NaNoWriMo - a postmortem

It lies in the nature of a challenge that you can fail it. NaNoWriMo is a challenge - and, alas, I failed it. Doesn't mean I hadn't lots of fun trying to write a novel in a month, just means I didn't finish. Ah, well, I didn't even get close to finishing :-)

I've done four NaNos so far (one of these was a rebel NaNo, i.e. contained a rule violation, but I count it in anyway), of which I completed two. Yay! So, what's the difference between those I completed and those I didn't?

NaNo1 - the rebel
I just loved this NaNo. I didn't just get the word count, I actually finished my novel in a month. Oh, and I basically fell in love with my main character :-) I had done a lot of pre-planning and was drowning in little pieces of scrap paper with notes on it. Looked messy, but worked like a charm.

NaNo2 - my first offical NaNo
I had done very little pre-planning for this one. I had a basic story idea, knew what genre the text would be in, and that was it. No character planning, no plot details, no real structure, nothing. I won NaNo - completed the word count - but I did not complete the novel. Basically, once I hit 50,000 words, I stopped writing. I've never touched the story since - I find it BORING. Ugh, terrible word to use when talking about a victorious NaNo.

NaNo3 - utter failure
What had I been thinking? Picking a genre I don't even like to read? Eek! This NaNo died, quickly. Let's be thankful for the small blessings.

NaNo 4 - good idea, but...
I had actually done some serious pre-planning. I had five acts, filled with plenty of scenes already planned out, I had character sheets, character names (I hate picking names for my characters, I usually do this very late in the process), bits of character backstory, etc. My main story was planned out as well - and I had no problem writing these parts. I had several subplots though that I hadn't planned at all, and this is where my writing fell apart. Also, I had a "detective", but the character background of my "detective" meant she couldn't be anywhere close to the scene on six days out of seven. So, lots of action was going on - but without my "detective" having any chance to detect. This was The.Big.Flaw of my plot. And it was a flaw I should have been able to identify if I had planned out these sub-plots.

So, what do I learn from this? I am a "I'm-totally-boring-and-write-my-novels-according-to-a-detailed-plan" kind of a person. Plotting is fun (Ah! Did I really type that?). Plotting makes writing easier + faster. Plotting means I write about action instead of having people sitting around chatting (Hello, NaNo2!). No plot bunnies for me, I'm afraid :-(