NaNo Update Week 1
I’ve written just over 19,000 words and have six chapters done.
This novel, for whatever reason, is proving hella easy to write. The characters are talking to me, the setting is coming together, the plot is all there.
I think this is due in part because compared to the setting and many-layered plot of Casimir Hypogean, Chwedl is a simple creature when it comes down to it. Instead of having to bring together a city-wide conspiracy and a hodgepodge group of misfits and criminals in a quasi-scientific setting that also has some magic with very subtle rules, I only have three main protagonists and bringing them together and figuring out the motivations is blissfully simple. There is no villain to build up and motivate, no betrayals to figure out how to realistically manufacture, no complex setting built from whole cloth.
Chwedl starts at point A and goes to point B. The villain, such as she is, isn’t really evil or much of a villain. She’s selfish, sure, and just kind of cruel in a way that is Other. The struggles are mostly between personalities. No gunfights, no highrise escapes, no twisted sex or weird drug addiction. Just good old Welsh-esque fairytale fun. (Okay, it is one of my stories, so there is of course blood, death, and some very implied sex). I don’t think anyone gets murdered in this story, however. That’s probably a first for me.
I’ve already added to and moved away from my original outline. I see outlines as being much like the Pirate Code. They’re more like guidelines really, not set in stone “this is how the story will unfold no matter what damnit” sort of things. I add and destroy and fix as needed, though I try to keep some version of an outline current so that if I have the rare brilliant idea about where the later story bits are going I can refer to it later.
Stay tuned for week 2 in which I’ll probably ramble about the challenges of the great swampy middle and writing a plausible romantic thread into a story.