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.