November every year is Nation Novel Writing Month, where you have 30 days to write a 50,000 word novel. The challenge was set up by Chris Baty and his friends decades ago to encourage budding authors to write the book of their dreams. The idea is that, by writing at such a frantic pace, you don't have time for self-doubt or procrastination. No editing, just a mad dash from beginning to end.
I've participated every year since 2017, but this year I'm trying something a little different. Instead of planning a story ahead (and I use the term 'plan' loosely as I'm at my best when I don't know everything about my story), I'm going to use Mythic to help me create my story. I'll have an incredibly basic starting scene, but after that, I'm at the mercy of the little numbered cubes and all their spite.
In addition to Mythic, I'll be using a roleplaying game called the Great American Novel. In the game, you're a character in a book trying to get to the end of the story, going through all the adventures and such, for good or bad. Hopefully, your Novelist (the game's equivalent to Dungeon or Game Master) isn't a fan of Newbery Medal stories (where favorite characters die horribly). You can find GAM here:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/271655/The-Great-American-Novel
Now I'll be using the idea of GAM for my story for NaNo, though Mythic will be my main source for structure and rules. Mythic has a ton of awesome material for running games, and I plan to use as man as I can in November, including quick character generation, puzzles, and plot twists. Half my NaNo project will be rolling and interpretation while the other half will be my writing the story itself.
First though, I'm going to run a trial game, just to get the hang of this. This is only a single scene, like a short story, and it has no impact on November's project. I'll only be using 2 sets of rule tables: 1 Page Mythic and 1 Page Location Crafter.
The Location Crafter is great because for each location you enter, you roll 3 times, possibly generating an element for a Character, Location, or Object. Treating the locations as Scenes, I can treat each Element as the beginning, middle, and ending of the scene. This isn't set in stone though; if 2 elements work better together, I'll put them together.
I'll also make 3 rolls when creating each character. The first will be gender (Odd = Male, Even = Female). The second, on 1 Page Mythic will be on the Discovery Action table and the third will be on the Discovery Meaning table. If I'm still lost, I'll ask questions, but in general, gender and 2 Descriptors will be all I have for each character. Finally, for name, I'll just open my Baby Name book to a random page and pick the first name I point to. I'll just use first names for the moment.
My scene or rather story begins with a character walking down the street. That's it. That's all I have to work with. Let's see what happens.
But first, let's create my Main Character. I numbered each roll to keep it easy to understand.
Name: Deante Mills (Okay, I'll use surnames for MCs)
1. Gender = Odd = Male.
2. Descriptor #1: "Deceit," "Goals."
3. Descriptor #2: "Light," "Powerful."
Sounds like he's a corrupt businessman. Guess I'm writing this from the villain's POV. I can work with that. Now we'll go to the Location Crafter (technically a Scene Crafter for this). I roll once on the Area Elements table and twice on the Descriptors table. This will generate our first Element.
First Element: Encounter Descriptor; "Clue," "Dangerous."
(Q) Is he being stalked? (Likely) X-No.
(Q) Is it a clue about a rival company? (50/50) No.
(Q) Are the police on to him? (Likely) Yes (Random Event); "Burden," "Start."
Sounds like someone from the company just handed him info about the police being after him. Sounds like we need a new character.
Crystal (Female)
"Fears," "Surprise;" "Old," "New."
Deante Mills left his condo that morning and strolled down the sidewalk towards his high-rise company in the distance. The morning was crisp and cool, especially with Deante knowing he'd walk into his office, seeing his company's stock jump several points over the weekend. Sure a few thousand underlings would be required to vacate, but they were just numbers on a sheet of paper to Deante, a sheet of paper that also included a million dollar bonus overnight.
A few minutes into his walk, and his secretary appeared. The woman, just out of her teens, tended to dress in clothing so conservative, she'd fit into a picture decades old. With a long dress and her hair in a bun, she appeared ready for retirement if you didn't see her face.
Racing towards him, she shoved a piece of paper into his hands. "Mr. Mills, you need to see this."
Deante stared at the paper. "What am I look at, Crystal?"
"The records on the Briary account," Crystal answered. "Somehow it got out."
Deante lifted his eyes to to the young woman before him. "You were supposed to shred those documents on Friday."
"I know, and I did," she replied, tears making her makeup run down her cheeks. "At least I thought I did. But this morning, some police officers approached me, asking me about this. I told them I couldn't reach, but now they're headed for your condo."
(Q) Was Deante staying at a 'friend's' condo? (Very Likely) Yes.
Glancing back to the building behind him, Deante breathed a sigh of relief. The police didn't know about Madison. That worked in his favor, for the moment.
(Detail) What was the illegal activity? "PC, "Uncertain."
(Q) Did Deante steal someone else's identity? (Very Likely) Yes.
(Q) Did he do so just for the account itself? (Very Likely) Yes.
(Q) Do the police have an idea what happened? (Likely) Yes.
Deante again glanced at the paper. When Wilson Briary passed last year, Deante assumed his persona, hiding away in the office and performing transaction after transaction. After some time, he began to slowly transfer the company, piece by piece, to his own control. Last Friday, he had completed the entire transfer, performing it under the Briary Account. All paper trails were to be destroyed, but somehow this got out.
"What did they seem to know?" he asked, not looking up from the paper.
"Too much!" Crystal's voice trembled. "They know the papers were signed after Briary died, not before, and they think it's you but they don't have enough proof yet.
(Q) Did the police seize anything from the company? (Very Unlikely) No.
"Did they take anything?" he asked, while already working on backup plans.
Crystal shook her head. "They didn't have a warrant or anything. They just asked questions. I said I didn't know anything."
Deante nodded. "Go back and see if anything else got out somehow. I'm going to make a few phone calls."
So that was all the first element.
Second Element: Object; "Fortunate," "Lonely."
(Q) Is Deante married? (Likely) Yes.
(Q) Is Madison married? (Very Unlikely) No.
Deante returned to Madison's condo to find it empty. On the coffee table he found a note:
"Deante,
I need to figure some things out. You've been saying you were going to leave your wife for weeks, but you never do. I'm using my vacation time to stay with some friends for a week. When I get back, we'll talk some more. Hopefully that gives you time to make a decision.
Maddy"
(Q) Is Deante upset? (Unlikely) Yes.
(Q) Does Madison know about the Briary Account? (50/50) Yes.
(Q) Did she have anything to do with it? (50/50) Yes.
Crumpling up the note, Deante sat on the couch and sighed. He did not need this right now. Not only was Madison his emotional release, but she had helped him with the signatures. Would she sell him out to save her own skin after everything he did for her? At least if she was out of town, she might not know about the police. But he could still use some support right now.
Third Element: Object; "Personal," "Ready."
(Q) Are there police cars driving outside? (Likely) No.
(Q) Did he leave a suitcase at her condo? (Likely) No.
(Q) Did she pack his things in one of her suitcases? (Likely) No.
(Q) Does he have a plane ticket? (Likely) Yes.
(Q) Does he have a bank account elsewhere? (Likely) No.
(Q) Does he have actual funds hidden somewhere? (Very Likely because, Work with me here!) X-Yes.
(Q) Out of state? (Likely) X-No.
Hearing a siren, Deante leaped to his feet. Glancing out the window, he noticed it was just a firetruck going down the street. With a sigh, he stuck his hands in his pocket and his fingers found a piece of paper. Pulling it out, he found a plane ticket. Of course! With his new bonus, he was going to take a vacation, but with this new revelation, he might be better off lying low for a bit.
Remember his funds which he had hidden in record crates in a storage box, he turned and headed for the door. The crates held enough money that he could hide away for several weeks or months. He'd just phone his wife and Crystal and tell them he would be going away for business. Since he never arrived at the company that morning, it might look like he never knew about the investigation and it was just a wild coincidence. While away though, he could plan his way out and whom to throw to the police to save himself. Maybe Crystal, maybe Madison, or perhaps someone else. For now though, he had some work to do.
And there we have it. I started with a character walking down the street and ended with a corrupt businessman fleeing the police. Out of curiosity, I plugged my story into a word counter and got the following:
Total words: 1689
Narrative: 777
Not bad for a start. My plan was for each session to be at least 500 words narrative so that works. I didn't perform any Challenges or Clashes because I didn't see a spot for them. Maybe if this were the actual novel, I'd roll for Deante coming up with a plan and later eluding police. If he succeeded, then I'd gain a Plot Coupon that would allow me to modify a plot point in the future.
I'll probably perform more of these in the future to get everything worked out, but for now I'm happy. I got a pretty coherent story from just two basic sets of rules.
Wait till I add Plot Twists!
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