NaNoWriMo Announcement/Story Synopsis

 Hello! I haven't posted in a while. Why whenever I say "Stay tuned!" in a post I go into a huge hiatus? Anyhow, I have a huge project coming up that I'd like to talk about a bit...

National Novel Writing Month. Or NaNoWriMo, as it is more commonly called.

I've attempted to do NaNo three years in a row, and this year is the year that a finish it! NaNo is starting in a little over a week as I am writing this, which means I am in a scramble to finish all of my preparations. I still need to solidify some character arcs and finish world-building for the country. But, I won't be getting into that right now. But I will get into some basic details of my novel.

My novel is called Captivated. It's a YA "competition" book as I like to call it. Other competition books are The Hunger Games and The Selection. Both of which are fabulous trilogies*. Captivated is pretty similar in pitch to The Selection. A bunch of kids get chosen to go be a part of a competition to become part of the country's government. Again, very similar in pitch to the Selection. Once we get into the synopsis, however, you'll start to see some differences.

Phoebe William-O'hare is a fifteen year old in the fictional, dystopian country of Haverbourne. In Haverbourne, there is this huge annual event called the Contest. During the twelve-week Contest, fifteen kids, five from each School, are chosen to come to the Contest Facilities and participate. The three Contest winners become members of the Board of Representatives, Haverbourne's parliament. Phoebe decided early on she was never going to apply to the Contest ever, but when her only friend Joey Fawn is Invited and they get in a huge fight, she changes her mind and applies in order to sabotage Joey.

I'm going to work through this synopsis and explain some things without straight up spoiling.

I don't really explain the Schools very well in the synopsis, so I'll do that a little better here. There are three Schools: School One, School Two, and School Three. Each School corresponds to a certain level of employment. School One consists of very famous people with glamorous jobs. Actors, Representatives, professional athletes, that kind of thing. School Two has doctors, accountants, lawyers, teachers, etc. And School Three is people who work in any job that'd be considered lower. Working at a gas station or working on a worksite, those types of things.

Another thing that needs a bit of explaining that isn't very spoilery is how the Board of Representatives works. The Board of Representatives consists of five seats: Three seats that are kept by that year's Contest winners and two that are elected seats. The elected seats are chosen by the people from the Invited and the current Representatives. The Invited are basically two kids from any of the Schools that are invited to the Contest, but get a bit of different training as they might be elected to office.

Over the month of November, I plan to write 50,000 words. I know that's the normal word count goal for NaNo, but this is the first year that I am resolving not to change that goal over the time that I am writing Captivated. Most of these YA books are part of trilogies, but I really want Captivated to be its own stand alone thing. I feel like the YA genre is just infested with trilogies and I'd like to deviate from that.

I hope you enjoyed this more blog-y post. I don't normally post stuff like this, but I really enjoyed writing it! I'll be posting a little more infrequently, but I will keep you all posted on Captivated's progress.

Stay Awesome! <3