On Writing What You Enjoy
Now that NaNoWriMo is less than a week away, one of the municipal liasons for Ottawa has started doing a 7 Days of Plot exercise on the message boards, taken from NaNo creator Chris Baty's book No Plot? No Problem. The first of Baty's suggestions she mentions is the fact that you should write the kind of story you would enjoy reading.
My response? Well, duh. Thanks for the insight, Chris.
However, I was thinking about it further yesterday and realized that it's such an obvious thing that many writers are apt to forget about it. Case in point: Blurred Line was written at a relatively pedestrian pace, until I introduced Rodney. The chapters that featured him, because he was a character I could really get into and because the diction in those chapters was something that I was altogether more comfortable with, ended up being written in a flash (comparatively, at least).
The thing about that novel, in general, was that I was absolutely determined to write something "good". Of course, the overall plot was similar to many of the books I enjoyed reading, but as for many of the individual scenes, they simply were not written in the style I would have most enjoyed reading. Except for the Rodney scenes. And, not surprisingly, almost everyone who has read the book has remarked that the chapters which feature him are, by far, the best in the book.
So, although Baty's suggestion seems an obvious one, I'd recommend to everybody that you inspect your writing and really make sure it's the kind of thing you'd love to read. After all, if you don't love your work, who will?
My response? Well, duh. Thanks for the insight, Chris.
However, I was thinking about it further yesterday and realized that it's such an obvious thing that many writers are apt to forget about it. Case in point: Blurred Line was written at a relatively pedestrian pace, until I introduced Rodney. The chapters that featured him, because he was a character I could really get into and because the diction in those chapters was something that I was altogether more comfortable with, ended up being written in a flash (comparatively, at least).
The thing about that novel, in general, was that I was absolutely determined to write something "good". Of course, the overall plot was similar to many of the books I enjoyed reading, but as for many of the individual scenes, they simply were not written in the style I would have most enjoyed reading. Except for the Rodney scenes. And, not surprisingly, almost everyone who has read the book has remarked that the chapters which feature him are, by far, the best in the book.
So, although Baty's suggestion seems an obvious one, I'd recommend to everybody that you inspect your writing and really make sure it's the kind of thing you'd love to read. After all, if you don't love your work, who will?
8 Comments:
Nice work.
Hey Cavan,
I've been reading your blog on and off for a bit now and I rememer that a while ago you mentioned something about having a central place for everyone that is joining NaNoWriMo. So I'm just wondering if anything has been done about this yet?
Does anyone plane on starting a blog for NaNoWriMo? I've been thinking about it but I'm not sure.
There is a rider to this, of course, and that is to find out what you /do/ enjoy. It's all too easy to fall into a pattern of reading the same ol' type of books without broadening your horizons. Tastes change, and those sci-fi books from your teens that you're still reading might be good comfort reading fodder now - but it might some as a pleasant surprise if you pick up a historical novel and enjoy if more. And vice versa, of course - coming to sci-fi later in life can bring a fresh, more worldly wise perspective to the genre.
Also, broadening your reading style preferences means you can look at defining your own genre to carve your own market. Sci-fi + historical = Gladiator in Space. There's a thought. Write what you enjoy, aspecially if it is cross-genre. Other people might like it too.
After all, who'd have thought that Enid Blyton's Famous Five books could mix with Fantasy to create the most widely read modern children's books of all time?
Ick. Spelling mistakes from hell! It's late, my bad :)
That's a good conclusion: if you don't love your work who will?
Well... once when I was in a writers group I did a little experiment and wrote a short that catered to the group's taste. Result: I hated it, they loved it.
BUt I still think you're 100% right.
It's funny how we sometimes don't think about the obvious things until somebody points them out.
That is an excellent suggestion that I'm going to follow.
selsine - I think I was probably referencing the NaNo forums, where I've been able to connect with a bunch of people who are participating in my city.
And yes, I know a few of them are starting up their own NaNo blogs, so if that's your preferred method, go for it.
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