Camp NaNoWriMo Writing Update
Author's Log Day 11, and I'm barely hanging on... Kidding, but Camp NaNo is underway, and I'm participating... sort of.
During Camp NaNoWriMo, a spinoff of the original challenge in November, I don't strive for the 50 thousand word goal, because I am not doing that more than once a year. But I did set a goal of 5,555 words because 5 is my favorite number, and it's a very doable goal for me to achieve without putting tons of time and effort into a new manuscript.
During this Camp NaNo though, I am not attempting a new manuscript, I am revisiting an older one. Specifically, I'm working on Project FMTM, Five Minutes to Midnight, my Cinderella retelling, which is in its first editing phase after the initial zero draft. My goal for this month is to restructure the entire thing and turn it into a more cohesive story. I finished the zero draft for this story last month, and I just reread it for the first time last week, and it is rough, to say the least. I read somewhere that your first draft of a novel will be the most cliche because you're still figuring out the story and haven't figured out a way to make it your own.
That rings true with this draft.
After writing the story in Scrivener, I exported it into a PDF and airdropped that onto my iPad's Notes app so that I could have a chance to read it over and take notes of my thoughts in the margins. I tend to read ebooks faster than physical books, and reading it on my iPad gives me a bit of separation from the work, so I can look at it more from a reader's perspective instead of a writer trying to protect their pride and joy.
During this readthrough, I could tell that there were a lot of cliche elements in this story, like a typical waking up at sunrise start to one chapter and "since I was little" flashback scenes. Also, I wrote a bunch of very cringe lines that stood out very clearly to me. Some of them made me roll my eyes or gag, and that's literally what I wrote in the margins. But it wasn't all bad because I did have some scenes that I did love between not only my main character and her love interest but also the found family that she has created on the side of the romance. Also, some bunches of dialogue read very well, even if everything else around it needs some major improvements. Overall, I know this draft needs a lot of work, but it is a good foundation to have.
Going forward as I work to outline for a second draft, there are plenty of things that I'm going to change. I think the biggest change that's happening is that I'm going to make this story into a Dual-POV Third Person romance instead of just from my Cinderella's POV in first person. I know it is a common complaint in the romance reader community when we only see a romance from one side of the story, leaving us wondering how hard the other person is falling, literally making the story feel one-sided. But also, since this is a fantasy romance, there is a lot more of the world that I want to explore, and limiting it to only my Cinderella's perspective kind of diminishes the scope of the story I can tell. But adding the Prince's POV gives me a chance to show him as a more rounded character and share another view of the world that we're in. But this is definitely where I want to stop with POVs for this story. I have six more characters of major importance in this story, but I don't think there is enough story for them to tell from their perspectives, and I don't want to force that, especially when one of my main focuses of the story is the romance between our main characters.
Speaking of romance, that is something else I'm looking to improve in my next draft. The moments I've written so far were cute but very surface-level in terms of letting the characters get to know each other. On the day I'm writing this, one of my favorite film YouTube channels, "Cinema Therapy," just came out with an analysis of Cinderella Romances from a filmmaker and relationship therapist's perspective. At first, this scared me because I was afraid they were going to bash one of my comfort movies, but they mainly talked about some of the valid critiques I've heard about the Cinderella romance. That they meet at a ball, dance, and "fall in love" (even though they’ve just met), then she runs away, leaving him with a shoe that could fit anyone, that he uses to find her so he can marry her. The early depictions of the story are very surface-level, and the relationship therapist ranks certain adaptations of the work higher because there is more depth in those films. In the movies where Cinderella and the Prince meet before the ball and talk, getting to know each other better, leads to a deeper romance that supports their true love for each other. This is the type of thing that I want to convey in this novel. I want to put in more scenes throughout the story where they get to know each other and love each other for who they are behind titles and masks put on for society.
And on that note, the society and worldbuilding need a lot of work. I say this is a fantasy romance, but at this point, there is not much fantasy in there, or it's very surface-level. During my zero draft writing, I wasn't focusing on making the magic system or the lore of the country. I just wanted to tell the story overall. But now, since I want to integrate that into more of the story, I need to work on those elements.
I'm trying to follow N.K. Jemisin's Guide to Worldbuilding, where she focuses on three major elements of the world that will influence the story and make it feel more alive. The first element I'm focusing on is the magic system, "soul magic." As far as I know, at this point, it involves giving souls to pieces of art, that make them sentient and inspiring to the viewer, and this will influence the main artifact that my Cinderella's stealing squad will be working towards with their scheme. Next is the economy because it heavily influences my novel's main kingdom and gives them their status in the world, which influences our Prince's life heavily. I have no idea what they export and import and how this affects their country's lower class, which is another big element of the book, so I need to figure that out. Finally, I want to focus on the cultural norms and traditions of the kingdom. I know that the Prince has strict expectations of what he is supposed to do for the kingdom, and I know that Cinderella's friends are fighting to change a system that seems to favor helping the wealthy rather than the poor, but what traditions and norms are in place that makes this so? That's what I need to figure out.
These are the major problems I can think of right now, but as you can see that's a lot to work on already. When it comes to word count for the word count challenge, I'm planning on copying and pasting dialogue I know I'm keeping and adding new ones that I'm thinking of, but my main focus is getting the story a stronger foundation that I can work off of in future drafts.
Finishing that zero draft was hard (I actually started it last year around this time as my camp project then), but this part will be a lot harder until I find the true heart of this story. Wish me luck!
How's your writing going? Tell me in a comment down below and follow me on Threads to see my unhinged thoughts as I continually work on this novel.
Until next time, don't forget to write the story you want and read the books you want because life is too short to do otherwise.
XOXO, Ivey
