Nano Ideas #1

I've decided to use this blog to put down my ideas for nanowrimo 2009 in the hope that I'll be able to decide which of them to use. To start off with tonight, I'm going to look at The Heart of the Storm.

Nano Idea #1 - The Heart of the Storm

Tag - Terry Brooks meets Robert Ludlum with a hint of Clive Cussler

Genre - A science fantasy thriller

Back cover copy -

The ancient order of the Hearthunters. An organisation of untold wealth and power, the shadowy hands behind the Dark Crusade that saw mankind forced from the Old World. An organisation devoted to protecting the secret location of one of mankind’s most treasured artefacts. An organisation lost in the fires of the Exodus… Until now.

Léa Barmoor, daughter of renowned historian Benjamin Barmoor, is travelling with her father through the wilderness of the Shattered Shore, when a group of assassins try to kill them by derailing the train they are travelling on. Léa narrowly survives the attempt, but her father is killed… Before he dies, though, he entrusts her with the location of a family diary that may hold the key to secrets she has tried to elucidate her entire life…

Jonathan Marlowe, an operative of the Royal Secret Service with a magical ability he hides from all, is part of the security detail protecting a visiting aelfindred prince come to the New World as part of the Concord Initiative – an attempt to rebuild the alliance of races that once existed. When the leader of the detail tries to murder the prince, Marlowe intervenes, saving the prince’s life. Assigned to look into his superior officer’s betrayal, Marlowe discovers a plot rising to the highest levels, a conspiracy intent on stopping the Concord Initiative before it can begin. Before he can reveal the plot, however, Marlowe is declared rogue. On the run, unsure who he can trust, Marlowe must turn to Barmoor and the diary in her possession to make sense of the conspiracy… and find his way to the legendary Heart of the Storm.

Pros -

A familiar idea dealt with in an original way
The possibility of a fun story with lots of action and set pieces
Combines two of my favourite genres - thrillers and epic fantasy

Cons -

Still struggling with the exact plot, although I have a few ideas of how it starts and how it ends
Also struggling with the 'alien' races in this world, and the worldbuilding in general
Will require a change in my way of writing to fit the thriller style
Risk of it becoming a cliche thriller

Comments

This is a modified version of a very old novel, the second novel I ever finished. I doubt anyone who ever read that original novel back then would recognise it, though: apart from a few names, there is little to link the two.

The basic world idea is this - in our far future, the human race is forced to flee the Earth through a stargate type machine known as the Heart of the Storm. They arrive in a world with a bunch of alien races, all very much like certain fantasy archetypes - you have your elves (the aelfindred), the dwarves (dwelven), the dragons (mribish) and other weird races (see above - I'm still struggling with these). A dark lord is ruling over them, the humans get together a coalition and defeat him. Unfortunately, a few centuries later, the humans turn on the others and launch a war to seize control - the aliens make a coalition and throw the humans from the Old World, forcing them to flee to another continent.

In recent times, there has been another war. That has come to an end and now the humans are reaching out again: they want to reform the Concord. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who do not like the sound of that. I still don't know exactly who these people are beyond the fact that they will have some kind of a link to the Hearthunters, a Templar-like organisation mentioned in the back cover copy above. What that link is still quite unclear... A lot of things are, unfortunately. Still, I think this could be quite a cool story, and I'm hoping it could lead to a series following Marlowe.

Excitement Rating: 7/10 at the moment

Back...

After reading Gary Gibson's fantastic blog over on White Screen of Despair, I've decided to start this little blog up again. Even though I'm sure no one will be reading it, I reckon it will be a good place to talk about my current writing projects, my progress and whether I manage to actually get published. At best, it will give someone else a boost some years down the line to read these posts and see my own trials and tribulations. At worst, it will be funny to come back and read these some time later on.

So... current projects - as it has been for the last few years: Soulreaper. The story of a former assassin turned thieftaker investigating a couple of murders with an old man's soul in his head. Damn, how many times have I written that??!

At the moment I'm on a second, or third (?), draft, and have the first 6 chapters written in some form or another. I'm trying to do a constant write-reread 5 or six times-move on kind of way of writing, which I've never really done before. Not sure of the word count now and can't be bothered to check, I'll try and do it tomorrow.

Otherwise, I'm working on a series of ST fan fics I quite like, which I may or may not talk about on here.

What else? Nanowrimo is getting closer and I'm wondering whether to carry on with Soulreaper during that time and get a first draft done (slightly against nano rules but...) or whether to try something completely different. Maybe space opera I'd try and publish through Ray Gun Revival, a great pulp type ezine with a lot of guys from ex-Deep Magic. Or a more serious SF book about 4 friends caught up in an alien invasion and picking their friendship back up 250 years later (wow that doesn't sound so serious when you put it like that). Or one of three or four fantasy ideas... Choices, choices.

Currently Reading:
The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruis Zafon
The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross (ebook)

Listening to:
Muse - The Resistance

Watched:
The Sentinel
Supernatural s05e03 (So good!)
True Blood s02e06 or 07

Looking forward to:
Catching up on Heroes/Desperate Housewives/Fringe
over next few days