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[tahariel]

If you were a sexy mercenary/bounty hunter / badass, why would you long-term hijack a dragonbird and its hot female pilot/messenger? And also accidentally bind yourselves together so you can't separate by more than 300 yards?

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Comments

[zoeiona.livejournal.com]

In terms of the "why hijack?" - to do something with it. Something plot-related; getting somewhere, moving something. As to the accidental binding - I couldn't say as I don't know the mechanics of the magicish thing involved, but it has to be easyish, or at least plausible, to do by accident, or it won't work for a reader.

[tahariel.livejournal.com]

I've worked out the binding mechanics, but I'm working on the plot at the moment and that's where I feel it's a little thin yet. The act of his first bartering a ride then hijacking her and her dragonbird is the main momentum, the spine if you will, but it needs muscles and organs yet. Which is why I'm mining you guys as a resource :D thanks hon.

[zoeiona.livejournal.com]

Plotting is fun! Do you have any underlying ideas about what's going to happen or where the story's going to go, or was the hijack the origination point?

If you've got a complete blank canvas from this point... there are so many reasons to hijack a dragonbird. Bartering for a ride to one place, but then hijacking to go to a different and vastly more dangerous place that the dragonbird-pilot definitely wouldn't have been willing to go at any price (soldier of fortune going somewhere politically unstable; renegade going to somewhere that's politically a deadly enemy; heading for the equivalent of Mordor to rescue someone; heading for the equivalent of Mordor to throw away the Ring). Bartering for a ride, and then the pilot notices the hijacker is carrying a small MacGuffin, either stolen property or the equivalent of the deposed queen's jewels that he is (genuinely!!!!) taking abroad for safety, so he has to "persuade" her to carry on flying. Bartering for a ride, and then a forcible diversion to go to some deserted spot in the middle of the night, to pick up a passenger or a MacGuffin, or to drop off the hijacker if his enemies were listening to him barter for his ride, or even for the dragonbird to do a bit of digging for buried treasure if it's capable of such. Forcible diversion so the hijacker can kidnap the princess, or kill the chief of the guard. Soooooooo many bunnies. :)

[tahariel.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's a lot of awesome options! :D

Okay, so here's what I've got:

Sort of steampunk-ethos without the steampunk world, so Victorian-esque names, fancy clothes, fun and games.

Plot point: this world previously had a much more technological society in it that died off, but still remaining and some of the ruins and objects belonging to the people of that time period, known as the 'foretimes; objects from that period are known as 'forethings, and users of them are known as 'foresmiths. These objects are a sort of blend of technology and magic.

Our heroine is Curiosity Carter, dragonbird messenger, who rides around on her dragonbird Pachua from town to town delivering messages, packages etc as part of some sort of royal/governmental/institutionalised service. We start with her meeting Bren, a mercenary/soldier/bounty hunter type who barters for a ride along to one of her next stops (not the next one, several on.) Technically this is not allowed, but she needs the money and Pachua can take the weight, so she agrees.

Bren is a 'foresmith, whose speciality weapon is an antique gunn or pistalle for which he has to make the bullets himself. He is a badass (I possibly, maybe a little bit, like badasses. A smidgen.)

Problem is that when they get to where they're going Bren does... something? Kills someone? Doesn't kill someone?... and lands them both in the soup. To prevent her from dumping him, he uses a pair of bracelets that he thinks are just a control device that prevents them from getting more than 300yds apart. Unfortunately for them, it binds the two of them together in a sexy way too (aha ha ha, are my fandom roots showing?)

So they have to flee together or... something... and SLEEP IN GIANT NESTS AND STUFF.

I have more worldbuildy stuff in my head at the moment than I do plot stuff is the problem. I'm still developing. It's all over post-it notes down here.

[zoeiona.livejournal.com]

It sounds like you've already got the main work of plotting done. As regards the details; people tend to have a reason for killing people. If Bren kills someone important and they have to run away together, the plot could just run down those rails, or you could have the person Bren kills be involved in something else (a plot against the government/king, with other top officials involved?) and the people taking part in the plot/whatever also pursue Bren and Curiosity, using the perfectly valid excuse that Bren killed whoever, while Bren and Curiosity unravel the plot/whatever and use that as ammunition to stop Bren being imprisoned or hanged. ??

[tahariel.livejournal.com]

It's lovely that you think so, but my problem is that the running away part needs fleshing out, you see - it's not enough on its own (for me at least.) I do like the idea of Bren's forcing Curie to help him go save somebody, though - that's making a few things tick over somewhere I can feel them but not see them (yet.)

Maybe he gets the lift to try to save the person BEFORE they get sent to the ass end of Mordor, but they're too late and so he hijacks her, with people who recognise him in hot pursuit to prevent it?

I'm really, really bad at writing travel. Which is why I am dumb because this project is about travel. But maybe it will make me improve. I also need to think about the flora and fauna, and do more worldbuilding to make this feel like a really solid place to me. Like, do dragons also exist? And other large reptilian beasts? And what about mammals - any weird things there? I'm a big fan of using the fantasy elements lightly in my writing, so it's not all fireballs and transmogrification.

You're really helping me think, love, thank you :)

[zoeiona.livejournal.com]

Glad to be of assistance. :)

It sounds like the next step is not travel, but geography, which is travel when it stops. I suppose you need to figure out what Bren does and what his/Curie's reaction to it is going to have to be, in order to work out whether you're going to have to take them to Mordor, or go round in a big circle back to the capital city, or whatever. Then you can figure out things about the terrain and inhabited places they'll be visiting or flying over, etc., as well as whether they'll be chased by wild dragon-things as well as other pilots' dragonbirds roped in to look for them. ;)

[tahariel.livejournal.com]

Another reason I am dumb: I am really bad at drawing maps. They always look like real places. To get around this, for islands, I google image search geographic ulcers of the cornea and draw the outlines to make up islands.

It's kind of weird, I know, but you get some awesome shapes! However, no islands in this story - it's mostly mainland. I will have to sit down and work at it.

I'm using a few different influences for this, but one of the big ones is Dinotopia - I don't know if you've ever read it? It's this gorgeous illustrated book about a land where humans and dinosaurs live together in a big, cohesive cross-species culture. It's so clever, and it's funny to realise how much it influenced me as a child now that I'm looking back at my writing.

I think they probably go straight to Mordor, do not collect £200, but have to range across vast countryside etc to get there. Including the sleeping in a giant nest thing, which is an INESCAPABLE EVENT which I demand take place.

[zoeiona.livejournal.com]

*hugs* Pls not to dwell on feeling too down. These feelings happen with writing.

There's an eleven year old game called Alpha Centauri currently available for £3.57 on Amazon that works on Windows XP. Aside from being a very good turn-based strategy Civ-style game, it's infinitely replayable; part of that replayability is a map generator - the sort of thing that might help for generating continents that look like continents, but not like anything RL. I lost my CD years ago because I've got it cracked on my computer, or I'd lend it to you just so you could play with the map options.

Once you have a continent that doesn't look familiar, that's the time to look at the real world to see the changes that gradually happen over relevant bits of vast countryside - river basins, mountains' rain shadow, etc. Adding that RL detail will turn an outline into a working geography, and then you've got a place in which travelling can happen.

(I've not read Dinotopia, no. I would like to say all influences are good influences but am fairly sure that that's not actually true... some of mine have eaten my brain, and not in a nice way.)