NaNo Prep 2013 - Decision Time

Last year, I didn't make a decision on what to write until October 31.  That may have contributed to the low word count (barely over 50k words) and losing interest halfway through the month.  This year, though, I think I have a good candidate.

A quick reminder of the candidates:
- the steampunk superhero
- the Threefold
- the Traveller story
- the urban fantasy spy thriller

The Traveller story will have some work to be done, figuring out the speed of news.  I also want to get at the idea sooner, turning the concept into a more serial approach.  I'm liking the idea of a serial right now, plus having the story on the web instead of in a book would allow for hotlinks for some setting and game concepts.

At the same time I placed the Traveller aside, Jack from the urban fantasy spy thriller started feeding me scenes.  At this point, I have the base plot, most of my main characters, a start on the spy, a few locations in mind, and extra complications besides the end of the world.  With five weeks to go, that should give me enough time to work out details and key events.

The Clockwork Avenger and the Threefold will be set aside for now, though I'll keep playing with both ideas for future use.  They both have potential, but neither really had a character come up and say, "You will write me."

NaNo Prep 2013 - More on the Threefold

Going back a bit, I introduced the Threefold, three young mages who get recruited to form a cell in a vast-ish network.  Holly Miles, Astrid Young, and Miriam Goldman must work through learning their abilities and their roles while fending off a rival magical group, headed by the rival of the Threefold's mentor, Teri Pulham.  Teri, meanwhile, has to figure out her young charges and keep them alive without interfering with their personal journeys.  The roles each cell in the network* is split into three: the Warrior, the Wizard, and the Priest; or Body, Mind, and Soul.

[This gets long and somewhat picture heavy.  More after the cut.]

NaNo Prep 2013 - The Threefold

As part of the lead up to NaNoWriMo, I'll be posting possible story ideas to expand before November.  This time, an idea I started playing with on the commute to work a few years ago.

The core idea is that three university students are recruited for their magical talent to defend the city against supernatural threats.  Each young woman represents a role, either Warrior, Priest, or Wizard.  The Warrior represents the Body, the physical.  The Priest is the Soul, the spiritual.  The Wizard, not surprisingly, is the Mind, the intellectual.  The young women are recruited by a mentor who acts as a link to other similar cells.

The mentor, Teri Pulham, was once in a similar cell as the Wizard of her trio. Something, currently undetermined, happened to the other two members, letting Teri move up as her mentor.  As part of her duties, Teri has to recruit, make sure that she has four full cells.

Cue Holly, Astrid, and Miriam.

The main characters, Holly Black, Astrid Young, and Miriam Goldman, get recruited as a cell.  Teri's approach is to let the new recruits figure out among themselves, though she has her own recommendations already in mind.  Teri thinks that the athletic Holly would be perfect as the Warrior, that the math major Astrid is ideal as the Wizard, that the devout Miriam should be the Priest.

Holly, Astrid, and Miriam have other ideas.  Working on their own, and to be shown in the story, they three of them wind up swapping roles, with the philosophical athiest Holly taking the Soul role, the out of shape but wargaming Astrid taking Body, and the common sense driven Miriam taking Mind.  Teri has no idea what's waiting for her.

The cell network came from the idea of "magical numbers".  While I don't put much into the idea in real life, in fiction, the numbers work.  The numbers 3, 5, 7, and 13 hold mystic power.  Thus, each cell has three members.  To coordinate with another cell, the mentor must bring the two groups together, for a total of seven magic people.  A serious threat that brings a mentor's full cell network together has thirteen people involved.  The cell network doesn't allow for a group of five to form naturally, though.

The lack of the group of five led me to the idea of the opposition for the story.  Teri's new cell runs up against Kimberly's group of five, which needs a proper name so I can refer to them at least in notes and in my head.  Kimberly still needs to be fleshed out a lot, though she does have a henchman, Melisande.  The Threefold are outnumbered, which means they need an edge to even the odds.  I'm hoping the swapping of the roles will help there.