Cheating Your Way To A NaNo Win, Part 2

     The other day I wrote a post about how to cheat your way through NaNoWriMo.
     Keeping in mind that these things will not necessarily make you a good NaNo novel, or even a finished NaNo novel, just a longer NaNo novel, here's some more cheat codes!


6.  What is your character thinking?

     That long bit of narration and headwork that you know is bad writing, and if ever published would rival the likes of even Twilight?  You know the one.  Where your character goes off on a long rant about how pretty it is out, and how much he likes flowers, or whether he's really in love with Billy the Cheerleader or Mandy the Jock, or if he's going to risk buying some edibles from Cynthia and Harlan Mayweather, because yeah, obviously they make the best stuff in town, but their mother is sort of the evil overlord of earth and she has this really strict policy against drugs that Cynthia and Harlan probably only get away with because of nepotism....
     That one?  It goes nowhere, it's not entertaining, it contributes nothing, you could more concisely convey the same information in like two sentences tops?
     Slap that bad boy down as drawn-out and useless as you like, my friend.  First drafts are for play, final drafts are for serious work.  Treat it like a free-write, like I just did up there; just set your fingers to the keyboard and let 'em fly!  No one will know the difference.
     Except for you, you dirty, dirty cheater.

7.  Lavish description

     Explain to me what the set looks like in vivid detail, tell me the exact shade of every single hair on the hero's head, and name every solitary scent in the princess's perfume; leave nothing unsaid, and employ every single last sense, even the extra ones!  Come on, it'll be fun!
     .... for you.
     Look, description for the sake of description?  As a reader, not my cup of tea.  But because it's not my cup of tea, as a writer I tend to under-dress my sets, which is great for the stage, where creative directors want to have all the leeway they can get, but for novels that makes it difficult to keep the reader interested--you risk having talking heads and bland settings.
     It's just so damn easy to overdo it, though--so don't even worry about it.  Just overdo it right from the start, all the words you want, all the description you like.  Then deal with the merciless cutting and hacking later, like with everything else on this list.

8.  Long dialogue

     Now, it helps if your characters are witty.  I know my characters having humorous back-and-forths about innocuous things (at least, innocuous to them) had to have made up at least a third of my NaNo Novel last year--my characters were funny, and if they wanted to show it off, who was I to stop them?
     I also delivered a lot of exposition through dialogue, which can also boost word count depending on how it's done, but witty dialogue is probably the best for boosting word count--even if it's just the characters thinking that they're witty.  Sometimes the more so, even, because people thinking they're witty tend to stumble and need correcting more often than others.
     You can also employ speech patterns to your advantage--in one of my WIPs from a while back a few of my characters have a habit of saying one another's names as a method of establishing dominance in a conversation, and I've had a character or two who liked to loop themselves around in webs of metaphor or simile, or who just plain liked run-on sentences (for whatever weird, totally not based-on-a-real-person reasons).
     As long as you keep those characters talking, your word count will keep climbing.  BUT....

9.  Try to avoid floating heads, but don't bite yourself if you can't

     Talking heads are terrible for a whole host of reasons I'll probably get into at some other time, but for now just know that a talking head occurs in a story when a character, or several characters, talks for an extended length of time with very few or no dialogue or action tags--so for six pages on end, there's just talk talk talk blather blather blather.
     And I get why--I've certainly done it before, it's easy, it just keeps flowing and flowing and flowing, and once you hit that speech rhythm it's hard to stop!--but talking heads are secretly killing your word count.  For every three spoken words you could be piling up a fourth outside of the quotation marks, just hanging out, relaxing, maxing all cool and the like; having your character perform actions as they speak will not only make your scene a million times more relevant/interesting, but it will also make that word count skyrocket, and, my good man or woman or nonbinary or genderless individual, I do believe that is why you are here.
     And this one's not even a cheat!  Totally legal.

10.  Include needless scenes if need be

     Much like those rambling headspace dealies, if there's a scene you know will never, ever make it into your finished novel, but you're running out of options?  Toss it in there.  Is it an AU fanfic of the story?  In fact, is it a fanfic of any type?  Did you write a poem or a short story?  Do you have less respect for the novel in and of itself than for the creativity upon which NaNo was founded?  Then toss it the fuck in, my friend!
     Tons of people do this--rather than attempt to write a novel this upcoming NaNo, a lot of people will attempt to slap down 50k in blog posts, in short stories, in poems, in paperwork, in scattered bits and pieces of whatever they can write in a month, because to a lot of people, NaNoWriMo is less about the novels than it is about the creativity and the community and the kinship you find within those thirty days.  NaNoWriMo is about more than writing novels, guys; it's about using the constraints of time to accomplish a creative goal, with an army of like-minded individuals to back you up.
     So maybe finishing your novel isn't going to be what's up this NaNo, but creativity will be, and part of creativity is knowing when to adapt your goals and the methods you use to get to them.
     Maybe that means using this list of technically-not-really-cheats to flesh out your word count for your novel; maybe that means writing at certain times of the day when you know you're at your creative peak.
     Or maybe it means deciding that a novel was never the real goal in the first place.

     Happy NaNoing my friends!  ... Even if it is February....

How to Cheat Your Way to a NaNoWriMo Win

     *GASP!*  Cheat on NaNoWriMo!?
     Now before I launch into this bad boy saddles a-burning, let me just say that the use of these tactics is not going to necessarily net you a good NaNo novel, or even a finished NaNo novel, but it will help you up your word count, and who knows, using some of these tactics might help you flesh out the story in your own mind, if nothing else.
     Just remember that once all is said and done and you have a finished novel in your hands, you're going to want to litter the cutting-room floor, probably in a pretty major way.
     SO, now that that's out of the way.....

1.  Adverbs and adjectives

     Adverbs are the little things that modify verbs, which everyone and her sister will tell you is Bad Writing™.  Usually they're words with "ly" at the end, like "clearly" or "slowly."  Adjectives are the same thing, but with nouns, and are usually referred to as descriptor words, ie, "beautiful," "deadly," "shiny," etc.
     Lots of writers will tell you that adverbs and adjectives (but mostly adverbs) are to be cut out of your writing at any and all costs; that's silly, of course.  But it's important not to overuse adverbs or adjectives in your writing, or things can get clunky.  Clunky is what first drafts are all about, though, so if you're looking to bump word count, these guys can help you out, at least temporarily.

2.  Use needlessly complicated sentences

     *sucks breath through teeth*  I really don't recommend this one, I mean... hhhhhh, there's no need to needlessly complicate things, but hey, if Occam's Razer isn't for you, who am I to judge?  Just make sure you simplify things down the road.  And that you do not don't not forget what it was that in the first place you were attempting to try to accomplish.
     (it's your funeral)

3.  Write parts that haven't happened yet

     This one I really do recommend--it's what I do.  When I have an idea for an upcoming scene, instead of risking its loss by waiting until the "appropriate" time to write it, I just type it up right in the document--usually at the top--then later I can copy and paste it into place no problem, and it's not even technically cheating since it was supposed to be in your story all along.


4.  Write parts that won't make it into the final cut

     This gets us back into the pseudo-cheat territory, but it's also something that I do so *applies the fuck-it adjustment* why not share it with the world.
     That scene where those two characters do nothing but banter and chat about stuff that has nothing to do with the story?  The one that you know, just know, even as you write it, is going to end up on the chopping block as soon as you go back to edit?
     Steer into the train crash my friend.  Play chicken with that sucker and watch from an out-of-body experience as you and your car are totally mangled by its twenty-ton onslaught.
     Okay, so that's a bit melodramatic; you aren't going to die.  Not from this, at least.  Probably.  I mean, I'm not a doctor or a lawyer or anything, so anything's possible.  Probably you'll just have some extra words to cut later--maybe a few extra darlings to murder.
     I know you're capable of it, though, you have big, strong arms, and what else would those garden shears be for, we're in the middle of LA for crying out loud!  I'm sure you've done it before.
     Wow, my metaphors are really just running away from me tonight.
     My point is, this is a harmless crime, and can in fact be helpful--sometimes the most telling moments we have are the ones that occur when nothing big or life-altering is happening, the little things we do in the dark that no one will ever know we did.  Sometimes the audience needs to see scenes like that, but a lot of the time it fucks with the pacing or doesn't move anything along, etc, etc, and will ultimately need to be cut; but if it's informed your work on the character, then even being cut out, it has served a very valuable purpose.

5.  When you're stuck, skip ahead and come back later

     Tied into the two above is the age old, "Do It Later" approach.  Which, contrary to what you may suspect, especially since this article is supposed to be all about cheating, is a really solid method; sometimes something with the current portion of the plot or dialogue or what have you is tripping you up, and you just need a breather.  That's life!  Sometimes you just don't have the tools to deal with something in that moment.
     What do you do when that happens?  Well, if you had all the time in the world you might get up, go someplace new, do some research, have an adventure!  But since you're a Writer and are both slave to the written word and to the sacrificial blood oath you made upon avowing to write 50k in 30 days, you don't have time for that.  Probably not the energy, either.  Plus it's cold in November, and it's probably raining today, and all your good coats are still in storage because you don't really want to admit it's winter yet, and....
     You get the picture.
     So one of the best ways to shake it up is to just skip ahead.  Narrow down what's causing the issue and bypass it completely.  Maybe writing a little will shake that crud loose for later, and if not, you can write it during the editing phase, when taking long breaks to stare at your manuscript and scream is considered healthy and reasonable.
     Sometimes you just need to work on something else for a whi


     And then the dreaded corkscrew blunderbussss threw down its MIGHTY HAMMER, and...

3 Strategies To Keep You Writing

     Writing is work, and as with any type of work, different routines work differently for different people--but over the years I've found a number that work for me, and may work for you as well.  These 3 strategies are good for generating ideas, developing your characters, and increasing your word count and quality.

1.  Write in the mornings

     Generally, the later in the day it is the harder it is for us to get our write on.  There's a certain amount of energy we have each day that is expended in every activity, and our creativity sometimes corresponds to this energy--in the morning, we theoretically have the most energy.  Whether this is practically true or not, it generally is true that our minds are clearest in the morning, before we have time to clutter our consciousness with worries and concerns and problems galore.
     If you develop a morning routine in which writing is one of the first things you do, you'll find that you make more progress--you're able to write more words quicker, and the stuff you come up with isn't terrible.  You don't have to spend the rest of the day worrying about it, either--if you accomplish your daily writing goal earlier on it's done and over with, and you can put your mind to other things.  Plus, there's less chance that you'll be too tired by day's end to even get started, which is always at risk; it's really easy to get tired and say "I'll do it tomorrow" (which is, of course, where creativity goes to die).


2.  Tell yourself the story

     When I say "tell yourself the story," I mean out loud--talk to yourself!  Narrate dramatically while you're in the garden or practice dialogue in the shower, act out all the parts if it feels right!  Speaking out loud is how we organize our thoughts.  It helps clear things up and gives a sound and feeling to the language you use.  It also engages a different set of creative pieces in your brain, since you're focused on sound and flow rather than visual appearance; it's like slam poetry, only with prose.
     And don't worry about other people thinking you're crazy.  Those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

3.  When you're stuck, write the easy scenes

     I like to write in chronological order.  I usually know about how my endings will turn out, but holding myself back from working on it gives me something to look forward to--an incentive, if you will ("come on, Coates, two hundred more pages and we can write that silky smooth fun part, you can do it!")--but when I get stuck, really, truly stuck, I find it can help to skip around and write the parts of the novel you know will happen, but haven't gotten to yet.  It helps to get the creative juices flowing, and can sometimes reignite your passion for a project you've grown a bit cold for.
     It doesn't have to be perfect or line up with where the story eventually ends up exactly since nothing is perfect in your first draft, but it gets the thoughts out and leaves room for new ones.  They say that while you're working on something your subconscious mind is always trying to solve problems in the background, so this lets you act productive while giving yourself some problem-solving time.
     Plus if tomorrow you come down with amnesia, you'll know what general direction your story is headed in!

     There are millions of writing strategies you can take advantage of, and I encourage you to try as many as possible--what you're doing now may work best, but how will you know until you compare it to what else is out there?  Maybe your current methods actually suck ass, or maybe they've done great for you--but you might still be able to do better!
     What strategies work best for you?

Things Not To Do During Camp NaNoWriMo

     The first half of Camp NaNoWriMo ended nearly a month ago, and I lost by a little more than half my goal.  I'm not proud of this, but I'm going to call it a "Learning Experience" and use it to get a blog post in.  Here's a list of nine things you SHOULDN'T do when embarking on Camp NaNoWriMo.

1. Get sick
        I came down hard with a throat virus in early April that really sent me reeling.  I couldn't talk, I couldn't move, I couldn't do much of anything.  The one thing I COULD do was write--which I did a lot of!  I got something like twelve thousand words written in one business week.
        But then I had to go back to school, and this is where I died.  I had reading to make up, worksheets to fill out, MORE reading to make up, and everything went to hell.  I was still sick when I went back, too, which meant that in addition to scrambling trying to catch up with backwork, I was also exhausted just getting up in the mornings, and my favorite thing to do was come home and sleep, which meant foregoing my daily writing for days at a time.
        Don't get sick when you do NaNo, kids.
    
2. Buy an iPad
        I've never owned an Apple product before, or even a cell phone more high tech than a basic Tracfone, but last month I decided to purchase a used iPad from my boss.  "This will be awesome," I said to myself.  "I'll be able to write my NaNo Novel anywhere I want and not have to worry about transcribing!"
        I did not, you will have inferred, understand how iPads work.
        My intentions were good, but one of the first things I did was go online and download a bunch of Apps that looked cool, and some of them actually were.  The one I wanted most to work properly, however--the word processor--was lackluster and comparatively difficult to figure out, and I ended up spending far more time trying to make my digi-self a rich famous moviestar in the coolest high school university EVER, which cost me precious hours in writing time.
        Since then I've chilled on the games (mostly), and I had a lot of fun but hindsight being 20/20 I know now that it was really a very bad idea right from the get go.  Maybe buying an iPad wasn't the problem in and of itself, but I'd say it's for the best if you not download really fun apps just before you start Camp NaNo.  Probably.
3. Start three plays
        I've never done more than one play at a time before, so I decided that the best thing for me to do would be to jump in and do three at the same time because easing your way in is apparently for chumps.  This, however, was ALSO a giant time suck on this, the month of my daughter's birth (my daughter being the manuscript, you see).  Three days a week since I've been out of the house essentially from eight in the morning to nine or ten at night, which cuts severely into the two-thousand-word-a-day goal I had set for myself.
        I don't regret this, since it's a lot of fun and also my career path, but NaNo was a bad month to START it--as I may have made clear by now, starting things is a hectic and exhausting business which leaves time for almost nothing else.  I had the same commitments this month as last, but this month it was far less taxing, simply because I'd already adjusted to it.
        Maybe just try to avoid starting pretty much ANYTHING, really, during NaNo months.
4. Get Sick
5. Get no sleep
        I have a lot of trouble sleeping most nights, but for some reason I had an especially hard time sleeping in April, which left me too lethargic and dry-minded to write much of anything at all.  Maybe it was because all of the above were tiring me out.  Because that's totally how normal biology works, right?  Yeah.
        It's really important that you get enough sleep to keep yourself healthy, especially on a NaNo month.  Writing fifty thousand words (or whatever your goal was this time around) is a terribly taxing task, and if you continually end up running on empty, your manuscript will suffer.  When your manuscript suffers, the writing gets hard to continue.  When the writing gets hard to continue, it's pretty easy to quit.  And when it's pretty easy to quit, you let the mouse in through the window and it sucks all your blood out through your palm.  And that, children, is why you never give a mouse a cookie.
        Can you tell that I'm tired as I'm writing this?
6. Get Sick
7. Get Sick
8. Get Sick
        Jesus Christ, please do not get sick on NaNo, you will regret it once you go back I promise you take care of yourself stay healthy stay hydrated sleep well don't lick peoples' noses, you don't deserve the loss of word count you are a good person you deserve a finished manuscript
9. Put it off until tomorrow
        When you have thirty days to write sixty thousand words, it's really easy to say "I'll just write four thousand tomorrow to make up for it!"  When you're tired and busy it gets even easier, and once you've pushed the deadline back once it's easier to do it again--and again, and again, and again.  Before you know it the month is up and you have almost nothing to show for it but a husk of an MS and some progress on a game you'll honestly probably delete in like a month.
        Sometimes it's unavoidable, and as I've said before, you don't need to beat yourself up about it--but you should do your best to avoid it.  When you dedicate yourself to a daily goal, do whatever is in your power to reach it as quickly as you can.  Write in the morning, write throughout the day, write when you get home from work, write, write, write, write, write.
        Because Write Is Right, and the only one you hurt by blowing off your goals is you.

Word Count Hangman

     It can be hard to meet your word count goal.  Whether you're writing a novel, a poem, or a short story, sometimes we get hung up or frustrated, or (most insidious of all) we convince ourselves that we can "just do it tomorrow," which as many writers know is how books end up six feet under.
     To help with this process, you can check out a tricks-and-tips article here OR you can play this nifty little game I made up called Word Count Hangman.  It's like regular Hangman, only word count-ier

The Set Up:

     Print out a picture of one of the following:

          ~You
          ~Someone you love
          ~A beloved character from your current project

     I recommend option three if you're dealing in fiction, but they all work.  Just make sure that it's a full-body image, and not the original.  Cut off each of the limbs and set up a piece of cork board (or a piece of construction paper, etc.) above your writing space and get some tape or tacks together; set up the gallows, decide on your word count, and get to work!

The Game Play:

     If you miss your word count for the day, a body part goes up.  If all the body parts go up, you lose and your character/loved one is dead!  You can add your own consequences for a loss, or go up against another writing buddy to see who is the last to miss all X# of writing days (or hang the other one first, if that's what gets those fingers tapping!).
     If you have no one to compete against and want to make the game a little more interesting, add a second board; one for heroes and one for villains.  For every word count goal you MISS, your protagonist comes one step closer to their untimely demise, but for every goal met your ANTAGONIST comes another step closer to death.
     The game resets every so often, depending on your expertise: once a week for beginners, once a month for experts, and once a year for those of you who really want to murder something you love.

The Rules:

1.  Be honest.  The only person you hurt by giving yourself slack is you; if this isn't motivating enough a game for you, maybe you should give something else a try.
2.  If you're competing with someone else, make sure to discuss things like resets and limb numbers beforehand to level the playing field.
4. Possibly the most important rule of all, have fun!  What is the purpose of writing if not to enjoy oneself?

If you have any suggestions to spice up the game, just let me know!  Maybe they'll make it into version 2.0 ;)

A Few Ways To Elevate Wordcount

     Camp NaNoWriMo has come, and if you're anything like me, you may be throwing yourself whole-heartedly into the fray.  Also like me, you may, at any time of the year, have some trouble meeting your daily word count goals.  But never fear!  TheSpiderWriter is here, and with a few different methods to help you reach them!


1. Hold yourself accountable.

     Yes, yes, this seems fairly self-evident, but for some people it works really well!  Just set a goal for yourself, and take something you enjoy doing, then don't allow yourself to do it until you finish.        Conversely, you can take something you dislike doing, and force yourself to do it if you don't meet your goal--like drinking straight vinegar or (if you're a vinegar-loving freak like me) playing the game you most hate with your most insufferable family member at least once through.
     But if that doesn't work, you can always....


2. Have someone ELSE hold you accountable.

    Sometimes asking yourself to not give in to temptation is just too much; how can you resist the siren song of white chocolate chip cookies?  How can you say no to a dip in your jacuzzi (u successful author superhero u)?  Why would you stick your paper-cut hand into a vat of lemon juice?  In cases like this, sometimes a little external motivation is necessary, which means that it's time to bring in a partner in crime.  Ask someone close to you to do the "holding accountable" for you--give them the key to your DVD chest and ask them never to allow you into it if you can't show them a verified word count first, or have them wake you by dousing you in ice cold water if you didn't meet your goal the night before.
     As long as it gets you working, then it's a success!


3. Pit yourself against someone

     For some people, rewards and punishments just don't work.  Maybe you don't have the resources available to you to make the reward/punishment system feasible, or perhaps you find the rules a little too arbitrary to follow.  Whatever the case, there are alternatives.
     Competition is part of nature, and some of us are more competitive than others; writers are usually very self-competitive, so you could do something like try to beat your record for most words in a month; to make it real, set up a winner's wall where you record your score every time you push the envelope, or a shame space where you record each new low.
     If that doesn't work, ask your friends and family.  There are bound to be other writers in the thick of the it who are looking for the same upper you are.  If there's no one around, hit up Twitter or Tumblr or (spirit of the season!) sign up for Camp NaNoWriMo and spend time competing with strangers.  You never know who might turn out to be a true fiend at the end of the experience, either.
     It's worth a shot!

4. Stay in your lane

     It seems like a silly thing, but make sure you stay within your range.  I mean, it seems obvious if you tend toward high counts not to pick a battle with someone too low, but don't reach too high, either.  Yes, you want someone who's going to challenge you, but not someone who's going to smother you!  I've been the person leagues ahead of another, and as much as I try to encourage my friends, it only seems to hurt them.  You become daunted by the task ahead and give up, feeling that you'll never catch up to the giants around you.
     If your nightly word count is 150, you might want to try to befriend someone whose count is around 200; the competition is more fair and the two of you will be more able to help each other grow and pick up speed.  The same is true of the 4.5--6k range, or the 1--2.5k range; the more equally skilled the players, the fiercer and more beneficial the competition.

     But above all, my wonderful witticising writers, don't forget to keep your expectations of yourself realistic.  You can set all the 100,000 words-a-night goals you want, with all the rewards and punishments and support systems you think appropriate, but all you're going to do is kill yourself.
     Unless that goal is somehow realistic for you, in which case please share with me your secrets, as I, too, would like to exchange this mortal coil for the eternal rewards of deification, and would be happy to offer my companionship as compensation.
     And the rest of you mortals out there, let me know about all your down-and-dirty tricks--it's bound to help someone!