Today I will be doing Beautiful Books, hosted by Sky @further up and further in and Cait @Paper Fury. My project this year for NaNoWriMo is called Shadowskin, and I'm slightly nervous (understatement of the century) because this is the first time I'm doing the full 50K challenge. O.o I've done the YWP in the past but this might be the last year I can do a huge challenge like this so I need to write while I can. *wails* #collegelifewilleatmealive
Where was this post going again? Oh yeah.
Presenting my answers to Beautiful Books.
What inspired the idea for your
novel, and how long have you had the idea?
Originally, Shadowskin was a concept I had for a snow queen retelling that I randomly wrote and might complete, but
then I took the magic elements and created a new story for them. I've probably
been working on the idea since July, but it was still evolving into what I have now. And then I found a certain picture on google and the story idea came
out of that. (It's the big square one below.)
Describe what your novel is about!
Ugh...okay. It's about a girl named
Hannah who lives in a fictional city called Jawai (don't ask why I called it
that). She is trying to find the gray in between right and wrong, but has a
hard time accepting the consequences of her wrong decisions. The common threats
are creatures called skaads that are basically shadow demons that can take over your body and the only way to battle them is to wear shadowskins, which are pieces of
shadows that morph into creatures. There's also a guy who is not from the city
who is learning how to defend himself from the skaads and INTERNAL CONFLICT!!!
What is your book’s aesthetic? Use
words or photos or whatever you like!
 |
| image credit to respective owners. quote by me. |
Introduce us to each of your
characters!
Hannah
Hannah is impatient, determined, and
she kind of neglects the things that matter most. That's why she has family
issues. Her moods shift drastically, and that tends to set the mood in a room.
Other people's moods affect her too, so if someone else is angry she gets
really angry. She can be kind though, and deeply repentant. Forgiveness is
harder for her.
Eli
Eli is adaptive. Not just in
lifestyle, but also in personality. He subconsciously changes how he reacts
with different people to accommodate their moods and learn more about them. He
believes in hard work, but can be prideful and an overly private person. He
hides things as long as he can. He is kind, patient, and defensive of other
people.
Ruby
Ruby is Hannah's younger sister, and
although she is younger, she tends to be the more mature one who knows her
responsibilities and takes care of them. She gets frustrated with Hannah a lot
and has an obsession with glass (that's important). She is fiercely loyal to her
family, but pride keeps her from letting them take some responsibility because
she thinks she can handle more than is realistic.
Augustus
Augustus lives with his adoptive
grandparents and their nineteen cats, which he frequently jokes about. He can
be laid back, but he's a quick thinker and sharp observer. He acts on hunches a
lot of the time instead of calculations, but he somehow is often right. On most days, he acts as a skaad tracker. He has a
strange side occupation of selling beverages of different distilled edibles.
Darby
Darby is sharp, snarky, and a puzzle
solver. She also experiments a lot with the glass products at her father's
factory. She doesn't believe in using the shadowskin. Very down to earth,
focused, and productive. She tends to hold herself apart from most people,
studying them with cold indifference. She is very helpful and supportive of her
friends though, except for when she disagrees with their choices.
*shrugs* They're still works in progress.
How do you prepare to write?
(Outline, research, stocking up on chocolate, howling, etc.?)
I save all my ideas for the very last
minute and collect NaNo memes. I also make this my lock screen and create a
very basic three structure outline. I kind of work on character sketches, but I like to figure them out as I write because its easier to mold their
personalities to make my plot work.
What are you most looking forward to
about this novel?
The fact that I have not written a
new story world in a very long time, and this magic thing is seriously cool!!
Like, I wish it were real. (Don't we all wish that?) I like the internal
conflict I'm torturing my characters with too. That's my favorite part about
characterizations. >:)
List 3 things about your novel’s
setting.
- Desert, salt flats, snowy mountains all together in 500 square miles
- Two seasons that are either really hot or really cold
- Dark nights when the skaads come out to hunt
What’s your character’s goal and who
(or what) stands in the way?
Haha...I can't really explain this
without spoiling a whole lot, but basically Hannah wants to find her dad who
left some years ago to build them a safer place to live. Unfortunately, she is
impatient and he hasn't come back yet and she's trying to save money to find
him, but her mom is ill and her sister needs care and her brother can't support
them anymore because he is leaving and it's a mess and basically she's a terrible sister/daughter.
Eli wants to [SPOILER], but [SPOILER]
stands in the way. *facepalm*
How does your protagonist change by
the end of the novel?
She isn't so mean and blind and
actually pays attention to important things and stops being so selfish and
accepts her responsibilities. Eli changes from alive character to not so alive
character. #LOL
What are your book’s themes? How do
you want readers to feel when the story is over?
Contrast is the main theme, and decisions we make are either
good for us or bad for us, but never in between because light and dark cannot
occupy the same space. Decisions always have consequences that you can't
escape, good or bad. There's a lot of polar opposites and extremes, but I want
the readers to feel like they learned something about decisions. Idk. I'm still
figuring out if I want to pursue this when I finish the manuscript or not.
So there's my novel. What about you?
Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year?
What's your project about? If you're not doing NaNo, what's your current WIP about? Let's chat in the comments!
Smiles!
Nicole
