Writing Sya

Updates

9.30.2005

I am no closer to choosing what plot I'll eventually work on. Maybe I will end up doing something completely different but more likely, I'll end up using bits of each plot and tweaking it until it is something much stranger.

Yesterday, I checked out a book about rice festivals and superstitions in Asia and read about shape shifters on Wikipedia. Perhaps some of those elements might be of use in about a month's time.

[ posted by sya on 3:27 PM : ]

9.23.2005

This is terrible.

I've got three (that's right, three!) plot ideas and I'm not sure which one I should choose to do in November. No, I'm not going to spill any of the plots here--I want whichever one I do eventually pick to be a surprise for anyone who wants to follow my Nano efforts--but I do want to talk vaguely about them which might make it easier for me to decide.

*The Fantasy Plot. A.K.A. the delayed coming-of-age, finding oneself plot. The great thing about this idea is that it's in a totally different world where I can just literally make stuff up as I go along. The bad thing is: I have to make stuff up. This will require lots of worldbuilding and working out major logical inconsistencies before I even start.

*The Action Plot. A.K.A. the supernatural with kick-ass characters plot. It will also be dark and angsty and depressing. I'm not sure I want to go through November depressed. But there will be weird characters and suspense. Secret societies and superstition on ice.

*The Comedy/Horror Plot. A.K.A. the fantasy in the suburbs plot. But I'm not sure if I can keep a humorous tone throughout the month either. There will be a haunted house (or two), neighborhood BBQs, magic, desperate housewives, and probably some pinball machines.

There's also the scope that I have to factor in. The Fantasy Plot will take place across an entire region the basically encompasses a couple countries. The Action Plot will mostly take place in a city. And the Comedy/Horror Plot will be on a single street. I could go the easy way and scrape all of this and come up with a brand new plot. But that would just be more work....

[ posted by sya on 12:08 PM : ]

9.15.2005

Well, National Novel Writing Month is gearing up again. And why do I say that? Because e-mails and comments are starting to trickle in to my inbox. I've got some ideas for this year's project but I haven't started really planning. I suppose the problem I have right now is genre. Do I want to have a modern setting with some fantastical elements as the previous year or do I want to go the whole hog and do a straight fantasy? (Or sci-fi for that matter?)

I'm also contemplating on putting up a summary page for the previous Nano novels I have--just so anyone who wants to know what they're supposed to be about can get the gist of it in thirty seconds instead of wasting time reading the whole thing for no reason at all. (Yeah, yeah, I'm nice that way.) You know, like a blurb kind of thing--the stuff you find at the backs or flaps of books.