Your Novel

This year is much more straight-forward (at least as un-settled as it is in my head) “fiction.” Last years, was one of those cross-over type things. I felt compelled to call it “fantasy” because it *was* about a goddess and god on Earth and had fairy-godmothers and talking trees. However, it was FAR from Harry Potter-land.

I’ve read Neil Gaiman only after having him recommended to me because of my plot and I guess you could call it “urban myth” but it wasn’t “about” the myth/ fable/ faith. It was about a woman coming into knowing herself whilst living a human/ quotidian life!

I had a “foil” character for comic relief, too. My first readers all tell me calling it fantasy is completely wrong and I agree but at the same time, I cannot see where the points made (1st paragraph) would be totally ignored by a publisher to the point of calling it mainstream. : )

Sounds like you have a LOT going on and that’s a great start for any nano!

Yeah, I had huge problems deciding on my genre, and in the end decided on "other" (question - why isn't "mainstream" one of the options on our profile page?).

If you ignore the fact that my main character's boss is the Pope and his best friend is a demon, then it could almost be a detective or spy story...

Everything is pretty matter of fact "this is just how things are" and set in 2007, so I was reluctant to call it fantasy.

So in terms of genres there's a bit of fantasy, a bit of religion, a bit of mystery, a bit of thriller - "mongrel" would be a good category!

I'd say my novel fits best here because it's mostly drama with a little religion and romance thrown in. I tend to write about people facing the struggles of real life, so it's not so much that my novel crosses genres as much as it is non-genre writing.

I've got a pretty sound storyline, and my biggest obstacle is maintaining enough conflict to keep the story interesting. With my first NaNo I realized that I started being too nice to my characters about half-way through and it got pretty boring - so that's my challenge this year!

My novel was difficult to categorize as well, it has elements of art, religion, mystery, murder, romance, very little humor, because I'm not really funny either. :)
~~~

Mine actually is just straight-out general fiction. One of the characters is religious, and there are members of various ethnic groups all working together, but I set out with the intention of avoiding themes of racial conflict and (with one exception) religious conflict. It's mostly just about folks working and eating in a restaurant and having fun being around each other. Honestly, I took a lot of inspiration from my real-life job and the people I work with there. A little romance, a fair amount of humor, just enough suspense at the end to give me something to build up to...and that's about it.

Uhm. I figured I'd categorize my novel as mainstream this year, because even if there is a vampire society i.e. urban fantasy, gay romance, action and some erotica (assuming I can pull it off), I just intend to give my readers a good time, and myself the opportunity to write an entertaining story I wish to write as well as I have it in my head.

Though somehow the label 'mainstream' sounds demeaning.

Mine is pretty much straight, character-driven fiction: I have three people as main characters, all having killed someone in the past (some recent, some much more distantly). The trick will be in getting 50,000 words out about these three without boring anyone to tears ... but then, hey. Nobody else really has to read it!

I'm resisting the urge to bring in a horde of vampires or even a herd of cattle, tho I may have a couple of my m/c's fall in love ... who knows? Certainly not me. I just put the words on the page. My murderers will have to tell me where they're going with all this!

Looking forward to 11/1

~Bruce

Hmm, I'm not really used to talking about my planned works. Let's see if I can answer...

Mine is general, character-driven fiction. If I had to describe it I'd say dramedy with some romance thrown in. It basically involves a teacher who's just been released from a mental hospital who has to completely reevaluate his life. There's a lot of other stuff I'm not getting into right now, so it should be at least a teensy bit more interesting than it sounds. I think it will have a plot. I'm outlining this one, which I've never really done before, and slowly everything is taking shape. But I put most of my energy into my characters; it's always been my belief that if you create really good characters that they can shape the plot themselves.

I'm just here for lack of anywhere else to be; I set out to write a YA coming of age story but realised that my nano was about young adults but not for them, it's not an adventure story, there's very little mystery, no fantasy or science fiction and the sixties aren't far back enough for hist-fic, it's definitely not horror, or spiritual and the humour only comes in small doses, it could be romantic but I'm trying to avoid it as my two MCs are male which would open a whole new can of worms. The only thing I may be verging on is lit-fic because I'm discussing class (and it may be entirely comprised of two people in a barn) but I'm not going deep enough for it to fit there either. I've given up and decided to settle here, partially out of laziness, partially because you all seem nice and partially in the hope that you have comfy sofas and good coffee.

I'm loving the new NaNo site, and the mainstream genre forum gave me a pleasant surprise. My novel is set on future Earth, but I don't want to call it sci-fi. Still, it has elements of sci-fi, romance, suspense, action/adventure...so I'm glad this genre is here because it fits my novel. :)

Ok... I think i've decided to put my novel in Mainstream. For now anyway. I really think I'm straddling the line between Mainstream and Literary...but since I'm not sure I'm quite up to the "style" level of literary, I'm going to stick with Mainstream. (And hey...if I decide to go for publication I'll let THEM decide if it's literary or mainstream. :) )

So here's my stuff so far...

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 kind of slotted myself into adventure but it doesn't really sit well with me because it's not in my mind. My novel i could boast is character driven and dramatic with action and adventure. The problem is I haven't written anything about it yet except for starting my bible so I don't know what it is. I've combined a few aspects of different stories into one(which I don't even think my combination is original but I hope the story is) and really from the genres I saw it doesn't fit any of them. It's going to have some love stuff but it's no romantic. It is going to have action but thats not the point of the story. I've written a 100-200 word fairy tale format idea of what the story is going to be and I liked it. I might even use it in the story after I've cleared the 50000 mark for the fun of it. For me the biggest thing is going to be writing more then a short story without it turning into another one of my scripts. I guess i can give a teaser since really it should be about the writing and not the surprise.

My Idea is a man returns from the war to a city he hates. A city clutched and trapped by fear this wasn't the same place he left. He moves back into his house and after a little bit grows tired of the way things are and sets out to change it. He does everything from picking up litter to taking care of crime. Well naturally what happens when the thugs get hunted in stories they band together under a common goal. Their mission is to remove the man who has been giving the people hope.

The story is going to center around the "hero" but is(and hopefully this comes through in the writing) about the people around him who's lives change through both his "masked" actions and the actions of his "alter ego." My biggest inspirations for this story were "Superman Returns," and practically any original fable. Hence the reason I wrote a short fable version of the story I plan to tell.

I dono from what I've written would you guys agree that it's not exactly adventure?

I'd say it's adventure in a general sense, simply because it has a comic book feel (thematically) and comic books tend to be adventures. Since you're focusing on how he changes lives around him through both heroic and ordinary actions, though, I agree with you that it doesn't feel like the classic definition of adventure. He's not going on an epic journey, he's not wasting bad guys with a sawed-off and a machete, he's not even out to save the world by defeating some supervillain; he's just an ordinary guy doing whatever he sees he can do to change the world one life, or a handful of lives, at a time. Based on what you've said, I'd love to read your story when you've got it...and I think mainstream fic's a good place for it.

I’m struggling to figure out whether to classify my novel as mainstream fiction or literary fiction (I honestly can’t tell what the difference is between the two genres). In any case, it will contain elements of action, thriller, mystery, but no romance. For now, I’m classifying it as mainstream fiction.

I'm writing the sequel to my 2005 novel, and I'd put it under the category of thriller before anything else. But after that, it's a dark comedy and an adventure story. I don't want to hang out in the horror forum, so this one will do just nicely.

A friend asked me to tell her a story so I wrote for ten minutes a fairy tale version of the story I'm going to write. So here it is unedited because even though it doesn't have everything in it it's still pretty decent. This will pretty much spoil my story arc but then again I suppose the title will too.

A Fable of a Superhero

Once upon a time in a land not so far away there lived a man. He was an average man it seemed to most. He lived an average life of work and the like. Soon enough this man heard a cry out from the king for soldiers so he enlisted in the ranks. After receiving some training this man got sent away to a war in another land. Long did he campaign for a war he little believed in but his duty was to his country and king so he continued. After he had served his time on the front line they sent him home. Happy to return and meet his friends and family, his town and house he soon learned much had changed.

Waring in another country by the call of his king had opened this man's eyes a little. When he return to a changed world he met his friends hugged his family and walked the streets to his door. This land had needed him more then the last. Thieves and brigands now ruled the streets and the peasantry was scared into their homes. So this man did what many would only talk about. He walked the streets capturing thugs and thieves leaving them for the wards. Soon he himself became an outlaw to the guards but the king could do little as he had become a hero to the peasants. The brigands and thieves gathered together under the ruling of one and proceeded to hunt this man. They tracked him down and torched his house and belongings. They found his friends and family hurting or killing them.

So he did once more what many would only talk about and walked up to them and stood his ground. Outnumbered and incapable of wining this man prepared for the fray. A good fight he gave limited by the rules he imposed upon himself. Never to become a murderer or brigand himself he only tied them up or disabled them from the fight. The inevitable finally happened the thugs began to win as they took the fight to the streets. Battered, bruised, and beaten the man took one final action and with every ounce of his strength and being he stood. The thug leader approached him and with a smile thrust his hand forward burying a dagger into our hero's heart. No scream of pain, no cry for help just a limp body falling to the ground. The peasants watched and stared as their hero fell. They watched and stared as the thug leader smiled with glee at the demise of his enemy. Then the thugs watched and stared as the first peasants took to the streets. Then the thugs watched and stared as all the peasants walked out their front doors with chains and rope. The guards could do nothing.

Final Count: 476 words

As far as I can tell, literary fiction is more issues- and culture-driven, and mainstream fiction is driven more by plot and characters. A classic example of LitFic that people have pointed me to is Barbara Kingsolver's "The Poisonwood Bible", which deals primarily with political, social, and cultural upheaval in Africa over a period of three decades. Each of the characters is a representative of a different side of the argument presented (to the point that they come across as people only occasionally), and the plot, such as it is, centers on cultural changes more than development in the characters. Another good example is "Spring Moon" by Betty Bao Lord, which gives a similar treatment of China from the Boxer Rebellion to the rise of Communism.

Mainstream fiction, I think, is more things that could actually happen in the world as we know it, and while it might include social/political/cultural issues, the story seems to center more on the development of the characters as people. A movie example that comes to mind is "Pearl Harbor", which focuses on relationships with WWII as a backdrop; for a book (and a movie, too, actually), Billie Letts' "Where the Heart Is", which is driven by the main character improving herself and trying to make a better life for herself and her daughter.

While my novel does focus to some extent on the social issues faced by the two main characters, that aspect is a minor element of the story. The story will mostly focus on the development of the main character, so I think this is the right classification for me. Thanks for the info. ^_^

Mine is either mainstream or litfic, I'm not sure how it'll turn out yet...But I'm pretty sure that apart from a dash of thriller/mystery, I'll stay within those bounds.

I don't have a title yet, but I'll write about a young woman who joins a fundamentalist church (probably in the US, though I'm not sure yet), then returns to her sister in London. It'm still a little sketchy on the how and what. I don't have title yet, either.

I'm not entirely sure what mine is, so I came in here.

The novel, thus far dubbed "Ramie's Mermaid" is about a girl dealing with the issues of life. (Age, yet undecided, but young). After losing his job and, in effect, his career, Ramie's Dad turns to alchoholism and begins hitting her mom. Ramie begins to avoid going home by going to friends homes and doing her paper route. When she can't avoid being home, she locks her door and begins writing a story, taking her mind away from reality, about a mermaid and a magical underwater world.

I'm not sure what I'm writing will be appropriate for children. It's a pretty harsh home life. And this novel crosses between realistic fiction and fantasy. Since it's not easily, comfortably defined by the other genre types, I have listed it as Mainstream Fiction.

My challenges this year will be making my story believable, I never have learned how to organize my research, and finishing my novel. I'm great at starting a story, but have yet to learn how to make a great middle and ending. I'm so excited about this novel, I hope to have it ironed out after November to have it published one day.

I'm adapting a gothic novel I read during college. I'm lifting the basic plot (just the skeleton, really) and changing the setting and the ending.

I'm putting it in this category because although the original was sometimes labeled as a romance, my novel is not what we would now consider a romance. The original also has some supernatural elements, but I'm removing those.

The story is really about the main character choosing to sin, and the consequences of that decision for other people. If I were submitting it to an editor or agent, I would just call it a novel. So I'm quite happy to put it here :-)

Sorry to be such a war trivia nerd . . . but thought you might be interested . . .

Due to having broken the German codes, the British knew about the German raid on Coventry ahead of time. However, they couldn't take any special precautions or warn people, as that would give away the fact that the German code had been compromised. One of those difficult decisions faced in war, I imagine.

Assuming that I get up the energy and quit whining and actually do NANO this year . . . .

I'm fairly certain I'll be doing 'Lad Lit,' which is a term I've heard for the male version of Chic Lit. I really like Nick Hornby, and Lauren Henderson, and would love to write something in the vein of High Fidelity or Exes Anonymous.

I have a scenario: Middle aged divorced guy, working in corporate America, deals with dating, ex-wife, teenage children (who may also be dating), career challenges. Hijincks ensue. . . leading to hilarity, pathos, and evolution to a higher level of existence for main character and all who read the book.

What I need more of is a PLOT. I know, I know . . . No Plot, No Problem. But I think this one will need to be planned out ahead of time to a considerable degree.

If this doestn' pan out - paranormal investigators and cryptozoologists go on an expedition to the Congo in search of Mokele Mbembe(.

Yep. I knew that. :) Thanks though!

Hi everybody--

First timer here. I read many different types of fiction, but my writing tends to fall into the romance or mainstream category. For next month's project I decided to go with my most mainstream (and easiest!) idea: a road-trip novel called Scattering Steve. It's about a woman and her estranged teenage son who reluctantly take a trip together to go scatter her ex-husband's ashes. The divorce was bitter, the kid never forgave her, but they're trying to honor Steve's last request.

The plot is basically built in to the premise, but even so, plotting is not my strong suit. So, I'm trying something a little different. I read Tarot cards, and I'm going to use my cards to help me do the plotting and characterizations. Who knows? I might end up with something completely unexpected. Either way, it'll be a fun experiment. :)

Happy writing,
Denise

Hello all. New this year, excited and nervous and in plot confusion.
I think I'm also writing a mongrel. Keen to do something split time period, focussing on lives of two women, somehow connected. Basing it loosely on a book my grandfather wrote about my Nana's life. Something along the lines of discovering identity, defining achievement etc. Feeling a bit Margaret Forester but less well written!

I'm crossing into psych thriller. Suspense, religious/spiritual, literary fiction, and a good dash of 'other'.

I think mine is just fiction, because it is sort of a mix between horror, fantasy (vampires and such), and a little mystery.
I can only hope mine fits in here I took me a while to get it down to this.

Hi everyone..

This is my first time at this and I am going with this mainstream fiction section as my story kind of slips between the cracks in general. I mean if you take it on first read you wouldn't be blamed for thinking it will be a romance novel..or a thriller..or a work of fantasy..there's even a touch of mystery thrown in there for good measure..as well as a few plot twists and a planned closing with one wicked twist in the tail. ;- )

Time will tell if what's in my head comes out in type and I can only hope it does, while doing my best to get the first draft finished within the month.

Here's hoping..

Dan
(scribbler65)

I'm really glad to find this Mainstream forum this year. I don't recall it being here before.

I have just about decided to do a sequel to last year's "Trouble in Paradise," which I labeled Literary Fiction because this category didn't exist. And Trouble was a sequel to my first entry in 2004, "Seeking Exile." The entire series is a blend of adventure and romance. Trouble brought in an element of mystery, and I think that the next installment will play on that angle without losing sight of the adventure and romance.

There's also feminist shading in the series, as the protagonist is a woman who's put herself in a life-setting more commonly inhabited by men.

And the scenery -- the Caribbean -- makes it all very pretty.

And that's about all I know about how I'll spend November. I really need to do some plotting!

Mia