Flonne + Tron Bonne

About 40,000 words! Looks like I'm going to make it to 50,000 before the end of the month!

When you have an ellipses (...) at the end of a sentence, do you usually put four dots?

At the end of day six I have:

4180 words on novel 1 (on hold)
7933 words on novel 2 (ongoing)

So I guess I am on track if you count novel 1.

Also: Scrivener is a pretty amazing program for writing and I am thinking of buying it once the trial period is over.

Is it a bad idea to attempt NaNoWriMo with only a core idea for a novel sketched out? With no clear plan for the plot? 

I know the answer is probably YES, but I just want to hear someone else say it I think? Especially someone who's done NaNo before. tuulentupa? It's because of your post about NaNo that I'm even thinking of this~ 

From vieralyn, who got it from lifeiswritable (links go to tumblr): 

* This is from the preface to Vonnegut’s short story collection, Bagombo Snuff Box

Creative Writing 101 for Short Stories

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

I like this list. I would add to it

11. Make sure your plot is at least slightly outrageous.

because when I think of the short stories that I can actually remember - Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" (everyone remembers that one), Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question," many of Neil Gaiman's short stories, and Kurt Vonnegut's own "Harrison Bergeron" - they all have weird-ass plots. Which maybe just means that I like speculative stuff, but I think most of us do, judging by what's popular on TV nowadays. Anyway, in a short story it's more the plot, the idea, that's important rather than the character(s), methinks. It's pretty hard to make someone love a character in the space of a short story.

 

I've been noticing lately that a lot of skilled fanfic writers utilize, whether consciously or unconsciously The Rule of Three rather a lot. 

Here's an example from an awesome Vagrant Story/FFT/FFXII fic:

She shifts, and even that slight movement brings fresh agony to wrists rubbed raw against their coarse bonds. She sighs, and even that faint exhalation triggers some excitement among her unseen watchers, for she can hear them rustle against one another with renewed energy. She waits, and the waiting stretches on.

In general, actually, this author used a lot of three-sentence paragraphs in this fic:  

There are monsters in the dark. She can hear them as they creep just beyond the light of the solitary candle. Their toenails clack against the rough stone floors; their scales slide against the damp walls. (3 sentences)

No, Merlose has no doubt that there are monsters in the dark. (1 sentence)

She shifts, and even that slight movement brings fresh agony to wrists rubbed raw against their coarse bonds. She sighs, and even that faint exhalation triggers some excitement among her unseen watchers, for she can hear them rustle against one another with renewed energy. She waits, and the waiting stretches on. (3 sentences)

Merlose is not sure which she prefers: long waits in Lea Monde's uncertain oubliettes or the brief encounters with her captors. Shall she choose the monsters in the dark or the ones who speak with the sweet tongues of men? It is not an easy decision, and Merlose has the leisure to consider its every facet. (3 sentences)

Time passes. Merlose concentrates on the steadily dripping candle and the endless whispers in the dark. Eventually, the boy wakes up. (3 sentences) 

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I've occasionally made conscious attempts to use The Rule of Three in the past in my writing, but...it seems to me, after thinking about it, that the bam-bam-bam threeness produces a rhythm that might be overused in fanfic. It's lovely, certainly, but there are other rhythms out there. 

But it's interesting, isn't it, how three seems to be the magic number in so many things. In visual media, there' The Rule of Thirds. And one of my teachers in high school used to say that doing groupwork in threes seems to be the most effective; two is too few (not enough ideas), four is too many (someone wil slack off). Actually, I'm not sure I believe that rule, but my teacher did.  

Anyway, I think the only way to break out of a reliance on The Rule of Threes is to read fewer fanfics and more published novels.