I am a pantser during NaNo. I may have general plans and markers I want to hit, but how I get there is very much dependent on me finding a path as I write. When I started this arc of Heaven's Rejects, I didn't have an endpoint immediately in mind, but current events of November 2018 and the months leading up to then made the decision easier. With LTV Paranomalists, written November 2016, I found myself questioning if I wanted to use a redcap as the villain of the part currently in progress. I didn't want to get that political in my writing. In 2018, that worry went out the window. The ghost of a Confederate officer using dark magic to screw over the North? I had nothing stopping me.
However, Iowa was never a battleground in the American Civil War. The state supplied food for the North. I had to figure out why a crazed Confederate officer would be sending ghouls out in Des Moines. The food supply became the answer; along with Sherman's March to the Sea. General William Tecumseh Sherman and his troops were determined to end the fighting by making examples of people who fought back, taking their food and livestock and burning their farms. Why wouldn't a Confederate officer try the same thing to hamper Union supply lines? The further an army gets from home, the harder it gets to maintain the delivery of required materiel, from guns and ammunition to food and drink. Cut off part of the supply chain and the army starves. There was my villain's motive.
From there, I just had to work out the details and how the ghouls came about. After that, my characters just had to figure out how to stop the ghouls. I also needed to work out how Team Six died. So many threads to pull together, though not as bad as the number of dangling plot ends near the end of The Devil You Know. The other piece I wanted to add is that guns aren't always the best solution. Ian could have kept shooting ghouls until he ran out of ammunition and they still would keep coming. The solution, the one Demona discovered and Nadia implemented, took the fight to another level. I did something similar with The Devil You Know and The Soul Blade. It makes for a more interesting story.
When I created my core cast, I hadn't planned on throwing in a Confederate villain. Nadia came about as I realized that I really don't have religious characters for the most part, and the idea of someone using a Star of David to focus faith and magic through in a way that normally involves a cross or crucifix, then failing to exorcise Demona. Throwing a Jewish woman from New York City against an officer of a breakaway state claiming to be Christian was not planned ahead of time. I accidentally added some layers there that I didn't realize until I was writing the paragraphs. Having set up Nadia with her use of casual Yiddish, inspired by the likes of Mel Brooks, her tossing in Yiddish words just helped with the gap between her and the officer.
Setting up the finale, I used a lot of numbers for the cops. Part of that was thanks to NaNo's word count; one number is one word, three numbers triples the count. I could also toss in the 404 error, this time, "Police officer not found." The supervisor's numbers were randomly generated. I don't even know if that's how Des Moines's police department runs things. It was needed, it worked, therefore, it stayed.
Friday, two out of three Rejects enjoy Vegas, in Heaven's Rejects Chapter 6.
Also Friday, over at Psycho Drive-In, Superman vs the Mole Men.
Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, The Phantom of the Opera (1943).
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