Here's a free totally awesome story idea that will definitely make you rich
two jokers (or were they called jesters?) work for a king in ye olden times, and they fall in love ooh. At the end one of them says to the other "Our love was never a joke."
haha get it? Oh you're not laughing? I'm sure you're actually crying from how emotionally profound it is. anyways I've said my piece and btw I'm super intrigued by the first wip you list in your intro. I would not mind any details about that if you'd like to share
that's beautiful. i can see the profound story in front of me now... two rival jesters, each wanting to one up the other to become the court's sole jester. there's backstabbing, comedy, a strange amount of political intrigue for two jokers, and then a perceived betrayal. my heart is moved by the two jesters who choose each other over status and move to the countryside to teach all the wee children how to play practical jokes.
and sure i'd love to talk about to win a price! the technical main character is a knight named aurelius, though you don't learn about aurelius's motivations immediately. Instead, the story follows character after character that interacts with Aurelius on this quest of theirs. The first is a voiceless mail carrier named Ballari who gets involved unwittingly in a murder and travels with Aurelius (and Aurelius's companion, Kaleo, a bard-historian that can never stop traveling) to try and find the culprit. Some of the other characters are Motek, a being called a watcher who lives with the watcher's historic enemy, the guardians; and Alt, who comes from the predecessors of guardians and watchers, and yet, who wears a human skin. There's quite a few more characters but I don't want to clog this ask too much.
As for Aurelius themself? The kingdom they were taken in by has a tournament style for the successors. Successors are taken in very young and raised as siblings. Whoever succeeds in a set of trials will be chosen as the successor of the monarch, while the others are members of cabinet or such. The current reigning king has no such siblings in court. And Aurelius had the bad luck to become close friends with the most hated successor. It is the king's backstory that Aurelius discovers through the story, and the readers get to learn more about how Aurelius came to be here :)
So why are you doing all of this? Traveling around the continent, doing ridiculous tasks... there’s always a motive for these things.
Well maybe I don’t have one.
I find that hard to believe. You had a nice life. No one leaves something like that without a reason.
No one just... just gives everything up for nothing.
... There is a reason. Some call it a bad one.
And it is?
Love. I guess.
Genre: (high) fantasy | POV: third person limited | Status: First Draft | WC: ~120k (projected but who really knows)
Triggers/Content Warnings: implied/reference violence, mild swearing. (excerpts with triggers will be tagged and this list will be updated if anything else comes up)
Summary:
After receiving three ridiculous tasks from the king, ex-Knight Aurelius Lijne embarks out on a journey to accomplish them so that they can finally marry their best friend, the crown prince, in peace.
Along the way, they’re saddled with people from all forms of life--from the bard who’s only here for his finals to the elf who might be a spy but is definitely a convict and fugitive to the Fae who’s spent more years among cowboys than their own kind.
Then again, what did Aurelius expect, when one of their tasks involved stealing the Dark Lord’s shoes of all things?
Current tag list (ask/dm/comment to be added/removed):
Good morning!! My heart is full of love for Motek and if you want to tell me about them.. my appreciation would be immeasurable 🥺❤
good morning/almost afternoon! i’ve vagued about a couple of these I think in the past but here’s some stuff about their backstory because why not:
So all elves are connected to magic in some form and Motek was regarded as “weak” because they couldn’t take control of their element (air) to the degree that other elves could. As a result, they had minimal training, which was really bad when the Rinedan Incident happened, because they completely lost control there.
As a result of the Rinedan Incident, they had magical inhibitors in the form of cuffs. They ended up running away and were declared dead because elves can’t live long either without access to their magic or in a place that is rich with magic. Guess what, they weren’t dead. Why did being away from magic not kill Motek? because they’re ~special~ (it’s more than that but it’s kind of a spoiler) (then again their backstory and what their “bracelets” are are also kind of spoilers but whatever)
Motek was being depressed in Tehnurin, which they thought they were a genius for picking out, because who would think that after the Rinedan Incident they would go to a place like Tehnurin. It was smart but uhh also very very dumb. To be fair, Motek’s the equivalent of a teenager at this point in time and also actively repressing their feelings and trauma. Anyways, Tehnurin was very on edge because of the Rinedan Incident so they did Not Like Motek and Motek was just like “you know they’re not killing me or anything :)”
Yeah that pleasant feeling doesn’t last long enough and at one point, they just go to the plateaus and lie down with the intention of never getting up. or like, maybe getting up once in a while, but other than that, nah. maybe after their growth spurt they’d get up. motek doesn’t really have plans.
enter alicia who was suspicious at the lack of an elf went to go find them. then she found the now taller lump of motek in the plateaus and was just like “well i guess i have to slightly aggressively adopt them”
everyone else: you really don’t need to
alicia: no i’m gonna
meanwhile motek is like “oh you want me to do a job? i can do that. i can do all the jobs especially since i’m strong and also i don’t need to sleep or eat or anything--”
alicia when she learns that motek’s still a child: excuse me what the fuck. why are you doing so much work then. where are your parents.
motek: uh. my parents... i don’t really have them?
alicia: you’re an orphan???
motek: no like. i was dropped on a doorstep when i was a baby and the adults of that family didn’t really want another child so their children just kind of... kept me around.
alicia: what the fuck.
anyways now the only jobs that motek does is look over paperwork for alicia’s very legal organization and do the dishes.
well, the only jobs that they used to do. because there was the falling out and uhhh let’s just say that things get rough after that.
first off, we have aurelius, who is a knight. knights have to go something called the trials but should actually just be called “the most traumatizing years of your life.” aurelius just came back from theirs, and they’ve grown closer to alden, who is the prince. they decide they want to be life partners and are like “hey king can we be life partners” out of courtesy because that’s alden’s dad and the king decides to send aurelius on a quest to prove themself. as if they haven’t through the trials. they’re totally not bitter about this.
kaleo is the next person they meet, and he decides to come along aurelius’s quest because he’s a bard and his final project deals with recounting an adventure, and he really needs to get a good grade on this because depression already kicked him back a year and even though he knows it’s theoretically fine to graduate late, he doesn’t want to be later than he already is.
next up is ballari, who basically is an apprentice peacekeeper in her town (she’s like 17 or 19 i forget which) and she was supposed to bring this man to trial, but then someone killed him first so she decides that she has to find out who did it. she almost gets killed. her mentors and friends are like “just stay put and safe ok?” and ballari doesn’t and almost gets killed again. so they decide to send her away for the time being, but then comes kaleo and aurelius... and they seem to be going in the direction of her clues... so she joins them, ostensibly as a guide.
then is motek, who is kinda a clue in ballari’s mystery but also hired as an actual guide. they’re an ‘elf’ that lives nowhere near other elves, and they come along because they’re hired, at first, but then when they return home, they figure out that their siblings thought that they had run (and thus had broken their agreement) so now motek is on the actual run and then joins up with the group again. because why not.
senan is also a college student but on him i project all the burdening expectations i’m at the receiving end of. he is also an orc and is wary of motek (because of a recent conflict that orcs and elves had and that cost senan’s parents their lives) and also just trying to find his way in the world. he decides that traveling will probably be good for him and he does it without telling his family because yeah, he wants some Independence here.
alt is a fae who joins later on and is already on their own little quest of discovering humanity, and there’s something A Bit Off Maybe Something Near Fae about one of the members of the group, and fae have a tendency to stick together when they’re outside of their plane of existence. which alt is.
achan‘s another kid who is supposed to be Doing Things. aka learning how to use magic since he’s a mage and his dad (though it’s not official. yet.) felt like he was preventing achan from being himself if he didn’t get achan to learn magic. achan does not want to learn magic. he wants to stay home and do his regular schoolwork and cook and bake and maybe see if his dad will become his official dad. anyways he runs away from his tutor and joins the group.
zakiya is a burnt out prodigy who went into sort of law/justice in that she took care of the cases where there were trespasses on the magic side of things (despite being nonmagic herself). Then after an accident, she was left with a permanent limp and was relieved (even though the accident could have been prevented if her teammates were worth anything and she could still do work). she ends up joining the group because they enlist her help and her neighbor/friend/maybe something more is like “zakiya you need to get out of the city and these people will actually appreciate you.” and zakiya listens to her.
and I think that’s it for the main cast? There are also the three main “antagonists”, but this is already too long.
aka, a wrap up for how camp nano went as i did not really do updates + a ‘hey i finished the outline draft for twap!!!!!’ post
Project: To Win A Prince [ all posts ] [ re-introduction ]
Goal for Camp: 50,000*
Words Written: 58,890
Total Word Count of TWAP: 137810
Thoughts:
on camp... overall, i think that this was a pretty good camp, especially near the end. there were a number of scenes that i was excited to write and a number that i wasn’t, but then i grew to be excited for. i also feel i really have a feel of the story now, and who most of the characters are. which is great, because before, the only character i cared much for was motek. (i cared for others too, of course, but like. motek was my fave)
on the outline draft... it’s shiiiiiiit. ok, there are good parts, but there are definitely a number of issues i will have to fix. such as the characters (as mentioned previously, i now have a sense for a lot of the characters which means that in their early scenes they’re... not great) and pacing. but still, i’m very proud of accomplishing so much and changing so much in my writing since i started writing this draft in nov 2019 (incidentally i started and ended this draft on a nano event, so i think that’s cool of me)
Plans for The Future(TM):
I’m going to take a bit of a break from writing TWAP, first just to let my brain cool off and also to fix problems, replot areas, etc. I might resume writing mid-May or even June. Prob also going to be working more on character introductions and also fixing the WIP page for TWAP (and the comic sans presentation...) But I’m definitely going to start focusing on other wips now, since I got a lot of work done on TWAP.
* The real goal was to use Camp to finish the outline draft of TWAP, but I put 50k as the goal because I thought that was how much it would take to finish the draft. I was pretty close.
“Can’t you do anything against this?” Alt had asked, and Motek had grasped for some sort of an answer. They had used the restriction as an excuse, and it seemed good enough for the Fae, but Alt’s eyes had narrowed as if they knew it had not been the full truth.
Motek could tell no one the full truth. It wasn’t as if anyone could understand. The concept of the wind as some sort of sentient being was hard enough to comprehend for most people--the idea that the air that they were breathing and using had sentience--much less comprehend correctly.
The wind wasn’t some sort of god that commanded that aspect of the natural world. It was not a well of magic. It was just… the wind.
No one seemed to be able to understand that, and that made the rest of the truth that much harder to comprehend.
The wind had raised them. How could an incorporeal aspect of the world raise a child? And how could Motek explain that the wind had done so much more than that? The wind had taught them how to fight, how to survive, how to be. It had taught them how to use their own magic, and it had taught Motek the most important thing, the one rule, the wind told them, that trumped all the other ones: Do not use me.
It was a difficult rule to follow at first, and a strange line to toe, back when Motek could use their magic. Motek and the part of them that was magic intrinsically came about from the wind; they overlapped with the wind and they drew strength from the wind. They hadn’t known where their magic had ended and the wind began. Only over time could they see past the similarities.
A part of you is me, the wind had explained when Motek was trying to understand it, which is how I can always reach you. That part is what you control, what you manipulate. The rest, you do not.
So I have very little power, they had responded, shoulders slumped.
And what of it? the wind had asked sharply. Why would more power be better? Why would control over others be better?
Motek had not had a response, and in that shame, they had understood. Their own magic was a bucket of water, one that would keep their thirst quenched. The wind, on the other hand, was the surrounding lake. They could not disturb the waters of the lake just as they could not tip the balance to harness the wind or command it.
They had understood. Others could not.
Motek tried talking to Jaka about it, about her connection with her fire, but it was hardly the same. Jaka didn’t speak with her fire. There wasn’t a bond between the two of them. For all she knew, all the fire she had was her own, and not from something that was existing outside of her.
We are spread out, the wind had told them after their conversation with their sister. Which is why magically potent beings are able to absorb and manipulate us. Because we cannot communicate most of the time, they never know what they are truly doing.
The wind had no eyes to look at them with, but Motek felt as if it was all the same.
This is why the first rule exists? Motek had asked.
It is why the first rule exists.
And Motek had respected it, even as their parents paid no attention to them, thinking that they were useless without power. Motek had respected it, even when it could have saved time and effort, even if it could boost their standing.
It was hard to respect the wind’s words, though, when trapped in the Rinedans. It was hard to think of the wind and all the lessons it had impressed on them when they were dying, when the others were being killed day by day. It was hard to remember the rule that trumped all the others when just a little wind, just a little power, would get them out.
And it was hard to only toe the line when they finally snapped.
They hadn’t known what they were doing. They hadn’t known that they were collapsing the air pockets in the cliffs, that they were stealing the breaths from the lungs of their captors, that they tearing apart the facility, throwing it into the air and into the sides of the mountains and down the ravine.
They hadn’t known what they were doing. They hadn’t known what they had done until months later, until after the restrictions were clamped on, after the wind no longer spoke to them, and after their mind was a little clearer and able to fathom what had happened to them, able to remember the experience.
It took decades to regain the trust of the wind, for them to speak together again. It took longer for both of them to apologize--Motek, for forgetting, and the wind for leaving.
And Motek wouldn’t break that trust again. They couldn’t calm down this storm in the way that Alt no doubt thought they could, in the way that others would expect them to.
Motek and Alt have a little talk. Transcript under the cut.
Alt snorted. “Right,” they said. “Because we’re not… we’re not enough for them. We’re not alive enough, not human enough or orc enough. We’re not enough like a person for them to treat us as such.”
“It’s not--”
“Yes, it is like that,” Alt said, blowing out softly. “They can overcome it easily, that’s true. They get used to us and how ‘bizarre’ we are. But it’s not us as a race or species they get used to. It’s us, the ones that they meet. They will be casual around you because they know you. Not around any other elf. Any other elf will need to work as much as you did to not be treated as other.”
“Some are wary around strangers,” Motek said. “Some had bad experiences.”
Alt gave them a soft look and shook their head slightly. “You know,” Alt said, still shaking their head. “You know and you’ve lived through it. Why are you defending them?”
Because it’s not true, Motek wanted to say. But they’d lived in Tehnurin, they’d traveled across countries, and they always saw how adults would snatch children away as they walked past. How every place was glad to be rid of them or ogle at them. They knew how hard everyone had been trying to get them to leave Tehnurin, to just go back to their own fucking home.
They knew, and as much as they wanted to believe that wasn’t the case here, they couldn’t help but recall the stares they’d first received by the group and the bafflement regarding them. So they just shut their mouth and turned away.
