It is day six of National Novel Writing Month, (NaNoWriMo). If I write 1,667 words a day, which will put me at 50,000 words by the end of the month, I need to be break 10,000 words today. In reality, I’m closing in on 17,000 words, so I’m in pretty good shape.

My biggest concerns are running out of storyline before I hit the 50,000 mark, as well as how compelling and realistic the story is. So, I’ve started casually asking around for help. My wife has read everything I’ve written so far and tells me it is compelling. She has offered help in areas that I’m not well versed in, such as describing the preparations for a date that a twenty-year-old woman might do. She also gave me the idea for a small scene that I’ve added which I think works quite nicely, and I thank her for that.

One of the heroes in my story reluctantly gets dragged to a therapist. I’m on a mailing list of group psychotherapists, so I sent a request to the list, asking if any of them would be interested in reading my story and offering comments about the story, and especially about the one therapy scene that I’ve written so far.

I received a few replies. The readers found the story compelling and the therapist plausible. I’m starting to dig deeper, because I hope to introduce some interesting ethical issues and would love to add real depth to the therapy sessions.

Today, I received one email that made me stop and think. The writer said, “I got to the therapist, and had to stop reading, because I was shook up by the quick decision of dismissal by the Doc.” It was an incredibly valuable comment.

Let me give you the context. A seventeen-year-old boy has been hanging out in Second Life. Something bad has happened there. Depending on your perspective, he enabled or permitted this bad thing to happen. There are other people who are particularly upset about this and are threatening the boy. The boy is scared. He reluctantly talks about this with a therapist and the therapist doesn’t take this as seriously as he ought to.

On the one hand, I want my characters to be as realistic as possible. Is the therapist’s too quick dismissal of the danger the boy is in unrealistic? Would that happen in real life? Does it reflect a real concern about people dismissing online events as not being all that important?

As I pondered these questions, it struck me that this is really an important theme in the book, not only concerning the therapist, but also concerning everyone. Are some people taking events in Second Life too seriously? Are some people not taking events in Second Life seriously enough? We will have to see how the novel turns out.

Until that time, I thank the folks who have read portions of my first write through and offered such helpful comments. If you are writing a novel this month, how are you doing research for your novel? Who are you asking for help? What sort of help are you asking for? How are you asking for it? Is it working?