24 Oct 2019

Heaven's Rejects - Commentary 11

A start of an overseas adventure, in Heaven's Rejects Chapter 11.

Tel Aviv, Israel, chosen because it counts as two words during NaNoWriMo, three if I include the country name.  The best city for that might be Ho Chi Minh City in Viet Nam, but the idea I had for this arc wound up going to the Mediterranean.

First, though, Episode 11 was the last full chapter written before I ran out of steam during NaNo 2018.  I broke past 50k words and kept going a little further, but between having to do the research I wanted and the sheer marathon NaNo is, I ran out of steam.  Heaven's Rejects gets added to the other unfinished serials as to-be-done-when-ideas-recharge.  NaNo is fulfilling, but exhausting.  I maintained a good average for the month, about 2000 words/day until I hit the wall.

The research I got into was all on mermaids.  I wanted to find out where the first mermaid legend was and got the Eastern Mediterranean, near Assyria.  A bit more research and I worked out the general plot.  The catch, though, is keeping the cast from figuring out what's happening too fast.  Fortunately, there are many reasons for people to go missing off the coast of Israel and neighbouring countries.  Demona's guess of a water bender causing waterspouts to pick up sharks comes from crossing Avatar: The Last Airbender and the Sharknado series, so she's not even close yet.

Turns out, Ian loves a good bad B-movie.  Demona just wanted to keep hip to what the kids who went to her library were watching.  Shakrnado is just cheesy and deliberately so.  It became a brief phenomenon and carried on from there.  Having a character watch it made sense.  It ties them into the real world just a little more.

Nadia's reputation precedes her.  She tends to leave a bit of a wake behind her.  There are a few places she's not allowed to go to anymore.  Israel isn't one of them, but the Section Chief is well aware of her proclivities.  He also keeps notes.  Lots of notes.  More notes than I do.

Next week, I'll add a commentary for the story overall.  Thanks you for reading and please feel free to comment on the parts, even if it has been months.

A breather tomorrow.
Also Friday, over at Psycho Drive-In, RWBY After the Fall.
Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, The Raven.

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