Boost Your NaNoWriMo Word Count! or How to Reach 50k when you have less than 7 days left to write

Ways in which I boost my word count?

#1 way: Dialouge! Though I write short stories and novels as well, my main writing base is comics. I'm used to reading and writing comics. In other words I am used to write straight dialouge, and nothing but dialouge. I can write dialouge for hours on end. Have characters chatting away, verbalizing everything that they are seeing, hearing, doing, and thinking.

Narrative on the other hand... ick! I get stuck on narratives. I can write them, sure, but I'd rather stick to writing pure dialouge, cause it's so much easier for me to get inside my characters heads and write everything that's going on inside there.

Here are the things that helped me out so far this year, hopefully they well help you as well:

Here is an article I wrote on killing writer's block. That might help you out some.

Also I wrote this one on creating character profiles. Some of the questions and exercises in this one might give you new things to write about your characters.

And this article on various types of narration might give you some ideas as well.

I recommend the Dare Threads from NaNoWriMo forums... There is the big one for general dares, and than each genre board has their own genre specific Dare Thread. Check out all of them, cuse you can use any dare from any genre board in any novel regardless of the genre you are writting. Whenever I get stuck on my plot I head to the Dare Thread and something over there always sparks me to write something new for my plot.

I grabbed a dare last week, and than tried to figure out how the hell I could fit a man-eating coat into my story. Here's the one I chose to use today:

[quote=Consonancy]I've had fun planning out crazy alien
monsters for my novel this year. Join the party, guys! :'D

Have an alien
animal that looks just like a coat.
BP: If it's venemous.
DBP: If a
character wears one anyway.

Enjoy...?[/quote]

I ended up writing a scene 1063 words long, about a Phooka (vampire-shapeshifter) that turned himself into a fur coat so he could lie in wait until someone put the coat on, so that he could get up close and personal with thier neck :)


Another one I chose involves a flock of killer hummingbirds attacking the townspeople (I actually came up with this one for the Dare thread myself and than used it in my own story)


And one I picked, but didn't write yet, I have to have at least one scene in each chapter where a chicken or rooster walks by the main character. (I created this Dare too)

I've got a ton of dares that I picked off of all the differant Dare threads, and when ever I feel like I can't think of something to write, I pick one of the dares, and write about it and try to fit it into the rest of my story.

Dares are just so much fun, and they boost your word count with out cheating! You have soooo got to try one.




Here's a fun writing exercise that I did. Useing this writing exercise, I was able to up my NaNoWriMo Novel word count, by a whopping 4000 words, just by having each of my characters answer this question!



I also have a copy of this book: Writers Book of Matches: 1,001 Prompts to Ignite Your Fiction. Think of it like your personal Dare Thread that you can stick in your pocket and take with you anywhere you go. No writer should be without this wonderful book.

I also have a copy of this book: The Writers Little Helper. This is just the most amazingly helpful book. Whenever I get stuck I pull it out and open a random page and start reading, and it always sparks some idea. Next thing I know I'm off and writing again. It's wonderful. If you don't habe it, you must go out and get yourself a copy. This is one of my all time fave booksa for writers.



For my non-NaNo writing, I average 700 to 3000 words per day, though it is not uncommon for me to write over 7000 words in a day, and a few times I have gone over 10,000 in one day.

My highest words per day to date, happened in October 2007. One week before NaNoWriMo 2007 started I wrote a non-NaNo story of 11,052 words in one sitting; it took me 5 hours to do so.

What is my secret to high word counts? Well, writing each and every day for one thing. Writing multiple times per day for another thing.

Here's what I try to do... I don't always stick to this schedual, but of all the scheduals I've tried, this is the easiest one for me.

Here's how it goes, if you'd like to give it a try:

First off:

I do not write in chapters.

I do not write to a set "hours per day"

I do not write to a set "words per day"

What I do is, I write small segments or scenes from my book. Say a conversation between two characters. Or maybe the description of a room. Something like that. I find this easier, because I can see a very clear beginning, middle, and end. Not the beginning, middle, and end of the entire book. Not the beginning, middle and end of the entire chapter. Just the beginning, middle, and end of that one scene, which in most cases is 2 to 4 paragraphs long or about 600 - 800 words.

I make it my goal to write three of these segmants each day. One in the morning as soon as I wake up, before I even get out of bed. One in the afternoon, when I get back in from taking my dog out for his daily walk. One in the evening, last thing just before going to bed. It takes about 15 - 30 minutes for me to write each segment. Or about 40 minutes to an hour and a half each day. In the end I end up with about 2,750 words written at the end of the day. That is, if I actualy sit down and write at all! I should be writing my NaNoNovel right now, cause I haven't written anything yet today, but instead I find myself reading blogs from other NaNoers. LOL! Some days it's just hard to get motivated to start writing.

Anyways, When you take it and break it down into tiny chunks like this, it seems like you haven't written very much at all, when in fact you have gone well above and beyound your word count goal. I hope this helps.

As for the NaNoWriMo I'm writing... it is only half of what I write each day; I still have to do my regular writing each day on top of NaNoWriMo.

Good luck with your story!



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Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?




What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!












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Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Got Writer's BlocK? Kill It Today!
Need A Quiet Place To Write? Find Help Here!
Need Help Creating Characters? Check This Out!
Want to Do a Good Deed? Save the Goldeneagle.