NaNoWriMo22 #1: Cat’s Eyes

So, according to my NaNoWriMo profile, this will be my fourth attempt at the creative writing event.

For those who don’t know, the National Novel Writing Month is, as the name suggests, an annual and international event where participants attempt to write a 50,000 word story. This year will be it’s 23rd year, and I had first been introduced to it during my first year at University, as part of the Creative Writing Society. This was in 2014 and I apparently only wrote 6,533 words. I again attempted it in 2016, although I chose an alternative approach and decided to practice scriptwriting (that NaNoWriMo permits and celebrates with its NaNo Rebel badge for writing anything but a novel during the month). I only wrote 1,893 words that month, which may have been the full script, although word counts aren’t usually what scripts are measured in, that would be pages. This script, working title of Vindictaque desiderium, eventually became the FilmSoc produced Blood of Thine.

In 2017 I attempted something I titled Occulit Iminicus but I only apparently wrote 8 words so erm.

Essentially I have never completed a NaNoWriMo. Not in the sense of finishing 50,000 words a narrative. This is no surprise, considering the years I attempted were during my undergrad, which I spent mostly struggling with poor mental health and balancing my degree,

But we are now in the fabled post-academic stage of Haaris life, where I have finished my last Masters and am no longer a student (pending graduation). I no longer have that excuse.

Is 2022 the year I finally write a narrative.

Well if you care, I am going to diary my experience (because, the best way to meet a 50,000 word goal is to … set yourself a task of additional writing???).

Last night I took part in an overnight write-in with the Creative Writing Society, something it does multiple times every NaNo. The write in was a 12 hour one from 7 to 7, although I only attended the last six or so hours as I had a prior commitment with a Curse of Strahd campaign. I came to the session however with prep. For me, this is significant, as I have resisted most of my entire life planning anything. I was, through and through, what NaNo awards with its ‘Pantser’ badge – ‘[I] believe in hardcore spontaneity’.

However, if there’s one change in me my Film MA has brought upon, it’s a better appreciation for planning before I write. Part of my motivation in taking the degree was to become a better storyteller and writer. I’ve always enjoyed writing – or so I thought. Actually, what I think I mainly enjoyed was the worldbuilding side of imagination. I liked creating worlds, lore, structure, societies. That part of the primal childhood instinctual play. Of course that’s not to say I didn’t want to then use these words to tell stories, but I think that came less naturally – mainly due to a lack of patience. I didn’t want to spend ages mapping out a narrative, I wanted to grab my characters like action figures, throw them in to the world, and make them live.

And improv art is a thing. I broke into comedy by being an improv comic, and TTRPGs rely on improv. They are fun ways of storytelling. But as James D’Amanto explains in his book, because of the approach to improv storytelling, it results in a different form of consumption, one which means it doesn’t work for less-interactive audience members (which is why a lot of Actual Play content will have semi-scripted/prepped or at least heavily edited and refined in post content). I needed to shift my approach, and I took the scriptwriting module in my Film degree so I could essentially learn from scratch how to tell stories.

What served me very well during my MA was Blake Snyder’s famous Save the Cat! book. People can be very opinionated about Snyder theory – and there are assertions (Snyder’s guide style was very assertive) I definitely disagreed with, but that’s fine. Rules are meant to be broken, but I found Snyder’s book useful to help me have a checklist/guide that I could use until I was able to internalise storytelling methodology. The dissatisfaction I had with writing stories before is, due to approach of ‘build world, throw in action figures’ – my stories weren’t really about anything .. and I neither thing that’s what stories should be about and certainly not what I wanted to tell. I think fiction is an important tool to change the world, art allows us to take messages and convey them in more impactful and emotive ways than simply saying them. Basically my stories were missing thematic premise, and using Snyder theory when writing my script, whilst it ultimately wasn’t a script I felt was great, I at least was able to read it and be like ‘this isn’t just things happening, there are messages here.’

And so, I took the same approach here. I planned out my story using Synder’s B23 beat sheet. I think it was whilst breaking up where each beat needed to happen is when it hit me this would end up being the largest piece of writing I’ve ever done … most of my uni essays were up to 3,000, my MA Film dissertation was 7,000. That’s not even 1/5 of the 50,000 I’m expected to write in the next 3.5 weeks. My real sense of doubt of actually finishing this sits in … Then again, a lot of the time spent academic writing was the research, most of the actual writing took over a few days. So maybe it’s possible?

Snyder’s beats are designed for script. There is an adaptation of his book for novel writing which I do not own, however the author of that adaptation, Jessica Broady, wrote a blog that confirms it can be applied pretty much the same way. Where I’m less sure of is how to translate Snyder’s much adored ‘Board’ approach to planning a script, where you split a canvas in to four rows (for Act 1, Act 2a, Act 2b, Act 3 – I don’t know why he didn’t just use the four-act structure he was clearly indicating) and take index cards to basically throw ideas in a chronological order. This was always too … crafty for me, and I don’t think I used this in my Film MA – I write scripts on Final Draft, which has a similar tool for scene planning which I used but not really in the way Snyder uses the board. I was therefore less inclined to use it here and I am just simply going to simply have a chapter planner where I outline each chapter’s narrative. Sorry, Snyder.

I’m going to try not to reveal much about the plot here – if you’re invested enough to have read this far, then I assume you’ll likely attempt the novel, should I finish it. Therefore, why ruin it here. But the logline is thusly –

The lives of four households in a cul-de-sac, observed through the perception of a cat over the course of a year.

Hence the name of the story: Cat’s Eyes. But also – here’s where I have either made my life less difficult … or more difficult …

The four stories will be in parallel and will not influence the other – the only connecting tissue is the cat, who observes them all, and the change and growth of these households, who do not interact. So instead of one 50,000 word story, I am writing four 12,500 word stories with a framing device. Is that easier than one 50k story??? Unsure. It also means I have to think more about my beats of the story. We don’t see the entirety of the four stories – when the cat we are observing the world through isn’t at a house, we won’t know what’s happening explicitly either – we won’t find out either, the cat can’t be told in a way they’ll understand other than sensory clues. So for some characters, we will skip over entire parts of the arc, where the reader needs to fill in the gaps. But nonetheless, each of the four households need an arc which follows the beats, but also fits into the stories larger beats.

This is where I am currently at – it’s the 5th November, I have written – words but have a 3 page document. I have my overall B23 mapped out, I know all my characters, their narrative arc and thematic arc. I now need to map out my chapters. But I also need to write. If I wrote every day after today, I’d need to write 2,000 a day. This would be a similar amount of words I have written in about 6 – 12 hours for an assignment, but without the need to do the same level of research. However, I do have other commitments. A lot of my evenings are either committed to St John Ambulance meetings or TTRPG commitments. So I’d have to write more than 2,000 a day.

My novel with have exactly 13 chapters – each chapter only covers events within one month – when we start the story it is February, and the final chapter will be in the following February. Obviously not every chapter will be the same length, but on average then it needs to be about 3,846 words/chapter. Writing this much in each ‘writing sprint’ would possibly be my approach here then – that gives me the leeway to fall behind and means I only need to essentially do major bits of writing half of the remainder of the month.

I guess on that abrupt note – I should probably stop spending my precious writing time on this blog. I imagine further updates will be less comprehensive. My final bit of planning is my chapter outline. After that I will just write. Words to paper. Trying to hit 3.5k words every session …

And then I guess in 25 days time we’ll see if 2022 was my NaNoWriMo year or not …