scrape_r_rational/data/cache/2lnvap.md

[D][WIP] Rational Novel Writing Month - Week 2

Post:

How many people do we still have with us?

Comments:

• u/alexanderwales:

  Currently sitting at 20,475. It's not total crap (yet), but there's definitely a lot that I'm going to have to go back and edit. Using Scrivener has been going really well. I spent ten minutes or so trying to figure out how much plot I have left, and it feels like the novel will end at about 90K words, though there's a good chance that I'll go over. Depending on how well this weekend goes, I might be targeting a word count of 100K for the month. I am three scenes (~4K words) from completing the first major set of events, which comprise the first three chapters.
  
  And that's about all there is to say, I guess. I'm keeping a rapidly growing TODO list for December, though last year I just resolved to keep up the pace for as long as it took to finish the story, and there's a chance that I'll do that again and "end" National Novel Writing Month midway through December.
  
  Edit: [Link to the WIP](https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3221980/1/The-Dark-Wizard-of-Donkerk), by the way.
  

  • u/gommm:

    I really enjoyed the drafts you're posting on fictionpress. I find it very interesting to see a story as WIP before it's edited later on, it gives me a glimpse of your writing process.
    

  • u/AmeteurOpinions:

    Very nice, and the contrast between two dark wizards and little children is adorable, but why couldn't Hirrush have erased the memories of the ill woman and her husband? He's a mentalist, I don't think there was a justification for that.
    

    • u/alexanderwales:

      I'll have to find a way to make this clear in the text itself, but:
      
      * He's been previously injured in a mentalist battle that leaves him with splitting headaches after every time he uses the power - bad enough that he gets put out of service for a few days.
      * Removing memories is difficult, time-consuming, and requires taking a baseline of their mindscape so you know what's changed and can revert it back. It's hard to remove memories from before the first time you've been in someone's mind unless you want to spend a lot of time rooting around in there. Doing it with two people would be even worse.
      * People are almost always aware that a memory has been removed - the removal process creates something of a gap that they can feel, even if they didn't notice any incongruities.
      * Hirrush doesn't want people knowing that he's a mentalist, for reasons that are mostly in his past (but have to do with the reason that he recognizes the royal mentalist on sight). Better for people to think that he's just a dark wizard than to let on that there's a mentalist around.
      
      There will be more on mentalism is Chapter 4, where some of this reasoning is gone over in a bit more detail, and Henry gets some mentalist training from his father.
      

• u/kaj_sotala:

  Day 8: 8832, behind by about 5000 words but hoping to catch up tomorrow. Scattered observations:
  
  * I'm trying to write epic fantasy, only to have my brain go "No, let's ONLY come up with ideas for the completely mundane love triangle plot!"
  * People acting like reasonable adults is great in real life but your characters doing it is a pain, because it doesn't help generate the conflict the story needs.
  
  Choice piece of dialogue: "Yeah, well, I... think I love you, if I'm to be perfectly honest." "Fuck."
  

• u/JoshuaBlaine:

  I've got ~6000 words so far. I've fallen behind my goals, mostly due to a couple just completely dead days, but hopefully I do well enough to catch up in the next couple days.
  
  And, because I made a promise to myself last week to share it, [here is what I have so far.](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HixsAuXLHdPDT4HEfb66Ho0DK6tCfG_qNg0KD2RlCJg/edit) It's just a prologue and chapter 1, so my purpose is mostly generating interest in the rest of the story. Let me know if you're hooked.
  
  Feedback and encouragement is super welcome, as receiving a few words of praise translates to writing probably hundreds more words (hurray for socially motivated monkey brains!).
  

• u/brandalizing:

  13,500 as of today. All written on my iPhone. My thumbs hurt.
  
  Finally getting into the main plot, characters becoming more defined, pace picking up. Just had a Deity try to commit suicide by having all of his followers slaughtered in random wars. When this didn't work, he stopped Believing in himself, and now he's a semi-mortal wandering around an empty planet with his memories slowly deteriorating.
  
  My other main character is a human, Commander of Fleet 115, James Kobal. He just accompanied Earth's prime Deity into the Heavenly Plane to try and convince one of the Galactic Deities that Earth deserves FTL technology. It's not going too well.
  

  • u/Evilness42:

    Out of curiosity, are the Deities in your story based on actual mythologies, are the mythologies meant to be messed up stories based on rumors about older deities, or have you scrapped all that and built from scratch? 
    
    Sounds like quite an interesting concept, really.
    

    • u/brandalizing:

      They're completely made up, as opposed to being pulled from a pre-existing mythos. Mostly because 80% of the story so far has been happening on planets other than Earth - there are no mythologies I can build off there.
      
      The Greek/Roman, Norse, etc. mythologies are a real part of the Earth's history though, as far as the existence of their pantheons. Funnily enough, the only one still 'alive' is Dionysus. He goes by Dio now. Changing fashions and all. Earth's prime Deity is also the head of their military; Earth does things very differently than most other species.
      

• u/notsarahnz:

  I didn't realise others were doing this. I'm writing a rationalist fic for NaNo.
  

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