National Novel Writing Month
National Novel Writing Month is coming up in November and I'm considering trying it. I don't know what to write, though. Some people have said things to the effect of "write about necromancer foxes!", but that's not how I operate. I need a theme I care about. In the first novel (SF) it was "freedom", and centered around characters trying to build a new life for themselves despite physical disability, economic hardship, and different kinds of oppression. In the second (fantasy) novel it was "loyalty", and involved people questioning their loyalties to their gods, kings and countries.
Idea A: The obvious option is to take up my unfinished fantasy novel sequel ("Striking Flags") again. Its theme is "treason". Why do people turn traitor, and what does it mean? I reread this one recently and liked the general idea. The big problem with it I see so far is Elias' story: I haven't hurt him enough yet to justify the treason he commits, and he's assigned to play policeman despite being physically abnormal and un-subtle. A partial answer to both problems is to have him become increasingly unable to join with his griffin, representing an increasingly unquiet mind, and have his colleagues not-quite-order him to take a long trip because he's becoming a troublemaker by not signing on to the new religion. Also his father should triumphantly announce that his peasant girlfriend's cheating on him with a "real man", so that he can set Elias up with a political marriage. Meanwhile I've been doing world-building stuff with a city called Suncove in that setting, so that helps develop the setting a bit.
In short, that novel could probably be salvaged. Wouldn't be a new novel for NaNoWriMo though.
Idea B: A totally different fantasy novel set in the same world, probably in the eastern lands where there are few to no talking squirrels or griffins. Why bother writing in that setting at all, then? It's got some established history and facts like how magic works. Why not write in squirrel-land? To answer the objection that "this is just a furry story so it's instantly in the furry ghetto". The trouble: so far I've got no ideas leaping out at me beyond the region's proposed sub-theme of "binding" (commitments and other relationships), the notion of familiars and water-related magic, and a vague idea of magic users being expected to get familiars (which cause minor transformations) and enter service to "the Boundless One". Also, the idea has to strike me as fun, so no grim-and-gritty throne games.
Idea C: Science Fiction. For years I've been wanting to write SF that's optimistic (a future I might want to live in), plausible (reasonably possible tech, no intelligent space aliens stopping by, no cosmic space wedgies hitting Earth), and near-future (roughly within 100 years of now). That's damn hard, partly because I'm quite pessimistic about the near future. Closest I've come to having a new SF novel idea is a set of notes on a future called "The Rift" involving secession, and many rehashed attempts at a story called "Fifth Freedom" which rips off Phil Guesz's "Freedom City". Something about a guy going to a seastead to "get rich quick or die trying" to cure his fatal brain disease, becoming a dolphin as a job, then leading a charge up San Juan Hill. As a dolphin. Probably to raid nearby Guantanamo. Doesn't seem like it'd make for a novel though. So... scrap that; need a near future in which liberty somehow survives and the plot doesn't grow out of random disasters like meteor impacts.
Idea D: That Japan kitsune novel. Wrote a couple thousand words of it. Secretly Christian samurai travels to Hokkaido ca. 1700, discovers kitsune, then starts wreaking havoc on Japanese history just as there's a major earthquake, a weird dog-obsessed overlord, and the "47 Ronin" incident scheduled. Important to get the history roughly right. I'd surely get it partly wrong despite having done some research, and have little interest in blurring it into a Wutai, a Vaguely Japanese World.
I'd also like to go back to what I did in the first novel, in terms of focusing on an active protagonist whose actions drive the plot instead of just being a reaction to some bad guy's scheme. I don't know; fantasy seasteading using water magic? =p
Idea A: The obvious option is to take up my unfinished fantasy novel sequel ("Striking Flags") again. Its theme is "treason". Why do people turn traitor, and what does it mean? I reread this one recently and liked the general idea. The big problem with it I see so far is Elias' story: I haven't hurt him enough yet to justify the treason he commits, and he's assigned to play policeman despite being physically abnormal and un-subtle. A partial answer to both problems is to have him become increasingly unable to join with his griffin, representing an increasingly unquiet mind, and have his colleagues not-quite-order him to take a long trip because he's becoming a troublemaker by not signing on to the new religion. Also his father should triumphantly announce that his peasant girlfriend's cheating on him with a "real man", so that he can set Elias up with a political marriage. Meanwhile I've been doing world-building stuff with a city called Suncove in that setting, so that helps develop the setting a bit.
In short, that novel could probably be salvaged. Wouldn't be a new novel for NaNoWriMo though.
Idea B: A totally different fantasy novel set in the same world, probably in the eastern lands where there are few to no talking squirrels or griffins. Why bother writing in that setting at all, then? It's got some established history and facts like how magic works. Why not write in squirrel-land? To answer the objection that "this is just a furry story so it's instantly in the furry ghetto". The trouble: so far I've got no ideas leaping out at me beyond the region's proposed sub-theme of "binding" (commitments and other relationships), the notion of familiars and water-related magic, and a vague idea of magic users being expected to get familiars (which cause minor transformations) and enter service to "the Boundless One". Also, the idea has to strike me as fun, so no grim-and-gritty throne games.
Idea C: Science Fiction. For years I've been wanting to write SF that's optimistic (a future I might want to live in), plausible (reasonably possible tech, no intelligent space aliens stopping by, no cosmic space wedgies hitting Earth), and near-future (roughly within 100 years of now). That's damn hard, partly because I'm quite pessimistic about the near future. Closest I've come to having a new SF novel idea is a set of notes on a future called "The Rift" involving secession, and many rehashed attempts at a story called "Fifth Freedom" which rips off Phil Guesz's "Freedom City". Something about a guy going to a seastead to "get rich quick or die trying" to cure his fatal brain disease, becoming a dolphin as a job, then leading a charge up San Juan Hill. As a dolphin. Probably to raid nearby Guantanamo. Doesn't seem like it'd make for a novel though. So... scrap that; need a near future in which liberty somehow survives and the plot doesn't grow out of random disasters like meteor impacts.
Idea D: That Japan kitsune novel. Wrote a couple thousand words of it. Secretly Christian samurai travels to Hokkaido ca. 1700, discovers kitsune, then starts wreaking havoc on Japanese history just as there's a major earthquake, a weird dog-obsessed overlord, and the "47 Ronin" incident scheduled. Important to get the history roughly right. I'd surely get it partly wrong despite having done some research, and have little interest in blurring it into a Wutai, a Vaguely Japanese World.
I'd also like to go back to what I did in the first novel, in terms of focusing on an active protagonist whose actions drive the plot instead of just being a reaction to some bad guy's scheme. I don't know; fantasy seasteading using water magic? =p