Camp NaNoWriMo: April 2020

[Zkribbler]

Maybe I should've made bigger goal.

No, the goal of NaNoWriMo is to motivate people to write regularly. With you, they succeeded.

 

[Zkribbler]

I have a goal of 2000 5000 words.

Fixed

 

[Zkribbler]

I'm continuing my Kingmaker project, and have a Plan B in mind in case writer's block happens (I've been working on this since November 2018 and while there's a humongous amount of story I still want to do, taking an occasional break is important).

Kingmaker: Rise to the Throne is 60% off on Steam. For me, this is P155.98 or about US$3.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Kingmaker: Rise to the Throne is 60% off on Steam. For me, this is P155.98 or about US$3.

So are you going to try it? If the Collector's Edition is available, I absolutely recommend it, as it includes a bonus chapter of events that happen about two weeks after the conclusion of the main story.

Of course my own story includes in-game years' worth of prequel and sequel material, including interquel scenes that were not gone into in detail in the game (or I wanted to examine some part of the game's storyline from the point of view of a different character).


Is it listed as Kingmaker or King's Heir? As I understand it, for legal reasons Artifex Mundi had to change the title to King's Heir: Rise to the Throne, as there was some confusion with some other game called Kingmaker.

I see I'm behind in posting my own progress:

Day 1 total: 716 words.
Day 2 total: 1323 words.
Day 3 total: 1930 words.
Day 4 total: 2537 words.
Day 5 total: 3118 words.
Day 6 total: 3821 words.
Day 7 total: 4383 words.
Day 8 total: 4903 words.
Day 9 total: 5443 words.
Day 10 total: 6040 words.
Day 11 total: 6560 words.
Day 12 total: 7084 words.
Day 13 total: 7641 words.

Not sure how to do this because my medium format that I tend to go with is comics and visual novels. I have been itching to start my little fanfic chop-suie and been just world building.

The problem I have is I am in a roadblock of how to start off my character, let alone getting the story going.

Why not begin with a written character sketch? One way might be to describe your character, possibly from the point of view of someone observing or meeting him/her.

Don't worry about starting your story at the beginning. My own foray into novelizing the computer game mentioned in @Zkribbler's post basically started near the end of the game's events. I didn't start at the beginning, because I wanted to figure out how the characters got to the opening scenes in the game, and get to know the non-pov characters.

As long as you have an outline of where you want to start, where you want to finish, and the main plot points you need to hit, how you get there can be as quick or as detailed as you want. At this point you're exploring your character in writing, which takes a different way of thinking than creating a visual image.

You already have an advantage I lack: You know what your character looks like. In the game I'm novelizing, we never get a clear look at the pov character. We see the other characters through his eyes, but all we know about him is some idea of what he wears and what his voice sounds like. So while that makes me free to make up whatever I want, I'm trying to come up with a description that would go along with the voice and what little we do see of his body (which doesn't include the face).

I think I'm getting some sort of clear idea, which is definitely making writing Edmund a little easier. I can visualize him performing actions, speaking, thinking, and so on, and displaying facial expressions that go along with emotions he's expressing in his dialogue.

 

[Zkribbler]

It's King's Heir in most places; once it's called Kingmaker.

It's sitting in my cart now, along with three other games. I'll probably buy them. The stumbling block is that I've been buying too many games lately, but the cumulatively cost of these four is less than ten dollars, U.S..

Why not begin with a written character sketch? One way might be to describe your character, possibly from the point of view of someone observing or meeting him/her..

I remain a disciple of Michael La Ronn: You want to begin with a character in a setting with a problem.
For example, in my electro-punk fantasy:

The sky ship Prodigal Lady was little more than a speck above the horizon and was growing smaller all the time. A chill blustered in the air. With aching heart, the priestess Ikaria turned to go back to the temple.

“Oh!”

Two inquisitors stood there glowering. “Sister Ikaria, you are under arrest.”

Ikaria turned to flee down the quay, but a taser scroll whirled out of the hand of one of the inquisitors and struck her. She was seized with agony as every muscle in her body went rigid. She splayed across the gravel, unable to move.

The two men loomed over her, shoved their hands into her armpits, and hoisted her up.

She managed to croak out, “Gods protect me.”

Came the sneer, “You should have thought of that earlier.”

:

Admittedly, I have finished Chapter 1 with no mention whatever about what my main character looks like.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

It's King's Heir in most places; once it's called Kingmaker.

It's sitting in my cart now, along with three other games. I'll probably buy them. The stumbling block is that I've been buying too many games lately, but the cumulatively cost of these four is less than ten dollars, U.S..

Whether it's Kingmaker: Rise to the Throne or King's Heir: Rise to the Throne, it's the same game. It's not critical to the story itself, as "kingmaker" is a role that many people have had in real history - the ability to make it possible for someone else to gain the rulership of the kingdom when he himself either isn't eligible or doesn't want it.

I remain a disciple of Michael La Ronn: You want to begin with a character in a setting with a problem.
For example, in my electro-punk fantasy:

:

Admittedly, I have finished Chapter 1 with no mention whatever about what my main character looks like.

Yes, but GenMarshall is one of the DYOS people who usually tells stories visually, rather than only in text form. As I said, he already knows what his characters look like. He already knows a lot of the visual things about his characters. Translating visual into text can be a challenge sometimes, as so much has to be explained in words.

Of course it's necessary to give the main character a problem in a setting. I gave my Kingmaker characters a setting and a problem right off - albeit a much lesser problem than the game does: Getting up, dressed in uniform, grabbing breakfast, and getting off to the palace in time to finish preparing the King's hunting party (one of the traits I gave each of the brothers is that one of them is usually neat and organized and the other is not; one of the pieces of advice Mary offered when I was discussing this story with her was to not make the characters too good, and she's right - I have to make sure they have flaws, both major and minor so they're more realistic). Along the way I added another problem that will eventually come back to cause further problems. And that's all before the opening scenes.

None of that is in the game, btw. The game begins after the hunt is already in progress, but I wanted to know what happened before that, and how the characters got to the point where we first see them. Not every story starts with the main problem the character has to deal with.

Day 14 total: 8280 words. I have received my 14-day streak badge.

And Duke William is a tad cranky because an emergency has interrupted his breakfast...

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Day 15 total: 8800 words.
Day 16 total: 9358 words.
Day 17 total: 10,046 words.

I had to adjust my daily total a couple of days ago when the website glitched. Now it thinks I only type 11 words/minute.

 

[Zkribbler]

I decided to set a goal of 15,000 words.

So...you're 2/3 of the way there, just a little more than 1/2 way through the month. Ahead of schedule.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

My stats page says at this rate I should reach my goal on April 26. There have been a couple of days when I really didn't feel up to more than a few sentences, but this is when you dig down and reach for those words. The third week of NaNo is always the hardest, unless you're waaaay behind schedule as I was in November 2018. Getting such a late start really hurt me in that one and is why I had to do several days' worth in one single day during the last week.

I've decided not to put myself in that situation ever again, and have Plans B and C for when writer's block happens.

You'd think it wouldn't happen, given how much of this story remains to be told - it's gone far beyond the confines of a single novel now and there's yet another alternative version taking shape. I'm forever wondering how the story would go if one or two actions didn't happen as shown in the game, or if I'd made a different decision when I started firming up the original material I've added. But the dialogue and actions in my head are playing out like I'm simultaneously watching it and inside the characters' heads, knowing what they think and feel and sometimes it's hard to get that down on paper/screen in as nuanced a way as it was in my head. There are other ways the post-game material could go, and I'm getting inspiration from other sources.

When you get around to playing King's Heir, just keep in mind that some of the characters I've been talking about in these threads aren't actually in the game - they're my own original inventions. So don't expect to see anyone I could possibly have based "Count Chocula" on. He's not there. But there is one unnamed character who I gave a name to and a backstory, and a reason for his actions. I'm curious to see if you can figure out who that might be...

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Day 18 total: 10,565 words.
Day 19 total: 11,079 words.
Day 20 total: 11,636 words.
Day 21 total: 12,196 words.
Day 22 total: 12,740 words.

After three weeks, I'm just now starting to feel the emotion I want to convey for the characters. It's hard getting into their headspace when my own RL situation is so frustratingly angry all the time. Maybe I should skip ahead to the scene I planned where my main character decides he's not going to run the kingdom using fear as a weapon and decides to take an 11th-century sledgehammer to the devices in the torture chamber (that's not a game spoiler, btw, @Zkribbler; I'm writing post-game sequel material for this Camp session).

 

[Zkribbler]

Waiting for news of your pending victory.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Sorry. Victory came three days ago, but the website glitched.

Some people haven't been getting their "you won" message and winner's badges, and I'm one of the lucky ones who has more than enough words, but no official acknowledgment.

It kinda puts a damper on things...

My final week's worth of stats is all <mucked> up.

I'm going to keep writing for the next couple of days, even though I have enough words. Hopefully they'll fix this, because I want that winner's badge and banner.

 

[Zkribbler]

I'm going to keep writing for the next couple of days, even though I have enough words. Hopefully they'll fix this, because I want that winner's badge and banner.

The people took om a task and did it. They should get the recognition they have earned,

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Thank you, but the fact is that the site is still buggy. It was buggy back in November, and while they addressed some complaints, there are still plenty. I'm well over 15,000 words, within the validation period, so I should have had the winner's badge notification pop up at least two days ago. All I got was a badge for updating 21 days in a row, which is insufficient.

 

[Zkribbler]

Are the winner badges out yet?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

This email came.

You can now announce your writing project for Camp NaNoWriMo in July! If you have the time, energy, and mental space to flex your imagination and use it to write, we'd love to help support you with your writing goals. If that's not where you're at right now, we're still here to support you whenever you're ready to turn your creativity to your stories.

Is anybody doing this? New thread, or use this one?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

This email came.



Is anybody doing this? New thread, or use this one?

New thread. I'll make one in a bit. I didn't finish posting everything I meant to in this one due to being... interrupted... for a pointless and petty reason.

 

[Zkribbler]

The new camp will begin July 1 at 00:01 in the morning. Did we ever decide whether, for me, this would be Pacific time or Hong Kong time?
I'm 15 hours ahead.

Edit: I found my answer.

• Writing starts at 12:00: a.m. on November 1 and ends 11:59:59 p.m. on November 30, local time.
• No one is allowed to start early and the challenge finishes exactly 30 days from that start point.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The November contest is stricter than the Camp contests. The Camp website runs on Pacific time, which is just one hour earlier for me.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The new thread is up.