A novella in a month

 I never officially sign up for NaNoWriMo, but I do meet up with the local group for write-ins and to compare my word count with theirs.  Often I'm part-way through writing a novel when November rolls around, so I just continue on at my usual pace.

This year was different.  I had just finished writing the first draft of a completely new novel, my first new manuscript for around four years.  I had finished the first draft, but I had the impression as I was writing it that the story was dull.  Despite the fact that I'd done my usual detailed chapter plan before writing as I always do, it felt like the narrative was dragging in places.

I won't know if that's really true until I start to read through the finished first draft, but it did leave me feeling a little deflated when I finished the manuscript.  I was in need of some fun, and a refreshing change.

In my twenties I read a lot of fantasy, but as I grew older I got tired of reading about old white men kings, and women who had no freedoms to choose their lives and no agency.  So I veered away from fantasy and started writing SF.  More recently, I've come across a lot of feminist fantasy challenges to the traditional tropes, and I was tempted to try it again.  I had the idea to write a queer fantasy novella featuring sailing dwarves.

Before I started I'd been reading Syd Field's Screenplay and The Screenwriter's Handbook, and I'd come away from them liking the straightforward way he used three act structure to analyse successful films.  My planning for this novella was much briefer than it is for a novel.  I had already created a brief story outline for it before I read Syd Field's books, and when I mapped it onto his three act structure and plot points framework, I found it matched perfectly.

Armed with that brief outline, I began to write the novella on the 1st November.  The whole story is in the main character's viewpoint, and despite the fact that it is written in a formal, mock-Victorian style, the story flowed from the very first word.  I had planned to write a 30,000 word novella, but broke through that word count days ago.  Today I have reached the final showdown, which is quite brief.  The first draft of the novella is finished today, and is nearly 40,000 words.

The story really took off in a way the previous novel never did, and I don't think I will be making any major changes to the narrative in the second draft.

I've never written 40,000 words in a month before.  My previous record has been around 20,000.  Using the NaNo framework was useful, and I might do it again next year.