Because you can never have too many puns
So I've totally unraveled a few key thoughts on my NaNoWriMo novel for this year, mostly by making shit up. Here it is, copies straight from the forums there:
Keep in mind, I just hashed most of this out on the walk home.
Novel Title: No clue
Estimated length: At least 50,000, duh.
Your writing experience: Two-time NaNo winner, long-time fanfic writer. [N.B.: My Excel database o' fanfics puts my total output over three years at about 280,000 words. Hot diggity!]
Fantasy: About all I ever write, really.
Other genres of your novel: Scifi. Western. Comedy. Possibly baseball.
Gonna publish?: No one in their right mind would publish this thing.
Cliches/archetypes you're including: Poncy elves. Bearded dwarves. Ansibles. Weapons with ancient histories and goofy names.
Cliches/archetypes you're avoiding: Medieval setting. Plot. Coherence.
Theme(s): Quantity over quality.
What we (the readers) will learn: Friends don't let friends NaNo.
Main character(s): Kacey Missouri, a small genius named Wish, an semi-retired professional hero who still needs a name and a being of dubious gender and species named Hapax Legomenon.
Secondary characters: At the moment, a mystic cowgirl called Ezkor Annie, interplanetary music sensation Johnny Suitcase and an amoral celebrity executive named Gloria Mundi. And a thousand elephants!
Protagonist(s): Kacey.
Antagonist(s): Gloria, space vampires, and the Elvish Mafia
Setting: Our solar system, next month A.D.
Rough geography: I'm kind of rippping off some of the old, wrong classic sci-fi ideas about the solar system: so Mars gets canals, Venus is a creepy jungle planet, there's Nazis on the Moon, etc.
Races/inhabitants: Humans, elves, dwarves, the odd dragons, space vampires.
Fantasy aspects: Um...the elves, dwarves, occasional dragon...
Conflict: The Elvish Mafia and Gloria v. the unnamed hero guy over posession of Wish and Hapax.
Obstacles in the journey: Space vampires. Gloria. Possibly some werewolves, moon Nazis or belligerant baseball players.
Expected resolution: I assume I'll figure that part out when I get there.
Summary of plot: Kacey works for the to-be-named hero part-time for the summer. He gets hired by Mysterious Forces to escort Wish on an interplanetary journey, so he drags Kacey along to babysit because he's grumpy like that. Wish talks incessantly about his imaginary friend Hapax, who scares the crap out of everyone involved by being real. Unfortunately, the little band is being stalked by the Elvish Mafia, who believe that Hapax may be one of the Unfallen--a mythical race free from original sin. And Gloria Mundi, CEO of SIC Transit, thinks Wish's enormous brain is the way to win the war against the space vampires. And, um, stuff. A thousand elephants!
It's either that, or the first book of a complex trilogy involving evil monotheists and a bunch of Anglo-Saxon wanna-bes. Which one would you rather write?
Keep in mind, I just hashed most of this out on the walk home.
Novel Title: No clue
Estimated length: At least 50,000, duh.
Your writing experience: Two-time NaNo winner, long-time fanfic writer. [N.B.: My Excel database o' fanfics puts my total output over three years at about 280,000 words. Hot diggity!]
Fantasy: About all I ever write, really.
Other genres of your novel: Scifi. Western. Comedy. Possibly baseball.
Gonna publish?: No one in their right mind would publish this thing.
Cliches/archetypes you're including: Poncy elves. Bearded dwarves. Ansibles. Weapons with ancient histories and goofy names.
Cliches/archetypes you're avoiding: Medieval setting. Plot. Coherence.
Theme(s): Quantity over quality.
What we (the readers) will learn: Friends don't let friends NaNo.
Main character(s): Kacey Missouri, a small genius named Wish, an semi-retired professional hero who still needs a name and a being of dubious gender and species named Hapax Legomenon.
Secondary characters: At the moment, a mystic cowgirl called Ezkor Annie, interplanetary music sensation Johnny Suitcase and an amoral celebrity executive named Gloria Mundi. And a thousand elephants!
Protagonist(s): Kacey.
Antagonist(s): Gloria, space vampires, and the Elvish Mafia
Setting: Our solar system, next month A.D.
Rough geography: I'm kind of rippping off some of the old, wrong classic sci-fi ideas about the solar system: so Mars gets canals, Venus is a creepy jungle planet, there's Nazis on the Moon, etc.
Races/inhabitants: Humans, elves, dwarves, the odd dragons, space vampires.
Fantasy aspects: Um...the elves, dwarves, occasional dragon...
Conflict: The Elvish Mafia and Gloria v. the unnamed hero guy over posession of Wish and Hapax.
Obstacles in the journey: Space vampires. Gloria. Possibly some werewolves, moon Nazis or belligerant baseball players.
Expected resolution: I assume I'll figure that part out when I get there.
Summary of plot: Kacey works for the to-be-named hero part-time for the summer. He gets hired by Mysterious Forces to escort Wish on an interplanetary journey, so he drags Kacey along to babysit because he's grumpy like that. Wish talks incessantly about his imaginary friend Hapax, who scares the crap out of everyone involved by being real. Unfortunately, the little band is being stalked by the Elvish Mafia, who believe that Hapax may be one of the Unfallen--a mythical race free from original sin. And Gloria Mundi, CEO of SIC Transit, thinks Wish's enormous brain is the way to win the war against the space vampires. And, um, stuff. A thousand elephants!
It's either that, or the first book of a complex trilogy involving evil monotheists and a bunch of Anglo-Saxon wanna-bes. Which one would you rather write?