Young Writers Society

As I try every year for NaNos and NaPos and CampNaNos, I have yet another idea I hope this time around to actually get to writing. Although I’ll be competing with summer school I feel like I’ll have more time, or not if I hopefully get the job I want. Either way, I shall try my best.

This novel idea is untitled for now as I need to stop getting hung up on titles and spend more time on actual plot development and character development. However, the plot idea is similar to an old SB I had tried to get started but never had the brain capacity to work on enough: one of the classic “characters fall into their favorite book/game/puzzle” tropes that I think I could make feel a bit unique in some way.

Mostly it’ll involve a cash prize at the end as this will be involving young adults i.e. college students who would certainly do something interesting for some cash, a friend group that may never trust each other again with their own clothes and personal belongings, and a fictional world that carries some charm and a little sprinkle of danger to keep everyone on the lookout.

Word goal: 30k. 1k per day is a reasonable amount.

Good luck to the fellow Camp NaNo-ers.

Another 30k goal person!! I love the idea of using an old SB idea and reworking it into a novel, and love the idea of a "fictional world that carries some charm and a little sprinkle of danger". Consider me intrigued!!
I'll be excited to see how this develops! Good luck with it 💜

Thank you for the enthusiasm @Carlito ! I’ll have to see if I’m being too ambitious or not with my current idea but I’m excited!!

Prompt 1: World-building

What world do your characters live in? A fantasy world? A sci-fi world? The real world? If in the real world - what place? What makes the world your characters live in unique? Describe in your thread what your world looks like.

My characters will end up living in two worlds — the real one, set in Central California, and the game one, ser in what is currently unnamed but will probably be called Yurav as I often reuse names. Central Cali encompasses a fairly small suburb with some college students home for a short break in between classes at their local school. Lots of trees, fewer houses, and rare sight of many people under fifty, as it’s more often used as a retirement spot than anything else.

Yurav also has lots of forests and wild animals that may be something these characters have to keep an eye out for later. There’s certainly less houses or even any kind of civilization here besides some hollowed out trunks left behind from some kind of creature. The only other people living here are actual people from the real world, but that comes into play later.

Prompt 2: The Beginning

Have a think about your opening scene. Write about what plot points will be hit and what information will be shared in your first scene, or first scene that you consider to be important.

First scene should start with the characters inside the game. Hopefully point to a little piece of what their current mission is in Yurav, and to introduce how some of these people may differ inside this game world compared to outside the game world. More than that though, the second bit would be to best lay out what their end goal is, or some of the motivation behind them getting into this game in the first place.

prompt 3: The Villain

Don't neglect your villain. We may spend less time with this character, but it is crucial to the existence of the plot that your character's opposition be as believable and interesting as possible. For this challenge, either write about your antagonist's aims, characteristics, flaws, fears etc or, if you're feeling musical, write a lament-style song for them.

Since I agree with the statement above, I can admit that my villain development is usually terrible. However, I'm attempting at a different angle to form a villain that serves as not the worst person ever, but who makes very poor decisions and doesn't realize the consequences until after making those poor decisions.

The current name is Eve, mostly so that I could come up with short names in alphabetical order that I can edit in actual names later, or perhaps, these are all their code names for the game? Who knows.

Eve, however, is an interesting person. They had been raised in thinking that they were quite intelligent without having to try, even though they initially did try their hardest at school and learning. Over the years, from primary to secondary to then university, Eve stopped that thinking of hard work and instead felt anger whenever they failed, whether it was at a difficult class or they didn't get into the program they wanted to.

As thus, that motivated them to constructing this weird morph of a game that instead forced users to realize, at the end, that there was no happy ending, not when trying to get a cash prize. The game would always end in two ways, allowing for the rest of your party to perish, as the game requires at least four members per group to initiate, or you had to join the in-game villain and betray your friends.

It was all in the coding, or so Eve thought, until two groups of people showed up in their game and were determined to break the rules.

prompt 4: supporting characters

Fill out the following questionnaire from the NaNo site about at least one of your side characters, though the more you do the more prepared you will be.

I'll do this for a few characters! But later. Leaving this as a placeholder.

prompt 5: the plot

Two alternatives for outlining your plot: 1. Draw them as a graph, 2. Write a list of everything important that happens and in the margins make note of what happens in between.

Hmm. I like the idea of drawing out a graph. I know for sure that some of the important points are a.) realizing that "I" was the former co-head of the video game before "E" broke up with them, b.) that there are only two possible endings to the game, c.) the fateful meeting between "I" and "E" d.) meeting up in a fierce battle between Groups 1 and 2 and e.) "A" making the decision to end the game.

There will of course be some side stories, mostly of some of the friendships possibly turning romantic, or romantic relations turning to friendly ones throughout the process of the game. Also, there has to be development of why these friends are even playing for the money, or if some actually don't care about the money at all.

prompt 6: the structure

Think of at least one way in which the structure of your story could be interesting. You don't necessarily have to use this in your story, but it can be useful to have a think about if it's something that just hadn't occurred to you.

Since I already know there will be gameplay, I figured I could use letters/very short names to address the players while in-game, and then come up with real names later. Actually, I'm wondering if I could write out all of the gameplay scenes for the month, then fill in each gap with what is happening in real life, such as a laundry list/daily list at the end of each gameplay to mark where everyone is.

Perks! This is a wonderful idea, and I can see that you're already fleshing it out. This is a cool concept and I cannot wait to see what you've written and how you're going to be writing it! 30k words is also a huge goal, but you got this! Excited to see more about this in this month ^^

Thanks so much @Vincian !!! I'm really excited about this idea too xD

Hi Perks!! We're halfway there!! How's that 1k a day treating you?

Ahah thanks for the check-in @Carlito ! I still love this story idea but I must say I overlooked how busy I would be from school. <.< >.> But I think I like this idea enough that I’ll be trying to write at least 500 words a day for the regular school year also, aha.