It's about a week in, so it is probably time for me to create a Fantasy word count graph for folks to take part of. If you click through the graph, you'll be taken to a page that shows additional author details.
To be added to the graph, please post a reply with some of the most interesting fantasy concepts that your novel introduces (e.g., in my novel Childhood Lost, an older, malicious Peter Pan travels between worlds with the aid of a piece of a sail from the Mary Celeste; and the lead heroine, Giovanna Lee, discovers she is able to bend time a bit when traveling between worlds (via her magical Twilight Gem) so that very little time passes in her destination world since she was last there (though this process incurs a personal cost)).
Note that the graph is updated about once an hour; and it will take a little while before it first appears. Also, I'm planning to post one of these in the Science Fiction forum as well; maybe we can get an average word-count word war of sorts between the two genres ;-)
--Tim
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Tim Yao aka NewMexicoKid
co-ML, Illinois::Naperville
Fog Readability Analysis
Writing resources
42,027 / 50,000
Nov 8, 2009 - 16 44
My antagonist is Theresa, an intellectual snob of a dragon who steals away MC1's sister so that she has someone to do the fiddly things that require nimble human fingers. MC2 is a busybody scholar searching for unicorns and their related cults. They venture into Dragon Country, initially not addressing why they were so keen to leave their homes for the sake of these fool journeys.
----------Oh, and campy lesbian hairdressers.
People daubing themselves with a skin irritant as part of a religious ritual.
Streets that smell of sour milk that was left out for a dragon to drink.
A unicorn statue left to erode in a dripping underground chamber.
Women doing their hair up into unicorn horns.
Nano '09: That intellectual snob dragon stole my sister! D:
In need of some procrastination?
27,893 / 50,000
Nov 8, 2009 - 17 04
In my story, a writer goes out into the woods where he used to play as a child for inspiration, but finds that his imagination is a bit too vivid there, and he begins to think he is going insane because he sees his characters there as if they were real. Later he will start to find out what is really going on, and will learn something profound about the true nature of the world he lives in.
The author as a tourist to the world of his creations, rather than a ruler.
A magic system where the very laws of physics are determined by popular belief
An island where gods are made.
30,043 / 50,000
Nov 8, 2009 - 17 27
The four companies of the Claw are being called to reassemble and the Blue Claw Company is finding itself under constant attack through its travels. Keith, a private and recent addition to the Blue Claw, discovers his inhuman talent for killing and comes to fear any attachment to the rest of his squad. Wensin, a charismatic corporal in Keith's squad, finds himself battling to keep moral up not just in his squad but in his entire platoon while himself losing hope. Scent, a sergeant in the Blue Claw with a passion for day-dreaming, must come to terms with the loses his squad takes on the Blue Claw's journey and his fight to keep his last squad member alive. Vallex, a strict battle-hardened lieutenant of the Blue Claw who must chose between his life and the life of his rival. Four vastly different stories will collide at the Gathering of the Claw when the four companies of the Claw must face their greatest challenge to date that could prove their final gathering.
----------"Where's your god now?!"
"Ah!-continuity, my immortal enemy..."
2008 - Prophesies Awaken (failed) currently in work
2009 - Gathering of the Claw
36,660 / 50,000
Nov 8, 2009 - 17 51
There are three types of magic in my novel. One are the dragon mages, who received their powers from the dragons, who were the first and favorite creations of the god of magic. Second are the Blood Mages, who are the healing mages and do all the potion making. Third are the Nature Mages, who draw their powers from the world itself but the more they use their powers, the more like whatever element they use ( eg. one who uses stone magic will eventually start turning to stone).
There's a power struggle between two countries and a religious conflict and both heterosexual and homosexual romance.
----------12,211 / 50,000
Nov 8, 2009 - 18 07
- Boddhisatva-equivalents who've grown tired of trying to help everyone and start planning their own Nirvana-equivalent.
- Magic in hanging ceramic balls.
- A monster who eats stories from paper lanterns.
And some other stuff.
----------20,003 / 50,000
Nov 8, 2009 - 18 33
You have yours on both so mine can also be included on both because it is both. My mainest character can make shafts/spears or power from a gem. It is a neat concept that I like describing at every opertunity.
----------Important characters (including vilians): 11
Important characters death: 1
Chapters: 15
Part completed: 1 of 3
Sanity Remaining: 62%
38,114 / 50,000
Nov 8, 2009 - 19 17
I'm writing about Gods of different pantheons (Greek, Roman, Scandanavian, Egyptian, etc) in a mishmash highschool/college Academy setting. My MC is Hades, who has just found out that he's going to be Lord of the Dead when he leaves school. It's a comedy/fantasy/romance type :3 (the romance is a subplot that develops over time)
I also have unicorns guarding the Academy, fire golems in volcano pits, Pegasi, Adonis is my walking Twilight gag and one cute little puppy Cerberus :3
----------http://cupcake_writer.livejournal.com
2009: Welcome to Hell. A novel about Gods in high school.
2010: Thermals (tentaitive title). Steampunk. High adventure/fantasy of an all-female crew of airship pirates.
63,051 / 50,000
Nov 8, 2009 - 19 26
Ooh. I hit my 50K today so I'd love to get in on your graph there.
In my fantasy tale, denizens of my world can only cast elemental magic (and there is no other kind here) if they receive a tattoo laced with the mysterious silvery magical metal known as arpejat, and that arpejat has been used in pure form (a sphere or cube of it) to capture an elemental spirit of one of the five elements.
The tattooing process bonds the yezad--the spirit--to the maga--the magic user--because the metal is present within their skin. The larger the tattoo, the more arpejat is present. The more arpejat, the stronger the maga can affect the world around him or her.
I've also added a doglike creature that doesn't eat and is composed entirely of magic, called a shabhi. They're long-legged, all black, and always chase my blue-skinned bodyguard character before anyone else, because of genetic coding which no one in this book knows about.
I've got dragons that are halfway evolved into horses. They are my ashva and I love them very much! Their wings have atrophied, and they can't fly. They are used to pull wagons and chariots now. They have a crest of flesh instead of a mane, and toes with very thick nails instead of a hoof. They are omnivores who usually eat grain, but they'll snap up a mouse in the way as well. They come in glorious colors not seen on other "regular" animals on the planet: dark red, dark green, dark blue, gold. No one can ride them because they're a little too tall and wide, and their wings are somewhat fused to their backs so there's no space anyway. No one knows they used to be dragons. That will get revealed in book two, as will the genetic coding of my blue-skinned people and the true origins of the shabhi dogs. (Hint: it's all stuff from their homeworld, found through a sunken portal discovered at the end of book one)
----------45,436 / 50,000
Nov 8, 2009 - 19 27
My vampires are not a bunch of undead humans, they are a race of people with a nation of their own. Incubi, succubi and werewolves are considered "demon races" and are servants and slaves to the vampires. The "demon races" celebrate the full moon, the night when the moon brings most light to the darkness. The vampires celebrate the new moon, the darkest night.
70,917 / 50,000
Nov 8, 2009 - 19 41
I'm writing two books.
One about what happens when a faerie Seer is trapped on earth as an infant and forced to live the life of a human despite the fact that she will see the future in her dreams and never remember it because there are no other faeries nearby and that she will remember things that happened before she was born, all told from the point of view of a high school CNA who becomes her best friend and eventual love interest when she's finally sent to a pysch ward for self abuse and self-afflicted sleep deprivation.
The other is about a middle aged man who gets sucked into the fantasy book he's writing when his author gives him a magical ink pen. The man eventually learns that all ideas are connected and he doesn't control his characters at all but not before two conflicting fantasy plots collide, one of his best friends pulls a gun on his wife, his daughter falls in love with his main character, and the bad guy kidnaps him because he's the Wise Old Mentor and that's what cliche bad guys do: kidnap the Wise Old Mentor. There are four fourth walls in this book—the first between me and my avatar, the second between my avatar and her character, the third between her character and the main character of the book, and one between the main character of the book and the books that he's writing. By the end of the month, all of them will be crushed.
Interesting enough concepts for you?
----------37,773 / 50,000
Nov 8, 2009 - 20 21
Oh, this seems pleasant.
The hero of my story thinks he should kidnaps the princess to get the throne because that's "always the bad guy's plan."
Oh, and all of my magic is entirely mental in nature, probably because I was working on an ESPer short story in late October...
EDIT: Make that ALMOST all of my Magic. There's also a portal to another world.
35,753 / 50,000
Nov 8, 2009 - 20 15
a magic based on names, and elements. When a girl's mother dies, her father claims her and takes her back to his life. Both are in for upsets in their view of the world.
11,063 / 50,000
Nov 8, 2009 - 22 33
yah! I was waiting for the graph. It kept me inspired last year...
My novel is about the oldest of three princes. It is the typical story layout about the youngest destined to be the most successful of the three. Well the oldest happens to interfere with the elder god who was going to bless the youngest. Arturas gets himself cursed by the eldest god who actively follows through with the curse. Arturas' object is to make it home to his kingdom and save his father who is currently being poisoned by an nasty princess.
He is now in the clutches of slavers who are going to take him and sell him in a country like Egypt. Of course that is, before the elder god decides to kill everybody.
40,951 / 50,000
Nov 8, 2009 - 23 38
Since Karen was nice enough to point me to this graph, I'll butt in here too ;)
In my novel, my main characters are werewolves. The leaders of the wolves were abducted by an so far unknown force and the Alpha wolves of the world meet to plan how to find them. In the process, they find a bastard child of said leaders, and do not know that they will need her to find them again.
It's a mix between a love story and Urban Fantasy, though I don't know which I'll write stronger yet. It's to be seen.
----------50,155 / 50,000
Nov 9, 2009 - 06 40
Interesting elements:
----------A sorceress who can manipulate the weather and call down lightning on her enemies.
A mutiny on a pirate ship.
Characters on a quest to save the world (although I never go into the details of that quest in this story).
A total of 54 deaths.
"What you create doesn’t have to be perfect. So what if the eggs are greasy or the toast is burned? Don’t let fear of failure discourage you." - Dieter F. Uchtdorf
40,002 / 50,000
Nov 9, 2009 - 08 02
Interesting Concepts About Boot Hill:
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NaNo 2009 - Western Fantasy
deviantART | LIVEjournal
8,521 / 50,000
Nov 9, 2009 - 08 36
- All magic comes from sacrifice of human lives
- Religion is organized around this, since you can't sacrifice to yourself
- Magic (refereed to as miracles), is used to temporarily grant life to inanimate objects. This makes Miracles the main commodity for military might.
- One of the main characters was a prophesied hero who saved the world from an ancient evil. Only then did he decide he had to change the world's very nature by destroying it and rebuilding it anew (he has the ability to do this)
- Another main character is obsessed with hunting down and killing every deity. This is his only goal in life.
----------"I still remember the day all the madness started. I saved the world from living hell...and doomed us all to something much worse."
72,501 / 50,000
Nov 9, 2009 - 09 03
^^ Cool.
Fantasy concepts my novel introduces yet another take on werewolves. That's pretty much all the fantasy actually involved -- werewolves. It takes place in our world, and there are no other "magical" elements apart from the wolves. *ponder* I think there might be a little bit of magic involved in the form of technology that can tell wolves apart from humans in their human form... the hunters need something like that or they're just running around waiting to see who's a wolf and who is not. ^^;
13,359 / 50,000
Nov 9, 2009 - 09 15
Dragons and unicorns and chimera are all magical creatures established around 1601 by an artificial genome for magic- changeling or chaos magic. Elves, dwarves, nymphs, brownies and kelpies are all decendants from the twenty or so human recipients of this magic.
. . . I still don't know who the inventor is.
42,508 / 50,000
Nov 9, 2009 - 09 27
My novel has two kinds of magic. An elemental magic that feeds through the user, causing the elements to slowly take hold of their bodies. And an rarer more powerful life-force magic that (obviously) feeds off the life-energy of living things, allowing the user to take control of another persons elemental magic.
There are also Dragons, Dragonflies, and Unicorns.
- Dragons are men that can manifest fire, but are not externally affected by it.
- Dragonflies are misnamed, but they're non-winged people that can fly
- Unicorns are usually females, but they are unaffected by time and have ceased to age. They do have a 3-6 in horn on their head.
----------40,701 / 50,000
Nov 9, 2009 - 10 02
In my novel, my MC is the legendary Yuki-onna (or snow woman) of Japanese legends. She's transformed into a human after being unable to kill a young carpenter one wintry night. So, she sets off to figure out why he has such power over her being a mortal...and she discovers there are a great deal more challenges becoming human than there ever was being an immortal.
Of course, she still has some of her snow woman powers...like turning a room cold when she's angry or upset, ability to speak to others through telepathy (again, when she's upset, angry or overcome by any other strong emotion) while looking like a normal human physically.
----------61,523 / 50,000
Nov 9, 2009 - 10 28
I guess my most interesting concept is my Ogres, who are a highly sociable race who live on the Great Plains and ride bison. Also, the legendary hero of one of the kingdoms from hundreds of years ago is my antagonist. He feels- somewhat rightly so- that he was mistreated after he saved the kingdom and has come back to take revenge on the world. The royal heirloom crystal which allows my FMC to retake the throne of her kingdom in the first act turns out to be a very dangerous enchanted magical weapon of icy death.
Not really that innovative I guess. I'm not that good at the whole rethinking magic thing, I'm just trying to write likable characters.
34,016 / 50,000
Nov 9, 2009 - 11 07
After a quiet cataclysm, Torri Salas (last human on Earth) meets a motley crew of psychopathic angels suffering mental diseases from pryomania and schitzofrenia to kleptomania and night terrors that have landed -very bodily- onto the planet.
Aliens ensue.
----------24,212 / 50,000
Nov 9, 2009 - 11 58
-My novel takes place in a castle that is literally built of souls.
-----------The characters on playing cards (Kings, Queen, Jokers, Aces, etc), are real. They live in the castle, watching over humans, guiding their lives so they can fulfill their destinies.
-My MC, Max, is raised in the castle. He helps the cards put fresh souls on the walls, he learns how to manipulate humans, and on one occasion, when he runs outside to play, he meets a boy who thinks he is a ghost.
NaNo 09: House of Cards
46,995 / 50,000
Nov 9, 2009 - 13 46
I also have two novels planned.
The first, woefully neglected so far idea is that there's a massive multiversal library where just about every book known is stored. One gets stolen. A very, very important one, and it's up to the head Librarian to track it down through the multiverses.
Where this idea goes completely nutty is that the head Librarian is a several-hundred-years-old-in-a-late-30s-body woman who, in her former life, was Hrotsvitha von Gandersheim. (Reincarnation of writers, sages, mages - this is multiversal fantasy after all - and so forth is how the Library gets it staff, and the Head Librarian has conditional immortality.) And her scribe/sidekick is a fairly new guy named Leo, who's rather fond of writing backwards and doodling birds and flying contraptions.
Ahem.
The second is over 20,000 words in and shows no sign of stopping soon. It's basically....a romance with fantastical elements. *cringe* Don't hit me! The devices driving the plot aren't world-shattering battles of magical warfare or chosen ones plucked ripe from the fields, but petty politics, social status, family strife, and good old fashioned internal conflict. Oh, all right, there's a little bit of magical mishap too, but nothing near the level of mage-nuking the countryside. All this takes place in a quasi-Edwardian setting, so I'm not even doing the medieval tourism thing.
----------2009 - THEY FIGHT CRIME! Continuing the fine tradition of a working title that has zero relevance to the actual NaNovel.
40,000 / 50,000
Nov 9, 2009 - 19 03
Two rival spymasters with personal grudges are determined to bring the other one down, but their actions reach further than either of them could imagine. I have an awesome magic system and the Fall crater, where anything and everything can be warped.
I have no antagonists. It's all shades of gray in a pseudo-Renaissance era world. Great fun.
----------stock from http://tonne124.deviantart.com/ and me!
36,647 / 50,000
Nov 11, 2009 - 08 12
The MC Lunamae falls in love with Marcus. Unfortunately Marcus is a prisoner and the country he is from was responsible for the death of her father. Her mother arranges a marriage for her and she won't see the groom until the wedding day.
----------36,870 / 50,000
Nov 11, 2009 - 08 50
Not sure what my story really introduces, but maybe my key elements will help me qualify:
Cities were torn apart by fear, now only villages exist. They do no trust each other. The only link between villages are a group of individuals, called simply, the travelers.
One of these becomes a teacher for a group of villages that puts a fighting force together, made of children from the respective villages. They are trained until adulthood to fight so that they can take on creatures of vague and various description, for which there is no proof of existence.
34,060 / 50,000
Nov 11, 2009 - 09 49
My MC's live in a world fairly similar to ours, in the year 2013, but there's magic, which has been outlawed by the American government after two powerful magic users triggered a massive earthquake and the magical community came out of the woodwork. The story is about them trying to change the laws so that even magic users are treated fairly, and so far includes a hell of a lot of symbolism and a 2K so far dream sequence.
----------35,668 / 50,000
Nov 11, 2009 - 10 21
My MC is a member of a race of book-hoarding, scholarly dragons, called Bookewyrme's, although commonly given the honorific Librarian or Scholar, as that is frequently what they do. She and the two secondary FMC embark on a quest for a magical Artifact necessary, not to save the Kingdom, but to allow the Princess to inherit the throne, rather than her nasty little brother.
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