What's Your Novel About?

A crime happens.

Some sort of bad guy, a good guy tossed in for good measure.

A place and a time. Could be here and now or maybe not.

As for the rest of it. Well I am just going to have to wait until it gets into my head. Seeing as how last year I started out plotting out a book, yes I was actually planning ahead, when this GREAT BIG idea popped into my head just two days before NaNo and the other idea just crumbled to dust in the GREAT BIG ideas wake.

So I am not sure I should even bother this year to try and plan ahead.

Anyone else suffer the same problem? Do you like to plan things out or are you like me and just wing it?

Oh and if anyone out there needs any help researching true crime etc shoot me a mail.... I will be able to help!

I have too many ideas right now! I'm working on the outlines for two major ones, seeing which one really claws its way to the surface by the end of the month. But my trend has been to work furiously on outlining something for all of October, and then two days before NaNo starts, decide to do something completely different!

But! In my arsenal of Possible Plots, I have:

• In the Shadows of the Night (vampires are what really run Antigonish)

• Oisin: Private Dick (what if Oisin didn't die after telling St Patrick all about the Fianna?)
• Old Gods: or, Don't Stop Believing (demons and witches and one girl who doesn't believe in magic, oh my)
• Once and Present Kings (The Fianna save New York from . . . I dunno, something.)
• The Reluctant Gladiatrix (Social misfit in our universe, saviour of the human race in another)

RIght now, "Old Gods" is winning out, with "The Reluctant Gladiatrix" a close second. "Old Gods" is an idea I've had since probably elementary school, but I had one of those plot revelations so I finally know how to actually move the action forward and make it, y'know, interesting.

2004: It Came and Ate Us
2005: The Once and Present Kings
2006: Must Love Ninjas
2007: In the Shadows of the Night
2009: Old Gods: or, Don't Stop Believing

Well, at the moment, I have three (or possibly four) bunnies warring for the chance to be written - they're going to have to make up their mind soon, though!

• A young businesswoman who is also a mage-born, charged with keeping the magic and mundane worlds separate - has to deal with some sort of problem that ends up requiring dragons.
  
• A modernization of a kitsune legend. Don't ask me which one yet - all I've got is a fox!bunny edging around my mind. It may end up combined with the above one.
  
• Fae siblings plus guardian Eastern Dragon dealing with life, magic, and happiness - and maybe love, for Aelfried....
  
• (Possibility) A young woman is chosen by elemental spirits to protect humanity from the anger of Mother Nature.

;) TrudyG

;) tag0

NaNo '08: Search & Rescue - 104K/50K - in revision
NaNo '09: TFJ1: The Fox's Fight 57K/50K - finished; TFJ2: The Trickster's Trade ?K/50K - WIP

Set in a city marathon. This year I took up running for my nano reasearch and will run my first race Oct 25 (a 5 km in Niagara). Have been ground crew for 3 marathons for friends.

With any luck, the plot is a dead body and a sexy homicide cop ensue. Madness and mayhem are par for the course. Plus some general romance. X-rated material if my cheering section asks. ; )

Some general outlining ... have my cast pretty much set plus a nice collection of new characters - two of which I can't WAIT to write. : )

Need to set up my tracking sheets ...

La Red

2007 - 50K
2008 - 61K

Haha, I've been spamming the Fantasy forum with my chatter. I have a synopsis up on my profile for anyone who's interested, but the basic gist is: 23-year-old Ashleigh 'Ashes' Snowden encounters a dragon in downtown Toronto. He steals a scale from it and then somebody comes along and wipes everyone's memory. However, the scale calls the dragon to Ashes's apartment, where it reveals itself to be young, lost, sentient but kind of dumb, and a shapeshifter. Oh, and it's being hunted by a mage so they better run. The rest of the novel is spent on Ashes and his buddy Tobi's attempts to stay one step ahead of the hunter-mage so they can get the dragon home.

Totally not an excuse to have public transit eaten by a dragon, nooo...

Two ideas.

One is a vague character-driven story about demon hunters. The other is ruritanian fiction about a young maiden, a mysterious prince, his evil twin, and their psychopathic sister. Yyyeah.

Just to throw out an idea: what if the Fianna have to team up with a girl who doesn't believe in magic to rescue Antigonish from vampires? (assuming you mean actual mythological Fianna and not, like, the political party or the terrorist group?) :o)

--Ryan

TW FB LJ

My novel's primarily about people's relationships to food and technology, and how both of those are often used as indicators of social status.

It was partially inspired by reading about this restaurant that I can't quite remember the name of that's ultra-ultra exclusive and uber-fancy, located on some tiny Mediterranean island and which does things like creating globules of frozen coconut milk for dessert by injecting it into chambers of liquid nitrogen and letting it flash freeze..

But, because it's me, I can't just write about something that 'real world', so my story's going to be about on a luxury restaurant aboard a space station, and the wait staff that works there.

--Ryan

TW FB LJ

Yes, actual mythical Fianna, not the other kinds!

. . . and okay, as soon as you said that I started plotting how it would shake down and you are a bad, bad man.

2004: It Came and Ate Us
2005: The Once and Present Kings
2006: Must Love Ninjas
2007: In the Shadows of the Night
2009: Old Gods: or, Don't Stop Believing

--Ryan

TW FB LJ

One of my books is related to a book I wrote last year which decided to blow up in my face and tell me it wanted to be SEVEN BOOKS, and it's about a Goddess who decides to basically split herself in half and forget everything she knows. And what happens to her before/during/after, and why she decides this.

My other book for this year is going to be about a group of teenagers who go camping on an island somewhere in the Atlantic; they get helicoptered in and then the helicopter doesn't come to take them back like it's supposed to. Eventually they figure out they aren't in Kansas anymore, Toto, and really they aren't even on Earth, they're somewheres else, and I think it will end with them trying to cross the ocean and find people.

Not sure what else I'll be writing this year but I'm aiming for 3-4 books of 100K. Right now I'm working on a workshop to help other people plan their Nanovels, which will start on Monday, and once I've finished that and started posting it, I'll be getting heavily into my own planning/worldbuilding/stuff.

Lithy's Shoppe:

http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2953967

Lithy's Blog:

http://fictionalworlds.net

Wow, Lithy, you're an inspiration as ever. (3-4 books? Where do you find the time??)

Your workshop sounds like a great idea - where are you planning on posting it? Make sure to at least give us a link in the To. forums, as I'm sure plenty of people will want to see it.

Victoria Anisman-Reiner
Co-ML for Toronto, Canada

Old Gods sounds like it could be interesting. I'm wondering if you've read "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman? Dont' worry, not telling you that your book already exists (clearly, i don't know what it is, haha), but its an excellent book that can basically be summed up into 'what happens to a god when people stop believing in it'. If you haven't, I highly recommend it, though maybe only after november, so that it doesn't interfere in your mind with your own plot (that's happened to me before, think of a plot, then read something waaaayyy too similar)

anywho... my two cents, and i'm looking forward to hearing how yours turns out

I'm starting with a somewhat standard fantasy plot, but I'm mostly just going to wing it. I have a main character, the bastard son of a minor lord, who gets caught up in a a lost princess's quest for revenge against the usurper of the throne- who is in fact the pawn of some kind of evil warlock guy.

I have a tendency to write down much more extensive details and ideas, then throw them out and start again from scratch. I figure the best ideas will stick. When it comes time to write I'll have to keep track of the facts but for my first NaNo I'm going to give myself some flexibility in case my ideas don't work out on paper.

A girl and her dragon

Fianna (yes, this is a name I picked a couple of days ago before I even read this thread, scouts' honor) is a young lady-in-waiting to a child princess. Her family are minor nobles, and since they have sons to cary to the line, they are hoping that Fee will marry maybe a Count or Duke, something to enable their own rise in social standing. Well Fee isn't exactly your typical maiden, she's clumsy and forgetful, and not very good with her etiquette.

Well the princess' 10th birthday is coming up and Fee has been tasked with overseeing that the presents get all displayed as they arrive before the party. Well one gets broken, and frantic, Fee hides it to try and fix it. I'm not sure on this part yet, but the gift turns out to be a dragon's egg, I don't know if it was intentionally given or was mistaken for something else, Well, the dragon hatches and now what is she supposed to do with it. She tries to keep it hidden, but we all know how that goes. So she leaves with it, looking at finding somewhere away from people so that it can be free.

In the meantime, she inadvertanly saves a young baron from the clutches of his evil uncle, who in turn falls in love with Fee.

Then she releases a young countess from the evil clutches of the bog witch, who in turn falls in love with Fee,

Well....you can see where this is going. There is no world shattering catastrophe or epic wars, just a girl bumbling her way through one adventure to another.

It is going to be fun fun!

I have a few things that I am iffy on.

I know she ends up with at least three nobles in love with her, but at the end I am toying with the idea of her actually being in lovwe with the dragon. Not in a beastiality sort of way of course, but as the person she wants to spend the rest of her life with. The dragon would be the intelligent, think D&D metallic dragon type, with possible shape changing possibilities. I don't know if this might not be just too weird for some people though. Oh well.

anyway, that's it for me now. I'm actually working on a full outline this time, hoping I can actually write an ending this time. keeping my fingers crossed.

Ciao!

Elfyn

That's funny, American Gods, sounds alot like Terry Pratchett's Small Gods.

*slinks in*

Well mine is a bit out there.

The world is a different place in 2009. With the third world war marking humans for death, the alien race Plognonians invading and immersing their beliefs onto the world and a mysterious blue fog what else could go wrong for the youngest Chicago Detective Robert Wangman? Nothing except finding himself trapped in a world of intrigue and seeing his own death in his mind over and over. He's going crazy thinking there's something wrong with him, a synapse in his brain which has fried. If it wasn't for the thugs on the streets constantly fighting he'd lock himself in his room and rock back and forth. His mother has been keeping secrets from him it seems as he ventures into the alien part of the world and finds himself face to face with the one thing that could solve all his problems.

Stay tuned for more >.< It sounds a whole lot better in my head lol

Writing is like breathing, when you stop you're in a dead zone.

They've worked together a few times. Its like Small Gods, but in a very very vague sense. American gods is a more serious view of things, i guess, and set in the states (obviously). its premise is that people moving to this continent brought their beliefs and gods with them, while in Small Gods, the god wakes up as a turtle, and hilarity ensues.

Pratchett and Gaiman, two of my favourite authors, (just in case you haven't read my profile). If we're recommending books, well, I may as well recommend "Good Omens", which is by both of them. :D

So... what's my book going to be about? I'll start with what I want my book to be.

I want it to have multiple endings.

Ever play a game that is touted to have 'multiple endings' but in reality there really is only one 'right' ending, and then there are many ways to end it wrongly? There still is only one timeline, and you follow that timeline till the end. Or sometimes the ending is dependent on which boolean flag you may have triggered throughout the game.

I want to play something that has true multiple endings. Multiple timelines, I guess. Where your choice, and perhaps some random choice by the antagonist, changes the outcome of the story completely.

Similar to Choose Your Own Adventure books with a bit of roleplaying thrown in. (Yes, there are many gamebooks that have rpg elements, but I figured most people are familiar with Choose your Own Adventure)

And then I hope to make it into an online game... free of course. :D We'll see how that goes. I still need to edit last years novel which I haven't done. *sigh*

What's the book about? Well, I have a recurring character I like to use named Dorin. He is an assassin that is morally opposed to killing. He is given the task of guarding a Bard, an 11 year old child, named Zoe. I was going to have her play the ocarina, but I didn't want to be too cliche.

They get caught up in a nefarious plot. Maybe. I don't really know.

Technically, this will be book 2 of my Enchantress series. (Enchantress is the first book I wrote for Nanowrimo)

That was definitely a good book. I approve your taste in books... and movies (as i casually creeper your bio page)... Miyazaki movies are excellent. Slightly on that topic, Howl's moving Castle is also an excellent book, though quite different in alot of ways from the movie. Its a bit more aimed towards children, but so is 'Stardust' (hurrah, making movies out of Neil Gaiman books), and I still enjoyed it.

you guys all have these wonderous ideas and im still at a total loss..... oh well i still have time yes?

Heh. Me too, Alley. I'm comforted by the fact that my best NaNo yet has been the year I didn't have even the germ of an idea until October 29... maybe I'll get lucky again?

Victoria Anisman-Reiner
Co-ML for Toronto, Canada

There is always the option of just waiting til 12:01 am on November 1st and randomly pressing keys til something good comes up!

Are you calling me a monkey at a typewriter??!? :D

I always try to start at midnight on Oct. 31/ Nov. 1, but hopefully I'll have *some* idea of what I'm writing by then...

Victoria Anisman-Reiner
Co-ML for Toronto, Canada

I like the idea of starting at midnight on October 31st, but come on... HALOWEEN... that oh-so-important holiday that lets us dress up ridiculously and go out in public. I just have this bizarre image of a bunch of people dressed up as, oh, wookies, fairies, zombies and other things that end in 'ies' ... and things that don't end in ies as well...hunched over their computers, face-paint gleaming in the glow of the screen, typing frantically away with their hand-held accessories (staff, broom, sword, etc) leaning up against the desk.
Who knows, maybe i'll feel inspired when i get back from my galavanting, but i think its more likely that i'll feel tired :)

Wait, we're calling vix a monkey now? Poor Vix. She's just a stalker, not a monkey!

See... we shouldn't start me on talking about these things. I could go on and on and on. So I won't. I did enjoy the book of Howl's as well as Stardust. And I was also blown away by the manga of Nausicaa. Much more richer and involved.

But before I get all fanboy on you guys, I'll stop. :D We can go back to talking about Vix again. She likes that. *laugh* I'm kidding. :D

The chat last year was filled with people chatting and glomping away as they awaited for Nov 1 to roll by.

And then as soon as the countdown was finished... *bamf*

The chat was quiet.

I was the only one talking. That's because I'm a chatterbox. But still. It was so eery how silent it was. :D

Dragons are popular this year. Well, they probably are every year.

Here's what I just wrote for my novel info:

Sejuay is a dragon of the Clan Porgoh. Porgoh, his clan's alpha, is determined to spearhead a cosmopolitan new era based on intellect and diplomacy, but a falling-out leads to Sejuay's exile from the clan, and his determination to show them up by living a thoughtless life, never questioning the world and never wasting energy on play or philosophy. This makes him an ideal personal steed for Emperor Dave, a cunning politician of a race of insect-like humanoids that dominate the planet. Sejuay soon finds himself culpable in terrible, inhumane atrocities that pit him squarely against his old clanmates, and most of the civilized world. Meanwhile, a strange entity made entirely of crystal is rising up from within the planet, threatening to exterminate everybody. It is powerful but childlike, and innocent of any cruel intentions. In the end, Sejuay finds that his life of shutting out all thoughts of morals and compassion has made him uniquely prepared for the monstrous task of murdering this life form. Then he gets thrown in prison for forty years. Maybe he writes his memoirs in prison, which would make a good framing device for the novel. Yay!

Sejuay has been my dragon "character" for 8 years now, but I never wrote a backstory or anything for him. I got the idea of doing that in December of last year I think, but staved off until now. The character Porgoh appeared in a dream! He was pink and effeminate, and determined to "die in peace," in his own words (meaning that he wouldn't lead his clan on territory skirmishes until inevitably getting cut down in battle).

As research, I've been reading Inside the Third Reich, the memoirs of Albert Speer, who was the official reich architect under Hitler. It's an account of how a person can ignore the human consequences of a political project when they're wrapped up in it, as well of a portrait of Hitler as he appeared to his close staff members. It's also BLOODY LONG. I've been picking at the copy in the Reference Library since over a month ago and it's not even a third done yet.

There are also a whole lot of other little inspirations that went into this idea but this post is all ready too long. :3 I'll blather on later if anybody asks.

I like that dragons will be required. :)

Set in a city marathon? You mean the entire novel takes place over the course of a race? I'm probably misinterpreting, but I think that's a nifty idea. :) And even if it's only research, it's good that you're getting some exercise.