Nov 6, 2010

NaNoWriMo Death = Words


Day 6 of NaNoWriMo and the plot thickens - or does it?

I went into this NaNo novel with a vague plot idea and premise, I'd have a palaeontologist with a mystical gift of seeing how a creature died when she touches its remains. All fine and good until she comes across a human body, that everyone else thinks died in an accident. She can't say she 'saw' the murder without sounding like a loon, so she'll have to prove it before becoming the next victim.

First few days went great. I knew where to start - in the action. I start with an explosion and my protagonist finding a body (okay, if you've read my posts you'll know I actually started with two characters discussing the weather for three pages, but I got there eventually). Great, Dusty now has to find some evidence to prove the victim's death was the result of foul-play. Then she got a little distracted by a handsome Italian volunteer and, well, let's just say the novel jumped an age audience.

So now what? I wasn't sure. I decided to let Dusty work it out and I just followed her around and wrote her choices. At first she was lame and hid in her tent. But eventually she started suspecting people and making a few bad choices allowing the killer free time to go... kill. I now have two dead bodies and two missing girls. I've added some flooded roads to stop anyone else from getting in or out of our site (plus, of course, someone tampered with the radio, so there's no contact out).

The body count has given me more things to write about, suspicions, theories, grief, fear, etc. So if you get stuck do you think you'll bump someone off? Or maybe throw in a romantic Italian guy?

I've got the family away this weekend, so, I'm trying to bump up my word count after missing a whole day yesterday (I'm a little snowed under planning these new French classes for my students - and trying to learn French to stay one lesson ahead of them). How's your NaNo going?

NaNo on!

6 comments:

  1. I'm liking the sound of your story! Mine is nowhere near as plotted as that...all I have is a (more or less chronologically ordered) collection of scenes and a VERY vague idea of where I'm going. The "guide" figure in my (fairly quest-y) story has now decided he wants a bigger role, I have an elf who loves paint-stripping moonshine and wears colourful scarves, and my MC can't stop thinking about his wife. Like, ALL the TIME!

    Fool.

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  2. Sounds like a plot a reader can get into! I've been furiously working but I'm taking this weekend off, to relax and regroup, luckily I'm not trying for 50,000 since it is a book for kids.

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  3. The plot does thicken. I love reading how you're developing this.

    Good luck with the French lessons. I can't believe your courage. I got my bachelor's degree in French education. But that was about 104 years ago, and I've fogotten it all, so I can't help you.

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  4. My first week of NaNo 2010 ended well, in that my story is finally starting to come into focus.

    I wish I knew more romantic Italian guys...

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  5. Oh, I like the sound of it, Charmaine. I'm already hooked! :-)

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  6. I'm trying to take weekends off from NaNo so I had to work hard on the word count as well. Coming along though.
    I like your story so far.

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