Here's what I'm thinking:
I want the novel to open up with a curse but not like an ugly curse but a curse on the land. So I was thinking maybe a small shamanistic tribe is being hunted by a group of angry settlers who are tired of buying the grand foods this tribe produces. When the hunt is over, the last indignant is the head shaman, a young and pretty woman with a strange connection to the land and animals. She makes a promise to the settlers that if she lives, she will work her magic to grow a bountiful surplus of magic crops that will keep them young and fervent. And so she does and they stay to themselves for generations.
or something....
anyway, I'm having trouble with making that part interesting but...
Then we will jump forward to the days of the witch trials (17th century) and now the tables have turned and the healthy people of the settlement are being hounded for their crops by a neighboring settlement. With all the hype about magic and witches, the town tries to keep the shaman woman a secret and hides her away in nature. When the neighboring town decides to take over, spearheaded by puritan crazies, kills the settlers and burns the too beautiful women that the shaman has come to be friends with, she curses the land with promises of dark spirits and monsters. And so she does and the leader of the invaders kills the shaman but not before she curses him to die young and his sons to be the bearers of true horrors to come.
So the man spends the rest of his days teaching his sons to hunt, fish, and farm their prize land. And that's what they did without trouble for years until the man dies of illness, leaving behind his healthy family of a wife and three sons to rule the town how they please.
Now we skip to the Great Depression where people are struggling to survive, normal people anyway. Luckily the town that has developed over the years has become quite prosperous and a major source of goods to the surrounding region. But the curse that was placed on the beautiful people still holds and it consists of: evil spirits that haunt the farmhands, a massive behemoth of a sea monster that needs to be fed live (human) bait every so often to keep away from the sea food, and the slew of animals that can't be tamed, only slaughtered.
And who else can take care of this but the three brothers: cursed fisherman who hunts and feeds the giant sea monster, a cursed hunter who is insane with blood-lust and who is also the mayor as he is clever, and a cursed farmer to sees over the crops and animals. To each his own cursed life.
For an ending I thought of moving a struggling family into town and have them unravel the dark secrets of what seems to be a haven of a place. And some other things that happen but.....I don't know yet.
I want the hunter, fisher, and farmer to be really scary. And the people of the town to have a cursed aura about them. And the food to have strange qualities of flavor and effects that are noticeable.
So like I said, I'm having trouble moving the story through time and making it believably scary. What are some things I might want to consider when using real time and places????
So you're saying begin with the ending? Like have one of the characters slowly discover just how true the stories about the place are?
I want the novel to open up with a curse but not like an ugly curse but a curse on the land. So I was thinking maybe a small shamanistic tribe is being hunted by a group of angry settlers who are tired of buying the grand foods this tribe produces. When the hunt is over, the last indignant is the head shaman, a young and pretty woman with a strange connection to the land and animals. She makes a promise to the settlers that if she lives, she will work her magic to grow a bountiful surplus of magic crops that will keep them young and fervent. And so she does and they stay to themselves for generations.
or something....
anyway, I'm having trouble with making that part interesting but...
Then we will jump forward to the days of the witch trials (17th century) and now the tables have turned and the healthy people of the settlement are being hounded for their crops by a neighboring settlement. With all the hype about magic and witches, the town tries to keep the shaman woman a secret and hides her away in nature. When the neighboring town decides to take over, spearheaded by puritan crazies, kills the settlers and burns the too beautiful women that the shaman has come to be friends with, she curses the land with promises of dark spirits and monsters. And so she does and the leader of the invaders kills the shaman but not before she curses him to die young and his sons to be the bearers of true horrors to come.
So the man spends the rest of his days teaching his sons to hunt, fish, and farm their prize land. And that's what they did without trouble for years until the man dies of illness, leaving behind his healthy family of a wife and three sons to rule the town how they please.
Now we skip to the Great Depression where people are struggling to survive, normal people anyway. Luckily the town that has developed over the years has become quite prosperous and a major source of goods to the surrounding region. But the curse that was placed on the beautiful people still holds and it consists of: evil spirits that haunt the farmhands, a massive behemoth of a sea monster that needs to be fed live (human) bait every so often to keep away from the sea food, and the slew of animals that can't be tamed, only slaughtered.
And who else can take care of this but the three brothers: cursed fisherman who hunts and feeds the giant sea monster, a cursed hunter who is insane with blood-lust and who is also the mayor as he is clever, and a cursed farmer to sees over the crops and animals. To each his own cursed life.
For an ending I thought of moving a struggling family into town and have them unravel the dark secrets of what seems to be a haven of a place. And some other things that happen but.....I don't know yet.
I want the hunter, fisher, and farmer to be really scary. And the people of the town to have a cursed aura about them. And the food to have strange qualities of flavor and effects that are noticeable.
So like I said, I'm having trouble moving the story through time and making it believably scary. What are some things I might want to consider when using real time and places????
So you're saying begin with the ending? Like have one of the characters slowly discover just how true the stories about the place are?