More preparations

I have 5 days remaining for prep. At this point, I'm not going to fill out any more of the character sheets. I'm going to allow my characters to be a little flat and underdeveloped for the time being. I'll just make sure that I have a cast of characters to draw from and what their place would be in the story. Yay for outlines!

I have a basic story outlined. It's a simplistic story that will rely heavily on character development  I know, it's ironic that I'm not developing them with the character sheets. However, in the outline treatment, I'm describing the characters' roles, motivations in the scene, and generally shaping the direction. I think having a loose idea of the characters at this point will serve my purpose a little more than having characters pre-developed.

In doing my pre-writing, and in some of the shows I've been watching, I've discovered that I really enjoy the sympathetic villain. The person that makes the wrong decisions, but with the best of intentions. You don't end up hating the villain... you end up feeling bad for them, for their plight, and you hurt and feel their pain and guilt as they do something that is outside of their current character, but will shape them to be the "bad" person that they become. The selfish person who just isn't entirely selfish (or doesn't realize she is selfish) and just wants to control their environment, to protect their loved ones, etc and feels that the ends justify the means.

The more I work on this outline, the more prepared I feel to start writing. I'm arranging scenes in the story and fleshing out relationships. I've worked out ways to incorporate the facilitation of information. I'm working out the system of magic. I'm working out the theology. I'm working out the political nuances  I'm working out motivations.

I need to work on character flaws - especially for my hero. Let's face it, no one likes a "perfect" character.

I'm hoping to have 10 pages, if not more, for the outline by Oct 31. I think the more I have in the outline (including rough scenes, literary devices like flashbacks, etc), the more I can focus on getting the exposition and dialog written during the writing blitz. I want to avoid my tendency of saying "[insert scene X here. I need to find a way to get A to B, but I don't know what yet so I'm putting in this placeholder]." I think that methodology will be disastrous for a project like this.

I shared my NaNoWriMo goal with my principal today and he's excited about the challenge and may try it himself. If anything, this may become a bonding experience for me and my boss which is kinda cool.