i_id | NaNoWriMo 2010

A merchant gets screwed over when a very wealthy client dies, and decides to rob his tomb to recoup his losses. Before leaving, he asks his three daughters what they want. The eldest wants gold, the second wants pearls, the youngest wants <some token>.

But when he gets there, the tomb is already robbed and nearly bare. There is no gold. no pearls. But he remembers one piece he sold to the ruler that was decorated with <tokens>, and it was of little value, so he delves deeper and deeper into the tomb to try to find it. At the lowest level, he finds a tunnel half-collapsed, with wind coming frmo an opening into a deep black hollow. He's suddenly attacked, a desperate strike by a long, lithe creature. He defeats it by swinging his lantern into its face, blinding it.

Relighting his lantern, he finds a Beast, unlike any he's ever seen or heard. Not much larger than a wolf, it is lanky and black with eight limbs, eyes like a spider's, and two mouths. His first impulse is to kill it. But it mewls like a wounded child, trying to speak to him, and he's reminded of his daughters. Perhaps he could make money off of the thing and give them what they deserve after all.

He takes it home in a sack made of his cloak. There's a near-escape, but the beast shies away from the sunlight, trapping itself in the merchant's own shadow.

When he arrives home, the daughters have mixed reactions. The oldest wants to drown the creature (It'll kill children!), the middle wants to burn it (It's unnatural!), the youngest wants to set it loose (it's terrified!). The father, however, has his plan. Locking the beast in a well, he begins to build a large cage in which it can be displayed.

The youngest spends her days watching it, stealthily feeding it chickens and trying to talk to it. It grows thin, but the chickens keep it alive.

Just as it's beginning to get sick from being trapped in ankle-deep water, the cage is finished. The beast nearly escapes in the transfer, but the youngest defends her father, and it can't escape through her.

Father sells tickets to view the strange beast, and news spreads wide, attracting greater and greater clients. A circus, passing through, makes an offer, and only the youngest's urgent please keep her father from selling it. But the carnies come back at night, weeks later, trying to steal the beast. It kills one, and by the time the by-now-ravenous beast has fed on the corpse, it's dawn and once again, sunlight keeps it prisoner.

A mob comes for it that day, dragging the beast out of his cage into the sunlight, making it writhe and cry, begging in its limited speech. They're about to kill it when the youngest flings herself in the way, daring the torches and pitchforks, to set it loose. She would be killed as well, once the first startle is over, but her sisters intervene as well. She and the Beast escape into the woods and they find a hiding place, where she leaves it.

When she returns to her father's home, he's astounded. He'd expected her to be killed, and he'd been grieving.

It's not the same woods as the tomb was in, and the beast can't find its way home, though it tries. Daylight always catches it exposed, driving it into some den or other. After a near-brush with a farming crew, it returns to the place it'd been held captive so long, miserable.

Youngest, this time, is able to talk her dad out of taking it prisoner again, and helps it get home, where it gets a chance to save her from its own family. In the hollow where it first met her father, it shows her the hoard that the first (devoured) grave robbers had been trying to steal, and she gets to take as much of it home as she can carry. They part well, sad but each knowing where they belong.

Why this outline is inadequate:
Where are my character arcs?
Where are my character NAMES?

Make a scene list.