Update from NaNoLand

So on day eight I decided that my story was not conducive to NaNo.  I need to develop far more of the back story of the characters, countries they are in, and the war they are fighting.  I think the story is workable, good even, but I have a lot more work to do.

This realization lead me to a complete change of project.  Well, not complete; I'm still writing fantasy.  But I've gone from 'high' fantasy to a quasi Steampunk /New Weird story, bundled with a zombie apocalypse.  I doubled my old word count in two days, and I'm really liking the characters.  The working title is 'The Manifest Sins of Barnabus Frost' who is also the main character.  On top of everything else, I switched to first person narrative, which has been fun.

Here's the excerpt I have posted on my NaNo page:

The city reeked. Rain fell as it had for the last week in a miserable drizzle. Smoke billowed from scores of manufactories along Riverfront. The stink of the fishmongers swirled with the stench wafting off the river and settled in a nearly visible haze over the streets. For me, having grown up in the mire of Ragsmaw, the smell barely registered most days. But today, as I sat beneath the arch of South Bridge struggling to hold my guts in, the whole rotting mess clawed up my nose, and took up residence like an unwanted in-law.

I had been injured far worse in the past, and expected more of the same if I lived another year. In fact, at that moment, despite the severity of my predicament, an older wound was rivaling the pain that seared my abdomen, but really that was nothing new. The ironical part, and this was not lost on me at the time, was that the only man I trusted to sew my insides back where they belonged, was the same man who had intentionally given my other, constant malady.

While I sat bleeding out in the dark, the world above was coming to life. The sounds of the upside, filtered down; people talking and laughing, buying food to break their fasts. Like the other four bridges that crossed the Ambil, South Bridge supported an entire community on its span. Shops, houses, even a church lined the crossing, packed so close together and rising so high that one could pass from Twogate on the west bank to Riverfront on the east and never even see the river. Under those tons of stone and steel, in the shadow of its massive arch, one Finius Hillard, doctor of suspect practices, had hung his shingle.

You’re going to die here you know.

“Shut up.” I mumbled to my left hand.

I would like to thank you for bringing me back to the doctor before you bled your life out all over the street.

“Shut up Jericho.” I lifted the offending appendage with the intent of slamming it against the cobbled street, but managed only a pathetic drop.

Valiant effort my good man. Jericho cackled gleefully in my head, and in that moment, if I had had the strength, I would have chopped the hand off and thrown it into the Ambil.

I was considering other options for inflicting pain upon my hand, and by extension Jericho, when I heard Doctor Finius approaching. Though I could not see him through the smog, the familiar sound of his walking cane and dead foot carried in the morning air.

Click, scrape. Click, scrape. Click, scrape.

His figure materialized from the gloom. He stepped over me, towards the door tsking softly, “Mr. Frost don’t tell me you once again forgot which end of the knife to avoid?” My feelings towards the doctor were returned in kind; our relationship defined by our mutual employer. Long ago we were both very different people, and I think seeing me reminded him of his own fall from grace.

“Forgive me if I don’t laugh, but I’m trying to keep my insides, inside.”

Maps and Such

This is the map I'm working with for my NaNo project this year.

I'm working with the title of 'In the Company of Broken Men' this year.  As I started plugging things into the Hollywood Formula template I'm using I discovered the story needed to change a bit.  Some of the plot and motivations needed to change, and the overall theme of the story has adjusted as well.

I'm working on a synopsis right now, and if I can get something readable (man those are difficult) I'll put it up here on the blog.

NaNo Again

Well, I obviously didn't keep up with my blogging last year, even with NaNoWriMo, which was my intention with this blog.  I made it about halfway to my goal last year, 26,000 words, and the story fell apart.  I think its salvageable at some point in time, but I need to rework the history of the world.  Even if the reader never gets it, I need to know what happened.  There are too many plot points that rely on the history of the world and the town in which the book takes place.

This year I am using the Hollywood Formula as an outlining tool to get as much prep work done before November as possible.  Though the formula is really meant for script writing, it adapts well to a novel development.  There are certain things that need to happen at certain times in each act; it really focuses the story.  Everything is character driven, which is great for a 50K story.  I don't think this particular formula would work for Epic Fantasy, but for an adventure story, it serves quite nicely.

For now, I've named the book The Relic, though I don't expect (or want) to keep that title.  But the relic is a major plot device and hook of the story, so I suppose it works for now.  I wanted to explore the idea of someone returning home after a prolonged war overseas.  What would that be like in a world that didn't have telecommunications?  What issues would that person deal with? 

There's no over-arching conflict there though.  So I used the elements of the main character actually getting home to be my vehicle for conflict.  So this becomes the story of a journey, a chase, and ultimately a struggle for the throne.  How's that?!

I'll try to keep up on the blog this time...but we both know that's not going to happen.

Day One

Well, day one appears to be in the books, or in Chapter One for me. I didn't make my personal goal of 2,500 words today, but I made the NaNo goal of 1,667 (actually hit 1700). I'm not done with Chapter One at this point in time, but it looks like 2,500 words might actually be close to what is necessary. On the other hand, what was written today is full of verbosity, run-on sentences, and at least one info-dump. So when I go back through and trim the chapter may it end up being closer to 2,000 words. I'm also not convinced this is the beginning of the story, but that may be due to said info-dumb. There's a lot happening to Rin, and it all centers around the weirdness that is the world north of the Frostwood.

I knew I would have trouble not 'constant editing' and I sure did. There was a good page gone before I loosened up enough to just type. Even then I was popping back up and changing stuff. At least towards the end it was due to either forgetting a plot point I had added at the last minute (happened once) or I needed to add a mini flashback for explanation.

There are still some weak points in the underlying concept of the 'bad guy'. None of those change the plot, and I'm hoping they'll just get worked out in the writing. I still maintain that I'm a discovery writer, and in the past that's how I've worked out plot issues. I have never done it with a novel though.


 

Two Days to Go...

NaNo starts Monday, and today I added another view point character.  I wasn’t sure if I could produce 2,500 words a day from one Point Of View (POV), and the other Main Character (MC) won’t work as a POV.  I wanted more than one POV anyway, as a way to provide commentary from a different perspective; especially commentary about the protagonist.

Right now, the title I have listed on the NaNo web site is Leaf & Steel.  I don’t really like it.  The phrase comes from a pretty good line early in the story, but I don’t know how well in conveys the message of the book.  Speaking of book concept; I’ve been trying to write a short ‘back-of-the-book’ synopsis to go on the NaNo site as well…and now I see why most authors have more trouble writing a synopsis than writing their actual novel.

I’m what’s called a ‘constant reviser’  I write a paragraph, read it, edit it, write another paragraph, go back to the first one, revise both, and so on and so on.  I’m hoping NaNo can break me of that.  I don’t think the revisions are that good to begin with, and then I’m writing so slowly I can’t put out a decent story in a reasonable amount of time.  I’m doing that even now…to this blog post…just did it again…dang.

What I need to do, is write a chapter, story, section – what have you – and then revise the whole thing.  My plan now, is to write in the morning before work, just write; stream of conscience almost.  Then on the days I can take a lunch break, head somewhere quiet and revise.  If I don’t have the time for that, I’ll pick up revisions on the weekend. 

I don’t think I can go all the way through the month without revising.  I can’t quit cold turkey.  But I can limit myself to the amount and timing of my revising.

I’ve laid out the first week in outline form.  I’ve hit a snag that will only get worked out when I actually start writing.  The general, Three-Act structure is still there, it’s just the daily outline that’s coming up short.  Of course, now that I’ve thrown in another POV character, I’ll have to revise that outline as well, but that is a matter of pushing some of the days into next week and adding the new chapters in where they go.  The hang-up is still in the same place.

Hopefully I’ll have a positive update for Monday night, with a word count above 2,500.  That’s a lot of pages though.  I’m not sure what to expect, though I am excited.

NaNoWriMo

A few friends and myself are attempting the "...fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing" that is nanowrimo.  The object is to write a novel of at least 50,000 words in the month of November.  Quantity, not quality is the goal.  That said, I am still hoping to take an existing idea, write the novel, and then after November, revise it.  In the end, the story may not be worth revising, but I won't know until it's written.

Those of us involved are doing some prep work this month.  Our first assignment is to plot out (very basic three act structure with hooks) three ideas and present them for consideration.  My ideas have been kicking around in my head for so long, I don't even know that they're good.  So I'm very interested to see what the others think.

I'm hoping to get a lot of outlining done here with the rest of October.  I think I'm a discovery writer.  I say that having written quite a few short stories, but no novels.  What I don't think I can do though, is discovery write a 50K word novel in a month.  So this could be a good exercise for me.  I may find that to tackle something the size of a novel I need that structure regardless of time.

I've started blogs before for various reasons.  I've even started one to blog about writing.  We'll see what happens after November - I guess we'll see what happens during November - but I hope to keep up with my writing on here; maybe do some reviews of books I'm reading and those I've read, talk up some other authors. 

I'm working now on a structure for my days in November (and possible beyond) that will give me a few hours to write.  This exercise will require, on average, 1,600 words a day to make the goal of 50K.  I'm not sure what to expect once I get beyond 'chapter 3'.  I've written 1,600 word stories in an hour, and spent days on one that came in under a thousand.  Will the book get easier the further in I get?  Will I bog down on the 'boring bits'?

I'm hoping the outline, and prep work we plan to do this month will keep things rolling along.

Time to go outline...