Honour

WillowArcane · Oct 28, 2007

Although I'm not participating this year, I read through the faq on nanowrimo.org, and was wondering.

How does this event, which is a "contest" of sorts and has "winners" in the end, prove the people actually follow the rules? Sure, they say alot of flowering things in the faq about the "rush" or "suffering" or "frenzy" of writing in only a month, but that doesn't mean a person will do it. The entire thing is based, from what I can tell, on an honour system. It is *trusted* that you follow the rules. So what prevents someone, who really doesn't care about honour or even the whole point behind nano, to write 25,000 words *before* Nov 1, and do the next 25,000 afterwards, with the goal to simply "win"?

I'm sure such people would most likely be rare, but how would you even know who they were?

Sage · Oct 28, 2007

Only the fact that the only thing you really gain from the event is the pride of completing it (& another 50K that you have written). Nothing is keeping someone from pretending that they won, from faking the novel, but, really, why would anyone cheat? Someone who doesn't care about the point or the honor, probably doesn't really care about the "prize" either.

Ava Jarvis · Oct 28, 2007

Since the prize is your finished novel (or at least 50,000 words of it), cheating means you don't get anything.

Which would be really, really silly.

NaNo not really a contest; it's more of a marathon.

Everyone who makes it past the finish line wins. Someone could lag behind and get dropped off by a motorcade relatively close to the finish line before anyone else gets there... but what would be the point?

There are people doing NaNo who are professional writers and can write 10k words per day. Trying to "win uber alles!!" is pointless.

MarkButler · Oct 29, 2007

I think its like cheating at solitare. Some people do it routinely (I like to win), some would never do it (whats the point?)

Cheating at nano is easy, you can generate 50k works in 5 minutes that you can upload and fool the counter. Heck, if I recall a couple of years ago they said it was legal to write "I don't know what to write" 10,000 times.

Since "winning" at Nano isn't much of an achievement for professional writers (at 8 hours per day thats only 166 words per hour) it isn't impressive enough to make people "cheat" in order to get the "title" so it just comes down to if you personally care about that sort of thing.

mscelina · Oct 29, 2007

what would be the point of 'cheating'? It's a month-long writing exercise as opposed to a contest. It's a tool for people like me who are mired in the muck of self-editing. *shrug* I could upload about a million words using cut and paste, 750k of which suck. The sense of accomplishment comes from writing something completely new, no matter how grammatically unsound, with a goal for 30 days. Even if you only hit 30k it's still an accomplishment.

benbradley · Oct 29, 2007

WillowArcane said:
...So what prevents someone, who really doesn't care about honour or even the whole point behind nano, to write 25,000 words *before* Nov 1, and do the next 25,000 afterwards, with the goal to simply "win"?

I'm sure such people would most likely be rare, but how would you even know who they were?

You of course wouldn't know, but I have to ask why would you care? At the end you know what YOU've done, and isn't that the most important thing? I'm doing this to motivate me.

GeorgieB · Oct 29, 2007

Every year there are those who post that they've "written 200K words" by day 2, and are thoroughly ignored by other NaNo'ers.

Writing 50K words in 30 days is not all that hard. What makes it fun is the anticipation of the "ordeal". Read the forums--especially the one on "Reaching 50,000" and topics such as "Devious ways to reach 50K". Ideas such as using long names (Prince William of Obergard and Duscany) for characters, or long dream sequences have been suggested.

The 'contest' is only with yourself. Cheating at the NaNo is the same as cheating at golf, the only one who loses is yourself.

It's the trip, not the destination.

AnnieColleen · Oct 29, 2007

Or putting "potato" after every word, or using long chapter headings ("In which ___ and ___ and ___ and ___ happens), or having characters not speak the same language so everything has to be translated.

But somewhere in the same thread somebody also posted something like "but of course you're only posting these for fun, right? because you wouldn't actually use these, right?" The dirty-tricks thread is an exercise in creativity or frustration, that's all.

And, ditto everyone else. What would be the point?

larrypotter · Oct 30, 2007

I think another reason why nobody cares about whether or not you cheat is that there are no prizes (other than the sense of personal accomplishment and the purple bar next to your name on the Nano forum!). It's a little different than the marathon runner who catches a ride, gets let off a mile before the finish line, crosses the tape, and collects $60K. In this case, you get nothing but what you put in... and if you cheat, well, that's what you get back.

For me, since I have a full-time job other than writing, I use Nano as a month where I can train myself to live the writers' life... in hopes that one day I will write more full-time and my other job can take the back-seat, part-time role. Nano is a great exercise with a huge personal reward at the end.

DamaNegra · Oct 30, 2007

Ava Jarvis said:
NaNo not really a contest; it's more of a marathon. Everyone who makes it past the finish line wins. Someone could lag behind and get dropped off by a motorcade relatively close to the finish line before anyone else gets there... but what would be the point?

Why don't you ask Roberto Madrazo? :ROFL:

Anyway, NaNo has no judges whatsoever. There are no prizes given out other than "you made it! woo hoo!". So cheating would get you absolutely nothing. People do NaNo because they want to write, I can't see any other reason for doing it. So why cheat? Sure, I figure people'd cheat if on Nov. 29 they've written only 30,000 words or something, but at least they've written and that's the point, isn't it? I just can't imagine anyone cheating without having written nothing (<-- OMG! double negative!).

willibob3000 · Oct 30, 2007

I think a lot of the cheats are probably those who have bragged to friends and family about how they're going to write 50k in 30 days and how easy it will be and then found that it's not quite as easy as you think. It's easy when you have hours every day to write, it's not so easy when you're fitting writing in around an already busy schedule. What's the point in cheating in a contest where the only "prize" is your personal sense of achievement?

Honour

WillowArcane

Child of the Fae

Sage

Supreme Guessinator

Ava Jarvis

Too stupid to know fear

MarkButler

Part Time Fool

mscelina

Teh doommobile, drivin' rite by you

benbradley

It's a doggy dog world

GeorgieB

Almost a wannabe writer

AnnieColleen

Invisible Writer

larrypotter

DamaNegra

Mexican on the loose!

willibob3000