November, 2018 NaNoWriMo

Sparrow

Hestia of the Hearth
Who else is going to attempt National Novel Writing Month?
I keep tilting at the windmill...

https://nanowrimo.org

50,000 words, 30 days, a ridiculous stretch for glory...

My user name is GazeboGal
 
IT'S HAPPENING!!!

Team Writers?? Corey Olsen has given us a Title and a Synopsis, and it's up to us to write a cooperative Mythgard Novel!

Our NaNoWriMo user name is "Mythgard", password = keyboardofdoom, and we have absolutely read the terms and conditions of the NaNoWriMo site. https://nanowrimo.org/terms

Our Google Document is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u05nZgt88NrqYOrui2_A6LUL0H6zvlLLdQJmhBk_-FM/edit?usp=sharing

And here's what The Tolkien Professor asked for: "Okay! The title is “The Hoard.” Concept: two parallel plots with 12-year-old protagonists. One is a boy in the 14th Century and one a girl in the 21st century (both in England, East Midlands). Both of them discover by chance an old burial mound (the same mound) containing treasure from ancient England. Both find there is some magic about it, and some unfulfilled task that needs to be performed. A curse has been laid upon the hoard, of course, and they can only avoid its effects if they a) keep it secret and b) fulfill the task. What form the curse will take is unclear. I think the curse is to become a dragon guarding the horde. The medieval boy slays the dragon thinking he has accomplished the task and won the hoard, but he ends up taking its place. The modern girl faces the dragon in the end. I’ve no idea how it ends. The stories should proceed in parallel, so the climactic dragon encounters happen almost together, and there is a late and horrible recognition by the reader that the girl’s dragon is actually the medieval boy. Pity is somehow involved in the ending, and I’d like both characters to be redeemed, though I can’t see how the dragon/boy can survive."
 
Suggestion for Ending:

The girl faces the dragon (which is indeed the boy). As the dragon he is consumed by the spell and unable to reason even though he may be able to speak (might be an interesting conversation). She takes pity on him and herself in that moment of confrontation; she no longer wishes to kill the dragon nor does she want to become it. She either binds him or distracts him long enough for the hoard to be dispersed (Bombadil and the Barrow Wights). When there is no more hoard the curse is broken and the boy is released from the spell. He may well still have to die still because….well he’d be kinda old. However, he would at least have found peace in being released from the spell and not having someone else burdened with the curse that he’s lived under.
 
May I suggest that the curse is triggered due to a removal of an item from the hoard. The boy tells a friend about the hoard but is betrayed by a friend Doing so triggers the curse and since the boy is unable to return the item to the hoard, he becomes the dragon. The girl receives the item as a gift/ heirloom and holds special meaning to her so she would be reluctant to give it up but must to break the curse. Upon breaking the curse, the dragon reverts to a boy, but upon leaving the burial mind the boy vanishes. Upon returning home, she meets a new boy who looks like the “boy” and perhaps wears an item that has a connection to the dragon.
 
It might be problematic to have the boy betrayed by a friend--though I love the extension of the Beowulf allusion. The two character arcs should run in parallel and being betrayed by a friend is terrible but it seems less about personal choices than having trusted the wrong person and being punished for their actions, and I think it would be more difficult to arrive at the girl and boy's redemption through pity that way. Simply forgiving a friend, while difficult and mature in nature, seems like it would only be a catalyst to greater self -awareness (not being responsible for other's choices) and growth not an end point that leads us to pity. Unless of course both characters are trying to be responsible for everyone else's choices then you might get to some version of : it's not all about you, or you're not alone, or you don't have to try to save everyone. Even if the friend's betrayal isn't the reason for the curse, I'd love to see it or some theft of the hoard woven in.
 
This all sounds like fun. How do we organize? Is this a matter of take a plot, write a chapter each, or collaborate on every chapter, or...??

Totally way too ambitious and beyond my ability and level of knowledge: the chapters from the boy’s perspective are the boy’s diary written in Middle English. The girl has or discovers this diary (?somehow????) and must decipher it in order to successfully redeem the entire situation...
 
"the chapters from the boy’s perspective are the boy’s diary written in Middle English. The girl has or discovers this diary (?somehow????) and must decipher it in order to successfully redeem the entire situation..."

You. Are Brilliant!!! Let's do it! If The Girl is some kind of homeschooled Signum University junkie, we can be reading her translations of his diary, yes? And find the places where she stumbled over what some things mean...

I think that the organization will depend on how many willing hands we have. Inside my head (right?) we'd collaborate on the purpose of each chapter and folks would have a specialty like "the Boy's dialogue and home life" "scenery" ... but that's only in my head.
 
I've "won" NaNoWriMo a few times in the past. I don't have time to write an entire novel this year but I would love to work on a collaborative project.
 
HOW ABOUT - the diary *is* the treasure that the boy touches/takes because he wants to be literate? And the girl somehow has access to this really old diary/writing thing? Does that make *any* sense??
 
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So the boy finds the hoard, sees a book in it (which inflames his desire to become literate) and takes it, (then unclear something something quest something diary something plot thickens something,) resulting in him eventually slaying the dragon, but he finds that the book, not being back in the hoard when he slays the dragon, prevents the quest from being completed? Thus he becomes the dragon.

In order for the girl to be deciphering all this, the boy must have written of it in the diary - before becoming the dragon?

Is the diary magical or sentient or is it an ordinary book? Is the entire hoard made up of ancient books? What if the boy doesn’t steal the book outright, but somehow gets the original dragon to lend him the book upon promise to return it after a fortnight, not realizing that the curses that librarians the universe over mutter under their breath when books are late or ne’er returned will manifest in force and turn him into a dragon himself, forever doomed to be missing part of his library, if he fails to return the book timely? *tongue slightly in cheek*
 
So the boy finds the hoard, sees a book in it (which inflames his desire to become literate) and takes it, (then unclear something something quest something diary something plot thickens something,) resulting in him eventually slaying the dragon, but he finds that the book, not being back in the hoard when he slays the dragon, prevents the quest from being completed? Thus he becomes the dragon.

In order for the girl to be deciphering all this, the boy must have written of it in the diary - before becoming the dragon?

Is the diary magical or sentient or is it an ordinary book? Is the entire hoard made up of ancient books? What if the boy doesn’t steal the book outright, but somehow gets the original dragon to lend him the book upon promise to return it after a fortnight, not realizing that the curses that librarians the universe over mutter under their breath when books are late or ne’er returned will manifest in force and turn him into a dragon himself, forever doomed to be missing part of his library, if he fails to return the book timely? *tongue slightly in cheek*

You are a genius!
Come on, folks, let's populate that document with pretty, pretty words!
So far I am writing spurious titles of chapters - Please pick one and go? Please pick your specialty plot-thread and go?

Also, would somoene like to create and upload a cover art?
 
OK, I have got bookmark links from our opening planning table of contents to the start of Chapters, that should allow us to continue to plan in an outliney sort of way in the table of contents and then hop to sections we'd like to write -

We're over 1,400 words already, including our robust table of contents with planning :)
 
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Cool ideas! I wrote about a page of the boy's story, with many questions occurring as I went. I cheerfully ignored them at the time, but it would be helpful to hear what people think-- [Should it be autumn? realizing I need to look up East Midlands settings... A name for the village? And the monastery? About how often should the perspectives shift back and forth?]

Oh, and should the girl have a cat?
 
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Excellent!
This is what is always comes down to, doesn't it - should there be a cat?

Monastery of St. Aethelburt YET! I see you already have Felicity in there. How about Aethelburt's monastery and Felicity's chapel were so close to one another that by the 14th century, folks called each of those things by either name.
 
We have passed 6,000 words!

Please sign in to our account - details at the head of the thread - to upload a cover or to read the NaNo Mail, such as a pep talk from Andy Weir!

We definitely need a cover. My dogs say that the cover should feature the dog...
 
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