Hello, Espea here. Every year, NaNoWriMo comes to sweep people like me off of their feet into a world of novel writing adventure. And by the 'like me' comment, I mean people who can't find time to write or just can't bring themselves to write down that awesome story idea in their head. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in thirty days and even if you lose, the experience changes you.
Along with a close-knit community ready to cheer you on if you get stuck, or begin to lose hope in yourself, there's a large group of naysayers that claim that NaNo is a waste of time. Noses in the air, they usually come around in October, though they have been coming earlier as of late. Usually professional writers or critics, they come and put down NaNo while promoting their own helpful books and contests to help you write. The arguments they use may look clever and convincing, but don't be fooled.
Argument #1: NaNoWriMo encourages bad writing.
I honestly don't know why they try to pass this off as a solid argument. They say that NaNoWriMo encourages people to write their horrid pieces of fiction and try to sell it off to publishers. Apparently publishers complain about getting a slew of terrible novels every December, but I wonder how many people actually are confident enough to send off their unedited novel straight to a publisher each year. And here's the shocker: Bad novels existed before NaNo!
The context of this argument is that the competitors are told to just write crap and that's a good thing. They say it can't improve writing. I say it can. Writing is the only way to improve your writing and that's not going to happen unless the writer is comfortable with the fact that not everything they write will be solid gold.
Argument #2: NaNoWriMo encourages quantity over quality.
NaNo doesn't want a good novel, it just wants a novel. That's eerily similar to what I wrote above. But then they go on to say how NaNo encourages underhanded word count tricks to pad the word count and that it doesn't improve one's writing skill at all. Actually, they would be surprised. Dirty word-count tricks like the one time I spent three pages on a fight between my main character and a bunny help me get to know my characters. Long plot line short, it was how he discovered he was part-dragon.
But what about tricks that don't require any extra writing at all, like the stuttering character? That character that I created just to pad the word-count with his stuttering dialogue wound up being promoted to secondary antagonist after he kidnapped the main character's brother.
The thing is, if the book slows down enough for the writer to resort to underhanded tricks, the characters get the hint and take control of the story.
Argument #3: People who don't write well shouldn't write.
Summed up for your pleasure. Not the exact words, but that's the vibe that I get from some people. A certain critic continually complained about seeing amateurs write or try to learn about writing. Because every great author just picked up a pen and wrote that masterpiece. She's a critic, so I imagine if everyone did as she told, then she would be out of a job. Don't say I didn't warn you as angry mobs of other unemployed critics come after you.
Also, believe it or not, there are beautiful books out there that can only be written if NaNo helps the author get through the "I don't want to ruin this idea by writing it" phase of their writing careers.
Argument #4: Nobody reads, so novel writing is useless.
Here's a fresh one (and I don't mean that ironically), but I don't agree with it. Not everyone who participates in NaNoWriMo is looking to get published (actually, most of them don't have this goal in mind). Everyone enjoys a good story, whether they are reading it, writing it, watching it, or preforming it. This may sound selfish, but NaNoWriMo is for the writer, not the reader. Who cares if nobody reads about Tavian and Aeon's adventures fighting off the steampunk villains? I'm happy to have gotten to know the characters and feel a sense of accomplishment in having a novel under my belt.
Argument #5: 50,000 words is not a real novel.
And we're back to the usual. 50,000 is impressive enough while still easily doable within a month. Besides, the novels usually expand by 10,000-50,000 words during the rewrite.
Argument #6: NaNoWriMo is a bad way to learn how to write.
This is usually stated right before the critic goes on to suggesting a list of books and classes that they were probably paid to promote. Reading aboout writing isn't how people should learn how to write well. They need to write to learn how to write well. And classes never worked for me, as I hate being told what to write. Essays are usually fine, it's the "Now we will work on describing. Write a page about a sock" that gets me.
And I think the best kind of character is the kind that does their own thing free of the author's control. This keeps them from turning into puppets on strings.
Not that this is going to make a huge difference. The only people who will read and comment will be people who agree with me (if I get any readers).
And I close with the statement that I'm just a poor, lowly college student who wants to study history, but I have more fun writing than naysayers who put down NaNo, because they take writing a little too seriously. Toodles!
