Looks like I have to hit up the plot-maker again! Or rather, the detail maker.
My story has a MacGuffin which, transported from England, has vanished. The wealthy antagonist wants it, but also wants no one to know of its existence (I’m thinking it’s something that could be used to blackmail him.) What the MacGuffin is, I haven’t decided, but in the nature of true MacGuffin, it’s not that important as to what it actually is.
What I -do- need is this; the female lead of the story, whom the male lead is hopelessly in love with, has already murdered once in her search for the MacGuffin… I’m just not sure why it’s that damn important to her. I keep thinking she wants to blackmail the antagonist, but I’m not sure why she’s willing to go as far as murder to get her hands on it.
Any thoughts / ideas?
An undisclosed and hitherto unknown disputed will - he wants to destroy it as it shows his entire fortune actually belongs to her.
I couldn’t write at all today because of a deadline for one of my clients. But I was so determined not to go without writing at all, I’ve just spent two hours catching up, even though I’m exhausted and it’s 3:15AM here. So I’m now at 17475 words, and though it’s really the 10th here, I’m counting those words for the 9th. Which puts me at a very good place, wordcountwise, and I’m psyched. I’m actually, dare I say it, proud of myself. And that’s not something I say lightly. (Hubris terrifies me.)
Yesterday I had to invent a 12th century Latin prophecy; today’s section required writing in the style of a 19th century bird watcher/artist/journalist, a sort of pseudo-Audobon. This book is a lot weirder than I thought it was gonna be. At least my heroine’s finally left the 21st century on her journey back to the 1800s. Which means 1/3 of the book has been spent in setup! Oy. This is gonna need a sick amount of pruning, I can tell you that!
Does Antagonist want the McGuffin, or does he just want to conceal/destroy it? Unless your Dame is a real villain, it seems unlikely that she’d go as far as murder just for financial gain; the motive almost has to be revenge–the McGuffin will give her a way to ruin/destroy Antagonist. It’s difficult to see why Antagonist would want to possess an item like that, as opposed to just getting rid of it–at least in the genre you’re working in. (If your story had supernatural elements, it would be a bit easier, as the McGuffin could be his heart, his phylactery, his magic superweapon…)
Sticking to your hard-boiled themes, the best thing I can think of is multi-layer blackmail. The McGuffin is blackmail material, but it’s material that Antagonist was using against a third party (henceforth referred to as Bigger Fish) to keep them from moving against him. If the Dame can prove to Bigger Fish that she has the McGuffin, Bigger Fish will be free to take out Antagonist, which is what they both want.
Of course, that leaves the Dame in possession of material that Bigger Fish wants destroyed. She could hand it over, taking the chance that Bigger Fish won’t decide to finish the cover-up by rubbing her out. She could continue to blackmail Bigger Fish, a risky and morally dubious course. Or she (and the male lead, whom I shall presumptively call “Dick” if he comes up again in discussion) could pull a double cross, using the McGuffin to bring down Bigger Fish after he takes out Antagonist.
Does that help?
I swear I’m going to finish this issue today… I’m nearly there actually. I’ve got about three-quarters of a page from the old prose version (which I thought I had changed the names and pronouns on when I changed the sex of three of the characters but I keep finding places I missed) which I figure will be scripted at about three pages.
I’m getting together with a buddy to write tonight (he’s not doing Nano, but he’s got a short story to do), so hopefully I can make progress on Bandit Masks.
It looks like I’m going to have a small freelance job, which is nice money-wise, but I’m hoping I can put it off until December.
ArrMatey, maybe the blackmail she wants to do is unrelated to the McGuffin, and it’s something that could be used to blackmail her? But the antagonist doesn’t know that, yet.
Yay! I’ve finished issue one!
Details:
The White Knight #1
Devotion
39 pages, plus extras (model sheets, a preview of issue 2, and thanks page, which y’all will be on)
This means I get to buy myself one thing off my list. Now I just have to type it up.
Good for you, Silver Tyger! 
Hey, Wrimos–I need help. I need a gang name. And it has to be a “real” sounding gang name (seems like nowadays gangs don’t really call themselves things like the Sharks and the Warriors, right? Although we do still have the Hells Angels and the Vagos…hmm) The location is the SF Bay Area, and I don’t want to get into any real-life stuff like the Nortenos/Surenos. So something fictional that sounds plausible for a powerful and very nasty gang with influence over a large area. They don’t have any particular ethnic affiliation.
Thanks in advance! I’m tired of writing “the [NAMES].” 
Oh, and I’m up to 21,836!
Infovore, I found this on the Nano forums. Picking out the non-silly ones:
Black Dogs
The Houngan Boys
Dirty Business
the imperial sons of hades
the stormdogs
the almighty fists
these are made up after looking at a list of gangs in chicago, a lot of them have “almighty” or “imperial” before their names.
Any you don’t use, I may (I still need to name the gangs, besides calling them ‘Mask’s gang’ or ‘Silver Dollar’s gang’
If you leave ethnicity out of it, another common theme in gang names is turf-derived names. You could base the name on the heart of their territory, or their original stronghold. If their territory is around Turk Street, for instance (which seems unlikely), they might calls themselves the Turks, even if none of them are actually Turkish. Similarly, if they started out dealing drugs in Grundy Park, they might be the Grundy Boyz.
For further inspiration, there’s a selection of gang name acronyms at the Internet Accuracy Project.
Congrats!
Thanks, **Silver Tyger **and Balance! Tyger, I think you’re safe in using any of those–they’re great suggestions but don’t quite fit what I’m looking for. Closest would be the Black Dogs, but I think I’m going to keep looking. Balance, I’ll read through that list you posted–looks like a lot of possiblities there and I’m only through the A’s.
I feel kinda goofy jumping in so late but I started last night and have so far wrote 5000 words. I hope to write another 5000 tonight. I believe I can catch up!
Me too. I’m at just over 5400 words myself - this has been my worst year for word count. I seem to be just starting to get an idea of the characters (and I’m adding to an existing story, but going back one generation)
It’s Friday here, and half the weekend’s booked already, but I hope to be at the required word count by Sunday night, all it will take is a couple of 5k+ days.
Hey all, how are we doing? We’re almost half way through!
Speak for yourself. I’m barely past 18 thou.
The story just won’t flow for me this year. 
I just passed 21,000, but only by writing 4,000 words today. It’s been a bad week, but I’ve made up for most of it.
I’m up to 23,000 but everything is still pretty tenuous. I’m hoping to discover what the little picture (I know the big picture, but it’s more of a “startling realization” than action-y) should be some time this week. These kids need to do something other than simply be private school students with secrets and nice buildings.
I’m only at about 12k - had a really rough start and ditched the dog story. Now, I’ve changed directions totally and picked up about 8K this weekend and feel now like it’s full steam ahead.
Luckily, I’m a wicked fast typist and I love going down to the deadline :), otherwise I’d be tempted to throw in the towel at my current word count.
Hm. What kind of secrets do they have? Is it something to do with the school (secretly training in magic, superheroism, the spy trade…)? Or do they just have lots of skeletons in their personal or familial closets?
I’m moving right along! Up to 36,000 words as of last night, and things are humming. I’m really grateful that NaNoWriMo came along when it did, because it happened at a convergence of a period where I have some free time to write and one where I was actually motivated to write, so the novel I’ve had in my head for years now is finally getting moving.
I don’t doubt, unless something catastrophic happens or I completely lose motivation, that I’ll easily hit 50,000 words by the end of the month. The problem is, I’m projecting this baby to come out somewhere between 90-100K, so I’ll still have some work to go after I won’t be able to track my progress on the NaNo site anymore (that’s amazingly motivational for me, seeing those little bars go up on my Stats page. )
Anybody know if you can keep tracking after the month is over?
I only meant time-wise.
I’m at about 16k and I haven’t written in two days.