add as buddy
send NaNoMail
visit website
Genre: Fantasy
About expatrieLocation: Bloomington. ~1646th finish in 2008! Home Region: Age:37 Website: http://www.lala.com Favorite novels: Passion Play, The Talisman, L'Etranger, Watership Down, Tales from Watership Down, Le the au harem d'Archi Ahmed, The Forever War, The Obsidian Oracle, Slaughterhouse Five, Cat's Cradle, Consilience, Hocus Pocus, The Stand Favorite writers: Kurt Vonnegut (miss you!), Stephen King, Sean Stewart, Camus, Joe Haldeman, Jim Butcher, Walter Mosley, Walter John Williams, Richard Dawkins Favorite music: five specific CDs in the changer for the particular novel. This time - Sarah McLachlan - Fallen, Ministry - A mind is a terrible thing to taste, Jewel - ThisWay, Concrete Blonde - Mexican Moon, Natalie Imbruglia - Left of the Middle. Under normal circumstances, Portishead, Garbage, Shawn Colvin, Led Zeppelin, The Police, The Cardigans (ROCK!), Bettie Serveert (sure does!), February, Tricky, Massive Attack, Liz Phair, Mary Lou Lord, Hole, Courtney Love, Aimee Mann, Belly, The Breeders, Concrete Blonde, Sting, The Sundays, The Cranberries, Ani DiFranco, Anna Nalick, Carla Bruni, Axelle Red, Avril Lavigne, Gianna Nanini, Better than Ezra, Pearl Jam, Duran Duran (mea cualpa), aug! is there a line length limit? Non-noveling interests: photography, art, engineering, literature, non-fiction, TV, movies, MUSIC(Rock), French, Italian, German, Russian, chess, sleep |
Joined: October 18, 2007 This Year: Official Participant NaNoWriMo History: NaNoWriMo posts: 206 NaNoWriMo buddies: 39
|
|
Brief Author Bio: I was born. I am still alive. I live in Minnesota. (It does say "Brief Bio") |
|
Synopsis: Abracadabra
A fantasy novel used to answer a serious question, or propose an answer?
I'm actually pretty interested in this one, haven't done too much plotting but I do have the overall structure and points of view pretty nailed down. I've had the idea kicking around for about a year, perhaps a bit more, but that was more the type of character I wanted to write about, not what the novel would be about.
Form: Two parts from two different points of view, but I haven't decided how I'm going to write it. I either write it chronologically and have to jump between two characters and what they're doing and thinking, or I'll have to refer back a lot while writing the second part. I don't think the first part can start at the same point in time as the second part, so it will be a little unusual in that the first part of the book starts after some elements of the second part occur. I might write it as a zipper-style book (part one, part two, as happens chronologically, then run it through as many drafts as it needs and finally, when I'm ready to share it, go through an unbelievably tedious unzipping where I sort part one into the first part of the book and part two into the second part of the book so they read straight through.
It isn't really two long stories bolted together although it might sound like it. The objective is to raise the question in the first part, with a first person narrator, and give the answer in the second part, either with a second first person narrator, or a third person style. I'm almost definite about not to use third person for the second part.
This novel's form is a new structure for me, (I've done straight chronological 3rd, 1st, and 1st person the last three 50k months). It sounds pretty complicated but I think this is the way to go about it. It took me a while to conceive of this structure to prevent giving everything away in the first part of the book. I suppose it might even be a mystery, if I can write it that way, but the whole time I'll have to be thinking about what runs behind the scenes so I can put it into part two.
Process: I currently use an AD&D game world (Dark Sun, if you must know, the City-State of Raam after the death of Abalach-Re, if you're really in the "know" on a TSR product that's extra dead). I use it as a convenient backdrop. I don't have to mess with rules for magic because they're pretty much all there already.
The Title: Usually I don't have a book until I have a title, this one is from the Steve Miller Band's song, as well as a nod to Hocus Pocus, Kurt Vonnegut's novel.
Elements: I might be using a golem, there will be a civil war for control of the city, three factions (at least), walls that eventually divide the city, an evil character who does good, or may, and a good character who may end up unwittingly doing evil. Corruption, extortion, a brutal security force, suddenly powerless. A city that descends into lawlessness...
Excerpt: Abracadabra
....
“I see.” She began another tune and I lay down. Before long, I was asleep again.
The first thing I was aware of was the smell of burning flesh. I opened my eyes and stood before a burning pyre. There was a cloaked form tied to a post in the center, screaming and writhing in pain, trying to escape. The figure wore a white bleached cloak with black circles.
“The fire will purify this one,” a templar shouted from a nearby platform. Behind him two more pyres burned, the figures on those posts wore black cloaks with white circles.
“Remember,” he said, stomping his foot and slamming a large staff down on the platform for emphasis, “Magic comes from Badna – those who practice without sanction are against Badna and must be destroyed. Report sorcerers to the templarate for destruction.”
“You have nothing to fear if your heart is pure. The pure will not burn.”
The figure on the pyre to the right had stopped struggling. I walked toward that figure and saw the ropes had burned through and the hands drooped at their side. The garment was pristine, a loose weave. Flames lapped over the fabric but the cloak did not blacken or burn. No soot was visible. “This one is pure,” the templar said, and the figure stepped from the pole and crawled down the pyre on hands and knees, carefully making the way from among the burning logs. When the figure reached the ground, two templars seized the figure and took it away from the pyres and the crowd.
“A miracle,” the templar proclaimed. “You have seen it yourself, the pure do not burn! Come, bring to us the sorcerers, O people of Raam!”
I stepped to the second and third pyres, the figures in black cloaks were screaming. I smelled burning hair and flesh. The one on the left stopped struggling as the flames reached into the sky. Small pieces of ash flew up into the sky, carried on the heat of the flames. The second figure took longer to burn, I could tell it was a woman from the pitch. Scream, choke, cough, sob, scream. Eventually, the sack over the head burned off and I saw a blackened face looking back at me, eyes cracked shut to slivers of white looked my way. She spit something out and it landed at my feet. The cracked blackened skin of her face looked at me, and I couldn’t bear to look at the glistening white slivers of her eyes, all that hadn’t burned. I felt certain that I heard a final exhalation even over the roar of the flames.
“Those who are pure will not burn!” The templar shouted a second time. “See how the flames engulf the heretic?”
What was it that the burning woman had spit at me?
The blackened tip of her tongue, the other end of it still bright wet and bloody.
I woke up screaming.
...
expatrie's Writing Buddies
|
|
