3.6k words today alone, and about 50-75 words on the rest of the days of this month.
My total word count is a whopping 6.8k. And we are almost half way through November already. The only reason I wrote so much today is because I got rid of basically all writing rules like said is dead and show don't tell and just wrote, doing my best not to care what it looks like because I can edit later.
Did it work today? Yes. Will it work for the rest of November? Absolutely not.
Fuck. Its writing month. *stares at empty document*
the 0:06 caught me off guard lol
I’m writing something lol
I didn't even know about NaNoWriMo and I realized I FINALLY wrote today the 1st chapter of my fanfic that's been hyped for months lol
Sucks that NaNoWriMo is actively on fire :(
Me: Learans about this in this very veido gets ready to start weighting
Also me: You've acatvated my trap card "Nurvrous Cleaning."
My god. My goal was only to rewrite a short story I did years ago. I've only got ~2300 words right now. It is the 15th. idk how anymore.
how did it go
wanting to write a story about one of my characters. she's a half-demon who just learned that she's a demon, and has a lot to catch up on. somehow she befriends an angel and a budding medium along the way. it's supposed to be a vaguely light-hearted story. think good omens but replace the gay pining with magic wielding shenanigans.
... however, im currently at that point in the year where my motivation for words escapes me. they need to move this to may or smth lol.
There's camp Nano around april every year if that's a time that's better for you! You can set whatever goal you want, be it 50K or 10K etc. and you'll still get the rewards at the end