Young Writers Society

Because I couldn't decide which one to go with xD

April 1-13: Miscreants

A messy little fantasy draft about social class, balancing personal values with connections and rituals.

Goal: total 6,500 words

April 14-30: Mutant Families

A dystopian 'kaiju' novel also about balancing personal values with connections, a zero-sum game perspective and the burdens of love.

Goal: total 6,500 words

Miscreants Journal Challenge Wishlist before the end of March

- Outline a difficult plot point [DONE]
- Main character's motivations [DONE]
- Protagonist and antagonist [DONE]
- Character and location list [DONE]
- Outline a difficult scene [DONE]


I already did the Journal Challenge with MF last NaNo, so I think I'll leave that one alone for now.

Character and Location List

This covers Chapter 8-9 in my notes.

Characters
- Golzar
- Bryn
- Gerhard
- William
- Tanya
- Alexis
- Richard
- Robert
- Ashley
- Priest Rose
- Vivienne
- Haywood
- (unnamed merchant woman)
- (George, a one-scene character)
- Ariga
- Dene
- Redvine
- Lucretia
- (Pulcheria, mentioned)
- Brookwood
- Raymond
- Othmar
- Myra

Locations
- Neverheim's Lover
- Miscreants Halls
- The High Tower (libraries)
- Lucrece, The Old Quarter
- Heroes' Guild Halls
- (in a flashback, Skyroot manor/mansion - I forgot what I called it)
- Throne Room (interior and exterior)
- (hill's edge)
- (the marina/ riverside/ coastal region)

Here for the bouncing between projects!! You got this Lim <3

Thanks so much, @Carlito!

Outline a difficult scene

So at the end of Chapter 8, I want to have this scene where William and Ariga talk alone. Well, it's mostly William doing the talking but I want Ariga to kind of non-verbally give her piece or at least have the implication that she's thinking about what he's saying.

The context is: William has just sent his heroes out to put down an uprising and is now trying to justify it to himself saying he had no choice, he had to do it because otherwise the nobles would have disbanded the Heroes' Guild and the nobles would have sent their own army to put down the rebellion anyway.

The atmosphere is meant to be very oppressive and conflicted, I'm thinking a dark meeting room with a single candle for light.

The reason why the scene is difficult is that I've never written from William or Ariga's POV before and I'm trying to keep a majority of the POV scenes to like, four characters, neither of which are William or Ariga.

One solution I can see is to have Bryn spy on them. But I'm not sure if Bryn would be the best character to do that, because their character arc isn't really all that tied up with those two. Ideally, I want either that no one knows about this conversation but William and Ariga or that Golzar finds out about it somehow.

But there's one more thing I just thought of, maybe Lucretia could actually be listening in to this. It isn't super 'realistic' for a Queen to be sneaking around, but Lucretia isn't supposed to be the most conventional Queen, besides I'm sure plenty of those political period dramas have slightly unrealistic scenes for effect so why not do it here in this draft?

Some reasons it would be good for Lucretia to be the POV character:
1) I can explain it as 'she arranged a meeting with William and arrived early'
2) I can have the main antagonist appear at least once in this chapter
3) The themes of power and loyalty are very linked to Lucretia's character arc

SO I'd imagine here what happens is Lucretia gets down from her carriage late at night around the Heroes' Guild Hall and enters, accompanied by guards. But then she tells the guards to leave her once she is inside the building, she wants to be quiet and eavesdrop because she can see that there is a candle burning in the usually empty council room. The guards don't make much noise, because at hours like these, they're trying to keep the Queen's travels discreet to avoid attracting troublesome attention. (e.g. if an opponent to her regime was walking by, they wouldn't want to blow a trumpet that basically screams THE QUEEN IS HERE, even if the palace bodyguards could theoretically take most would-be assassins)

So Lucretia is a very quiet walker as well, and she's able to stand outside the council room, which has a closed door for some semblance of realism (even though open door would sure be more dramatic). And she overhears mostly William talking. Then when she announces herself and walks in, she catches the last bit of Ariga's visual reaction to the uprising situation and William's actions, which is probably something like a very troubled frown and silence for a character who usually speaks her mind. Then Lucretia sits down to start her meeting with the two, and the scene ends there with her thoughts on what she just heard.

Main character's motivations

For this I'm going to refer to the Maslow hierarchy like I did for MF.

Golzar's goal in Book I is to reform the Heroes' Constitution (something I'm probably going to rename Order/ Oath or something) to give heroes more guidelines specifically as to when they can use violence and when not. (The realism of the whole scenario I constructed around this is questionable at best, but never mind, reworking that can wait.) Her underlying motivation is her complicated relationship with 'power'.

I see Golzar as someone who tries to fix problematic power relations in the outside world while knowing that self-reflecting on her own power relations somehow just won't be 'enough' to make things right. It's a bit harder to use this Maslow's hierarchy because Golzar's motivation seems a lot more purpose-oriented than psychologically-driven, but I guess that would make it something like 'Self-actualisation', if being 'enough' = being one's best, what one is 'supposed' to actualise. It's a primarily moral conflict she has.

Another element of how Golzar's motivations play into the story is that they are often competing with her more basic needs like 'Love and belonging' and 'Esteem', and later in the story 'Safety and security' as well. So something-something about the price of trying to be moral, haha.

Protagonist and Antagonist

The protag of this story is Golzar and the antag is Lucretia. As for similarities, they've got loads. The prologue of the story is about one thing they share in common: some kind of drive towards 'justice', whatever that means to them. They are both young women in a society where the status of women is kind of complicated. They are very intellectual people. They are both leaders. They each have a kind of contempt for the present-day social structure.

Some differences I can think of:
-> Golzar's justice is largely about power and vulnerability - i.e. the powerful exploit the vulnerable and that has to be stopped; Lucretia's justice is largely about power and merit - i.e. those with merit do not have power, those without do and that is unjust; as seen in the prologue, when Lucretia thinks of stopping crimes like raiding and bribery, she lumps all these together as a kind of 'poison', a blanket labelling of vice; when Golzar considers the actions of a hero who misuses his power to steal from ordinary people, she's thinking about how that power imbalance affects defenseless human beings
-> Social class and upbringing: Golzar is a freeperson and was brought up by a craftswoman (a blacksmith, specifically). Lucretia is ... someone from the upper-class with a claim to royalty, who was raised in secret by a big group of people interested in her as a political piece, as well as her biological mother, though in a more distant way.
-> Golzar fought on the frontlines of a war and developed this sort of iron-forged bonds with a group of comrades she views as family. Lucretia has maybe one or two people she trusts and spent most of the same war far behind the lines, though she had some significant involvement here and there.
-> Their outward 'energy' is actually pretty different: Golzar likes to project a kind of charming rebellion that masks the real rebel inside that is actually dangerous to the authorities. Lucretia tends to play the part of the generous yet distant Queenly figure, who can also switch to being an authoritarian - kind of a carrot-and-stick method, whereas Golzar tends to keep her persona consistent.

Outline a difficult plot point

Honestly, the entirety of Chapter 9 is this. I've actually kind of 'drafted' chapter 9, only that I introduced a bunch of things that comes across as deux-ex-machinas, which is why I ended up inserting Chapter 8 there to sort of intro those things here first (even though the 'surprise effect' will be damaged haha -- but at least it would be more believable if I do it this way).

Putting this under spoilers because,, well, it is a big ol spoiler:



I guess some thoughts I have after writing all that are:
-- Hmm, Golzar seems a bit naive here for someone who technically HAS been dealing with nobility in a way since the start of the war - ideally I'd want her to come across as a bit more experienced than that
-- Wow, there's a lot of scenes I could cut out if this is really all there is to it

Day 1

Miscreants
540/6,500 words

Day 2

Miscreants
1229/6,500 words

Day 3

Miscreants
1575/6,500 words

(Ah these are cumulative by the way ^^')

Day 4

Miscreants
2,084/6,500 words

Surprise line share!

Day 5

Miscreants
2,301/6,500 words

Day 6

Miscreants
2,520/6,500 words

Hmm might plan on doing a bigger writing sesh on the weekend for catch-up.