Post by ceruleanblue on Dec 2, 2018 15:31:46 GMT -5
Now that NaNoWriMo is over...,
I challenge you to get some distance from your draft, let it sit and rest for a while, and to meanwhile draw something important from your writing project, or create some concept art for it in any other way you like! A map of that complicated labyrinth of a city, the one character you never had time to really look at during busy November, a creature or plant unique to your story world, that magic object in chapter 7, the device from 2084 with the brilliant new technology, the weapon, the game, how do they work, how do they actually look, do you know?
There is hardly a better way to get to know something than to draw it. You could also make a collage for your book cover. The ones the Dutch writer Tonke Dragt made for her novels are wonderful mosaics! It's up to you if you create actual illustrations for your book or if you view it as background worldbuilding. So it's not important for this challenge wether you think you can draw well or not. The point is to come up with material that makes your story more visible, more real. Philip Pullman published several single bonus stories for his His Dark Materials trilogy to which he attached maps, travel guide entries, postcards written by story characters, and other "memorabilia", not to mention the lovely vignette illustrations at the beginning of each chapter, featuring details like a daemon or a small object. If nothing else, you will be crucially working on the overall atmosphere of your novel!
One of my favourite examples of an ingenious synthesis of writing and art is the table of contents page from Shaun Tan's Tales from Outer Suburbia. I'm not sure if you have ever heard of faux postage? This table of contents is a manila envelope as it comes with the mail, covered in stamps and postmarks. Each stamp shows a short story title under its original art image, and instead of the value there is the page number of the story:
So, how does the challenge work?
I have been doing this with a friend several years in a row already. We call it DC Paint. It all started with my Advent calendar. After NaNovember, I usually yearn to finally be allowed to get back to drawing. There was a box of crayons in the calendar I had wished for. But I got only one new colour per day, obviously... So my drawing for day one was monochrome. It turned out that that sort of crayons did well for drawing on rough, handmade paper, as my story character would have used it while making sketches on an exploration field trip to a particular continent of that world. You can come up with similar games and challenges, whatever suits your project. Whatever makes it fun and productive. Be creative!
You can do a tiny sketch every day or a big piece of concept art once a week. You are welcome to share here what you plan to do! It's up to you if you like to report back here how it is going or how much you like to share about the process during the month but I'd certainly love to hear about it! All that matters is that you create something visual, and that it supports your writing! I will definitely be working on something again this December...
You can do a tiny sketch every day or a big piece of concept art once a week. You are welcome to share here what you plan to do! It's up to you if you like to report back here how it is going or how much you like to share about the process during the month but I'd certainly love to hear about it! All that matters is that you create something visual, and that it supports your writing! I will definitely be working on something again this December...