derien | More Fear of NaNo

Help. I'm sure nobody else can really help me with this, because the more I try to talk about it with

eor the more confused I get. But what the heck, let me get feedback, if anyone has any. These plot outlines are pretty much in the order I'm thinking of them in. Plot C is the plot that made me think, "Okay, this is stupid enough so that I'm not really wedded to making it work out right, I could do the NaNo with that."

Plot A: Normal Portland...
Eor advocates a time-line approach to the story: Have it be about college roommates, and give myself a school-year, 10 months, and write 6,000 words (3 days writing) for each month. This makes the whole thing sound do-able. Normal college students kicking around Portland, going to parties, coffee shops, bars, expanding their horizons from the small town life they've known previously. Can I fill 2,000 words a day with this? Can I sustain my interest?

Plot B: Gothic Portland...
Starts with the above roommates story, but uses a werewolf as one of the roommates and a vampires as one of the friends. I'm somewhat resistant to this idea because I just don't want to write a "werewolf" or "vampire" story. But, if I go with the werewolf and vampire I could also use that dream I had about meeting the zombie who hadn't realized that she was dead. Also, it might help me get a better handle on the background for that another thing I want to write.

Plot C: High School Boys and Ghosts...
Probably could also be done with a basic 10-month outline like above, but would be placed in high school. Teenage boys who are (or think they are) sharing their bodies with spirits of dead lovers who need to finish business on earth. Has the advantage of potential hot boy/boy stuff, so will probably keep my interest. Depends heavily on a story told me by a friend in high school (which he may have made up and may have believed, I never knew.)

Plot D: Another girl, another planet...
(Sci-fi/Fantasy) Quest to free kidnapped prince, basically. Small fringe planet inhabited by different groups of people at different technological levels who arrived during various human stellar expansions. Between the two expansions it transpired there were godlike natives on the planet, who make magic work. The 'prince' of the small advanced-tech group is kidnapped by a city-state of people from the previous expansion who've lost tech, with the idea that they'll barter him for tech and invade the fertile area the high-tech people currently hold. Has the advantage of being something I've niggled at for years, so I have a good idea of the background, but also the numerous holes of an idea originally conceived by a prepubescent kid who read way too much fantasy and sci-fi. ;)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

B or C sound the most promising to me

Thanks. :) And they're possibly not mutually exclusive, I suppose. Though maybe I don't want to bite off too many characters.

I love B. You can make your vampires and weres anyway you want them to be, so it is original :)

Heh, but it's all been done, anyway.:) My hope is that if it's a rambling, pointless and essentially plotless story it will be different from most werewolf and vampire stories.;)

I like A or B. I want more college fiction, dammit!

The weird thing is, I really didn't experience that much of college life, myself. I might need some feedback from you on the details!

C or D

Thanks. :) You can sense that C is sort of related to the Fluffy Japanese Schoolboys, can't you? It is - I was trying to think of a way to write something similar in a setting I understand better than Japan, and I suddenly remembered my friend from high school who believed he had shared his body with a spirit. In his case it was a girl who he believed was sharing her body with the spirit's lover, but he was actually bi, also.

I'm really rather nervous of D, knowing it will come out very very different than what I've always conceived it to be. The disadvantage of knowing your story too well. At this point I can't see how I can have the delegation dispatched from the high tech country to retrieve the Prince actually consist of only the Princess and her friend, the young Witch. As an adult this doesn't make any kind of logical sense, even though it sounded good to me when I was a kid. I could add the Witch's mother, Bodyguard to the Princess. It's also possible I could cop out and say that the players are chosen by the Gods, who prevent other interference.:)

But, there is good potential for a love triangle with the Prince, his primary savior (a bewitched knight/fur covered mutant) and the knight's second in command who has a thing for him.

I think you could go with a mix of B&C, or even A/B/C - start out normal, and gradually introduce the supernatural elements, keeping them low key at first. That way you'd get at least a few chapters done before you had to decide whether the college students or the schoolboys were going to be your major characters (and you could kill off the minor ones in a werewolf attack if you felt there were too many people cluttering up the writing).

You're scaring me. This sounds very attractive. But I can't see how to get high school students and college students into the same story. Maybe it's because I know that what I'm thinking of for the background of the ghosts/schoolboys story is a very small-town setting. I can't picture it working nearly as well in a larger town. But I can't even imagine how to get high school and college students to interact in any way, even if I could transfer them to Portland. I should ask

lemondropgirl - she grew up here, she might know if that ever happens. I've never seen it happen - high school and college students just seem to keep themselves in separate venues.

Eep, now you've got my brain working on this.

Eep, now you've got my brain working on this.

Bwa-ha-ha!

You could have the stories competely separate at first - college students doing their thing, schoolboys being fluffy,and then horror! Werewolf attack off in ye olde woods of red herringdom. Then you could have a chapter of the college students discussing the attack, then one with the schoolboys doing the same. They wouldn't have to interact at all for ages until you get bored and have one group watch the other being devoured by monsters beyond the ken of mortal man.

Or just flat out have two stories, with alternate chapters, small town schoolboys and city college students - then have a coupleofchapters at the end that tie it all together in some cheesy way ("and then, the schoolboys woke up in the shower . . . but why did they feel so odd at the full moon??!!1?1")

Heee!! You are SO on crack it kills me! :)

Livejournal ate my comment :( Let's try again...

It's my love for Fantasy/Sci fi which made me choose this possibility :) But if you're nervous for D, then maybe you should not try to write it during this month, but keep it for the future. The fact that you already invested a lot of time and thought in this, would perhaps indicate that it does deserve more time from you. If you don't write it in November, I'll make sure to ask you about it in the future :)

As for C, I think the fact that I liked your FJS so much, would explain my preference for this plot. But as Daegaer said, you can mix it with one of the first plots indeed.

I like B, mainly because the idea of a zombie who hasn't realised that she's dead fascinates me to bits!

It was mainly just creepy.

OOOooOh I'd go with C or D!

C or D? I didn't expect that from you. Don't worry, whatever I write will be really different sorts of things from what you would write, I'm sure. :)

meeting the zombie who hadn't realized that she was dead

That's so cool. Do that!

Such a small part, though. Maybe a scene.

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