Over Analysing It

NaNo '09

26 Sep 2009 26 Comments

by Nikkiin writing Tags: nanowrimo 2009

I am the most indecisive person ever when it comes to writing.

Seriously.

I mean, look at how many comics I want to do RIGHT NOW (and, conversely, look at how many I am doing) and the picture is pretty clear that I have more ideas and stories to tell than I have time.  Ironically, I could probably tell them all without difficulties if I could just focus on one idea at a time.

Maybe I should start making  a list and then prioritise the stories I want to tell.  Clearly my current system of working on whatever I want whenever I want isn’t working for me.  Actually, yeah, I think I am going to do that.

Number one priority?  NaNo ’09.  Why?  Well, I have a month to write up an outline and the crunch is beginning to get to me – especially since I decided to change my mind on what I wanted to write about.

Yeah.

I told you I did that a lot.

Original plan:  Write up some backstory for Alexander and Tawny and a bit of Liam and Renée’s.  Tawny and Renée are minor characters in the story-with-Cae-set-in-the-Caeverse, though Renée has her own story set in the Caeverse and Tawny’s is, obviously, tied to Alexander’s.

Alexander is Caelan’s partner, by the way.  And Liam is her love interest as well as Alexander’s older brother.

But, then, a couple of days ago I was struck with inspiration and, goddammit, I was going to write something else as my NaNo novel.  It was going to be a fantasy satire and be as ridiculous as possible.

Long story short?  I’m going to write about five people (and a sixth, who was a mistake) who were dragged into a fantasy world to Fulfill Their Destinies.  How were the chosen?  Well, they were in line at till ten on October tenth at ten AM in the year 2010, of course.

The sixth character pulled through was the cashier.  She was fascinated by the black hole that dragged the customers through (especially since it wasn’t actually behaving like a proper black hole) and accidentally got too close to the event horizon.  I’m thinking about naming her Kathryn (or some other spelling of the name) after Kathryn Janeway.  They’re both physicists, you see.  Even though I’m none too fond of the spelling Kathryn.

Of course, following that logic, I decided to sorta base the physical appearance of all of my main characters off of actors – Kate Mulgrew, obviously, for the physicist, Rufus Sewell for the sci-fi nerd, Christopher Judge for the football player, Allison Scagliotti for the angsty teen and Amanda Tapping for the single mother.  It’s all entirely arbitrary and I’m not even sure why I’m writing this way – I have never based the physical appearances of my characters off of an actor before.

Oh well.  It’s not like I’m going to describe the sci-fi nerd as ‘the guy who looks like Rufus’ in the text after all.  Besides, I prefer vague descriptions – Katryn (hmmm, that was a typo but maybe I will call her Katryn) would be described as a short redhead with blue grey eyes.  Incidentally, that can also be a description for the lovely Dana Scully.  And Scully’s B.Sc. is in physics.  AND her middle name is Katherine.  Oh ho I can put in even more references to things!

Enough about the characters – I wanna talk about plot now.

Not that I really have a plot.  Basically, it boils down to them being dragged through the not-quite-a black hole, suffering through a pretentious and ridiculous ceremony in which the all get assigned arbitrary roles that do not suit them (the teenager, Cassandra I think, is declared the leader and the sci fi geek the warrior) and other such nonsense.  Then they have to travel to the Mount Doom parody on foot (despite the fact that there is far more efficient ways of travelling, but the prophecy was written 1000 years ago and it Must Be Followed) and run into a vampire elf ,whom Cassandra falls in love with, along the way.  Katryn and the sci fi geek snark and fight with each other, the single mom dotes on the football player and the old drunk guy disappears entirely.

Eventually, when they do get to Mount Doom (seriously, what is up with that name?  It is so lame it hurts), they determine that the Ultimate Evil has been dead for, oh, 970 odd years and the drunk guy shows up again, trips over a switch and turns off the mechanism that makes the volcano spew smoke and gases.

And, thus, the world is saved and the Heroes Return To Earth… along with the elven vampire.

Do you know what I need?

A map.

All good high fantasy novels need maps so clearly I need one to.

On that note… goodnight.

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