WEbook Blog: A Writer's Resource

NaNoWriMo Day 30: Closing Comments

William Tiernan's excellent coverage of The National Novel Writing Month has, sadly, come to a close. If you haven't gotten a chance to read his month long journey, read through his previous posts to get a feel for the narrative arc, or so to speak. Be sure to leave your closing comments as well!

There are so many bits of NaNoWriMo advice to offer before starting this crazy process.  But now that you’ve reached, or are about to reach (I’ve got 876 words to write today) the finish line, here is one final NaNo “Do” and “Don’t” to consider:
 
Don’t, under any circumstance, use your NaNo as a pitch point in a query letter. As in …

The Season of Stories

I am ecstatic for the holidays. Not because I love giving or receiving gifts or the parties or even the slacked-off work schedule. (Okay, maybe the latter.) I heart the silly season for the drama. I can’t wait to hear about the person who dirty-danced with their boss at the holiday party. The uncle who went MIA on Christmas, but actually just got drunk and fell asleep under his bed. The family politics revved up for yet another holiday drag race. This is entertainment. This is fodder for future stories, a time to gather material for the long winter ahead.

NaNoWriMo Day 24: Thanksgiving Week

At this point in NaNoWriMo I’m tempted to say that process is more important than product. That the sum of the parts is greater than the whole. That the hard work invested to reach the finish line is more important than actually crossing it. That 25.9 miles is the same as 26.2. That Thanksgiving week is a time to shelve NaNos for turkey and mash potatoes.   

Well, screw all that. If we’d signed up for 31,003 words of sparkling prose we would have, well, signed up for a writing class. Instead we chose the NaNo – a 50,000+ word hyper novel that promises to be so messy, mystifying, and grammatical and structurally challenged our own grandmothers won’t praise it. Good for us. Let’s finish this thing off. 

The Single Adjective/Adverb Winners!

It's time to announce the winners of our current bi-weekly writing challenge. If you're new to the challenges (or to WEbook) these are short writing exercises geared towards helping authors improve a specific aspect of their craft and promote a healthy discourse between contestants.

Note that we will be taking a hiatus on these challenges for the holiday season. We love doing them, but we also love eating turkey, opening presents, and munching on candy canes. Look for new challenges in 2011.

NaNoWriMo Day 17: Get to the Point!

We're just past the halfway point of the NaNo. How is everyone doing? Feeling the burn? Gotten that second wind yet? We hope so. William Tiernan's blog coverage of NaNo continues, let's see how he's doing...

Many things get put on hold during NaNoWriMo, like dishes and showering and sleep. But reading shouldn’t be one of them. Reading recharges the writing battery. Accomplished authors are accomplished for a reason. Entering their worlds offers fresh perspective on vocabulary, conventions, point of view, plotting, character development, suspense, and so on. There are many gems to mine.

The Pumpkin Writing Contest: Winners

We regret to inform everyone that reading The Pumpkin Challenge submissions has reduced the WEbook editorial staff into a group of tear-soaked and fear-addled children. Thus, they were unable to choose winners for this challenge.

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Just kidding!

NaNoWriMo Day 10: The Perspective Tune-up

William Tiernan's blog coverage of NaNoWriMo continues! If you're new to the series, catch up on his novel writing marathon so far.

My NaNo died. On Friday it threw up its arms, muttered a few obscenities, and dragged itself into the literary shop for repairs. I’d like to compare it to a car that conked out at 300,000 miles. But I’d just driven the thing off the lot. It barely had 5,000 words on it.

I was trying to write a sequel. Several of the characters had already been established; I was passionate about the subject matter; and I’d created a detailed plot outline. A decent recipe for NaNoWriMo success – except it wasn’t working. Day 1 went well, but by Friday I knew my NaNo mobile wasn’t crossing the finish line. I was at a total loss.

PageToFame Shorts Temporarily Closed to Submissions

In an effort to ensure that each PageToFame submission receives votes as quickly as possible, we are temporarily closing submissions to Shorts. As the final rounds of PageToFame Full-Length have opened, user activity has gravitated towards those areas.

This is great, but it has created a bit of a slow-down in Shorts ratings.

Writing a Novel: Experience vs. Imagination

Some of you might remember that I was casting about in search of ideas for my next novel. Eventually, I broke through by researching the germ of an idea, which inspired a legitimate plot, characters, and a range of settings. Afterwards, I realized all I needed was a bit more research and I could sit down and begin outlining and yes, ultimately get to the beautiful slog of a first draft just in time for the start of winter (my favorite season to write).

Choosing a Perspective for your Novel

Over the past week or so, I've been reading Then We Came to the End, by Joshua Ferris. It's a brilliant and funny novel that details the behavior of a group of advertising executives as their agency undergoes layoffs during the late 90's. 

One particularly noteworthy aspect of Then We Came to the End is it's perspective. The novel is written in first person plural (we, us, etc.) which is extremely rare in fiction, especially long form fiction. There are a few famous short stories that use this perspective—A Rose For Emily being perhaps the most famous—but it's generally avoided by writers.