Howdy, young writers! It’s been three weeks since NaNoWriMo kicked off. Are ya’ll still alive? No, seriously. I’m happy to say that after staging a series of Writing Lock-ins (click the link provided for more details on what those are) featuring me, myself, and I over the past two weekends, I’m relatively on track as far as my WC (word count) goes. I’m currently up to 29,545 words, which isn’t exactly on schedule but considering how far behind I’d gotten just in the first week (thanks to a stupid cold; good news though, I’m better!), I’d say that’s pretty darn good. 😉

Alright, so now would be the part of the blog post where I’d impart some legit writing wisdom *magical sparkles* to you all, or at least, some (hopefully) helpful tips & tricks that I’ve learned during the last 21 days. 😛 I’ve been running around like a crazy person trying to balance school and my writing throughout this month so I made a list *sarcastic gasp of surprise* to help me remember everything that I wanted to say in this post before I slink back into my writing cave and you don’t hear from me for a while. (It’s really a basement and I plan on posting in another week, but whatever.)

Okay, first off: you know by now, my intense, undying love for dialogue; love, love, LOVE it. Well, what I’ve come to realize about dialogue as I’ve been writing for NaNoWriMo is that, it’s a lot like makeup foundation. Just go with me on this. When applying makeup, I always put on my foundation first; it lays the groundwork and gives me something to work with. Once I have my foundation on, I then add: blush, eye-shadow, eyeliner, mascara, etc. which together, contribute to the overall enhancement of my facial features. Similarly, laying the groundwork for your scene by applying a “base-coat” of dialogue not only makes the process of writing your scene easier by giving you something to work with and therefore, add layers of literary devices/elements to, it also gives you direction, which leads me to my next piece of advice. Earlier in this post I mentioned having to make a list so I wouldn’t forget of all the things I wanted to talk about within this post; I do the same thing for my scenes! Nothing helps me stay on track/focused on what needs to happen during a scene more than making little bullet point lists does. Usually, my lists include words or phrases of certain bits of information that need to be revealed/things that characters need to do before the scene ends. This strategy, coupled with using dialogue as my “writing makeup foundation”, IS A HUGE HELP when it comes to NaNoWriMo, because it allows you work quickly and efficiently through your plot outline. Even if the scene isn’t perfect, you at least have the general gist of what is going on within it along with some dialogue. Can you say TIME SAVER??? Something else that helps me, especially when I have an idea for a scene, but only for one specific part, is to start from the middle of a scene and then write my way out, either to the beginning and then the end or vice versa. This keeps me from giving up on writing the scene altogether and actually helps me come up with new material that flows naturally into and supports what I had already written for the scene. Finally, one of the last bits of advice I have to give is: PRINT OUT SYNONYM CHARTS!!! For the most commonly used words like: “said” and “look”, I’ve simply gone online and printed out lists of synonyms for each so that I can substitute those into my writing thus, making my story’s wordage more varied and interesting (maybe). 😛 Of course, knowing when, or when not to use the word “said” (and dialogue tags for that matter, I mean, who really even knows?!?) within story writing can best be explained by author Eleanore D. Trupkiewicz in her guest blog post, Keep it Simple: Keys to Realistic Dialogue (Part II) that was featured on Writer’s Digest. I personally found this article very helpful and very freeing, but I’ll let you all figure out what I mean by that last part on your own.

In closing, just remember:

1. dialogue = makeup foundation (Click HERE for another article on dialogue)
2. bulleted lists = task manager for scenes
3. stuck on a scene? start from the middle.
4. use synonyms for variety BUT…
5. make sure to read Eleanore D. Trupkiewicz’s article (link provided above) too, to learn how to keep your dialogue interesting but also simple, and so that your readers will be able to enjoy reading your story.

And as always, keep on writing, friends. Only 8 more days to go!

Love,

YW