NaNoWriMo Special: About My Project

Writing and tears

As I said at the beginning of the month, I’ve both suspended non-fiction for this November and plan to write about what I’m writing instead. So in place of an edition of Let Me Talk To You About, let me talk to you about the story I’ve been writing for NaNoWriMo.¹

Chiseling Into Shape

I don’t have a title yet. So to start, here’s what I have so far for the kind of synopsis you used to see on the back of books before the review quotes about being a subversive New York Times bestseller took over.

A boy named Sora awakens alongside his uncle Akio in the fantastical world of Abraxion, populated by naga who consider humanity an extinct race from legends. Seeking to secure their place in this new world, Akio enters a temporary marriage with a naga king named Prasert.

As Sora struggles to adapt to the new world, his new unwanted royal status, and his new unwanted uncle’s insistent attempts to earn his trust, dark forces lurking in Abraxion set their sights on Sora.

What I can’t find a concise way to say in a summary is that Sora turns out to have magical powers, and that the ‘dark forces’ mainly feature three humans with similar powers. And that Akio is the one who raised Sora, so they’re far closer than the title of nephew and uncle imply.

In terms of overall structure, each chapter starts with a scene set in another time and place from the rest of the chapter before continuing with the established linear plot. They’ve been good for building up suspense while letting the main part of the chapters take their time.

The core of the story is Sora’s character arc, and the relationships between him, Akio, and Prasert. It’s a narrative centered on character. Even with battles to fight, there will be a lot of space given to interpersonal drama in the royal palace.

To go even deeper, the story is about the value of life and how to actually live in the imperfect world. A basic pitch won’t touch on it, but suicide is a major theme of the story, with the very first scene showing an attempted suicide.

And while set in another world, there’s a lot of direct criticism of ours. The human world is defined mainly through how damaged all the human characters are from simply living in it. It’s a very personal story for me in that regard because it contains a lot of my own pain and discontent.

When I was struck with an idea for an epilogue, for the closing notes of the narrative, I cried. And it kept making me cry throughout the day, got to the point of nearly sobbing as I quickly wrote it out, and then cried when thinking about it the next day. I would call it a happy ending, but there is an obvious reason why I cried to the point of getting annoyed by it.

Due to that overwhelming emotion I ended up falling behind on the daily word count, but now I’m not as concerned. This story has been a rather amorphous one since its inception when I was in middle school, its original shape was completely different but kept some key character ideas. Having an ending that powerful feels like a sign I’ve finally found its form.

A development like that is hard to quantify. I’ve written an entire draft of this story for a previous NaNoWriMo and still couldn’t make it feel whole. So I feel like I’ve already met an important goal. I’m still going to write as much as I can this month, because the story still needs to be written. But at the start of the month I’d get anxious when I hadn’t written yet that day, now I’m not.

What I’m looking forward to writing

Once Prasert’s father, Suriya, enters the story I’m sure my writing pace will pick up, since he’ll be a lot more judgmental and forceful. At the moment I’ve stalled out a bit due to there being quite a bit I want to set up while not having a clear idea of what exactly I’m established. Royalty are surrounded by a lot of people after all. Please Suriya, come with enough energy to carry the scene and restore my writing momentum.

Also, I intend for this to be a story where there will be intertextual elements that give more insight if you identify them. There are going to be cases where human characters openly bring up other works of fiction, and some that are more subtle, like a speech about a bird and egg that builds off similar dialogue in Demian and Revolutionary Girl Utena, the latter of which was referencing the former. Utena is also an influence in a few other ways.

I want the scenes where other works of fiction are openly discussed to also be clearly more than just a ‘do you get the reference’ bit. When the Hobbit comes up it’s not about making people feel like they’re in on something, it’s about Sora’s relationship to it and what that shows about his character. Knowing the reference won’t be getting a joke, it will be having a chance to spot foreshadowing.

Storytelling as a social activity is something related I also want to feature. Having asides to make up random myths for Abraxion helps add variety. And contrasting it to the scenes that bring up other works of fiction can help them feel more integrated, it’s a mutual exchange of characters talking about stories they know.

Another thing I’ve enjoyed thinking about is the powers I’ve alluded to several times. Each involves a weapon that is summoned through a special chant, because I love magical chants and tweaking them to convey different aspects of the characters. It’s not just a list of abilities, it’s an extension of the character.

The history and development of the story

At first, this story was modern day mythological fantasy, featuring a group of reincarnated deities from different mythologies. Sora was one of those characters, a reincarnation of the Japanese god Susano’o. His name comes from that now discarded element, since Sora means sky in Japanese, and has been kept out of inertia. His last name, Anima, can mean soul or mind.

There was a whole expanded universe built up around the concept. Eventually the story downsized to Sora as the only reincarnation, but his uncle, a vaguely defined character at that point to be honest, stayed on.

Sora also ended up with different mythological figures as mentors, sometimes the story itself involving them fighting over the role, which is a good way of describing how it developed between drafts. Tezcatlipoca and an original character based in Egyptian mythology were the main ones by the time it got to a full draft, but originally it was Odin and Quetzalcoatl.

Something that has stuck is Akio having a romance, though the other side of it has changed. There’s something about Akio that keeps getting him paired up with nonhuman/mythical characters. Him entering a political marriage with a naga king he just met started as a joking idea, now it’s part of the premise.

The transition to portal fantasy came from the difficulty in balancing the fantastical and real life elements of the story. Throwing the story into another world let me focus on the important things, instead of letting the story or readers get too fixated on insignificant specifics.

I do still want to write stories that mix different mythologies together, but I’ve come to have a better appreciation for the importance of research to get these things right. One of these days I’ll finally use all that Tezcatlipoca research for a story.

There is still somewhat of a mythical element in this story at least, as I’ve purposefully borrowed and leant on some tropes from the Indian epics.

Going forward

I’ll have to now balance NaNoWriMo with writing Fintan’s story in Battles Beneath the Stars. So that’s a jump in difficulty, and there has been an unrelated increase in non substack/author work for me to do. Maintaining balance is hard, especially with Thanksgiving coming up.

This has been in my mind for a while, but I might share some of the in story mythology here as stand alone posts in the ‘Misc Fiction’ section at some point. There’s one in particular I had written beforehand that makes for quite the introduction to Abraxion and the full story. And if there’s an interest I could share other excerpts as well, as rough and unpolished as they are.

Let me know if there’s anything more you’d like to hear about my NaNoWriMo writing in the comments or as a reply to the email version. As well as if this reminded you of any of your own creative endeavors.

1. National Novel Writing Month, a challenge where people attempt to write 50,000 words in November. Many people customize it to suit their specific goals, but the broader point is to set a difficult writing goal and try to reach it by the end of the month.