What are Your Writing?: NaNoWriMo 2017 Edition

Hello, my lovelies!

Two weeks ago I explained what all is involved in participating in NaNoWriMo. I also mentioned how incredibly excited I am to be participating.

November starts today so I thought I’d share with you the story I’m so excited to be working on. No commentary on life or writing, no ranting or offering insight, no showing you the world through my eyes. Just a post about what I’ll be writing this month.

Title: The Merry Adventures of Snow and Robin

This is a working title. I don’t know that I’ll keep it but at the moment I love it so at the moment it stays. When it’s actually written and edited and I’m considering publishing it is when I’ll start thinking about whether I want to change it or not.

Logline (what’s it about in a very short amount of words): Snow White/Robin Hood retelling which Robin is supposed to kill Snow on the eve of her eighteenth birthday but they decide to become outlaws instead.

The book is going to focus on Robin and Snow’s adventures as they form their band of outlaws and work to reclaim the throne for Snow from her stepmother.

Genre: Medieval Adventure Comedy

I want to keep the medieval setting from both of the original tales. The tone of the story will be lighthearted and funny but also have plenty of action and excitement (hopefully…)

Projected Word Count: Around 55,000

I usually have some idea before I start writing of how long I want the story to be. Sometimes I end up coming up short, sometimes the book ends up longer. But usually it stays within 5,000/10,000 words of my originally projected goal.

I think this one is going to hit the official “novel” mark of 50,000 words (I hope so, because if it doesn’t, I don’t win NaNoWriMo!). But I also don’t think it’s going to be a whole lot longer than that.

Main Characters:

I know I’m going to write in third person so I’m not sure if I’ll stay in Snow’s perspective or if you’ll get some of Robin’s perspective as well. I’ll probably just start with Snow and see what happens as I write. I usually don’t plan these sorts of things in advance and like to discover what is right for my story as I tell it.

But whether or not we get inside his head, Robin will definitely be a major character in the story (his name is in the title, after all). He’s the strong, warrior sort, while Snow is more clever and cunning. They balance each other out nicely and once they team up it becomes clear that together they’re a force to be reckoned with.

The other major characters are the Merry Men/Dwarves, who aren’t actually dwarves in this story. They’re a family of miners who take the two main characters in and end up getting roped into their quest. Each one is based off a different one of the Merry Men from Robin Hood and I love them all so much. I won’t say more though because while I have an idea of who I want them each to be they’re probably going to change over the course of the story as it’s written.

Preparation:
I don’t have a set way that I prepare to write a story and usually just do what I feel that individual story needs.

I generally always make a Pinterest board for inspiration and a Spotify playlist. I did those for this book and I’ll share them with you a little later on. I also have my short little character sketches that just summarize who each character is in a paragraph or two. This helps me remember what exactly I had in mind when I created the characters so that I have a standard to hold them to as I write (though they are certain to change as the month goes on and I start to get to know them better and develop them more).

And beyond that I’ve done some rereading of the original tales the story will be based off of. There were a couple elements of Snow White that I’d never noticed before that I’m excited to include in my story. Robin Hood is a little harder since there are so many stories to read but I’m pretty excited about the ideas I have as to how to incorporate the original legends into this story and world.

I’ve also been getting a lot of other stuff off my plate in terms of writing- I finished the novella I was working on and wrote a good number of my blog posts for November this month. That way when I do have writing time it can all be devoted to my NaNo word count.

The Links:
As promised: Pinterest Board and Playlist

If you want to add me as a writing buddy, here’s my NaNoWriMo profile.

And if you want to stay connected this month about NaNoWriMo be sure to like my Facebook page as that’s where I’ll be posting that sort of stuff.

I hope to see you in Friday for the giveaway winner announcement! There’s still time to enter if you haven’t already.

Until the next time we meet, don’t forget to live happily ever after <3

~Jennifer Sauer, the Ivory Palace Princess

P.S. Let’s Chat! Whether you’re doing NaNoWriMo or not let me know what your November looks like. What are you planning to work on?