#theconnectome

@siarven tagged me to do this monster of a tag game! Thanks, I’ll do my best XD

Rules: Answer the questions and then tag as many writers as there are questions answered (or as many as you can) to spread the positivity! Even if these questions are not explicitly brought up in the novel, they are still good to keep in mind when writing.

FIRST LOOK

I’ll be doing this for The Connectome, the WIP I’ve been working on for about half a year now!

1. Describe your novel in 1-2 sentences (elevator pitch)

The Nephilim, descendants of the Angels, are forced/indoctrinated to put their magical powers in the service of the British Empire. Nova, a descendant of Azrael, is thrown into this world and has to face betrayal, torture and an overwhelming system of slavery and oppression.

2. How long do you plan for your novel to be? (Is it a novella, single book, book series, etc.)

At this point, I’m aiming for a standalone, but I don’t really know where it’ll end and how long it’s going to be.

3. What is your novel’s aesthetic?

Dark Victorian Steampunk-y Era vibes; foggy English landscapes, rough sea. The stink and misery of London’s slums, but also the fantastic technology of airships and weaponry that is made possible through magic.

4. What other stories inspire your novel?

I don’t really know, although I’m inspired by Seth Dickinson’s and Neil Gaiman’s writing styles. Maybe there’s a hint of His Dark Materials in there...

5. Share 3+ images that give a feel for your novel

This is the moodboard :)

MAIN CHARACTER

6. Who is your protagonist?

There are (at least) four POVs, although two of them are only minor and appear only in interludes. My main character is NOVA, a young Nephilim of Azrael, the Angel of death. This ancestry is visible by her left lower arm and hand, which are just plain white bone. 

Nova has grown up on the streets of London and values her own freedom over everything else. As she is whisked away to Marnmouth, a “school” (read: indoctrination camp) for Nephilim, she soon has to learn that there is no escape. The Wardens, prisoners and teachers alike, are masters at making you comfortable while ripping your insides to little pieces. And so Nova endures this trial of staying herself beneath psychological torture and constant indoctrination. There is a friend who goes with her through this, though, and in the darkest hour, he’ll be there.

7. Who is their closest ally?

She develops a deep friendship with Will, a Warden apprentice. He thinks he’s too soft to do this work, to break and re-knit young Nephilim, and in Nova he finds a friend who brings him back to himself after a cruel day. They watch birds together (he knows them all), and sit in Marnmouth’s beautiful gardens. Somewhere deep down, they know that one day, one will destroy the other.

8. Who is their enemy?

There is no real single enemy; it’s the whole society that works against Nova’s ideals. Individual characters representing this would be the Wardens - Messor, her own Warden, and others who delight in their task.

9. What do they want more than anything?

Nova wants the freedom to do whatever she wants; she loves to be at the head of a group and being free in her choices. For the story, this means that she wants to escape Marnmouth. Running away is impossible, so she has to destroy it...

10. Why can’t they have it?

Society is tuned to fearing and hating Nephilim, and seeing them as slaves; and since Nova’s ancestry is clearly visible, it’s impossible for her to go anywhere undisguised without being bullied or worse.

Marnmouth is inescapable, and the Wardens are there to capture and punish everyone who tries to run. Also, there is Will, who knows better than Nova what the Wardens are capable of, and he keeps her from even trying it.

11. What do they wrongly believe about themselves?

There’s a big thing, but that would be a spoiler, so... :P

12. Draw your protagonist! (Or share a description)

I’ll draw her one day, maybe, but not today... XD

Nova is 13 years old, has dirty blonde hair and is of middle height for her age. In London, she wore simple clothes, but at Marnmouth, it’s required that Nephilim wear a uniform - black and grey and itchy. It’s easy to tell that Nova hates it...

PLOT POINTS

13. What is the internal conflict?

This changes during the story - first, it’s Nova’s will to be free vs. her curiosity (Marnmouth does provide education, after all, something she also likes very much) and Nova vs. the indoctrination happening around her - trying to stay herself.

The later conflicts are also spoilers :)

14. What is the external conflict?

Nova has many conflicts with the Wardens and the teachers at Marnmouth - they’re telling her that all Nephilim are ‘evil’ and must be controlled, while Nova struggles to resist these indoctrinations.

When she learns more and more about the abuse of Nephilim, she knows that she has to do something - put her own wishes away and tear the whole system down. But that requires her to be drawn further into it - and whatever she does, it will change her forever.

15. What is the worst thing that could happen to your protagonist?  

To be kept in a cage (metaphorical or real), to be captured and unable to do what she wants.

16. What secret will be revealed that changes the course of the story?

Hehehe, I won’t tell you :D

17. Do you know how it ends?  

Maybe, but it’s not set yet. It’s going to be sad, that’s for sure...

BITS AND BOBS

18. What is the theme?  

Victorian era steampunk/fantasy; magic x technology; dictatorship

Friendship; LGBT+; Betrayal; Love

Indoctrination; slavery; oppression; magical education - resistance and the freedom to act

19. What is a recurring symbol?  

See above.

20. Where is the story set? (Share a description!)

It’s set in the middle of the 19th century, in Victorian era England. There’s no Queen; instead, an ancient angel is the solitary ruler. They’re the last of their kind - they betrayed them all, making them destroy each other in a terrible war. The angel is not evil; they strive for life, and so they had to cut away the wound that was killing the earth.

300 years after this Angel War, the angel rules over the British Empire and large parts of Europe. But before they fell, the angels had offspring with humans: The Nephilim. On their backs, the Empire rises to glory, using their magic abilities to create wondrous machines, to heal and protect. Never before did technology and sciences like medicine thrive like this.

But the Nephilim have to be controlled, says the angel, to prevent their blood from becoming too angelic, too wild and dangerous. So they set up facilities for them to learn how to be more human than angel, to use their magical powers only when needed by society.

One of these facilities is Marnmouth, located in Northumberland. Here, Nova and her friends are educated and indoctrinated, to fit perfectly into the machinery the government has wrought from the angels’ descendants.

21. Do you have any images or scenes in your mind already?

Oh yes, many many of them... I hope to be able to actually write them down, eventually XD

22. What excited you about this story?  

The merging of science/technology and magic; to view magic from a scientific perspective without losing the fantastic touch to it. And to be mean to my characters, of course, since they can’t talk back xDD

23. Tell us about your usual writing method!  

Uhh... sit down and switch off all lights, then type a few hundred words before turning the light on again and procrastinating for half an hour. Repeat until tired. This helps to make progress with the velocity of a slug, but every word is a small win, I guess... :D

I got tagged by @siarven to find the words grin/grinning, dark, green and dull! Thank you :)

I’m doing this for my WIP The Connectome.

GRIN (POV: Nova)

And then a sudden joy filled her, and she gave the Menticidor a wild grin that seemed to knit everything together again. He'd never get her. But Dawkins just smiled in that calm, infuriating way every adult at Marnmouth seemed to have mastered, and gestured. "Please, sit."

DARK (POV: Imber)

Marnmouth was breathing out the last of the day's pain and fear that had seeped into the brickwork. It was always like this in the evening, especially in autumn. Something dark seemed to leak out of the buildings into the air, hanging in the sky above the grounds like an invisible cloud.

GREEN (POV: Nova)

Beneath her lay the grounds of Marnmouth. It wasn't at all what she had it imagined to be. Among green, well-tended gardens sat several houses, the most prominent being a large mansion with a huge entrance door. Its red bricks shone in the last light of the sun, and everything looked very peaceful and serene.

DULL (POV: Nova)

He seemed to cut off every word as soon as he'd started to speak. "You, on the other hand, will be silent and listen carefully. Some of you", here, he somehow managed to glare at all of them at once, "may think that they are an individual, standing out of the mass of dull little faces. They are fooling themselves.”

It’s a bit sad (for my characters, I guess) that there were dozens of entries for dark, but only two for green... XD

Got tagged by @siarven ages ago... here it is :D

She was thirteen, after all, and denial was still welcome to her. Reality, however, had its ways to remind her of its presence.

WIP Page

Genre: Fantasy, Steampunk, Alternate History

Narration: Third person, First Person

Progress: First draft

Themes: Moral greyness, friendship, LGBT, magic x technology/science, alternate 19th century

Main Characters:

NOVA, a young Nephilim of Azrael, the Angel of Death. Her magic ability allows her to be able to kill instantly, making her valuable for the control-hungry government. When she is brought to Marnmouth, a kind of school for Nephilim, to be educated and formed into a willing servant of the Empire, she is determined to stay herself, but the breaking of a soul is a subtle process, and friends can turn to enemies in the blink of an eye.

WILLIAM “WILL” STERLING, a young Warden apprentice, trained to fight and educate Nephilim. But his heart doesn’t lie with the fighting pits or the smooth, cold machinery of the Empire. He loves books and birds, and the quiet places that can sometimes be found at Marnmouth.

FERAY, abducted at a young age from the Ottoman empire. There is a secret in her blood that has to be kept at any price. When she is sent to Marnmouth for education and protection, she does not know what horrors her existence will cause…

When Nova and Will are brought together by the Wardens, neither knows the true intention of their caretakers (which is control, and evaluation, and weeding out the bad seeds). A deep friendship develops, although Nova and Feray seem to share an even greater bond. 

All of this is a finely laid-out test, a great game of friends and lovers, enemies and allies. And the masters of this game, the ever-watching Wardens, know: There can be only one winner.  

Synopsis: 1847. It's been three hundred years since the angels, the powers that had ruled Earth for an eternity, destroyed each other in a terrible war. They all perished, crushed by their own powers. Except one (it was not the Lightbringer; but someone far more broken); and he took the ravaged countries of what we know as Europe, and made them his. 

The result is a world of wonders, of flying ships and new technology, of science budding and spreading its threads through society. But there are also those who suffer that others may progress: The Nephilim, descendants of the angels. Dark are their days in these times, for on their backs the British Empire rises to glory.

We follow one of them on her ascent - from famine and misery to a new life. (Here, the story gets darker, you see. An ascent is followed, inevitably, by a descent.) So she fights hunger, and punishment, and finally society itself.

But there is someone else. One who has made the descent already, and she has fallen so deep that she may never see the light again. Yet, there are questions in this one's dark mind, and they are growing while she kills and fights for society's welfare. Nephilim are her prey. She hunts what others have broken. Somewhere on this journey of two lives, we will see an angel destroyed. 

But this is not the story of his fall. This is the story of one who fell with him.

Moodboard for “The Connectome”

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This story has been brewing in my head for ages, and after two (more or less) successful Camp Nanos in 2018, I’m determined to bring it a large step forward in Nanowrimo :D HYPED!!! 

If you’re interested in this WIP, I’ll gladly add you to a tag list :)