A Proposal For A Novel-Writing Project

Ria Lu, creator of Talecraft, (and whom I wrote about here, here, and here), emailed me with an idea for a novel-writing project. She writes:

"Kumusta? Busy ka? I'd like to bounce an idea off you if I may.

I think kulang talaga ng novels dito sa Pilipinas. (A few days ago, I was reading a book review magazine and inggit na inggit ako na they have enough books to actually hold a 5-day booklovers convention filled with workshops, talks, and the coolest authors and publishers in their town).

There are a lot of aspiring writers who have potential. I've seen several in the Talecraft Group, in fact. But they haven't published any novels. The most common reasons why this is so are: novels are too long to finish, and they're good but not good enough.

So, I thought, maybe if we had a sort of coaching program they'd be able to produce a decent novel. That way, the aspiring writer would have the drive to finish a novel (kung may kumukulit sa iyong editor, it's hard to ignore your novel), and the coach could help him/her polish it so that it's good enough for publishing.

Here're my thoughts: Published writers/editors volunteer to be coaches. Aspiring writers sign up for the program by submitting a summary of the novel they want to write and an excerpt from their novel. Published writers choose which story they want to coach. For the month of October, published and aspiring writer teams work on story, plots, characters, etc. Whether it's online or face-to-face, whether it's everyday or every week, it's up to the teams. Whatever works for them. By November, have aspiring writers join NaNoWriMo so they finish writing their story by the end of November. December is editing. January is polishing. February is finalization. And by March, aspiring writers should have a manuscript good enough and ready for publishing.

Then maybe we could team up with local publishers to have how many novels produced from this program published.

The program is voluntary/non-profit. It's just a way to help our fellow writers finish something and increase the number of novels the country produces in a year.

What do you think? Will this work?"

Playing the devil's advocate, I emailed back that I believe that writing is something one does alone, and it's the self-discipline that guarantees output. I also wondered about getting enough experienced writers/editors who will do the coaching, or enough aspiring writers to do the writing, that it might be easier to gather the former and not the latter, and that this all could be very time-consuming.

But I also said that any form of encouragement in the writing of a novel ought to help!

Please feel free to share your thoughts on this. Ria's idea certainly sounds like it could generate results if enough determined writers and editors work together. Perhaps you could even help with Ria's project (she can be reached here).