The World from Scratch: My CampNaNo Project

5:35 AM Gemma Fitz 2 Comments

Excuse my lousy cover. I wanted something very different from this-- I had it perfectly planned out in my mind-- but the picture I had imagined didn't exist and I can't draw, so-- I guess that's life. Maybe I'll get one of my artist friends to draw me a cover one of these days.

So, anyway, this month I'll be working on a story I've entitled The World from Scratch. Here's a nice pretty synopsis that should be longer and less sucky.

Three computer scientists, two architects, a weapons specialist, a doctor, a nuclear physicist, and an artist have been given the ultimate task: building a brand new world-- inside their dreams. But when Abbie Rigg's subconscious creates a dangerous psychopath within the Dream State, the technology that was meant to save the world might well destroy it.

Genre? It's kind of New Adult-- or more like New Adult characters in a very Young Adult story (I'm not sure how that's going to work out). It's very definitely science fiction, but it's also something of a fairy tale retelling-- that's right, it's futuristic Sleeping Beauty set inside her dreams. And the Prince is there too (only he's not a prince-- sorry).

The setting is fun, because it's basically whatever Abbie's subconscious decides it should be. This means that you get cherry blossoms in November and snow in June and everything is weird and confusing but the characters don't even notice because Abbie's dreaming and you don't notice how unrealistic stuff is when you're dreaming.

The hero/protagonist/point-of-view character, James, is an artist. (Which is nice for NaNo, because it allows me to go into great detail about any little thing I feel like describing, because it's him talking, and he notices those things. It really helps with the word count, even if I'll have to cut all the random descriptions out in editing. I'm such a cheater, aren't I?) He's also the equivalent of the prince from the fairy tale and I've never really done romance before, so that's interesting. *cough* Hopefully I don't botch the whole thing, but I think that's hoping a little much, don't you?

Character-wise, he's absolutely adorkable and just a little bit boring (I need to fix this). He's a cute-ly out of place member of the team-- while everyone else is thinking about the science and technology and etc, etc, etc he's just noticing how nice everything looks and how difficult that scene would be to paint and isn't that grouping of trees just perfect? 

Abbie, the love interest, is a weapons specialist, not a princess. After all, I did have to remove all the fairy tale aspects, didn't I? (I do like fairy tales, I promise. Just not as much as I like sci-fi.) Also, her subconscious accidentally turns the dream into a nightmare, which results in her not only being the love interest and FMC, but also the antagonist. Which is interesting to write about. She's super practical, totally goal driven, always focused on the details, and would rather work alone than with a team.

Keiran is "only" a secondary character, but he bears mentioning because he's adorable. He's a software developer and probably James's best friend. He's funny and smart, thinks through everything logically, and is usually at least one step ahead of everybody else (often enough two or three steps). And he's Irish, which is always a plus.