Help Me Decide What To Do for Camp NaNoWriMo | Attack of the Epic Fantasy

 

This post is very, very late, especially considering Camp NaNoWriMo starts in THREE DAYS and I have done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to prepare. I told myself that I was going to be PRODUCTIVE on spring break, but am I being productive? Noooo.

Anyways, my levels of procrastination have reached an all time high (possibly because I don’t have to worry about grades for this week and a half?), so I haven’t put all that much thought into what I’m going to write for Camp NaNo, only that I know I’m going to do it.

So I turn to you, oh blogglings.

THE SKELETON QUEEN

The Details:

• Epic fantasy
• One narrator, close third person present tense.
• Aiming for between 70-90k words

What it’s About:

• Newly crowned Queen Rose I-forgot-what-her-last-name-is of France-inspired kingdom is at her father’s funeral. She accidentally reanimates the entire graveyard. Mass panic ensues.
• Now there are two problems: neighboring kingdoms are either trying to suck up to her or want her dead. Several groups within the kingdom want her burned as a dark sorcerer.
• Doesn’t help that at the same time she’s being contacted by a mother she hasn’t seen since she was four and has had no contact with since she was eleven.
• Also, there’s a really cute girl, and a visiting prince who’s mother really, really wants him to marry Rose.
• All the chaos. Lots of angst.

I think The Skeleton Queen is probably the idea I’ve talked the most about on here, because it’s the one that’s been floating around in my head for the longest, but at the same time I kind of worry that it’s too much of a beast of a novel to be tackled during Camp NaNo. Like it almost needs to be something I save for November.

LIFEBLOOD

The Details:

• Urban fantasy/ magical realism/dystopian? I don’t really know.
• Two narrators (possibly three) narrators, first person present tense.
• Ideally, it would be between 60-70k words, but knowing me it would probably turn into something closer to 90k.

What It’s About:

• Alternate universe where werewolves exist thanks to fun genetic stuff (thinking attempting to cure some sort of plague with wolf DNA?), and there’s this sort of underworld/black market-ish ideas that since werewolves were created by science and they’re in an animal form half the time, they shouldn’t have the same rights as actual humans.
• So these people in this society keep them as servants/pets/worse things.
• Also, werewolf dog fighting.
• Follows Arrow and Sable, two werewolves in one of the dog fighting ring. Arrow is the favorite of the dogman, which means she’s the one paraded around. She’s always angry. Sable is the innocent little baby who doesn’t think she’s ever going to get better than this life.
• Also possibly a few chapters narrated by Lucie, the daughter of the dogman who used to be best friends with Sable before Sable “went missing”, and is absolutely horrified by everything.
• Fun stuff happens like protests and murder.

This is one of my novels that seems like it’s just a mildly bloody, horror-y sort of thing where I go deep. Not the easiest of novels to write (or read), and it might be kind of emotionally exhausting to write while I’m starting a new quarter in school, but at the same time it also maybe is something that I need to write while I’m under a sort of deadline.

THE MONSTERS THAT WAIT BENEATH

The Details:

• Epic fantasy
• Two narrators, told in close third person present tense. Or possibly first person past tense. Haven’t decided yet.
• Between 80-100k words. An absolute beast of a novel.

What It’s About:

• A midwife, a kelpie, and a minor rain goddess smuggle a blind dragon out of a kingdom before she gets executed.
• Yes, you read that right.
• There’s currently a war happening between the gods and the dragons, mostly having to do with the dragons being worshipped as gods before they went into their centuries-long hibernation. Then they wake up and these newcomers (who have been around for a couple hundred years) have taken over their turf and they’re not happy.
• No one’s happy down below either, because there’s all the fun things that come with a war of gods, like crazy weather changes, plagues, blood rain…all the fun things.
• Que this little baby dragon (who’s about eighteen but that’s like being about two minutes old in dragon-land) who got sent down to the realm of humans to be kept safe. Then, oops, gods find out, turns out she’s actually one of the dragon’s royal line and the gods need her executed so there will be no more royal dragons.
• All the problems happen.
• Plus the minor rain goddess falls in love with the kelpie. And the midwife is asexual. And the dragon is blind.
• Did I mention the blood rain and crazy weather???

I don’t think I’ve talked about this novel AT ALL before (I don’t even have a Pinterest board for it! Gasp!), but I’m excited for it, and maybe I should take a stab at it with Camp? Get the first 25k or so words to get in my groove.

So, blogglings, what do you think? Are any of these jumping out at you more than the others? If so, which one?

Are you guys doing Camp NaNoWriMo? If you are, what are you writing and what’s your word goal?

Happy Wednesday,