Figured that since I'm ahead in my wordcount, I'd check in on the forums, late as usual. :}
I can't believe there's no 'Kill Cliff Brooks' thread in here by now....
(For background, the mystery NaNoers have an ongoing dare wherein at some point during the novel, you kill a character named 'Cliff/Clifford Brooks'. It's the Mr. Ian Woon of mystery NaNos.)
In my case, Wesley C. Brooks is an Australian heavy cargo transportation driver working out of Panamars City on Mars. He's the one that gets my main character to his destination, and then he picks up a stranded woman in a spacesuit on his way back....
-Traveller
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60,315 / 50,000
Nov 21, 2008 - 17 06
Hmm, I've done a couple of mysteries with Nano and haven't heard of this. But then I usually avoid the dares thread because it can become distracting. Usually I suffer from too much going in my novels already and don't need to add complications. But this year I have a character currently referred to as Gothy because I've been in search of the perfect non-goth name for him. You know, the sort of name that if you were a goth, you'd never admit your parents gave you and instead call yourself something like Deth or Shadow. So I might just make Gothy's real name (not his yet-to-be-decided goth name) Clifford Brooks. It's so mundane and ordinary, he'd hate it. Instead of cliff he'd want to be "rocky fall to your death." Hmm, must come up with goth name playing off of Cliff.
Oh, no, the character can't be pushed off a cliff. The story is set in Florida and we are rather lacking in cliffs, mountains and other high places. Except condos on the beach.
Marie
52,878 / 50,000
Nov 21, 2008 - 17 58
Hmmm... I do have an as-yet unnamed bad guy that gets killed towards the end of the book. I supposed I could go in and edit a comment from one of the detectives or the captain mentioning the deceased was named Cliff Brooks.
Edit:
Done. My dead bad guy is now Cliff Brooks, parolee and hired muscle.
Oh - possible tougher sounding plays off the name Cliff can include words like Cleft, Cleave, and Cleaver, opting for the cutting action or implement. Not sure if that idea will work, but it's a suggestion.
----------"We do not quit playing because we grow old; we grow old because we quit playing."
2006 - The Daedalus Child - Winner.
2007 - Lana's Pack - Winner.
2008 - Precocious by Design - Winner
50,546 / 50,000
Nov 21, 2008 - 18 26
Heh. As I went and started explaining that it was a California Bay Area originating dare, I decided to check out whether there might be the ghost of a thread over there, and sure enough...
(Killing Clifford Brooks thread) http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3112836
Normally one of us cross-posts over here, too, but I guess there aren't that many Bay Area mystery writers this year.
As far as a Goth name for your version of Cliff, how about "Clyffe" or "Clyde?"
Dares are similar to waypoints in my head -- and a slight homage to the amazing competition that is NaNoWriMo. My bigger chore this year is to figure out how to include a copy of the book /Animus Corpsi/ in there, despite the fact that the story takes place on Mars.
-Traveller
60,315 / 50,000
Nov 21, 2008 - 18 39
My current over-arching dare has become to turn what was developed as a mystery series into romantic suspense. Well, actually gay romantic suspense. Spoke to an agent at a writing conference who said - I'm not interested in mystery right now. The market is down. Can you make it a romantic suspense? I pointed out that two of my MCs were a gay couple. She said "oh, even better. Send me something." So now I've just got to wrap up nano and redo everything.
Sometimes real life dares are more than enough.
Marie
42,829 / 50,000
Nov 21, 2008 - 19 04
So glad I found this =) I was currently stuck (and waaaay behind the word count), and it just so happens that having a character named Clifford Brooks killed is just what I needed right now (or maybe it's the despair talking... but it is all the same)
54,458 / 50,000
Nov 23, 2008 - 09 03
Sometimes real life dares are more than enough.
Marie
very good to know since that's what mine is as well
51,124 / 50,000
Nov 23, 2008 - 11 20
I guess I could call my as-yet-unnamed bad guy Clifford Brooks.
He dies at the end :D
50,770 / 50,000
Nov 23, 2008 - 21 12
A little background. Cliff Brooks is a bay area horror writer who did NaNo a few years back as part of the South Bay area group. One day he was a little curt with another SoBayNaNo and so he wrote into his novel the horrible, if not very creative, death of Cliff Brooks. Cliff was impressed and so we asked if it was okay if we created a tradition of killing him in our novels.
Cliff said "Only of it is appropriately gruesome." That year, my MC impaled Cliff with a pitch fork, sticking him to a wall. There was lots of blood and Cliff liked it.
Feel free to kill Cliff but only in an "appropriately gruesome" manor.
52,878 / 50,000
Nov 25, 2008 - 11 07
Hmm... does this mean, then, that I should edit the scene so that the bad guy who dies does so slowly, perhaps from a painful gut-shot, with the resulting shredded bowel releasing bacteria and gastric matter into the abdominal cavity?
I hear it's a pretty gruesome way to die.
Or, I could just tie him to a chair and force him to watch "Ishtar"...
----------"We do not quit playing because we grow old; we grow old because we quit playing."
2006 - The Daedalus Child - Winner.
2007 - Lana's Pack - Winner.
2008 - Precocious by Design - Winner
42,829 / 50,000
Nov 25, 2008 - 19 22
humm... things just got interesting... appropriately gruesome = way more words to play with
I haven't killed him yet, but he's shown his face...
50,770 / 50,000
Nov 27, 2008 - 08 37
No. Not Ishtar. Anything but Ishtar. Gut shot, fine.....just no Ishtar. Oh, the horror......
72,077 / 50,000
Nov 28, 2008 - 13 31
I'm gonna need a couple more victims before I hit 100,00 words. I've dismembered two victims with a chainsaw and fed them to wolves, and decapitated a couple others. I'll have to see if I can't come up with something else "appropriately gruesome."
70,110 / 50,000
Nov 28, 2008 - 23 48
I killed him last year in a shooting. This year he got buried in a landslide.
----------2006 - Malestrom - Winner
2007 - Fractured Rainbows - winner
2008 - Dark Orchid - winner
72,077 / 50,000
Dec 6, 2008 - 20 50
Mauled by a pitbull, beaten nearly to death and then burned alive. Sucks to be him.