Evolution of Stories

Andrea Grey is a supervillain. 

She was once a normal woman. As normal as it can get when you can throw around acid, anyway. She had problems, like her inability to control her abilities, her mother in the hospital, and no way to pay the rapidly growing bills. When Blackbourne Industries offered her a job with great health benefits and training to hone her powers… she snapped it up quickly, no questions asked. Soon she was a skilled security guard, occasionally lent to the city to help with problems. 

But then she started fighting superheroes.

It turns out her new employers aren’t as altruistic as they seemed, using the shipments she protects for far less than noble purposes. The superheroes are struggling to dig up the truth, and the closer they come the more dangerous it becomes for her and her mom. As the situation grows more and more unstable, it becomes clear to her that she’s going to have to choose between doing what’s right… and keeping her mother alive. 



Nobody's Hero did not start off with this synopsis.  It actually started off with a teenage girl with superpowers--that have pretty much stayed the same, excepting the addition of empathy--who was stealing food from warehouses that was originally meant to go to her family anyway.  She dealt with a group of superheroes--teens, as well--who pretty much treated her as a villain before they helped her out and accepted her as part of the group.

That was it.  No real villain, unless you count her.  Just a story about a girl with short black hair in a tough situation learning how to deal with things.  I think I even tried turning it into a comic at some point, and the opening fight switched from a warehouse to a supermarket where she was stealing some food off the shelf.  Seriously.  A superhero fight in the middle of a store simply because one decided to steal a can of peas.

I am so glad it's matured.

I tackled it a little bit later, and those few paragraphs turned into a woman at a warehouse (that much has never changed) waiting for an ambush she felt in her gut was going to happen.  Her hair was now long, platinum blond and wavy and she had light grey eyes.  She was still a villain, but now she was working for an actual bad guy.  I didn't really gather the whole blackmailing bit until much more recently when I watched The Dark Knight and saw Two-Face terrifying a cop who helped the Mob because they paid her mother's hospital bills.

Then the pieces started flowing together.  The main character is stuck between a rock and a hard place, there are people who want to stop her and her boss, and she has a good heart underneath it all that's struggling against the ruthlessness of it all.  

But that's where it stayed at for months until I started getting excited about Nanowrimo.  Two months before, I began putting in plot, made the evil man in charge of a large company, and had an idea of at least one of the things she was going to have to struggle and fight for.

I wrote 50k of it this last nanowrimo, and it need even more major reworking (the description won't quite fit the story anymore, but it'll still be really close).  Scenes will be restructured and so will some plot, and the main character won't be quite so lonely/antisocial.  She'll have at least ONE friend before the story actually starts.  In that 50k her love interest changed.

So yeah.  If you're stuck and can't think of anything to write on, take a peek at some old stories you may have started as a freshmen in high school.  Try and see if there's an idea in them worth salvaging, and tweak it.  What you find yourself with might well turn into an idea worthy of a published book.  Who knows, maybe it'll end up like Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion and find itself being turned into a movie before it even hits the shelves (good luck, but hey, it could happen again)    

Day 29: WINNER!

Wordcount:  50,382/48,333

I left for Thanksgiving with 3k to write and a hope to use someone else's computer (my laptop is broken, remember?) and I returned today with 3k to write.

AND I DID IT.  I had parentals screaming at me to do my college work and a snoopy brother who tattled on me the whole time, but I did it.  And now I have a WINNER! banner to prove my awesomeness, even though they chewed me out and tattled on me the whole time it was printing.

To be honest, it really spoiled the happy feelings I had over winning.  I still have plenty of time to work on both projects, but now I feel really bad about the whole situation.  No regrets about winning and still having awesome grades, but yeah.

Anyway, I won't depress anyone anymore, and I will say that I have been doing a good job of keeping up on everything.  I will say that it has been a stressful month juggling school, work, and Nano, and that I'm not sure if I will do the whole 12 months thing because I don't want to have to deal with this all year long.  It doesn't seem worth it when I have a half a story here that seems like a good gem all on its own, and family relations to re-establish.

December I will use to edit my story, and I will work on an X-Men fanfic.

This will be my blog, despite the lack of 12 months even after just one.

But hey.  I WON NANO FOR THE FIRST TIME EVAR.

So instead of 12 months filled with 50k each month, it'll be 12 months of working on my nano story/ies.  :D    This is so exciting!  And when I finally get my computer fixed, I'll have scrivener and this will make it SO MUCH BETTER.

Now.  To order my nano shirt.

*celebrate*

Day 26

6,157 words to go.  

Eeeh!

I'm thinking about just powering through and finishing tonight, but I'm not quite convinced I'll be able to, or even if I should.  Still.  

I WILL get that Winner shirt.  >___>  *determined*

Here is an awesome excerpt from my novel to tide you over for the next few days.  :D  EPIC FIGHTING.  SORT OF.  READ IT ANYWAY.

“Let’s give them a few seconds to get to the viewing platform, then we’ll start.”

I nodded.

It felt like it took eons to wait for them to get there.  After what felt like hours but was probably more like 30 seconds, Dragon lifted his hand up to his ear and asked, “You ready yet?”

I could hear a small murmur come from his ear bud—they really needed to get better ones.  At least Amazon’s had fallen out and onto rain covered gravel before it started blasting out Boss’s calls for the world to hear.

“Alright,” he said, and automatically launched at me.

Remembering the way he tackled me that first night at the warehouses, I stepped back and let him whiz by.  He was good.  He was able to stop himself right before he would’ve crashed into the wall, and turned around.  He had a wide smile on his face.  He had to be testing me.

Apparently I passed the test.

But he propelled himself at me again, and as I stepped to the side I felt his fist connect with my side.  He knew that I was going to try and pull the same trick again, so he’d prepared.  As the air rushed out of me I let myself fall to the ground and roll away.  His fist passed harmlessly over me as I did so, and when I came back up I had both of my blades out and glowing with my plasma acid.  

As he started to move in my direction, I flung the acid covered blade intentionally at his head.  I made sure that it wouldn’t hit him even if he didn’t duck at all, and he did.  His eyebrows were bunched together and I could tell he was focusing on something. 

So was I.  As his fist came at my stomach again and I used my foot to push him away, I realized something.  I’d only ever used my powers to cover my blades whenever I fought near him.  He’d never seen me just fling the acid.  It was always with the dagger flying through the air with it.

He probably thought I could only cover objects with my power and throw them.

This could prove to be very useful.

Dragon and I began to circle each other.  Now I’m not psychic but even I could practically see the gears turning in his head as he processed what we already tried to do to each other.

Then he came at me, low, and grabbed me by the waist.  He tossed me up in the air, and I don’t know how he did it, but he managed to grab my wrist as he flipped me over and twisted my dagger out of my hand.  I had to fight not to grin as I hit the ground and ducked into a roll.  Let him think he bested me for a moment.

Once again we stood, barely nine feet away from each other, and stared one another down.  I made sure not to let a single amount of my glee reach the surface.  My mouth was firmly shut, and could almost be considered a frown.  I squinted my eyes in concentration as if I were trying to come up with a plan that didn’t amount to using my powers. 

We started circling each other again.  After a minute of doing this, I could hear some more chatter from his ear buds.  Were they complaining about how boring this exercise was getting?  Either way, I took this opportunity to fling my acid at him.

He obviously wasn’t prepared.  I had a split second to see utter shock on his face before he brought his arms up to cover it.  What I didn’t quite expect to see was that his uniform didn’t melt at all.  So, apparently they might be under budget, but they probably expected to come and fight me again.  Here or at the warehouse?

After that, he lowered his arms to his side and I could tell that the fight was over.

Day 22

Wordcount:  38,423/38,333

(almost to 40k!  Wheeee!)

Hello there, my fine and fancy non-existant readers. :D  Guess I'm not the next 12 months of Nano star that I've read the other blog on.

I guess maybe I've got to go and give some writing advice.

Do not listen when people tell you your idea is terrible.  For one thing, when they outright say that they're just outright being rude.  That, and those people probably just don't like the genre you're writing under.  I saw somebody that was mentioning on a forum that they were going to write a story where a person from our world finds themselves on another planet.  Many published authors have done that, okay.  But the other commenters on the thread stated basically that it was a stupid idea, that it was plain and simply just self-insertion.  You know, those stories where you can basically tell that the author is basically the MC and the whole story is basically a wish to be on another world having amazing adventures?  Yah.

I thought the idea was rough, needed a little refinement, but there was no way I was going to bash it the way these people were.  And the result of their words?  After the first two posts they said, "Oh, okay.  It's stupid.  I'll move on to something else."

For all we know that book they just gave up on writing could've been the next Harry Potter series.

And hey, who hasn't written a book where the MC goes to another world?  I've done it.  Contemplated trying my hand on it again.  And it's a good idea, I just need to find the proper direction.  Pantsing is not the way to go with that one.

Still, if you have someone come up to you and tell you that they have an idea of an epic story of cats fighting evil cardinals (birds) and it sounds completely hokey to you, keep in mind, they're probably not writing for you as an audience.  Encourage them, don't tear down their hopes, dreams and aspirations.  For all you know, you're stopping someone from fulfilling what could've been an awesome destiny.

Day 19

Word Count goal for Day 19:  31,847/31,673

I'm ahead by almost two hundred.

This makes me happy, considering I managed to just finish three days of word counts because I missed two entire days of writing last weekend, and woke up with pretty much half of yesterday's wordcount finished. Went to bed last night with 700 short of being officially caught up. And because I spent two hours last night writing and being distracted being writing, I wrote a bunch of it between midnight and two am. It was about 1:40 am where I gave up and just went to bed.

But yeah. I'm almost 10k past where I made it two years ago (the most I'd ever written on a nano story before Nano2013). I'm so giddy and pleased, and it looks like reaching 50k at the end of the month might actually be possible. I still have a lot to do. I've got school tomorrow and work pretty much directly after. I have Thursday and Friday off from work, so I've got plenty of time to catch up on it if I fall behind (which is something that I've pledged NOT to do for the rest of week three) and hopefully a Catching Fire movie. I'm so excited for that. You gots no idea.

So yeah. Today has been kind of giddy.

Fun characters and good fights. :D

Day 18 (really early!)

Wordcount:  27,399/28,333

At the time I write this, it's 12:30 am on Monday the 18th of November.  The internet is off so I can't post this until later.  I am 934 words away from completing the word goal of the 17th.  It isn't so very far, less than what a teacher normally requires for an essay in college.  In fact, I wrote a 6-8 page essay on Malcolm X in one night at the library the day before it was due.  I got an A on it.  Same thing with a 10 page short story I wrote based off The Frog Prince.  I was up until 3 or 4am on that one.

Yet.

934 seems like an eternity away.

But I must keep writing.  I want to be a published author some day that is able to live off of my words, and if I never finish a novel I'll never see that dream accomplished.

I will finish even if I have to stay up until 2 in the morning writing, lol.  That's what I get for ignoring the computer while I finish reading a good book.

Update:  Wordcount:  28,333/28,333

3 minutes to spare until two in the morning, and very happy.  My eyes want to cross of their own volition, and I'm about to send my character off on what's going to turn out to be a very interesting evening.  She's going to have to work with someone she angered before she knew they would have to work together.

Wheeeee!

Day 13

Daily Wordcount: 22,323/21,671

I've done it.

This is my third official year doing Nanowrimo, and I've done it.

I've written more for this year's Nano than I have for each year previously.  The most I'd gotten before now was 22,050, and that was right around the point where I realized I was stuck and that I'd have to rewrite a huge chunk of story that was going nowhere.

And I'm not concerned about rewriting my story at all right now.  At least, not until I finish the story which should be at least one more month of Nano-ing.  There are some problems with voice and finding the character (In the beginning she had my sense of humor a little bit too much for her character).  

Now she has a whole lot more depth, like a love for horror novels and a really scrawny old cat named Chauncey (whose name I have to correct a few times earlier in the manuscript, later on).

This year is going pretty darn well.  :D  I've already made it through some hurdles, like wanting to quit early on because I wasn't quite sure if this was the story I wanted to write for Nano, and falling behind thanks to life and illness.  I'm sure I'll have some difficult times ahead.  Work, for one thing, and parents hollering at me to do something around the house. 

Anywho, I'm going to go and back up my novel in case we get a freak blizzard and/or the power cuts out.  So I'll post again at some point the next few days.

Let me leave you with a picture.  A nice one.