Our Preliminary Novel Ideas

It's about two friends... and drugs... with lots of philosophical debate and symbolism.

Yes, that's right: it's lit fic.

Mine is about a small group of friends who spend their time and money following their favorite bands around to shows. Hijinks and hilarity ensue. It will quite possibly be the most disjointed thing I've ever written.

I *think* mine might be about a few younger kids (IE: twenty somethings) who work at mcmaggots or some other fastfood place, minding their own buissness, and the shit that comes with that. I believe a few plot points are going to be, a woman gets beat up, raped and wanders in, a woman leaves a small child in the store, intentionally... Drugs and relationships will be involved.

We shall see.

I've got two leading ideas at the moment. Either:
(a) Sort of a contemporary take on Jane Austen's Persuasion, only from the man's POV; the guy returns to the place he grew up after a long absence and has not only to cope with the fact that the place he knew no longer exists, but also with the girl who dumped him when he was just a teenager. Explores change and what "home" means. Or:
(b) Story about a new teacher who helps a troubled music student to discover her own voice. Kind of explores the boundaries of what is and isn't appropriate / healthy in student / teacher relationships.

Not sure which of those to go for yet; I might end up doing something completely different ...

I don't quite have my plot down yet because I haven't had enough time to get to know my main characters yet.

Zoe is probably in her early-mid 20's and is homeless in Tacoma. It is rather by choice though due to crazy ex-home-life and her obsession with living is small and out-of-the-way public places. She doesn't live much of life but rather observes it and tries to understand what she sees.

Sloan is probably late teens or really early 20's. I'm not sure yet whether he is homeless or has a rather alternative living situation. He is a sketchy character whose skills put people on edge. Nobody really trusts him but he always uses his powers for good. No one really notices that until Zoe.

I guess mine's going to fit in lit fic better than anything else. I haven't planned much on it. Basically it's about a man having a nervous breakdown. That and inspirational posters.

Mine is looking to follow a massive group of people who are all, in some way, connected with at least two other people in the group.

There will be a mother who resembles Peter Pan in everything but his physical youth and sex, two male roommates who are constantly surrounded by china dolls, an alcoholic man who masquerades through his life as a Roman, a crossdresser, and a female based on the song, and named, Jolene. There are plenty more characters and many more tales -- those were just a few.

Aside from knowing some of the others personally, everyone in the cast is connected by a man who show up in every chapter. The prolouge and epilogue are dedicated entirely to him; in short, he's there to give advice in a fashion that offends almost every single person who he ends up talking to.

I've already written a few passages for this story here and there (nothing more than a thousand words), so I don't know if I can write this for my NaNo, but if not I'll write something similar.

In kind of a near-future scenario, a totalitarian regime has control over every continent and has abolished the internet (OMG!) as well as further technological advancement. There are multiple levels of government that rule different areas, but overall they report to a central dictator figure running his regime from Europe. Universities have mostly been converted into vocational schools to direct students into specific, useful careers, and students who want a "liberal" education have to apply for special permission from the government to attend the few (state-controlled) universities that still teach the arts. But that's all just the background.

I'm thinking I'll have a group of revolutionaries that overthrow the dictatorship in the first half of the book, then spend the second half trying to work out the consequences of democracy. Long story short, it starts to fail, and the ringleaders all start to suspect each other of being unfaithful to their cause. People die, governments fail, etc etc, and one character goes mad and murders people with an axe. And it's all told from the perspective of the teenage son of one of the ringleaders.

Yep, it's a dystopian.

Whenever I think of inspirational posters I think of despair.com

http://despair.com/viewall.html

GypsyBlue - interesting, sounds like a modern take on Animal Farm :)

Mine is a pre-coming of age novel (I think - although I am not sure if it is for teenagers, or simply using a teenage protagonist). Basically a young girl having to cope with issues of life, love, loss, loneliness, death, depression, friends and family. The sort of depressing stuff I constantly explore in my poetry, so it is going to be interesting to see how it comes out in prose. Partly autobiographical - so I get to obsess over all my teenage angst:) but only partly.

Interstingly this was the idea I started with on my first venture into Nanowrimo, but I only got one chapter written before realising it was too autobiographical and if I went any further my family would never speak to me again. The last two years I have written fun, frivolous fiction which was good experience but now I am ready to tackle a more serious topic again.

That is the plan of course. But I might find things turning into quirky romance or black comedy or an invasion of dragons might shift into another genre entirely. Who knows. Can't wait till November to start writing and find out. THis is also the first year where I have my novel thought through and roughly plotted in advance which is also going to be interesting.

moonblue

Sorry...I replied to the wrong one. Oops!

Yours does sound cool gypsyblue! :)

I'm excited to get going on mine for real rather than just doing character exploration!

It's going to be called "Coventry" right now ~ not sure if it'll change or not. It's slightly "The Hours"-esque in that it's three women in three different time periods...all connected by Coventry Cathedral in England ~ when the first cathedral was VERY new, during WWII when it was destroyed, and modern-day. Turns out they're all the same soul all working through lessons, at least one of which she refuses to learn and is having to repeat lifetime after lifetime. They are pretty inextricably linked with the location. It's about loss, destruction, and redemption. At least I hope that's how it turns out. :)

Characters:
* Madeline ~ She's only a little girl when the first cathedral is being built. Her father's one of the master stone masons. I know I'll be carrying her through at least young adulthood, but I'm not sure where that's going to lead yet.
* Magdalene (Maggie) ~ She's around 18-22 (unclear yet...could go to 25 or so) during WWII. Orphaned several years before, she and her two brothers are living with their uncle, a priest who serves at Coventry. She's there when the city falls victim to a German air raid and the cathedral is lost. And...that's about all I know about her so far.
* Madison (Maddie) ~ I know the most about Maddie so far. She's an Episcopal priest...goes to England to visit friends and just feels drawn to the cathedral. An exchange is worked out and she begins serving at Coventry. Until very heavy emotional stuff she's pushed down and pushed down comes back to bite her in the butt. I don't want to give away too much, but let's just say her seminary training was in New York City...from 2000 until 2003.

They're all guided and guarded by the archangel Raziel. He's actually a character a friend has RPed with, but she's given me permission to use him in the novel because he's so integral to all three of their lives.

I've been playing with my characters for almost a year (yes, in charming fashion, they popped up while I was attempting NaNo last year...), so I'm feeling pretty comfortable with them at this point. Well, Madeline and Maddie anyway. Maggie is who I think will be my surprise...she's the one I know the least about in spite of me feeling like she's sort of the key to it all.

We'll see how it all comes together. I've got some broad sketches about how I want to set things up, but if I learned anything last year it's that no matter how I plan the characters will take it where they want to go.

Buckle up! It's gonna be an interesting ride!! :)

I'm writing three novels this round, but the plots are pretty basic.

1) Young man struggling with alcoholism and failing business, develops unhealthy attachment to one of his tenants
2) Woman flees from her government job, uses her gained power in a destructive form of vigilantism. FBI tries to track her.
3)Man dealing with the murders of his two daughters a year ago now has to deal with the surfacing of the serial killer who was implicated, but denies everything.

Dramarama, y'all ;)

Well, mine's a near-future thing (mid-21st century) which, so far, involves civil liberties or lack thereof, a generation gap, a sleazy politician, a virtual-reality operating system, and a gay love story.
Oh, and party drugs. And paint.
And it's pretty much all over the place, and I haven't really figured out the full plot yet...
So should be fun to write, even if no bugger ever reads it ;-)

I have two ideas that I'm tossing between at the moment.

The first follows the story of a man and a girl who both have a past better left alone. For William, a man in his late twenties, his wife was everything, but when she developed lung cancer she refused all treatment, and died. Ally has been ignored her whole life by a mother that doesn't care or love for her. A nanny was all she ever knew, until she turned twelve and was left to get herself to school and back, feed herself and shop for herself. They meet through a writing magazine, and discover they're distant cousins or something (I haven't quite decided). They eventually grow close, and Will gets a Parenting Order giving him the right to have Ally live in his house, and to make all the decisions in her life. But when Ally gets sick (I haven't decided quite what, yet, but I want it to have something to do with the fact that she was neglected and that caused an organ to fail or something) she doesn't want treatment either. William is faced with the decision that he never had to face with his wife - she refused treatment point blank, and he couldn't make the decision for her. But for Ally, he has the final say on whether she receives treatment that may kill her, or let her die without it. This comes to the main issue in the novel - if you love someone, do you have the right to save them from themselves?

At the same time parts of the end of the novel are told from the POV of Ally's mother Melissa. She has to grapple with the fact that it is her fault that Ally is sick, and face the question herself - if this illness had befallen her daughter before Will had been granted the Parenting Order, would she have forced the treatment on Ally? Would she have cared enough to respect her wishes, or would she love her daughter enough to force treatment down her throat? Or would she not have cared enough to force treatment down her throat, and just let the estranged child have her own way?

The second idea is less developed at the moment. It revolves around a woman with a mental illness that gives her hallucinations, delusions and bipolar-like mood swings. It tracks her through different parts of her life, and eventually her daughters. She refuses to ever learn the name of her mental illness, because that would make it real. She never accepts the fact that she is sick, and that her condition is genetic, and so gives birth to a daughter. At this point, parts of the novel switches to the daughter's POV as she grows up with a disturbed mother, and in her teens, fights the disorder herself, only to succumb to it. The main issue in this novel, I guess, is how much right we have to control the lives of the mentally ill, and also questions the right of people with genetic disorders to have blood-related children.

I’m not sure yet what the basic plot of my novel will be. There are a lot of loose ideas whirling in my head. Two of the more substantial ones are:

- One of the main characters will be a poor bus driver who does the same boring route every day. The people that get on are all sad beings as well: an old man who’s all alone save for his old dog, a failed and retired teacher, a disenchanted businessman. The bus driver’s also got an imaginary friend. Well, his imaginary friend committed suicide many years ago so now the driver’s haunted by the restless ghost of his imaginary friend.

- The devil comes to earth to wreak havoc. The thing is: nobody cares and no one is afraid of the things he does. This causes the devil to become disenchanted with his own work.

Basically I want the story to lash out at the passivity and non-life of our society.

My book, "Pages" will be about a 35 year-old woman who must cope with her father's death. She soon turns to writing and acting to help her. Her books get published and one thing leads to another and... well, I'll just let you find out the details later. I really think that this is Lit Fic and am looking forward to watching my mc grapple with her emotions.

Wow, everyone has really interesting ideas. I'm torn into making a decision on three possible plots, though I may just combine them all, sort of.

1. A young 20-something girl with everything going for her, causes a car accident in which a 5 year old boy dies. Story examines how she deals with the guilt, with a possible subplot about how it wasn't entirely an accident but a twisted act of revenge.

2. A middle aged woman is having an affair and stays an extra night away from home to be with her lover. The plane she was supposed to be travelling on crashes and everyone on it dies. Her husband and children assume she has too. Unable to confess the truth to them, she starts living under a new identity, until one of her children finds her.

3. A young child goes missing for years until one day, her mother sees her in the street. Is it really her? And if so, what happened?

My idea (before the tweaking, the ADD, the *ooh look...shiny!*) is very "modern drug culture" with a bit of "mental disorder" tossed in sprinkled with AIDS, suicide, and philisophical rambling.

Not sure how many MCs I've got, but I'm pretty sure it'll have more of a...well, can't think of the term, but in movies and tv and such it'd be an ensemble cast. I'll probably have it set in New York since I know the area well enough to do without too much research. Still trying to decide on what POV to use....

I'm going to take a wild guess and assume mine belongs in LitFic...

It's about a woman struggling against repression from both herself and the people around her and wanting something more, only to discover that what she has she can make okay. Basically it's a novel about learning to be okay.

With symbolism.

(LitFic, much?)

Sitting on her friend's porch, they see something funny in the yard. A chunk of bone. Old bone. Is it human? There IS an old cemetery up the hill -- could it be washed out of one of the old grave sites? Or could it be more recent? And why is handsome Johnny Bean with his beautiful blue eyes so sad and still single? What horrible secret does he know about the bone?

Doesn't sound like literary fiction, but it will be. Nano made me create this small midwestern town, coincidentally similar to where I live now, with its share of tired old nurses finding themselves and getting into adventures along the way.

My idea follows the story of a young woman from her traumatic childhood through her teenage and adult years as she deals with confusion about her sexuality, drug and suicide issues, bad relationships, and contemplates the meaning of life. She gets involved in many things that will disillusion and confuse her along the way, but I guess the overall theme is going to be something about independence and knowing/trusting/loving yourself. I also have a lot of symbolism in mind for this story, as well as a lot of other complex characters.

My premise is that my main character is the owner of the plot of land in Florida the Fountain of Youth is on. He's 200-400 years old (haven't decided exactly yet) and just before the novel begins, a new subdivision was built near his property and as part of the construction they drained the swamp that feeds the Fountain and he has to suddenly deal with his return to mortality.

No idea what I'm going to do with that premise, though!

My story is about apples and love. Mainly apples.
(Though pears and revenge are looming... )

(Oh, and last year I wrote about melons and cheating. See if you can spot the trend here?)

Really, haven't got a clue. It'll start revealing itself in a month or so. Hopefully. If I ever come up with a title to start writing from.

Mine is about a woman who lives in a storage unit, by choice rather than by necessity, and spends her free time planning extremely elaborate bank robberies that she never carries out, except in her head.

----pfft.... I'll get the hang of this in a minute

WildThistle - Hmm I think one of the first ideas appealed to me most though I would tweak the first one not sure about the whole twisted act of vengeance, might be more different and interesting to explore whether it was an accident or whether it was kind of an intentional accident (not necessarily planned but just suddenly wondered what it would be like to lose control) but not in the whole twisted vengeance thing against someone but more that she herself wanted to create some kind of flaw in her perfect everything going for her life but then she hadn't expected the rammifications of a childs death to be happen in the wake of it...

Kikka - sounds great... love apples... love pears even more so maybe I'll be barracking for the pears... would be even better if it featured some of Magrittes wonderful masquerading apples... if you don't know them I'll try and find a picture

So my idea... well I'm going to be more honest to my kind of writing this year and not get distracted *fingers crossed* by other fancy notions that I can tackle on epic fantasy novels or something or anything epic and novel like.... So I'm going to be writing a set of interwoven short stories each based around some sort of everyday occurance or object like a cup of tea or a visit to the grocery shop but wound around it is I guess more of the various deeper emotions that we might face on a seemingly ordinary day... or something like that... and its probably going to be illustrated... and I'll probably count each illustration as a thousand words... and I promise to make them really wham bahm wonderful ones as they have to actually contribute a thousands words worth to the story by giving it just that extra kick that makes the reader fit the pieces all together... well thats the aim at least

I'm going with a blend of Fantasy and LitFic this year.

(Well, more like, I'm intending to write traditional Fantasy, but since everything I try to write always ends up as perfect examples of LitFic... I'm just accepting the inevitable)

I've got two characters and a setting so far. For once, I even have the barest trappings of a plot! It's even a traditional "Quest" plot... it's just that no such Quest will actually exist. The FMC seems to be slightly crazy (but in reality, isn't) and tries to undertake a quest to save the world... only the world doesn't need saving, and the basic premise of her quest is obviously fictional to the people around her. She drags along the MMC... and somewhere along the line, the two of them somehow cause society to fall.

Don't know how yet, but that's the fun of being in this genre =)

I think I have the autobiographical problem too. I'm trying to cut the painting apart and put it together differently, but I'll see how it goes. I think, that, in my book I'll directly adress the ishues in my family, and I'll see how it turns out, as by the time I can, hopefuly, get it published, I'll be on studies, and out of the house, and maybe they'll never read it. (Who am I kidding?)

It's centring around a girl in her 14, who has been bulied at school for years, and is blind to whats behind the classes until a new someone transfers into her class, who is everything she is and everythimg she is not - like sharing a passion for drawing and being social.

She kind of brings her out to see beyond whats in her routine.

Her mother dosen't like her new friend though, but as she works late, she only sees what happens around six monts into her new life, and tries to enclose her doughter into the life before - and there is where my plot takes off. I have no idea where it goes, I just know it will be on social life, philosophy, drugs, issues, and pretty much whats mental, unsaid, and important.

Annett.