Hello, NANOWRIMO formal & informal adventurers & frenz!
Here’s our GOALS&PROGRESS chart from last week — thanks, strawbale! As of this 2nd Thursday in NNWM, we’re just over 1/3 of the way through. I’ll update data as venturous comments come in, tonight thru’ Saturday or so.
Aashir’s nani: just keep writing
BigIrish310: 50,000 words. On track so far.
bonetti: 50,000 words, rehoming and rebuilding a previous story — approx 5k words as of 11/11.
David Pax: more work on prequel to Without Gravity - outlined key event scene.
dconrad: 50,000 words - 38,335 words as of 11/11.
elenacarlena: 50,000 words, at 2000 words per writing session - 9000wds + research as of 11/11.
mettle fatigue: revise & post to OFPMFP an already-drafted short story— fair progress after switching which story as off 11/11.
NoBlinkers: 50,000 words on novel Amidst the Dry Dust - 20,132 words as of 11/11.
not a lamb: 10,000 words (finish the middle section of a three-part book) — kick-starting it as of 11/11.
reppa: write something or things, get an idea for January — maps and sketches of story locations as of Nov4, prog. slow but steady in fragments as of 11/11.
strawbale: finish section one, at least, of alien novella - have done some research & astronomical calculations as of 11/11.
Toro Blanco: trying to finish my Charlie Turner novel - 4322 words
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Jane Yolen’s 2018 How to Fracture A Fairy Tale — that’s a locusmag review referencing Rocky & Bullwinkle! :) — is a particular collection of previously published stories she wrote, with later commentaries. The theme struck me as great for rethinking fiction conventions in general, to get the stale out and originality in. Since WriteOn’s rowdy crew fractures & tweaks conventions on routine basis, this seems likely to not burn up NNWM energies, but might help shake things loose for any of us bogged down in our annual rite of writerage, and maybe fun for adventurers and homebodies alike.
From Marissa Meyer’s intro:
Everything [usual] can be altered according to a writer’s whims and imagination — the time period, the location, the protagonist, the point of view . . . even the ever after bit … [into] poetry, wishes, heartaches, dreams … and a few nightmares, too.
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And Yolen opens with:
A fracture is a break, usually in the bone, but also can mean a crack in the earth, an interruption of the norm … a fault line, a fissure, a split, breach, disruption, splintering … oh, and a break-up. It sounds explosive, can hurt like [hell], or reveal like a geode being split apart to show the jewels inside … sometimes a fracture reveals beauty, sometimes suppurating flesh… a small sprain or the calving of glaciers…
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At one story, Yolen’s commentary is this:
...It all leads to the After / which is not death, / but inconsequence; / not dancing in red hot iron shoes / but living past our sell-by date...
At another —One Ox, Two Ox, Three Ox, and the Dragon King—
Chinese dragon stories (and the old beliefs about dragons) are much more positive than Western [ones]. Eastern Dragons are gods of rain and abundance, though occasionally (like any gods) unpredictable if you depart from the rules and lack a good heart.
— which suggests that what’s traditional in the East looks fractured to the West, and vice versa, not to mention cold Julys and hot Decembers in the Southern Hemisphere, needing nothing literary to be true.
Here’s how, distilled from elsewhere:
1. Change the CHARACTERS.
2. Change the SETTING.
3. Change the CONFLICT.
4. Change the PLOT.
5. Change the ENDING.
6. Change the POINT OF VIEW (POV).
7. MIX genres, plots, characters...
Choosing from these approaches, the writer/student brainstorms to answer the below pre-writing questions about her/his/their writing project:
- What tradition/convention will you fracture?
- What are three specific ways the trad’l material and your fracture will be DIFFERENT?
- What are three specific ways they’ll be the SAME?
Kid-level fracturing examples: ■ pirate pigs are more interested in building boats than houses ■ Goldilocks invades the home of three aardvarks ■ while Hansel and Gretel were at risk of being eaten by a witch, Gransel and Hetel are at the mercy of an alien determined to feed them Spinach-Brussels-Sprout Smoothies with Tofu Cream Surprise ■
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Examples more at our level: ■ the bits of alternate history I’ve read look like those writers use fracturing a lot ■ some of us may recall when female cops and PI’s first came on the scene in noir and hardboiled mystery/crime, sometimes acting just like male protags, other times turning those conventions inside out. ■ perfect fit for pastiche and spoof … like this abuse of Shakespeare :) <big>↗️</big>
Even without messing with your story itself, fracturing can breathe fresh life into the setting, action, dialogue, characters, incidents, conflicts, or anything, as simply as with the telling details, to take the reader by happy surprise at the same time as it resonates with the genre in the familiar, satisfying way.
CHALLENGE!
Write a scene that uses any of the 7 fractures in the aqua box up above.
You can use your NNWM project, or your current WIP, or any genre or tradition whose conventions you know well.
For anyone wanting it tougher, include 1 nice verb & 1 nice noun from Yolen’s gold-framed quote with the heart-shape geode.
All you nanowrimoers, write moar and write on !!! :)
Write On! will be a regular Thursday night diary (8 pm Eastern, 5 pm Pacific) until it isn’t.
Before signing a contract with any agent or publisher, please be sure to check them out on Preditors and Editors, Absolute Write, and/or Writer Beware.
P.S. Having a terrible time with my bookmarks, so I’ll put here the WORDCOUNTER graciously supplied by BMScott last week. dconrad has a good wordcounter too! Update: it’s gearside.com/text/ — thnx, dconrad.
And while I’m at it, our series pages/list of diaries —WriteOn— and Series Index (incomplete but handy) and Standard Characters, Sets & Props in the Quest for the Sacred Lost Jewel of Togwogmagog. Dunno why I didn’t think of this before ‘steada hunting for’em afresh every time, but better sometime than never. :)