Ink-Stained Scribe

How I Wrote a 35-Word Pitch

My cheap-o self-made cover
I follow a pair of blogs that have both recently hosted 35 word pitch contests (YAtopia and Brenda Drake Writes). I entered both contests with different works and got requests on both, and perhaps the most useful facet of the contest was learning to whittle my pitch down to the most important aspects of the story. Doing that forced me not only to think critically about the writing itself, but also find the moment in my story that defines the main character's critical choice.
A side-effect of focusing the conflict was that I realized, for my novel-length work, that the story needs to shift closer to the end, putting that moment of critical choice dead-center, with the inciting event of the story nearer to the one-quarter mark.
Crystallizing an entire novel is hard, because you need character, motivation, setting, conflict, stakes, and voice. In this post, I'm going to show you how I got my pitch for The Mark of Flight down to 35 words.

The blurb that follows is what I've used in my query letter, and what you'll find on the Mark of Flight page above.
The council’s preference for her tractable cousin is Princess Arianna’s biggest worry until her most trusted companion, Markmaster Tashda, kidnaps her to rekindle the centuries-long war with the neighboring kingdom, Centoren. In a fight for her liberty and the preservation of her homeland, Arianna is willing to sacrifice almost anything, but she can't escape an elite squadron of Centoreinian soldiers on her own.
A backwoods Mage and a stuttering stable boy, however, are the last champions she would have asked for. Bay is an Innate Mage who can escape neither the impulse to heal the ravaged borderlands nor the haunting absence of the master who taught him more Magic than anyone else seems to know. Even worse is Shiro, a slave illegally owned by the same inn harboring Tashda’s men. Horrified at the thought of slavery in her kingdom, Arianna swears to stop the unlawful trade if she can ever get home, and promises Shiro will never suffer chains again. Then one of Tashda’s men catches up to them, and the glittering shield that bursts from Shiro’s hand shocks even him with the impossible: the slave is a Markmaster.
Bay departs to lead Tashda astray and Shiro, unable to explain how he got a Mark, refuses to accept his power. Arianna hopes that returning to the castle will solve their problems, but when Shiro is captured protecting her from slave-traders, she faces a choice: break her promise to Shiro and rush home to prepare her kingdom for war, or risk her life to free the Markmaster-slave who gave up everything to save her.
Kind of long, right? At 263 words, this blurb is pushing it even for a query letter. However, we can see all the elements of story I listed above.

 Character: Princess Arianna


Motivation: liberty and preservation of her homeland


Setting: Rizellen (which, by the fact that she's a princess, we can assume is both feudal and medieval)


Conflict: she has to choose between warning her homeland of approaching war and breaking her promise to Shiro


Stakes: war for her kingdom if she fails to warn them, and life as a slave for Shiro if she fails to rescue him. On both ends, her personal failure to protect what she cares about is evident.


Voice: words like "suffer" "rush" "backwoods" "champion" "ravaged" and "rekindle" hint at the diction of a high fantasy.

 The first step was to identify the moment that encapsulates my character's most pivotal choice--the moment she gets off her lazy arse and makes the decision to start DOING something about the situation I stuck her in. For THE MARK OF FLIGHT, that was the moment where Arianna makes her choice between going home to warn her country about Tashda's plans, or rescuing Shiro from slave-traders.

 With that in mind, I yanked the final lines from my blurb:
when Shiro is captured protecting her from slave-traders, she faces a choice: break her promise to Shiro and rush home to prepare her kingdom for war, or risk her life to free the Markmaster-slave who gave up everything to save her
By itself, that line is 41 words - already over my limit - so I needed to trim down. Shiro being captured by slave-traders can sort of be implied in the last line: "free the Markmaster-slave". It's probably not necessary to know that he needs to be freed from slavery for a second time. So I end up with this:
(Arianna) faces a choice: break her promise to Shiro and rush home to prepare her kingdom for war, or risk her life to free the Markmaster-slave who gave up everything to save her
Now we're talking. At 33 words, I was finally under the limit. But it wasn't ready yet. I knew I'd have to introduce the main character, the setting, and the general predicament she's in before that choice would matter to anyone.

 So we would obviously need to know Arianna's name, the fact that she's a princess, and the fact that she's been kidnapped; "Kidnapped Princess Arianna" covers that in three words, but doesn't really set up the action well. So I decided to use the inciting incident (her kidnapping) as a springboard. "When Princess Arianna of Rizellen is kidnapped..."

 But then what? What happens? What are the stakes of that? Easy: war. I loved the word "rekindle" from the original query, so I changed it around a bit to show the stakes of the original situation: "When Princess Arianna's kidnapping threatens to rekindle war..."

 Now her choice is properly set up, so I trimmed down the verbage at the end and came up with:
When Princess Arianna’s kidnapping threatens to rekindle war, she must choose between warning her kingdom of the enemy’s approach or risking her life to help the slave who gave his freedom to rescue her.
34 words! Awesome. But I still wasn't done yet.


If beta readers are critical for your book, they're even more critical for your query, and even more important for your pitch. You want to present it to them and see what works, what's understandable, what isn't understandable, and what might be confusing. Also, beta readers will be able to give you quick tips on things like diction and voice.

 I copied my pitch and pasted it into my status on facebook, and asked my friends to critique it.

 The first thing to go was the "must choose between ...ing and ...ing". That construction was weak, and got replaced with "must choose: warn ...risk..."
When Princess Arianna’s kidnapping threatens to rekindlewar, she must make a choice: warn her kingdom of the enemy’s approach or riskher life to help the slave who gave his freedom to rescue her.
Exactly 35 words, and much stronger. Then another friend suggested I use  the word "sacrifice" instead of "gave", which is a much better word-choice, and I decided I liked "faces a difficult choice" better than "must make a choice". In the end, I came up with:
When Princess Arianna's kidnapping threatens to rekindle war, she faces a difficult choice: warn her kingdom of the enemy's approach or risk her life to help the slave who sacrificed his freedom to rescue her.
Yeah, it leaves out a lot. It leaves out Bay entirely, leaves out the promise Arianna made, leaves out the fact that Shiro is secretly a Markmaster (and what that is). But here's the thing: those are details. Those are trappings of the world. They're not necessary in a pitch, which is designed to present the most interesting part of the story to the potential agents.

 POST YOUR 35-WORD PITCHES BELOW!

 Do you have a pitch for your story? Have you participated in any pitch contests? Do you think you could whittle down your pitch to 35 words?

Two Flash Fictions

So, my friend and fellow writing club member, Elyse, made me write flash fiction stories today. I thought, since I've been caught up in a billion projects recently and haven't had time to write a post, I'd inflict these stories upon you all! They're inspired by randomly-selected song lyrics.

Flash Fiction Piece 1


Xan slid through the dingy crowd packed between the facades of every shop on main street, carefully keeping his face covered by the high collar of his coat. The curious, milling crowd was little more than a forest of feet. Some were shod, others not, but they all scuffed over the mud-veined cobbles, trouser hems and petticoats sucking up the muck as the people in them sucked up the lies of the Benefactor.

Xan had had enough of lies, and his answer to them was in a single word, burning in his mind, on his tongue, from his pen.

Revolution.

It had taken only one word, whispered in the dark of gas-lamps, coded into the articles he wrote to extoll the Benefactor's virtue, to amass an army of bodies. It would take many thousand more to convince them to fight.

Xan made his way to the monument of the City Benefactor and took the watch from his pocket. The chain spilled out in a silky tumble of delicate gold links, tugging lightly on the clip in his waistcoat. He clicked it open, glanced at its backwards-ticking hands, and checked it against the enormous clock-tower casting a knife of shadow over the courtyard. The hands would match up in less than a minute.

The journalist lifted his head then, eyes scanning the crowd he would soon arm with the greatest weapons: words.

(I am an arms dealer/ Fitting you with weapons in the form of words.)

Flash Fiction Piece 2

The fool’s voice was a low, grating crumble of a sound, like the earth around a gravestone. The throne room was cold, soundless but for the minor lullaby he hummed under his breath. The planks were smooth on his bare feet--worn soft as velvet by the many feet dragged to and fro across them every day.

“At your pleasure, my liege,” he mocked, bowing to the throne he knew was empty. “Shall I slit his throat, my liege? Burn his family before his eyes till he begs for blinding, my liege?” He cackled, raising two spidery, knuckley hands to his own face--to the hollow sockets--and prying wide the gaps in his face, tipping forward as though staring at some tortured soul.

He cackled, danced forward with steps too practiced to need counting, and leapt onto the dais, collapsing lazily across the throne. “The king of fools sayeth…” He turned his head, slow as an owl, and stared sightlessly.

“Give him riches, ten stones in measure, and chuck him in the moat.”

(Are you blind when you’re born? Can you see in the dark? / Dare you look at a king? Would you sit on his throne?)

Sunday Sample #3 - The Mark of Flight

Last week, I shared the opening of my contemporary fantasy, Hellhound. This week, I would like to share the prologue of "The Mark of Flight", book one of The Markmasters Trilogy.

They had known him once, that woman in the teetering headdress, that courtier smoothing his brocade doublet, and that young man in the stained smock. Once, Alukale would have inspired more than a measuring glance or fluttered fan; his face alone would have been enough introduction to any keep from these castle gates to the Centoreinian border. Now it was his name that was known, but not his face. A pity, but at least he didn’t have to cover it. The early summer sun bearing down on his shoulders made the prospect of donning a hood a matter to avoid at all costs, and none of the ceremony-goers in the packed courtyard were even looking.
Their attention was trained on the girl descending the stairs, her arms spread slightly for balance as four gray-clad handmaidens helped her step-after-step. She probably wouldn’t have needed the help if not for the ridiculous headdress that towered well over her head. Its spires glittered in the sun, concealing the hair that would be revealed to all the court in just a few moments. Alukale shook his head in pity—despite the smile on her heavily-powdered face, her magenta aura pulsed like the heart of a hummingbird. To this day, he still did not understand why a girl couldn’t be the first to see her own hair, and he had watched them stuff it into coifs and wraps and caps for five-hundred years.
He shaded his eyes with one hand, the other perched on his sword-heavy hip, and gazed up at the gray battlements, at the royal family’s red and white standard snapping from the bastions. Then the dreaded specter of memory rose, a sickly dream adorning the modern castle in the raiment of his time.
Alukale had left this very courtyard five-hundred years ago, sick with grief, with rage, and ready to tear apart the world itself with his hands, or with his Magic if he could, if only it would stop the war. If only it would bring back what he had lost. But a handful of lifetimes had passed, and he had accomplished neither. Now, the sight of the castle rekindled feelings he had never wanted to face again, scenes he had never wanted to relive. Despite the changes wrought by time and foolishness, it was too familiar.
In the place of steel-latticed oak doors stood a gate of slender pikes, glistening with a web of silver ivy. Such a confection wouldn’t even stop a breeze, let alone an invading army. The keep was no longer a bastion for the people if the enemy were to breach the city’s walls. A few decades of peace and the people of Rizellen thought the war was over.
Alukale snorted. He had felt this ignorant excitement once, and the people of Rizellen would soon discover how wrong they were. Peace had made his country soft, and they would suffer for that weakness. He resisted the urge to leap onto the stairs and call this country that had once been his back to arms and take command of the future once again.
But he could not. She had forbidden interference, and Alukale was discovering that it was the hardest thing she had ever asked of him, and she had asked many things. He had taught, protected, even killed for her; he had shown the ruthlessness she could not, and had been the strength she lacked. And now she wanted him to stand aside.
The crowd hushed, and the piercing keen of a bell silvered the air, hanging across the crowd like ice. The time had come.
The four handmaidens reached for the headdress, and the princess’s hands clenched in her skirts. She didn’t look fourteen, sprite-like as she was, but Alukale knew better than anyone about the discrepancy of age and appearance. It took all four gray-clad women to lift, arms straining, the confection of silver and gems from the girl’s head. A heavy rush of ebony tumbled down the girl’s thin shoulders, and Alukale felt a small flicker of pride tugging his lips as his brother’s descendant shook out a glorious fall of black hair, waist-length and lustrous.
She would be the first Princess of Rizellen to have black hair; her foreign father had given her his coloring, and that was no shame, for a princess needed to be unique.
A groan nearby drew his attention, and Alukale glanced at the girl who had made the noise—unremarkable face, dressed in drab clothing let out at the seams. Her short-cropped hair told him that this girl had not possessed a set of handmaidens to care for her tresses before she turned fourteen. She spotted him looking and flushed, and he hoped she felt some shame in having wished for the princess’s bad luck.
Alukale looked back to the dais, jaw clenched. Princess Arianna would have bad luck enough without having the noblewoman’s curse of bad hair as well. At least the Sisters had blessed her with that much.
“You, boy!” A Warsman in heavy chainmail shoved through the crowd towards Alukale, his blue tabard bright among the peasants’ dull ensembles. “No swords in the bailey!”
“I was just taking my leave,” Alukale said, slipping between the men and women like water. He turned his back to the ceremony, clenching his teeth against the thought that he could do something—right now—to change the course of the future, and he was walking away. But no, he was lucky Lenis had let him come at all, for he knew she had seen a future where he had not controlled himself.
There would be a day when he gave in to that temptation, but it was not today. Today, he had other matters to attend.

Flash Friday #1 - Goodbye Girl

original image by rachel a. k.
There’s no hug like the one just before one walks to death. For many it’s a lover, or a friend, or a family member. For everyone else, there is me. I am that girl that stands at the bottom of the stairs and waits. When those selected to ascend have no one to hold their shaking hands, to hear their un-accomplished dreams, to blot their tears, and assure them that: no, it doesn’t hurt. No, they can’t come back.
So many ask those same questions, despite the fact that they know what death means. I suppose they want to know if all the symptoms apply.
They ask me with a thin veil of resolve, and I feel better when their bravado crumbles, and their expressions break, and they tell me, “I don’t want to die.”
I wrap them in my arms and let them hang about my neck, heads heavy and hot with tears as they wail and panic. I feel better when they cry for themselves, because that is how I know that they truly understand what is behind that bucking, banging door at the top of the stairs.
I have held girls my age, listened as they described their dreams of marriage, their goals of someday becoming something—a mother, a lawyer, a nurse—as though my sympathy could revoke their sentence and send them back into the arms of their loved ones.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“It isn’t fair,” she responds.
Then I hug her. I stroke her hair and cradle her trembling body as she pours out the last of herself to me. I cannot say more. I can only say one word after the hug.
“Goodbye,” I whisper, and watch the sacrifice climb the stairs on unsteady legs and cling to the railing. I watch their hands shake as they drink the tonic on the landing, and imagine the coldness of the knob as they turn it, opening the door beyond.
“Goodbye.”
Then he came. The lottery drew a name, but I didn’t remember it. I spoke it when he walked in, but he was nothing to me yet. I didn’t remember.
“Well,” he said, facing me. “Goodbye.”
I nodded, waiting. If I said “goodbye”, he would have to walk up those stairs, and it was too early. I watched him, waiting for words, but none came. He looked down at me, and I don’t know the color of his eyes, but his hair was short and inky black.
                I could tell he was waiting for something, but couldn’t divine what it was. After a moment, he nodded to me, and turned to the stairs. He gazed up, eyes fixing on the shuddering door-frame. Without another word, he put a heavy, booted foot on the stairs and began the ascent.
Photo by adamjonfuller
                He would not be the first to ascend with a bitterness I couldn’t resolve. I watched his back, watched as he reached the landing and turned, half-silhouetted to my eyes.
                Black hair in my hands, thick and cool...
                A memory! I had hugged him. Not at the bottom of the stairs, but years ago. Not for the need to retrieve his last moments, but for a different reason.
                I looked up, trying to brush aside the shadows and see his face. I knew that face, those hands that reached for the tonic, hands that had once felt rough in mine.
                “Wait,” I rasped. My heart beat in my throat. I needed to know—who was he? Who were we? I wanted to call after him, but my heart had filled every cavity in my chest, and my lungs had no room for breath.. The guards were prepared to catch a man coming down the stairs, not a girl going up. I rushed past and felt their fingers catch the ends of my hair.
I stopped just before the landing and stared at the man I almost didn’t remember. The tonic glittered in the vial as he drank, showing me the strong pulse in his neck.
                “I know you,” I breathed.
                He let the words hang for a moment, then lowered the vial. “Do you remember?”
                “Yes,” I said, though I remembered only that I had promised him his last hug. If his name was chosen as the sacrifice, I would be there to hold him. Now he stared down at me, eyes accusatory and afraid.
                “You’ve forgotten me,” he said. “They say our faces become the same to you Goodbye Girls. I didn’t believe it of you.”
                “Only for a moment,” I insisted. I opened my arms, imploring him to believe me. He watched me a moment longer, still wary, but stepped into my embrace. His body warmed me. His arms were strong and I remembered their safety, but now he trembled and bent his head. His tears soaked my collarbone, as I gripped his back and stroked his cool black hair. His breathing slowed, and I could feel his heartbeat slowing against mine. The tonic was taking effect, turning his veins to ice.
Was it possible, that he couldn’t feel his last hug?
The guilt of my forgotten promise crashed over me. I reached for the glass behind him and tipped the last crystal drops over his shoulder and into my mouth. The glass shattered to the floor, and he gripped my face tight in his hands and kissed me. No, it was too rough for his kiss. He was trying to drink the poison from me. I locked my arms around his neck, but he leaned away.
                “I don’t want you to die!” he slurred, his hands clenching hard in my hair. He staggered. His weight sagged around my shoulders and slammed me back against the door. I heard the moans of those who demanded death echoing behind us and knew a brief moment of fear. Would it hurt? I caught him under the arms, the warmth of his body fading as frost spread from my fingertips.
                “I’m not really alive,” I whispered, pressing my face against his ear. His breath fluttered over my collarbone. “I’ve said goodbye a million times. I won’t say it to you.”
I reached behind me and turned the knob. His arms tightened, his head pressed against my chest, and together we fell back through the opening door, into the unfeeling arms of the hungry.
I was his last embrace, and he was mine, and we would not come back.
Tomorrow, there would be a new Goodbye Girl.

***

I don't normally come up with ideas for short fiction, but this was the product of a dream, and I felt like any further building would destroy the feeling of it. You can hear an audio version of this read on Episode Six of Pendragon Variety Podcast. :)

Scribe's Resources for Fantasy Writers


I often find myself wishing I could remember this awesome resource I found that time when I was seventeen and needed a name for a character in his 30's that sounded French and started with a P but wasn't "Pierre" or "Phillipe" or "Peter", and possibly had a Q in it somewhere, please.

Damn, I miss that resource.

So in order to prevent that from happening again, I've decided to compile a list of the resources I use, or which have been recommended to me. Here it is. Expect additions to this in the future, and feel free to comment and leave links to pages you have found useful! I'll check them out.


PLOT

Possibly the most life-changing writing tool I have ever used, barring only a computer word-processor. This may be designed for plotting with limited time to write...but I think I'm going to use this method for every novel from now on. Seriously, it has helped me to organize and make a coherent story SO MUCH. I've got just over half of the rough draft finished in a month (NaNoWriMo2010 Winner, baby. HOO-rah! (well...huzzah...)).

The University of Michigan's Science Fiction and Fantasy website Dictionary of Symbolism (too legit to quit, guys). Alphabetical by symbol, it's great if you want a quick, one or two-sentence reference of symbols to utilize. I've been using it for HELLHOUND.

CRAFT


Magical Words Blog
LOVE these guys. Not only do they write insightful tips and ruminations on craft, but they're also extremely nice in person. Pendragon Variety went to Stellarcon this year, and had the pleasure of meeting most of them. Really nice people. Really great blog, which has now been published as a book.

Essays by Orson Scott Card on the craft of writing. Almost as addictive as Wikipedia. Almost.

Do I put the period inside or outside the quotation mark? Is it Moses' or Moses's? What the hell is a participle phrase? Commas? Help? This thing is my grammatical bible, and the reason I made such good grades in 12th Grade AP English.

CHARACTERS

I really love this list. I do it with a lot of my characters--even if it may seem tedious and redundant, some of the answers might surprise you. Some of the questions definitely surprised ME. "Why is this character angry?" is a GREAT one, especially for pansy characters. These questions will help create depth.

Fantasy Name Generator This is pretty cool. You can choose from a bunch of different variables and get a list of names to peruse. I found a few good ones, but beware: the Japanese names are strange, even in the (constrained) setting. Only a handful of the ones I saw are usable in the least. You're better off looking up Japanese names on a baby name site.

I really love having a good image for my characters. Sometimes it's in my head...sometimes I need help. Sometimes, I even get inspired by a picture, and end up creating an entire story or character based on it. Check out this site for awesome character art.

Because it's more than dialogue; it's whyalogue.

For those who like to have D&D-esque profiles for all their characters. I haven't used something like this since high school, but I know there are people who find them useful. Here's a ready made one by kittyfelone of Deviant Art. Now...Kitty Felone is a name that is so very Noir it makes me want to write a story. And have her cary an uzi. And possibly a can of tuna.

WORLD-BUILDING

Exactly what it says. These questions are very helpful for getting you thinking about your world in a coherent way.

A very cool, logical way to go about constructing a world that works. Also fun to apply to worlds you already have, just to see where they're not quite cutting it.

Exactly what it says. How big a city does it take to support an inn? The answer to that and many other questions were fairly eye-opening! Go ahead...add some authenticity!

Can my characters drink coffee? Just how early did people start eating crumpets...and what is it anyway? How do I make mead? Find out just about everything you need to know about the introduction of food into the diet (of various cultures!) all over the world, not to mention links to recipes and primary sources! Gotta tell my dad that hot dogs originated in 1487.

A well-organized encyclopedia of different pantheons from Greek to Norse and on and on. Very useful when you don't want to get sucked into Wikipedia for hours (even if you like it. You should be writing).

A guide to different kinds of mythical creatures. If you want some basic information on different creatures, and which creatures around the world are similar (Griffin and Axax, for example), this is a good resource.

MAPPING


Free map-making software. It's designed for RPGs, and I'm currently testing it out to see if it's applicable to non-RPG Medieval fantasy mapping as well. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Originally designed for RPG dungeons, but I find it useful for mapping out rooms and buildings.


LANGUAGE

Seriously. You will create a language. No. Really.

FUN! FUNFUNFUNFUN!!!!!!!! (but I'm a language geek...) Use this to supplement the language clinic above, or the other way around. Using both is very helpful!

BATTLES/WAR/LOGISTICS

Link to the navigation post of this EPICLY good resource for war tactics, battle, logistics, and why women's breastplates don't need boob-bulges. That should be enough for you right there.

Pictures!

Don't be fooled by the simple title. This page will rock your steel (or iron, or bronze, or bone) with historical data, differences, misconceptions, and helpful pictures. Ever wondered "what's the difference between a great sword and a claymore?" "Katana or nodachi?" This is your place to find out.

Check this out. Seriously, it's really really useful for writing period fight scenes without them coming off implausible to members of the SCA and ARMA.



OTHER RESOURCES

Wordle Create fun and pretty word-clouds. It's great for helping you figure out what the theme of your story might be based on which words you happen to use the most often. REALLY fun resource.

OTHER LISTS OF RESOURCES



*Thanks to the folks at the NaNoWriMo Fantasy forum for giving me some of these awesome resources!

HELLHOUND


HELLHOUND



Shapeshifting "Hellhound" Helena Martin isn't sure who she hates more, the sorcerers who fired the magic-laced bullet, or the cruel master who used her mother as a shield. She always figured they would finish each other off without her help, and if she just kept her head down she might survive them both. But when a battle with the Sorcerer's Guild destroys the spell binding the Hellhounds to their demon-summoning master, Helena risks using her secret aptitude for magic to aid her pack's escape. Finally free of the insidious spell, Helena believes she might actually have a chance to live without the violence and heartbreak she grew up with. But her pack has different ideas.

Not only do they ditch Miami for the winter wasteland of Minnesota, enroll her in University, and saddle her with a stolen book of spells, they also expect her somehow to cut off the source of Gwydhain’s power by closing the gate to the demon realm. It’s hard enough to act normal around her geeky-hot new housemate Jaesung without sprinkling salt around doors, blowing up her window, and getting arrested for streaking. With her stumbling, self-taught Magic drawing the attention of the local Sorcerer's Guild, keeping her Magic-wielding canine status on the down-low might just be impossible.

But as Helena refuses demands to hand over her book of spells, the Guild's methods of coercion become increasingly violent and she realizes the humans that were supposed to be her cover have slowly become a liability, for they give her the one thing she misses most of all--a home. Then her master's agents catch up with them and Helena--untrained, isolated, and with more to lose than ever--has only one chance to keep her pack and her human friends safe: make peace with the sorcerers who killed her mother.

(*Note: This is not the original summary for this post, but the one based on revisions.)


(Cleolinda) Time for a trip to the department of backstory. (/Cleolinda)


So, a couple days before NaNoWriMo started, I was going through Holly Lisle's "How To Write Page-Turning Scenes" book, and I did an exercise scene on interpersonal conflict, which produced a very intriguing scene. I didn't think much of it at the time besides, "Huh. It's not complete, but I wonder if I could use it on Pendragon Variety." Then I got to thinking. What is this character exactly, since she isn't entirely human? Why is this book so important? Why is her Godfather handing the book over to someone who wants to kill her? Who is this RA that has screwed everything up, and why does she like him?

Before I knew it, I had decided she was a Hellhound (which really meant nothing to me at the time) and I had a couple scene ideas in my head. I was willing to ignore it for a while, since I've never really been a huge fan of supernatural fantasy. I played VtM and WtA in High School, but it wasn't nearly as engaging as D&D for me - while it's intriguing to contemplate the definition of humanity and the struggle not to nom the face off someone you love, I'm not generally a huge fan of vampires or werewolves or shape-shifters, at least not as they've become in modern fiction. I heard horror stories of a once-respectable and interesting supernatural fantasy series turning into novel-length sex-scenes interrupted by the occasional criminal investigation. My feelings are best summed up by the following (un)smiley: (. _ . );;
Celtic Warriors becoming Demon-Fighting Hounds? HELL yes.


Don't get me wrong - I'm a fangirl about plenty of things. I cosplay; I surf the internet for macros of my favorite bands; I have been known to read (and write) fanfiction. But when my beloved fantasy section suddenly became saturated with a genre I wasn't into, leaving little room for anything else, my desire to wade through the wave of silvered jackets for something a little closer to "human girl accidentally bonds with a draconian enemy on the brink of inter-species war" collapsed.

Because of my relative distance from supernatural (romance) fantasy, I shuffled the idea aside, because I didn't really want to write just one more book in that wave.

I was planning to use NaNoWriMo to finish the second half of Book II in the Markmasters Trilogy, but as I continued with "How to Write Page-Turning Scenes" I ran across a reference to Holly Lisle's notecarding method. I gave it a shot using what little of the scenes I had come up with. Lo and behold, by the end of the day (Halloween, 2010, to be exact), I had an entire plot for a new novel. I was going to do NaNoWriMo.

No Vampires. No Werewolves. No Fallen Angels, and no Zombies. I am a bit guilty of having shapeshifters, but don't worry--there is no furry porn in my book. There is magic, though. And Celtic warriors. And spirals. And Starcraft. (Hey, the love interest is Korean. And a geek. You know he plays Starcraft.) There *might* be a girl in hound form shamelessly taking advantage of her crush's soft spot for dogs. Hey, if I could become a hound at will, I might shove my nose in a couple crotches too. Just for fun.