Never fear. Though I haven’t been updating here, I haven’t missed a day in the contest. The count is as follows:

• Day 08: 2105 words
• Day 09: 1864 words
• Day 10: 2209 words

According to NaNo, I reach the 50,000 word mark on November 25.

But is the novel going to be finished by then?

I’m going to let you in on a little inside secret. I’m using a novel writing plan. Specifically, The Lester Dent Pulp Paper Master Fiction Plot. Lester Dent being a pulp writer whose claim to fame is coming up with Doc Savage.

Now should you read this short missive to the world, you’ll see just how glorious this thing is. I’ve spent my life looking for some magic bullet solution. So many How To books, it’s not even funny.

This is what clicked.

If you haven’t checked the link, after coming up with a unique story angle, Dent divided his story into four quarters. In his essay, he deals with a 6000 word story, but the length doesn’t matter. Author Michael Moorcock said he used the Master Fiction Plot when writing about Elric of Melniboné, a character that’s up there with Conan the Barbarian in some circles.

With the first quarter he started as soon as possible with his hero in a jam. He introduces the main mystery, the other characters, and has the protagonist (Dent calls him the hero) try to deal with the problem. At the end of the quarter, the hero gets himself into a physical altercation. Then there’s a Big Surprise.

The next three quarters are basically the same. More problems for the hero, the hero struggles, he gets into a fight, twist. End of the third quarter, the hero makes headway, only for the fourth quarter to have things hit him in a bad way. All is dark, but he manages to escape using his own ingenuity. There’s a wrap up and a final twist.

If all this sounds like formula fiction, then, yeah, it is. And what I’ve given is a vastly simplified version.

What matters is how this is done. Because Dent is vague enough in what he’s talking about, you can write a lot of stories with it as a guide.

Let’s move back to me for a second. Dent says in his essay that he’s used his plan  for “adventure, detective, western and war-air.” Right?

The story I’m using it for is a horror/comedy/cozy mystery.

I know, these are words that aren’t strung together very often.

When I started, I was going for a chapter a day. 1700 words sounded good. Seven or eight chapters would make a quarter. Easy peasy.

And for a while it was.

Then the chapters got longer. And suddenly here I was, at 20,453 words.

I’d introduced all the other characters.

I had the central problem: not only had his uncle died under mysterious circumstances, but the hero got a letter telling him his uncle’s death wasn’t an accident a week before he died. Which is odd to say the least.

I had my hero struggle to learn what happened, a big twist in the end, and a glorious fight. Quarter done.

Which meant my novel will be 80,000 words. Nine chapters down, that meant 36 chapters total.

I wasn’t sure it could make it that far.

What to do?

Well, I went about where the quarter mark should be. That was at the end of chapter 5.

You know what I found?

Central Problem done. While I had other characters coming, all the important characters had appeared and were (after a fashion) helping the hero. The hero, being inexperienced in investigation, gets himself in a physical conflict: he recreates his Uncle’s accident and almost kills himself in the process. He then gets a Surprising piece of information that makes no sense at the time but will by the time everything is said and done.

All baked into the story without me noticing I was doing it.

So right now I’m a wee bit before the halfway mark. Tomorrow’s chapter, chapter 10, will hit half way chapterwise. To make the whole thing hit 50,000 words, I’ll thinking it will be 40 chapters plus an epilogue to wrap up a few loose ends.

No matter what you think of Lester Dent’s Master Plan, whether it’s formula fiction or not, using its guidance has been a huge help. This is literally the best thing I’ve written. With luck, it’ll work again with my next attempt.

This one (for the curious) is called either And Then There Was Frankenstein or Last of the Frankensteins. Just to show you how wild it is.

It’s going to be great.

Well THAT was a bust.

Only 1907 words today. What was I doing with my time?

I reworked Chapter 6, touched up Chapter 5, and started Chapter 7. By rights that one should have been finished today. It’s the quarter mark point and needs to have something special happen in the end. Let’s see if I can manage.

Just for fun, here are a couple of charts detailing my progress. Look how the second one dips and raises. It’s positively a roller coaster. If I can swing it, the second quarter begins tomorrow.

Now that’s more like it! 2488 words. Had to rewrite Chapter Five and Chapter Six is a little short, but it’s all good! Onwards!

Aw, man, I’m letting down Team Cullen! I only got 1925 words today instead of up in the 2000’s. I feel awful I hope I can do better tomorrow.

(For the curious, 1667 words is the minimum for me to hit each day.)

Okay, I missed updating here yesterday. 2057 words yesterday, then 2183 words today. According to the NaNoWriMo site I’ve been averaging 1988 words a day and will hit 50,000 on the 25^th.

Storywise, I’m doing a chapter a day. I’m shooting for 30 chapters, but it’s what the story calls for.

1822 words today. I now sit at 3715 words. I keep this up I should be at 50,000 by the 27th.

This also marks the end of what might be the second chapter. I sometimes do a dance back and forth rewriting, but not this time.

I might have found my silver bullet here. I’ll make mention of it later.

it’s been a while since I’ve tried this. Right now I’m at 1,893 words, where I need at least 1,667 words a day to win the contest. I might be at the end of the first chapter.

The goal this time isn’t really 50,000 words in a month, as I know I can do that. I want a finished novel.

Fingers cross