Yesterday National Novel Writing Month 2019 came to an end and I completed the 50,000 words. It was a bit of an uphill battle at times but I did it and I am pleased with having done it. It didn’t quite go according to plan and I want to tell you about it. And I am doing this at the last minute – I have 39 minutes. (Yeah that really didn’t work out did it?)
One: My planned protagonist was not my protagonist.
I started off with a plan for a main character and her story. That character ended up hardly being in the story and she might not even be in the final draft.
Two: My actual protagonist turned out to be gay – but he is still closeted.
Sometimes your characters speak to you – it is weird when it happens because you don’t know where it comes from. My actual protagonist is Ian Foyle a lieutenant in the Royal Navy. Specifically an observer on a helicopter.
I just picked the name at random. I only needed to know about him in relation to his job. Now the story has a love interest. Some people swear by detailed character descriptions I prefer to just find out as I write. (To let the characters speak to me.) I will have to get a sensitivity reader when the time comes. The last thing I want to do is offend any one.
Three: My secondary main character lost his wife.
The other main character is Lieutenant Commander Andrew Hildebrand. (Tip for next year give character’s long names it helps boost the word count) – I was writing a scene between him and an elf. He was attracted to her and I kept thinking this was bad because it felt like he should have been married. I put in late wife and suddenly it clicked. His wife was gone and he was feeling guilty about feeling attracted to someone else.
Four: One of the fauns may be transgender.
So fauns are important to the story. I won’t say villain more like an antagonist – I didn’t want a villain as such.
My idea of the fauns was that they are matriarchal thus it is the males that have what we would consider a ‘female’ role. As such a faun ship’s captain should have been female – but I kept writing ‘he’.
So could this character be transgender? And if so how does that work in a world of magic?
…or
Is the faun a male pretending to be female to overcome prejedice in his society?
…or
Am I just a bad writer who can’t remember his own race backstory?
All in all it was a good month of writing. And now I can panic about Christmas. See you next week.
I just wanted to say that I have checked this post. I really have. Unfortunately my particular combination of dyslexia and dyspraxia makes it really hard for me to spot typos. Please enjoy and I’ll try not to make too many errors.
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