GALION, Ohio — From vampire love, to range wars, and a world where people don’t age, writers in a group at Galion Public Library have been working their craft as part of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).
According to its website, NaNoWriMo “is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing.” Writers from all around the world, 36,204 to be exact, set a goal of 50,000 words by the end of the month. The writing starts on Nov. 1 at 12 a.m. and writers must not edit their novels until Dec. 1.
On Friday, Galion writers met in the library’s Community Room to discuss the ins and outs of creating effective dialog in their novels. Matt Echelberry, previously a news reporter with a B.A. in Englis from Heidelberg University, led the workshop.
“Dialog can go in so many different directions,” said Echelberry to the seven novel writers. “You don’t really have to follow any sort of pattern either.”
To highlight this point, he had the writers participate in an exercise. He passed around a blank sheet of paper with lines and encouraged the writers to fill one line with dialog.
“It can be about anything,” he instructed. He then had the writers pass their sheet to the right. “Now continue the dialog.”
By the end, writers saw how off-topic and off-the-wall the dialogs became.
Rachel Mendell said she enjoyed the exercise and discussion.
“I’m a plotter, I like to figure everything out before I start to write. So dialog is a little tough for me,” she said.
The novel she chose to write during NaNoWriMo is called “The Porch.” She said all she can give away about the plot is that the story is about a range war.
“It started as an allegory but now it’s turned into like a subdued sci-fi,” Mendell said.
She said she is on track to finishing it at the end of the month. By Friday she had written approximately 32,000 words.
Her daughter, Katrina, is following her mother’s footsteps — even her older sister’s.
“I want to catch up to my sister, E.L. Mendell,” said Katrina, who was also present during the NaNoWriMo discussion on dialog. For her, writing is like playing hide-and-seek.
“It’s a hiding place for when I have to escape from reality,” said the 13-year-old. “And of course, it’s really fun.”
Her novel is about tamed and untamed vampires who inevitably fall in love. She’s written around 20,000 words.
Feeling the pressure to catch up to her peers and fellow writers was 17-year-old Katie Keller, who had written 14,000 for her NaNoWriMo novel.
“There are two main characters, my friend is writing from the perspective of the other one,” said Keller. “They’re (the two main characters) are living in a parallel society when people don’t age. They stop at 18. But then start up again once you meet someone [special].”
Keller participated in NaNoWriMo last year and finished her 50,000 word goal. That book was about girl with amnesia who showed up at a house filled with people she didn’t recognize claiming to be a long-lost friend.
The Community Room was fashioned with tables arranged in a rectangle so the writers could interact with each other.
After the dialog discussion, the writers went to work on their novels, furiously writing and pausing when others loudly pushed through writer’s block.
“It’s a lot of fun,” said Mendell.
The Galion Public Library will host two additional workshop events for NaNoWriMo. The next gathering is Tuesday, Nov. 24 at 6 p.m. followed by the last event on Monday, Nov. 30 at 6:30 p.m.
