What's Your Story, Morning Glory? -- The Detroit Plot Thread

Ahem. Yeah. I'm more on the wing and a prayer side of the scale... but I think I'm writing about a U.S. Mail Carrier (female) who tries to (figuratively) pull strings behind the curtains in a neighborhood as she delivers mail (i.e. looking out for old people, fixing up the single-divorced 40 somethings, etc. etc.). Not quite sure how it'll come together, but I'm basing it off my own mail carrier who is QUITE the character and I'm hoping to see her one of these days so I can ask her a bunch of questions... and maybe even tag along some afternoon if I'm not working.

A wing and a prayer at this point, and it's purple :)

I'm going to go into big-time planning the week prior...like Chris suggests in his book. Until then, I'm just going to ruminate on it. Just feel it out for awhile. It's usually what works for me with my column.

Namaste.

2005 Winner: "Inching Toward the Purple Hat"

"You can take for granted that people know more or less what a street, a shop, a beach, a sky, an oak tree look like. Tell them what makes this one different." --Neil Gaiman

I'm currently kicking around two major ideas, with the ever open possibility of something totally different coming up before the actual writing starts.

The first idea would be to take last year's failed attempt at a novel, melt it down for raw ideas, throw out the junk, and give it a fresh start. It goes something like this: Two cyborg prize fighters suddenly find themselves transported from the empire's luxurious capital city, to it's rapidly collapsing border. There they find their abilities, loyalty, and sanity drawn into question as they are unwillingly sucked into the turf war. Which all sounds very epic, but truthfully I want the story to be more character driven and to focus on the internal rather than external struggles, keeping the main characters one or two degrees away from any decision making that affects the war as a whole.

The second idea would be to take the characters and setting of a short story I wrote while taking a creative writing workshop my last semester of college and using them as the spring board for something longer an more involved. The setting is a Victorian era fantasy world and the plot would be a somewhat light-hearted who-dun-it story. The main characters would be three women who run a shelter for unwanted pet dragons and a gentleman friend of theirs who happens to be a detective. The actual hows and whys of the plot are as of yet undecided, but ideally the plot would be something of a sequel to the original short story.

I've got a plot, not much detail for characters. I've actually been thinking about this as a musical than a novel but I figured I'd write the story now. A hot shot young composer is married to a very talented choreographer. They work on Broadway but not with each other. One day, the wife asks if she can work on his next musical, which he had just finished putting together. He reluctantly says yes and regrets it once she tries to rearrange the whole show to go with the dancing. With the cast against her, the husband fires her. What happens from there, I will not reveal but I will say everyone ends up in court.

Really hard to sum up my plot.
It is set far in the future where mankind has returned to a time closer to the dark ages and technolgy no longer exists.
A man declares a vendetta against the woman he holds responsable for the deaths of the men he rode with. Not interested in simply killing her he plots to manipulate her until he can strip away every moral or virtue she holds dear. His plan is to pull the strings as she sinks lower and lower, stealing, lying, giving up her virtue and even becoming a killer. Only when she has nothing left of herself does he plan to actually kill her.

Tricky part is that he is the hero.

Okay, it's been formulating itself in my brain...

I think I'm going to use my ex-boyfriend as a model for a supporting character in this novel. He's awash with a myriad of neurosis that can add quite a bit of humour to the plot and dialogue.

I'll be nice...really I will ;)

Namaste,
Carole

2005 Winner: "Inching Toward the Purple Hat"

"You can take for granted that people know more or less what a street, a shop, a beach, a sky, an oak tree look like. Tell them what makes this one different." --Neil Gaiman

How about a wing and a dream?

I am leaning towards a plot based loosely on a series of dream I have had in the past week. It is your classic boy's life falls apart, boy goes to Ireland to rediscover himself, boy meets girl, boy goes to writing retreat, girl gets possessed by a spirit from a series of standing stones ...

I am a little afraid because I do not see the potential for my usual level of death and destruction. I tagged myself Horror, since that's what I usually write, but this is probably more of an Urban Fantasy idea.

I don't know why I am worried about it. My characters are going to totally take over just like they do every November.

Without writers you would be reading tea leaves.

hmmmm I gotta a well....skeleton of sorts...and its on a wing....a fuschia one.

I have a main character woman late 20's early thirties who is an architectual engineer whose speciality is building mega churches. She is sort of a Murder She Wrote-younger Jessica Fletcher type who finds murder or crime related issues at every turn. This will be the first of a series of books I think. Continual subplots (so far) include the battle between a 25 year "platonic" friendship with her former boyfriend and her new boyfriend with a questionable past. The issues/crime with the new project she is working on and perhaps a former "nemesis" trying to destroy her reputation and claim her top spot in design engineering.

Also, she is family oriented being very close to her sister, (maybe 1 brother ) and parents. Her grandmother "Nana" is the rock in her life. She has a yet to be named assistant..who I think may be a guy.

ummmmmmmmmm I have alot of characters swirling in my head that she meets at the church..and maybe the first crime she solves...but right now my head is like mush...this is my first nanowrimo experience and I am excited.

There are those who know the price of everything but the value of nothing!
Dr. Stacia Pierce

deleting

There are those who know the price of everything but the value of nothing!
Dr. Stacia Pierce

I've had this idea in the back of my head for awhile, not sure what to do with it. I think it's a 'neat' idea, but not an 'awesome' idea, so I figured fleshing it out into a novel might work for my first NNWM attempt.

So, a few decades from now, the Online Experience has advanced into basically virtual reality. We've made some great strides in fertility services, too. The practical upshot of this (for purposes of the story, anyway) is that now, two people can meet online, carrying on a serious relationship without ever meeting in person - and then, with the services of a fertility clinic, can have a child 'grown' from their dna samples. These kids are raised at a school the clinic is partnered with, plugging into their computers at night to 'go home' to their parents. She can't speak, he lives in a double-wide, and some would call their child a 'freak of science', but in a virtual, fantasy world of their own making, they're a happy family unit.

Then one day, the child decides to run away, to leave the school for the first time, maybe meet his parents in the flesh. Obviously, stuff happens...of some sort...that I don't know yet.

...Yeah, call it a chartreuse wing. And an alto prayer.

Well three days ago I had a wing and a prayer.... then I got blindsided by rabid plot bunnies and have a vague idea of what I'm doing now!

Reincarnation of a witch that saved the world in ancient times dabbles in magic again in the present. This attracts the attention of a demon summoned by a rebellious clan of elves who still worship the crazy genocidal sorceress that the Witch sealed away centuries ago. The Witch's familiar (guardian dragon) has used glamour over the years to assume a human form and follow her, ensuring her safety but never revealing himself to her. Now with the demon on her tail he must tell her of her past, rekindle the dormant magic within her and find a way to defeat the demon before it kills her, or worse releases the ancient evil it was summoned to serve.

I have a few more details and working on character info and such but that is the gist of it. This is my first NaNoWriMo so here goes nothing. =^.^=

Wow such great ideas!

This year I'm trying a romance based on Chess. It was really clear in my mind months ago when I got the idea. Its been morphing in the last week. Essentially, Set in a modified Victorian England (originally plain victorian england but gargoyles crept in). woman finds challenging unknown opponent, gradually falls in love with him. Some type of mystery brings them together. I'm trying to get all the cheesy points of your typical mystery.

But now it wants to have a steampunk aspect to it. But I'm fighting that one, much as I want dirgibles and flying vespas if I go this way it will become an Adventure game and the cheezy romance aspect could be gone.

ML - Detroit
Detroit v elsewhere v nashville

My future monstrosity is based on a dream I had over eleven years ago. Pregnant at the time, I didn't want to relive the dream and upset myself even more so I put off writing it down. If nothing else, I'm a professional procrastinator (hopefully no more!). So the plot has been marinating all this time, things have changed, new characters have come forward and now I think I have enough material wedged in my brain for three or four stories (hey, an insta-series!)

I'm rewriting the story of creation, how the angels and man came into being. Very sacrilegious subject matter but I've already been labeled a heretic so I guess I'll survive. The angels were formed in perfect balance with a soul mate but were eventually torn apart in the destruction of paradise. Man played his own part as did God and Satan. I'm still trying to work out the logistics in my overcrowded brain and can't wait to get typing so I can work out some of the details.

The story I'm planning for NaNo is the Archangel Gabriel's and the introduction into my conceptual neo-Genesis world. I really have no idea where the story will lead or how it will end - I woke up before Gabriel's soul mate, Hope, either accepts her mate or destroys the earth as we know it (did I mention I was dreaming in the 1st person POV?). Guess it wouldn't make for much of a series if I let her run rampant and destroy the world, so happily ever after it is... but how do you have an ever after, happy or not, with an immortal angel?

The other characters that have been coming forward are the additional archangels and Hope's family. I had to start doing character bios to keep it all straight and I've learned enough about angels to be spitting out wing feathers. I am talking detail overload here and I haven't gotten a good night's sleep since I signed up for NaNo last week. If only it keeps flowing like this I'll make it through November in first gear.

Behind every successful woman is a substantial amount of coffee. ~Stephanie Piro

So, my working title is "Strange Currencies", which I know I've used at least once before but I still like it. (It's a line from an REM song) This year I'm trying for an urban fantasy YA novel that takes place in...the suburbs of Detroit! Don't know too much about it except that it will have a large cast of bored teens and a 7-11 run by both God and the Devil.