Friday, December 10, 2010

13- Unlucky for some

I finished the 50 000 words on Victoria and the Hazard system which means I "won". Winning simply means that you beat the target of 50 000 words but as I managed to all but complete a fist draft I feel like I really achieved something.

From experience with other types of writing the rewrite always takes more time than the first draft. Victoria is unlikely to be any different as there are large chunks I have only covered in outline as research is more time consuming than the wrimo schedule will allow for.

Even though it was counter-productive to the timeline I spent quite a bit of time revising rules as I went along too but in all I was able to keep on top of the daily word count. It's a personal achievement I can cross off my list.

Overall I would recommend the process even to a game developer for a few reasons. The first being that as you have to make a certain number of words all those sections you have written in your head, but hate the idea of taking the time to write, now suddenly become your favourite bits to work on. You can now crank out days and days worth of writing getting these down without getting stuck and grinding through unfamiliar territory. Writing 1667 words one day, easy. Writing 1667 words every day for thirty days not so much.

The second reason is that with all the previous work being so fresh you start to see connections and can more easily carry a tone through the work reducing rewrite time. I struggled with what viewpoint to use in the writing. I hope I got it right.

The third good thing about working with this time constraint is, because you are totally immersed, problems from earlier will resolve themselves almost magically. As the issues stay current, rattling around in your head, disparate elements seem to suddenly come together to create a satisfying solution. I find that given enough time a solution will always present itself but the more time that passes the more likely that "solution" will actually clash with other elements you have forgotten.

Now, on to the rewrite.