NaNo Blogging: The Plot

I am writing a massive book this time around. One that's going to dwarf pretty much every other project I've ever attempted in terms of scale and complexity. Which, if you look through my archives you'll understand is a pretty bold statement. I have an outline which is achingly close to 50k in its own right. Dozens of planned scenes and arcs. I just counted my recurring characters - not exactly major characters but those who show up for a speaking role more than once and, thus, have to be something more than "Guard #3 on the right" - and came up with more than 50. Exotic settings, a detailed backstory, it's all there, and I'm hoping to make use of all of it through five "chapters" or acts or whatever you want to call them. All in service of a kind of sci-fi/alternate history story that's hard to place within a genre box.

But, at heart, it's an intricately woven web of interlocking plots and schemes and character arcs. The sort of story that's hard to boil down into a logline or a simple summary. Because, without the context, you lose a lot of the nuance and the reason for why, exactly, you should care about these things happening.

I've tried, though, many times since having that one or two sentence pitch isn't just a good way to talk to other people about your work but it's also a good way of channeling your attention onto what's really important. Here's what I've come up with lately, although by reading it you'll be clued into the big "twist" at the heart of the novel.

The Empress Cassandra and the Lady Morgana both attempt to redraw the maps and achieve a lasting hegemony for their respective nations through a series of plots. But their schemes are at cross-purpose and, as each foils the plans of the other both intentionally and unintentionally, the world plunges towards chaos. But it's the Wolf who achieves the ultimate victory because she's willing to pay the price that the Empress isn't. A cost borne in blood that will change the course of history.

Not exactly poetry (Although I like the line about a blood cost, just not how it winds up, in the end.) but it gets the job of explaining the overarching plot mercifully briefly. Or, really, only half of it because there are, I've determined, four main plotlines which involve each of four central characters. The Empress, the Wolf and their respective daughters. But the daughter's stories fairly well dovetail into their mother's by the end of the book, and I just don't have time to explain them and the Empire and the Great Houses of the now-defunct Council in the brief real estate of the page I'm using up there.

I have more detailed summaries, of course, which explain much more. And, yes, here it is:

STALKING THE WOLF

It all starts with a disappearing girl from a frontier port, unreported, almost unnoticed in an Empire of billions. The Empress sits on her throne, looking for some way to pass the time. Five years since the seas burnt and the last war was fought, the Empire is at an uneasy peace and its ruler restless. Its borders unstable as they are vast. Its enemies vicious as the weak and infirm have been weeded out by years of fighting. In the newly acquired East, a conquered people rebuild and long for a return to former glories now that the storms of war have passed. Along the borders of the distant North, soldiers prepare their fortifications for the next promised war. The Crown Princess searches for herself amongst the relics of the past. The people busy themselves with their mundane pursuits. Reporters, officials, scientists and more look for the break which will make their careers. The middle class, flush with newfound wealth, busy themselves with hobbies. Ships sail the trackless waves, laden with goods. The business of commerce, of culture, and the steady march of progress goes on. But in the frigid wastes of the artic, far from the Empire's reach, the plans of the woman known only as the Wolf have finally come to fruition. As she prepares her servants and her daughter for a suden move to a new position, the traps she've set are slowly being sprung. And the largest, most dangerou prey of all, the Empire, is her prey. And, so, a chain of events is set in motion which will bring the world to the brink of chaos. But as the Empress always says, there's opportunity can be found when the risks are high enough. And she's not about to let her old rival outsmart her just that easily.

That's basically it, I have a few other summaries which are better about giving you an idea of all the subplots and mini-arcs going on, but I like that one best of all at the moment. Sets up the central rivalry, the dichotomy.

As I said, there are five "chapters" planned. The first, which I'm working on right now, is all about laying the groundwork, establishing the world and its characters, and setting up the schemes. The second is about watching those scheme unfurl. The third is about watching them go wrong as tensions mount. The forth is about chaos breaking out as they fall completely apart. And the fifth and final one is about picking up the pieces and putting them back together. And the twist is that the Wolf "wins" but you have to understand just what stakes she's playing for before you know why that's not exactly as clearcut as it sounds.