NaNoWriMo Brainstorming Forum

Great catch! There was indeed a space after the number. Thanks for letting me know. It's fixed.

I second what Robert Waltz said. The same question has gone through my own head because I've done some brainstorm freewriting that's not actual novel narrative. For example: I realized I needed some critical background information on a character I didn't profile. I needed to figure out the true "story" for a minor crime case file my protagonist is trying to solve. In the end, the things I developed came up in dialog and internal monologue, albeit with more brevity than the freewrites, but the actual character background and crime story freewrites didn't make it into my word count. It annoyed me, because I spent quite a bit of time on those freewrites, especially the crime background. My protagonist will solve a major crime later, but she has to solve one or two minor ones to prove herself, so these cases are barely significant. Yet I spent the better part of an hour devising the first one, and I'm not even counting the words.

But this is NaNo, and it's an honor-system based program, so ultimately, the decision is up to you. Nobody is going to read the words you dump in the word count validator at the end of the month.

Cheers,
Michelle