Monday, October 8, 2012

NaNo Prep Challenge - Protagonist Story

Saturday's Writing.com NaNo Prep Challenge was to write out a brief story involving one of the protagonists of our upcoming NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) novel. Since the only solid protagonist I know of so far is Stephanie Bascomb, I decided to do the story on her. (For a brief background sketch on Stephanie, check out my last blog post.)

Hot coffee, pumpkin flavored. The dirty street scent of trash and exhaust blowing by on a bitter breeze. The changing leaves - oranges and red, in shades that rival blood and orchards. Fall. A terrible season, fraught with horror and themes of death and tricks.

Has it really been a year, brother? I sit here and stare at the bus stop sign - repaired now since the accident - and I have to wonder if there was something I could have done to prevent your death. I should have been with you that day. I should have been the one the bus hit. Not you. You shouldn't have had to go out like that.

A year is too long to dwell on these things, and yet not long enough.

"M'am, can I take your plate?" the barista asks.

"Yes. And please don't call me M'am." Twenty-four is hardly an age to be given such distinguished titles.

The barista nods, blushes a bit, and takes the dish away.

I wonder if you can take this ache in my chest while you're at it? Probably not.

4 comments:

seannaapproved said...

Hmmm, all of that prep, really?? I guess I just prefer to wing it. So far so good with my current WIP and I guess I did a little prep work, but compared to all of that prepping, I've been winging it.

About writing profiles of characters, I could do that, but I wouldn't post it on my blog. I'm leery someone would steal my idea. :-/

Anywho, good luck with NaNoWriMo. I think I'm gonna give it a go and try it this year. We'll see how it goes. Don't think I can write 50,000 words in a month, but I could probably squeeze in 30,000.

Unknown said...

Sean, my usual writing style is just to wing it as well. I don't really like being confined to an outline or any sort of structure. NaNo is a bit different for me though, because I find I can blow through NaNo quicker if I have an outline to follow - if I get stuck in one plot thread, I can skip around to others so I don't fall behind in my daily word count. Last year an outline is what helped me do two NaNo novels at 50,000 words a piece - 100,000 words total. A few years before that, I finished NaNo in 8 days.

If you do enter, let me know your user name and I'll add you as a friend! Even if you don't reach 50,000, it's a great excuse to get a novel started.

Tiffany said...

What I love most about this prep challenge is that it doesn't have to be confined to prepping for Nanowrimo (unless writing.com removes the page after Nanowrimo, which would make me very sad). People can use this to prep at any time for their novel, even people - like me - who can't possibly do Nanowrimo.

Unknown said...

Tiffany, I don't think they remove the page after NaNoWriMo, but I'm not certain. It can certainly be useful all year long for a multitude of different projects.