What Am I Writing for Camp NaNoWriMo?

My superhero team. Picture by my talented sister, Charlotte

As I mentioned in my last post, my sisters and I are taking part in Camp NaNoWriMo this month. With so many writers in the family, it’s fun to be able to share our novels and characters with each other. There are plenty of ideas floating around at the moment, and four awesome books being written. For my camp novel, I’m departing from my normal genre of fantasy and trying my hand at science fiction

For the longest time I’ve wanted to write a book about superheroes, full of awesome super powers, evil super villains, and packed with super fun. But I could never work out how to give the story that twist it needed to set it apart from other superhero novels and make awesome and original. So that idea sat in the corner, gathering dust, and waiting for that spark of inspiration that would give me the push to write it.

Another thing I always wanted to write was a fairy tale retelling. There have been some amazing ones from people such as Gail Carson Levine (author of Ella Enchanted). Fairy tales never go out of fashion and they’re full of magic and happy endings. But again, how to make my fairy tale retelling unique? So many people have written creative retellings of their own. What would make mine special? I couldn’t find that twist to make the story mine, and so another idea got shelved.

And then, one night, it hit me. What if I wrote a retelling of a fairy tale where the characters were superheroes? Would it work? I’d never read a book like that before (even though I’m sure someone has written one). Suddenly, there was the inspiration I needed to write this book, and my novel for Camp NaNoWriMo was born. It’s got everything, from the super powers, to the evil relation, and all the fun and adventure of both genres. Meet ‘Not a Hero’, the superhero retelling of Snow White:

After the death of his parents, Eric struggles to hide his mutant powers and live as a normal high school student. When Hector, his uncle and caretaker, discover Eric's strange powers, he wants Eric to join his fight for mutant rights. Eric immediately refuses. Hector imprisons his nephew for the next best thing: experiments. However, Eric escapes and joins up with a gang of other mutant teenagers. Now Hector's plans seem to have taken a turn for the worst and it's up to Eric and the team to stop him. But at what cost? 

(synopsis edited and made awesome by my friend and fellow Camp NaNoer, dragonsashes)

What’s the best fairy tale retelling you’ve ever read? What are you writing at the moment? Have you ever had an idea you’ve had to shelve because you couldn’t work out how to write it?