If you haven't heard by now I am participating in National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo. It is a month long challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in the space of 30 days. It's a highly popular event, with thousands of people participating. I've written books before, but I felt that adding a time limit to myself would increase the challenge, and, if I were to succeed, feel great! So far, I'm 21,000 words into my novel with 22 days to go, so I'm making excellent progress so far.
My story is based on a Dungeons and Dragons campaign I played with a group of four friends a few years ago. I was the Dungeon Master, and we played several long sessions over the course of many weeks. They are excited to have their characters novelized, and I'm excited to finally put the story to paper. So sure, I had most of the plot worked out, but since we played so long ago, I only remember general plot arcs and some specific scenes, so I still feel I am writing a novel mostly from scratch. I started off really strong by writing 5,000 words on the first day. I do a lot of writing on this blog, for my go books, and elsewhere, so sitting down and knocking out 5-7k words in one sitting has gotten markedly easier, even if I'm doing something entirely creative as opposed to a factual based analysis.
The name of my novel is "Dragonslayers: Hidden Worlds." When we first started playing Dungeons and Dragons, we called our little group the "Dragon slayers." It sort of turned into a running joke, so I wanted to keep that going. There are four heroes: Lorien the bard, Auron the paladin, Angel the thief, and Sleah the priest. Yes, it's your pretty standard DnD party and it works really well. The story starts off with letters to each of the heroes detailing some sort of crisis awaiting them on a far off island named "Arenfel." I usually like the trope of colonization because you can talk a lot about politics, as explore the themes of finding new lands and forging strange alliances. The four heroes journey to the island of Arenfel and uncover ancient secrets while becoming embroiled in a conspiracy that imperils the empire of Alterone.
Epic stuff eh? Well, I'm having too much fun, which means that the end product should come out nicely. It's nice when the characters are living, breathing people with their own thoughts and desires. Sometimes people ask me how I can write a story without much of an outline or a lot of planning. Stories are movies in my head. I don't tell my characters what to do or where to go, they tell me. They make their own plans, and it's usually my job to give them hurdles to leap over as the adventure continues. They reveal their personalities, and I can explore each character as a human being by putting them through different trials and tribulations. I think every great work of fiction is an exploration of the relationship between the writer and his/her characters.
Anyways, I'll keep you updated on my progress as I reach that 50,000 mark!
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, November 8, 2011
at 5:28 PM
. You can follow any responses to this entry through the
comments feed
.
