Watch the Footage

Okay, so, NaNoWriMo is coming up, and I have a proposition for you all.

For those who weren’t here last time and may not know, NaNoWriMo is the National Novel Writing Month, wherein participants have one month (November) to create a novel at least 50,000 words in length. That’s about two thirds of the first Harry Potter book. To a newcomer, such a number can be daunting, and one of the trickiest parts is, for me anyway, coming up with the initial story.

And then I realised: I have an initial story sitting right here.

So, my idea is this: we enter NaNoWriMo utilising our FC characters and their back stories: tell us what happened to them before they arrived in the Floating Castle. What mysteries and interactions led them to that point? Who did they know? What challenged them? I imagine the story should not strictly HAVE to be about your current FC player. It can be about the characters in their past, too. If I were to write a back story for Tamar, for example, the odds are he would be a relevant side character rather than the main protagonist, because younger!Tamar just doesn’t fit the mould of hero.

There would obviously also be certain requirements that can’t be broken if you want to stick within the rules of the FC Universe: we must ask our lovely GMs for specifics about that. Or maybe you won’t. Maybe your story will spiral off into a completely different direction. Either way, I think our FC characters would make a great starting point for a series of Nano novels.

So, what do you guys think? Anybody interested in joining me in this endeavour?

Sounds like a neat idea.

I'm not sure what part I could play though.

Butch has yet to even go to the Floating Castle yet.

Though I could think up something for his past

JRPictures wrote:Sounds like a neat idea.

I'm not sure what part I could play though.

Butch has yet to even go to the Floating Castle yet.

Though I could think up something for his past

That makes it even easier for you. This will be harder, obviously, for the people who have already written a lot of backstory and still choose to use their main FC Player character for this. Unless they cheat Cheating is an option, I don't think anyone on the NaNoWriMo committee frowns too badly on, mild cheats.

Try not to think of it as 'thinking up something' so much as... just telling the story the character has.

I think I'll pass on this. There's only so much backstory an amnesiac psychogirl can have before it gets dull and besides, I've got a little project just in its first 10k that I intend to push to 60k through NaNo. But I'd be interested to see what you guys can come up with.

Scarab wrote:

JRPictures wrote:Sounds like a neat idea.

I'm not sure what part I could play though.

Butch has yet to even go to the Floating Castle yet.

Though I could think up something for his past

That makes it even easier for you. This will be harder, obviously, for the people who have already written a lot of backstory and still choose to use their main FC Player character for this. Unless they cheat Cheating is an option, I don't think anyone on the NaNoWriMo committee frowns too badly on, mild cheats.

Try not to think of it as 'thinking up something' so much as... just telling the story the character has.

What I mean is that I only have a minor idea of Butch's past and backstory so "thinking up something" is more of the fact that I haven't fully realized his backstory yet.

Regardless, hearing all this makes me a little excited about it

I can't do this because...

All of Floating Castle is just a sidestory from the perspective of Ben, who's been my MC for the past two NaNos and will be for two more. Not backstory. Her story. (God willing, she'll let her damn story end after that. It was supposed to be one book. Then one. Then four. Now five?)

On my end it's most likely that I won't take on NaNo this year at all.

o.o

I.... o.o

Uhm... *flees from NaNo*

:/ I really want to try, but school, work and school projects around November... taking on NaNoWriMo would probably cut those 6 hours of sleep I'm getting right now.

I'm highly tempted to throw the PTA's backstory in as an entry, but I'd need to collaborate with Narradilly on that one, since it involves Giselle, and I was actually already thinking of joining Nanowrimo this year with the novel that my short story, Daybreak, which some of you may have read, was a sort of pilot to.

It's an interesting idea, but I don't think I'd actually do this... for one thing, Giselle's backstory isn't actually that interesting, and for another, if I'm doing NaNoWriMo (I'm not sure if I'll do it this year or not... I did it for a few years in a row, then skipped last year) I want to work on something that I feel I can be more free-form with.

I'm actually thinking of writing the story Defective was based on, but I might end up contributing a few pages' worth of story detailing the Fountain of Light and other stuff.

.....I...I'm already doing that, and I'd need to co-op with Vic!

Krika wrote:.....I...I'm already doing that, and I'd need to co-op with Vic!

I could write some of my character's backstory, or rather, a character of his past's backstory, but eventually it'd reach a part where I need Krika.

... Although... If I do it correctly I can just shift to Morionem's perspective towards the end, I think. Idk, I could try...

...and now I've actually thought of something to contribute for this particular collection. ^_^ Are we still doing this, btw?

You know, we could totally do that bar brawl idea and do a collective NaNo, try and get that up to 50k words.

Of course, it wouldn't just be the bar brawl, oh no. It'd start out as the brawl, but then expand outward to chronicle the Hangover-style shenanigans going on as the drunken people leave the bar and take the city by storm, and draw the non-drunk people into the hijinks that ensue.

That would also be hilarious. Maybe we could separate things into acts and have one section for backstory stuff and another for shenanigans after they've hit the castle?

Sounds a cool idea. Some of us are already doing our own nanos but as a collective group I'm sure we could handle one more...

Krika wrote:You know, we could totally do that bar brawl idea and do a collective NaNo, try and get that up to 50k words.

Of course, it wouldn't just be the bar brawl, oh no. It'd start out as the brawl, but then expand outward to chronicle the Hangover-style shenanigans going on as the drunken people leave the bar and take the city by storm, and draw the non-drunk people into the hijinks that ensue.

Endless Sea wrote:That would also be hilarious. Maybe we could separate things into acts and have one section for backstory stuff and another for shenanigans after they've hit the castle?

I'm now picturing the aftermatch of the brawl as a mix of the Hangover movies and The Two Deaths of Quincas Wateryell.