Still swamped in school assignments, I’ve hardly the time to work on my novel plot, but I recently found this quick fix in last month’s Writer’s Forum. Hope these few tips by Vanda Inman (her words in bold) will help me and other writers struggling with their novel’s storyline :

1) Keep writing and trust that your creativity will step in – you may be surprised.
(Tested and approved by your humble blogger during NaNoWriMo 2007 )

2) Transport one of your characters to a completely different situation and see how they react – you might gain some insight which will drive the plot in another direction.
(See what I wrote in How to increase your word count about writing gratuitous scenes )

3) Decide on the ending, then allow the middle to unfold.

4) Identify the theme of the story – what it’s really about – and how you want your characters to change by the end.

5) Draw a mind-map or flow chart of possible scenarios and endings. Then try making an outline of how the story could work in different combinations.
(That’d be like writing a RP chronicle scenario, wouldn’t it ?)

6) Use the ‘what if’ thought – what if a character does this instead of that ? What if the ending is poignant instead of happy ?
(I’m doing that all the time and I get so confused and entangled I just wanna scream !! >_< You might also want to follow Cavantucky’s advice and ask yourself the following question : What’s the worst thing that could happen to your character ?)

7) Don’t always go for the most obvious ending – try an alternative that hasn’t been used before.

Remember – the plot is never is never really lost. It has simply taken an alternative route for a while, and searching for it will take you a number of paths which will make your story all the stronger.
(I totally agree )

This list came from one of the NaNoWriMo sessions at the Seamus Heaney Centre (Queen’s University), from Ian Sansom (who was leading the sessions).  They are all things to consider when editing your novel – I think they’re valid when you’re writing it in the first place, too!

1. Vocabulary – are you using appropriate words for your audience, your genre, your characters?
2. Organisation – the arrangement of your bits of story
3. Flow – does your story and its parts (e.g. dialogue) flow well when you read it back?
4. Transistions – more of the above, I think; how well the connections between ideas work
5. Structure – the elements of the story; its beginning, middle and end
6. Audience – what knowledge do your audience have of the story’s setting and characters; what knowledge do they need to have for it to make sense?
7. Tone – the manner and spirit in which your story is written, e.g. lighthearted, serious, sombre
8. Style – the cadence of the story (I can’t remember exactly what he meant by this – anyone? I suspect it was to do with things like whether it’s in first or third person, etc, unless that fits under tone…)
9. Clarity - are your ideas expressed clearly?
10. Accuracy – how well does your story match reality? (not something us fantasy authors need to take into quite as much consideration…)

I remember being interested to see how closely this list matched the things I consider when writing a technical document as part of my work, such as a software user guide…

* Do not abbreviate

If you write in English, write “I do not” instead of “I don’t” or “I could not” instead of “I couldn’t”. You get three words where you usually have two. I know it might sound a bit posh after a while. For that reason, I don’t use it in dialogues. I prefer my characters (who are mostly teenagers) to sound authentic and only a few people speak like they write.

* Be more precise in your descriptions

Use more specific adjectives when describing something or someone. For example, talk about your character’s jet black long greasy hair and steel blue almond-shaped eyes, instead of his/er just black hair and blue eyes.
You can also have fun in listing things (ike what your character had for breakfast or what she buys at the supermarket) or by describing his/er bedroom in every detail, up to the motive of the wallpaper (I didn’t do that because hyperrealistic descriptions à la Balzac aren’t really my cup of tea…)

* Be gratuitous

If at some stage, you run out of ideas about how to continue your description, then go write a completely pointless scene involving your characters. Take this opportunity to have some fun with them. If you can’t help fantasizing about a torrid sex scene with 2 (or even more !) of your characters, then don’t be ashamed and go for it. If some of your characters are football fans, then why not having them play a five-a-side ? Why not having two of your characters speculating about the meaning of life, or writing one of their childhood memory ? – that’s what I did. Another good thing about these gratuitous scenes is they can allow you to explore different facets of your character or help you discover things about them.

In case you ask me : no, I didn’t write any sex scene – not even for word count’s sake.

* Try different possibilities

I admit, that’s a bit of a cheat. I was sometimes so unsatisfied with the way the story turned out that I wrote an alternate version of a scene. I know it doesn’t help your novel progress, but as long as it keeps you writing, there’s nothing wrong with trying to fix things. It’s like recording a different take of a song – with a slightly different arrangement. That helps too increasing the word count – on condition you don’t erase what you wrote earlier.

* Write in a different language

That works only if you are multilingual like me. My native language is French but I chose to write in English for some reasons but I wrote some sentences in French when I was stuck. The good thing too about latin languages like French is that they are less compact than the English one and thus, use more words.

Do you have your own methods to keep writing or keep your word count rising ?