Truncated 30 days of world-building, part 4

Back to 30 days of world-building.  Only got a couple days to go before the commencement of Nanowrimo this year.

Skipping Days 17 and 18

 

Day 19 – Characters and what they’re all about

I’m not going to bore most folks with the character list.  Hell, I want to keep a lot about the characters a secret, since characters are often the key to my success in writing.  Instead, I’ll just offer a brief taste of some of them.

Here they are, in alphabetical order.

  • Grant Channing – Member of the Psychean Guard held by the Eurydice Compact for at least fifteen years.  Father of Lindsay Farragut.
  • Alana Chase – Born to the Eurydice Compact conglom, heavily cybered soldier.  She escaped to E-557 eighteen years before the story begins.
  • Brendan Cho – Born to the Chinasia Corp conglom and trained as a military pilot.  He is the only survivor of a ship shot down over E-557 eleven years before the story begins that was allowed to stay.
  • America Farragut – Member of the Psychean Guard held by Chinasia Corp. for at least fifteen years.  Mother of Lindsay Farragut and sister of Rachel Farragut.
  • Lindsay Farragut – Born a member of the Psychean Guard two years after the decimation of Mimir, the home of the Psychean Guard.  She is the Oracle and came to E-557 with her aunt twenty-three years before the story starts.  Member of the Rose Council.
  • Rachel Farragut – Member of the Psychean Guard who came to E-557 twenty-three years before the story starts.  Aunt and surrogate mother of Lindsay Farragut, the Oracle.  Member of the Rose Council.
  • Ezra Grace, MD – Born and bred on E-557, Ezra is of genius-level intelligence when it comes to medicine and the interactions of humans and cyberware.  He’s not quite thirty when the story starts.
  • Adam Windsor – Member of the Psychean Guard who came to E-557 shortly before Rachel Farragut, after the destruction of Guard HQ on Mimir.  High-ranking military officer on E-557; one of the Guardians (military commanders of E-557).

 

Day 20 – Oh, the plot!

This particular directive — that is, starting to outline plot — is something I started a bit ago, as scenes started to form themselves in my head.  Basically, the exercise for day 20 asks the writer to say what the story’s about — what’s the overarching plot.

On the Nanowrimo forums, there’s a thread that was fantastic: the 20-word summary of your plot.  This was mine:

Humanity has killed dozens of worlds. They’re not allowed to kill this one.

Thirteen words to describe the plot of The Last Colony.  We’ll see what the ending holds.

I do have one major subplot already in mind, which deals with the rescue of America Farragut and Grant Channing from the Chinasia Corp and Eurydice Compact congloms respectively.  Of course, Lindsay isn’t going to like the plan that Ezra (since it will be Ezra that comes up with the majority of the plan) comes up with for rescuing her parents.

 

Day 21 – Flora and Fauna

Largely skipping this one, except for to jot down the note that there are various terrestrial species that have been preserved since the loss of Earth that have become semi-domesticated.  Other species were used to populate the lands of E-557 long before the colonists ever landed there.  No one’s really sure who terraformed the planet or seeded it with terrestrial species.  There is some data to indicate that E-557 was a world that had once harbored life before being terraformed, but for some reason had been abandoned in a very distant past.

 

Skipped to Day 24 – Mood (again!)

Day 24 is all about artwork, mood, and music playlists for working on your project.  Of course, this can take a long while to put together, especially the artwork.  So, for the moment, I’m going to forgo some of the artwork but share some of the music that’s evocative and inspiring lately…

Other songs include “Keep Holding On” by Avril Lavigne, “Now or Never” by Three Days Grace, “Wonder” by Natalie Merchant, “Believe” by Staind, “Carry You Home” by James Blunt, and “World” by Five for Fighting.

 

Day 25 – The Sky (and what’s in it when)

This isn’t so important, since I don’t have any nighttime sequences in mind that will require moonlight.  I love the moon in all its phases, and if it becomes important to have the moon be a certain way at a certain time, I’ll be sure to keep track of phases.  Though the exercise is a wonderful cautionary tale.

 

The rest of the days on the world-building lists are mostly wrap-ups — finish up with this, that, and the other thing.  So I’ll be spending my last few days before Nanowrimo working on school work and doing some outlining for November 1!

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