Let’s Get Ready for NaNoWriMo

It’s been a full two years since I last participated in National Novel Writing Month. Time to change that.

This year, I’d like to give you a sneak peek at my project. I’ll start with a preview post here, then a halfway mark review around November 15th, then a final roundup post at the end of the month.

Why? First, to shamelessly plug my book in the hopes that you’ll someday buy it. Second, I’m excited about this story and I want to share it with cool readers like you.

Sound good? Let’s begin.

First, What is National Novel Writing Month?

Every November, millions of people across the world set out to write a 50,000-word novel manuscript. Since it’s a bit of a mouthful, most people call it NaNoWriMo. (Always makes me think of “BiMonSciFiCon from The Simpsons.)

If you average it out, that means one needs to write an average of 1,666 words each day to hit the goal. That’s definitely a lot of writing and there’s little wiggle room. It helps to plan ahead, so here’s my plan.

The World

The working title for my book is Short Contracts. I don’t normally dig the “this meets that” plot pitch, but in this case, I’m using it anyway. My book is Moneyball meets The Lord of the Rings. Let’s start with the LOTR elements.

The dark lord figure has been an archetype of epic fantasy ever since Tolkien. It’s usually a character who appears infrequently on the page but whose influence is felt nonetheless. The dark lord wants to conquer the world, usually by means of vast armies. The central purpose of the book is often to defeat this character.

We’ve seen enough dark lords in fantasy to last a lifetime. Sauron, Lord Voldemort, The Crimson King…there’s no shortage of them. Rather than create my own, I’ve instead shifted my focus to the postmodern. More specifically, I’ve always wondered what happens in these worlds after the Dark Lord has been defeated. In the world of Short Contracts, it’s the introduction of professional sports.

Instead of football or soccer or cricket or something (how do you even score that last one?), the sport of this world is called Questing. Questing is a sport meant to carry on and commemorate the legacy of those brave adventurers who defeated the Dark Lord of this world. There were five in the party who defeated him, and so there are five possible positions for players to play.

I actually previewed this world in “A Good Fit in Penbluff City,” a short story from my collection Monsters at Dusk. Here’s a snippet about Questing:

“Questing, for those who don’t know, is a simple game. Ten players on the field, five on each team. Teams vie to score the most points over a 60-minute period (divided into four 15-minute quarters). A team earns 25 points for disarming an opposing player, 50 points for recovering the Hidden Artifact, and 75 points for slaying the Beast. (The Hidden Artifact is a small object that’s, yes, hidden somewhere on, in, or within the field. The Beast differs depending on the field, though they’re all large, nasty, and temperamental.)

“If that sounds like a dangerous sport, it is. Players have heads bumped, bones broken, limbs severed, even lives lost. Fortunately for them, the day’s advanced magical techniques reverse most of these injuries, sometimes even the fatal ones. Sometimes.”

So those are the rules and stakes of the game. It’s a sports drama as told in an epic fantasy setting (with a strong element of humor, of course).

I realize I’m being a bit cagey with the plot, so here it is in greater detail.

The Inspiration

Take a trip back in time with me. The year is 2014. I’m a senior at Ithaca College and I’m enrolled in a course called Advanced Writing for TV. The assignment: write a script for a 60-minute original TV pilot.

The film Moneyball had released just a few years prior. I found a discount DVD of the movie at the Target on Triphammer Road (remember DVDs?) and had been showing the film to friends whenever possible. The idea of a sports film, particularly one that delved into the transactional aspect of sports, was fresh in my mind. So I decided to write a TV show about baseball. I called it Expansion.

The main character of my show was a guy named Buck Foreman, which makes him sound more like a manly 50s actor than a starting pitcher. But pitcher he was; a hard-throwing (and slightly arrogant) southpaw for the New York Yankees.

At least he used to throw hard. We encounter Buck at age 38. He’s losing velocity on his fastball and has therefore become less valuable to the Yankees. Just a few pages into the script, he’s informed that they will not renew his contract.

Buck doesn’t even consider retirement. He believes he can still play, even if the Yankees (and most of the rest of the league) think he can’t. Only one team shows serious interest in him: an expansion team I invented called the Portland Anglers. (An expansion team is any new team added to an established sports league.) The rest of the script follows Buck as he adjusts to his new life with his new team.

I won’t write much more about Expansion. Why? Because you can read the whole thing for free, right here. Hope you enjoy it.

Now you might wonder why I went off on a tangent about a school project from five years ago. That’s because it’s serving as inspiration for the book I’m about to write for NaNoWriMo.

At the time I wrote this script, I honestly believed it was the best writing I’d ever done. The characters fit nicely together, the plot was tight, and it was really fun to write about baseball, a sport I’ve loved watching since my grandfather got me into it (sad Yankees fan here). I’d lamented the fact that I’d likely never become a television showrunner, which therefore meant nobody but my classmates and my teacher would likely ever read the script. I’m glad I get to use it in some capacity now.

The Novel

Short Contracts won’t be about an expansion team (though I could always return to that idea in the future). It’s about a player who’s been unceremoniously dumped by her team. Now she’s forced to adjust to life with a new one.

Our main character’s name is Four-Leaf (not a real name, but it’s the name everyone calls her). Four-Leaf’s Questing career has been defined by disappointment. She was the number one overall pick in her draft class, a local kid, and a great college (or in this world, academy) player. She was considered a can’t-miss prospect.

That made it all the more crushing, for both Four-Leaf and the fans, when she missed. A combination of injuries, poor coaching, and bad luck have ruined her once-promising career, to the point that she’s known as one of the biggest busts of all time. That reputation is solidified just before our book begins, when Four-Leaf makes a horrible error that costs her team a championship title.

So Four-Leaf finds herself on a new team. Just like Buck Foreman, she must adjust to a new city and a new team. The question is, will she become the player everyone thought she could be? That’s what I’ll be writing about this NaNoWriMo.

Parting Plug

If you’re interested in the world of Questing, you can get a sneak peek right this second. Remember that story I mentioned called “A Good Fit in Penbluff City”? It’s available now in my short fiction collection Monsters at Dusk. Check it out. Hope you enjoy it.

Let NaNoWriMo Begin!

I’ll check back about midway through the month with more info on my project. I’ll have updates and maybe even a little excerpt for you. Until next time!

Kyle A. Massa is a speculative fiction author living somewhere in upstate New York with his wife and their two cats. He has written two books and numerous short stories, both published and yet-to-be published. He enjoys unusual narrative structures, multiple POVs, and stories about coffee.