When Characters' Voices Get Too Loud (aka: So Much for Making a Plan)

Remember how I said that I’ll work on only one story during the entire month of November? And how I might get a head start on it and begin writing the project in October?

Yeah. Forget I said any of that.

I didn’t spend a whole lot of time developing the plot for the aforementioned story (like I said I wanted to), but the major characters were coming together. Except…there was another set of characters that kept pushing the other story characters out of the way in my head. (Do I sound like a crazy person yet? All writers are somewhat crazy, right?)

These “new” characters? Well, they belong to the story I had worked on during the bulk of NaNo ’16. I haven’t touched that particular story since I finished last year, but I did re-read it back in the spring. It definitely needs a round of edits (as all NaNo writing desperately do).

Obviously, these characters have not left me since then. Something about them keeps tugging at me. In fact, I’m pondering about possibly adding another perspective or two into the story. (The story is written in first person, but if I include more points-of-view, they’re both probably going to be in third person.)

In addition to adding extra voices, I’m also thinking about altering the plot just a bit. Veer a little more toward sci-fi rather than post-apocalyptic. I’d still like to keep the adventure element of it, though. Of course, it basically means that I'll be doing some serious re-writing with the particular story.

Therefore, now I’m thinking about writing a bunch of short stories or various scenes of larger projects during NaNoWriMo next month instead. I mean, I haven’t written creatively since July (yikes), so I feel like I’m going to need a warm-up story or two.

This is what I get for trying to plan ahead for NaNoWriMo. I end up not following through with it, and resort to what I end up doing anyway: having no plan and just write whatever pops into my head.

At least I can’t complain it doesn’t work for me. I’ve won the last three years doing this strategy, after all.

Maybe it’s best not to mess too much with winning results.

And who knows? Perhaps I’ll create encounter more characters in November that’ll drive me insane again, and won’t leave me alone many months later.