People often advise the novelist wannabe to start writing short stories. The length of such works is manageable, and the young novelist gets the satisfaction (and habit !) of "finishing something".

Back in February 2006, I started writing "seriously" and I followed this advice. I wrote several short stories between February 2006 and October 2006, ranging between 2,000 to 16,000 words. And it was wonderful. My writing was improving drastically and I reached my best form just before NaNoWriMo 2006 : I was able to write one 2,000 words story a day and I finished my biggest (and best) short story to date.

To sum up : I had became rather good at writing short stories.

Then, November came. I won NaNoWriMo with a 50,067 words "novel". Not too bad for a first-time novel. But I made a critical mistake : I reached the required wordcount for NaNoWrimo, but NOT the end of my novel.
I began to edit my NaNo novel in December. Then I began to rewrite it. Then it sucked. Then I tweaked my outline. January was here. I made a new draft. I stopped it a 30,000 words because it was sooooo bad. I started again. March, already. The third draft wasn't right. I dumped everything and came up with a good plot. Hmmm... Nay, the result was getting to unnatural. June was starting and I had three or four 30,000-50,000 different drafts behind me. What was I going to do ? Starting from scratch, of course...

...Even if I was successful at writing short stories, I found myself struggling with my novel. Why ? After weeks of pondering, here are my conclusions :

• Short stories need structure. You can't wander from point to point and hope that something cool will emerge. You must already have "the big conflict" and "the unpredictable ending" in mind.
  
• Character "stereotypes" can fit in a short story. I don't say you must put "the clueless bimbo" and "the 8-years-old genius" in every short story. Here's what I mean : you don't have to over-develop your characters traits like in a novel. You can get away with "Radek was an angsty teenager who's lying to everybody including his future girlfriend" (yes, I made a story with that description). The thing is : we don't care about his troubled childhood or his eating disorders and its psychological repercussions and everything. There isn't room for that in a short story.
  
• Novels are about the travel, not the destination. No need for an unpredictable ending if your novel has managed to catch your reader's imagination, fears and hopes. Avoid deus ex machinaes and stay true to your characters and you will have your ending.
• Characters are what makes a novel compelling. When I talk about Hobb's Royal Assassin, you think immediately about Fitz ! If your characters are lousy 1-dimensional stereotyped cardboard cliches, your novel will stink !

You got it ? Short stories are about structure. Novels are about characters. Short stories aren't novels in miniature because the creation process is very different.

That was the lesson I got from my NaNoWriMo. Short stories were easier because I am a control freak and like to structure everything (remember that my day job is programming software). But everything I learnt with short stories proved to be near useless with novels. Plotting makes your story unnatural. You begin to spend more time outlining than writing. And when you finally get to that ending, you realize that it doesn't fit. *throws everything*

If you're like me and you desperately want to finish your novel, check Timothy Hallinan's website ! It will teach you everything you must have and everything you must do in order to type these two damn words : "The End"...

When I first read about Alphasmarts it was in Chris Baty's No Plot, No Problem. There was just a sentence, and I didn't pay too much attention.

But the more I progress in my writing, the more I realize that these "toys" could be the answer to my problems : they are portable, have a great battery life...
I spend almost 4 hours per day commuting by train to work. I write my stories longhand... and spend my evenings typing them back on PC. That's a tedious task. Would I write faster if I had an Alphasmart ? The answer is yes, definately.

I have still some concerns about bringing such a machine in a train (would it attract stealers ? or would they regard it as a mere toy ?). And I need a AZERTY keyboard with accents, too. (remember that I'm French)

If you use an Alphasmart to write in public transport, don't hesitate to share your views in the comments !

How to make sure that your manuscripts, drafts and projects are safe from accidental deletion on your hard drive? How to access to your writing from the Internet? Are you fed up with all these "my_novel_old.doc" and "my_novel_old_old.doc" ?

To resolve these problems, I use SVN to save my writing !


SVN is a version control system. Wikipedia will do a better job than me to explain the intricates of the system. To sum up:

• SVN saves your data on a remote server: instant backup and your writing will be avaliable (with a login/password) everywhere.
• SVN saves previous versions of your data: easy reverting to old versions
• You still have a local copy of your work - no need to stay connected
  
• No need of creating new tags/folder hierarchies (ever thought about moving all your writings to Google Docs? Losing your folder hierarchy is a big deterrent in my opinion) . Just use your current folder hierarchy!
  

If you want to give SVN a try, make sure you have the following things ready:

1. A SVN host. ProSVN is the best I've found. It's free and you get 5Mo of storage space (that's enough if you write your manuscripts in plain text). There's also Unfuddle, with 15Mo of storage... but it doesn't give you a secure (SSL) web access to your data.
   
2. Tortoise SVN. It integrates SVN in your Windows Explorer (right-click menu), thus making saving/updating easier.
3. A folder hierarchy with all your manuscripts inside. It will become your repository (right-click on your root folder and choose Tortoise SVN - Create Repository here)
   

When you finish configuring your SVN, you just have to learn two commands (right-click on your local repository folder):

1. Commit: sends your modifications to the remote server.
2. Update: download the latest modifications made to the server.

That's about it! I have been using this system for almost 6 months. The only thing I worry about: I've almost eaten the 5Mo offered by the ProSvn host... *sighs*