So, after all that planning...
...in the last week before NaNoWriMo a couple of totally new characters popped into my head. Don't even have names for them, but they're being very insistent that I tell their story. It's a fantasy piece (well, of course!) and the two main characters are an oversized human mercenary and an elf he inadvertently rescues after a mission he's on falls through. They form an unlikely friendship (unlikely because elves and humans are pretty much enemies - these are NOT Tolkien's elves) and eventually end up becoming a team and having some big adventure together that saves both the human and elven kingdoms from an evil mage/demon/whatever.
The closest I have to names for them yet is Muscles and Shadow.
Muscles is human (duh), an exceptionally tall and strong specimen thereof. Probably blondish-brown hair, green or brown eyes. Have I mentioned he's strong? Lots of muscles, surprisingly light on his feet for someone so big. He's a mercenary - did his time in the human army, enjoyed combat, bit of a recluse, happy to be hired for the occasional tough one-man job. On one such he succeeds in killing off an evil mage, and while searching the mage's tower for anything worth hauling off (the mage was evil and moderately powerful but not rich) he stumbles across...
Shadow, a half-dead elf. The condition he's in when Muscles stumbles over him, he thinks he *is* dead at first. Shadow has been beaten half to death and has a nasty wound across his throat, like its been cut. Muscles almost leaves him behind at first, figuring he'll be a corpse soon enough anyway... but he's at heart a nice guy and can't see leaving even his worst enemy to die like that. And has no personal beef with elves, and the elf might be worth a reward if he lives, so fine, he packs him out of there. Shadow is short by human standards, with pale skin with an almost suede-like texture to it, and a mane of black hair (literal mane - scalp on elves extends in a lengthy V from head right down to small of back), and blue-green-grey eyes (colour changes by mood and lighting conditions).
It's a lengthy journey back to civilization, the mage having killed Muscle's horse in the course of attempting to capture him, and Muscles is further slowed by having to carry the elf until he heals enough to begin walking on his own at least part of each day. Thankfully elves are extremely light - like birds, they have hollow bones.
They can't communicate much - Shadow has been rendered mute by the cut throat, and only knows a scant handful of human in the first place, and it takes him a while to get over his initial distrust of Muscles. By the time they reach Muscle's home there's at least a tentative friendship starting to form. By then winter is setting in, and they end up snowed in and wintering over at Muscle's home in the forest near a human outpost, which gives plenty of time for their friendship to deepen.
Adventures continue from there... the two become real friends, and eventually lovers (ooo hot homosexual man-elf sex!) and become a real team. And go off on adventure and save the world, of course, because what fantasy adventure is complete without a little world-saving...
So after a lot of waffling on which story to go with, I'm shelving Miffy & Chad and trying to combine my first few days of writing with some of the snowflake method - sketching out a rough plot for the new two, expanding it a couple of times, then using it as a framework to write the full story. At least Muscles and Shadow are being pretty talkative about ideas for specific scenes, like some of what they do over the winter and so forth.
Still going to be surprised if I manage the 50k this month though; my main worry is that Muscles and Shadow will peter out on me and I'll have to either give up, or fall back and restart with Miffy and Chad, depending on how far into the month things are Hopefully that's just me being pessimistic though!
The closest I have to names for them yet is Muscles and Shadow.
Muscles is human (duh), an exceptionally tall and strong specimen thereof. Probably blondish-brown hair, green or brown eyes. Have I mentioned he's strong? Lots of muscles, surprisingly light on his feet for someone so big. He's a mercenary - did his time in the human army, enjoyed combat, bit of a recluse, happy to be hired for the occasional tough one-man job. On one such he succeeds in killing off an evil mage, and while searching the mage's tower for anything worth hauling off (the mage was evil and moderately powerful but not rich) he stumbles across...
Shadow, a half-dead elf. The condition he's in when Muscles stumbles over him, he thinks he *is* dead at first. Shadow has been beaten half to death and has a nasty wound across his throat, like its been cut. Muscles almost leaves him behind at first, figuring he'll be a corpse soon enough anyway... but he's at heart a nice guy and can't see leaving even his worst enemy to die like that. And has no personal beef with elves, and the elf might be worth a reward if he lives, so fine, he packs him out of there. Shadow is short by human standards, with pale skin with an almost suede-like texture to it, and a mane of black hair (literal mane - scalp on elves extends in a lengthy V from head right down to small of back), and blue-green-grey eyes (colour changes by mood and lighting conditions).
It's a lengthy journey back to civilization, the mage having killed Muscle's horse in the course of attempting to capture him, and Muscles is further slowed by having to carry the elf until he heals enough to begin walking on his own at least part of each day. Thankfully elves are extremely light - like birds, they have hollow bones.
They can't communicate much - Shadow has been rendered mute by the cut throat, and only knows a scant handful of human in the first place, and it takes him a while to get over his initial distrust of Muscles. By the time they reach Muscle's home there's at least a tentative friendship starting to form. By then winter is setting in, and they end up snowed in and wintering over at Muscle's home in the forest near a human outpost, which gives plenty of time for their friendship to deepen.
Adventures continue from there... the two become real friends, and eventually lovers (ooo hot homosexual man-elf sex!) and become a real team. And go off on adventure and save the world, of course, because what fantasy adventure is complete without a little world-saving...
So after a lot of waffling on which story to go with, I'm shelving Miffy & Chad and trying to combine my first few days of writing with some of the snowflake method - sketching out a rough plot for the new two, expanding it a couple of times, then using it as a framework to write the full story. At least Muscles and Shadow are being pretty talkative about ideas for specific scenes, like some of what they do over the winter and so forth.
Still going to be surprised if I manage the 50k this month though; my main worry is that Muscles and Shadow will peter out on me and I'll have to either give up, or fall back and restart with Miffy and Chad, depending on how far into the month things are Hopefully that's just me being pessimistic though!