Background storytelling

Last year: I spent more than a few hours plotting, outlining, and summarizing interesting scenes.  I didn’t spend many consecutive hours working on the background, but by the time that I was ready to start I’ll bet I had a good 10,000 words of characters, mythology, and plot.

This year: Almost no preparation.  I jotted a couple of notes down on three characters.

The result: I’m still going strong this year after the month ended.  I would guess that this is because last year I was either working on the scenes that I wanted to get in or finding ways to bridge those scenes.  This year, I’ve gone straight through from the beginning.  And speaking of…

Last year: As I’ve mentioned, I spent some solid time on some of the characters.  The main character, his place in the world, and an interview between myself and the protagonist were all worked out before Day 1.

This year: Not much at all.  A couple of names, their relationship to one another, and where they start the story.

The result:  Last year, the protagonist was a lot more decisive in his actions because of all of the prep work.  This year, the protagonist (different character) was unsure of himself.  The end result was that I got some solid organic character development this year, vs. last year where it felt like it took some of the external characters to call BS on the main character to take him down a peg or two.  Both methods are valid and required that I went back to fill in the blanks later.

Any thought about this year’s NaNoWriMo or how you prepare for writing?