I can't believe I'm the first to post here. The site looks so clean and new... And empty!
So, since I started this thread before the boards were wiped, I figured I should restart it here.
I've actually changed my plot as of this past week. Instead of taking on crazy cultists, this year, Val is going to be helping a young woman who has apparently been missing for twenty years and didn't know it. She was adopted as a three year old, but what her adoptive parents didn't know was that the adoption "agency" that they got her from wasn't a legitimate agency, but just a front for a much more sinister operation.
It sounds so much cooler in my head. XD I don't really know how to explain it.
So! Let's hear those awesome ideas!
----------
NaNo 2004- WON! 56k | NaNo 2005- WON! 54k | NaNo 2006- WON! 93k | NaNo 2007- WON! 51k | NaNo 2008- WON! 50k
Planning to win for the 6th yr running!
56,437 / 50,000
Okt 3, 2009 - 04 35
This is a good thread. Dave (TRRDEDEAN) noted to me recently that every author should be able to give a 40 word summary of their novel. This concept ensures that you know the key storyline of your novel.
Mine isn't down to 40 words yet. Fortunately, there is still October (or most of it) ahead of me :-)
Here's what I have so far:
----------The novel is the fifth in the Giovanna Lee series that started with Twilight (yes, I'll need to find a new name for it--probably the Twilight Gem). Giovanna has a magical Twilight Gem that lets her travel to other worlds and perform some magic. This time around, she discovers some of her school friends have mysteriously aged three years overnight. Everyone around her thinks this new state has always been the case, but she knows the truth. She must use the Twilight Gem to find out what is going on and try to set it right...
As she pursues her quest, she discovers that someone has been stealing key magical items from every world. This villain has used that magic to steal the childhood from various children, including Giovanna's friends; and the magic also affects all of those around the victims (except for Giovanna, who is protected by her Twilight gem).
And, wait, there's more! The villain turns out to be an older, cynical Peter Pan...
Will Giovanna and her new found allies be able to defeat Peter? Will Peter be redeemed in the end?
Tim Yao aka NewMexicoKid
co-ML, Illinois::Naperville
Fog Readability Analysis
Writing resources
11,000 / 50,000
Okt 3, 2009 - 05 33
So, does your summary have to be only 40 words. Or at least 40 words?
Basically, this year, instead of doing another modern day action adventure CIA mission (even though that was a lot of fun...), I'm taking it back a bit and writing a Western.
So here, is my super condense, 45 word summary of my book. And, when you read it like this... it's massively cliche. *giggle* Not that it wouldn't be when it's all written, but it makes me feel better to say it's not. Here it is:
Outlaws come to boy’s town--take over. Boy meets outlaw guy; finds out he’s a she; falls in love. Boy’s brother is killed. Boy goes to get revenge; gets revenge. Outlaw leader wants revenge; goes to get revenge; fails. Boy lets him live. Girl doesn’t. The end.
And that's that. ;D
----------Send the Troops Your Love
"To shrug." - Ayn Rand
56,437 / 50,000
Okt 6, 2009 - 18 26
TRRDEDEAN is the expert on this, but I believe it is only 40 words--the intent is to cut to the heart of what your story's plot is (most of my major characters don't even get mentioned!!!). If you know that, then you can build the skeleton of your novel around that core plot.
Or so the theory goes :-)
----------Tim Yao aka NewMexicoKid
co-ML, Illinois::Naperville
Fog Readability Analysis
Writing resources
11,000 / 50,000
Okt 7, 2009 - 04 42
Aha! I changed my book idea for this year and rewrote my summary. ;D I feel so proud of myself, as I was able to make it 40 words on the dot.
Plane crashes. College kids are stranded. Go back to civilization and feel out of place. Most of them are affected differently, but all interconnected in a way. None of them ‘on their own’ as the others know how they feel.
Wa-la. xD
----------Send the Troops Your Love
"To shrug." - Ayn Rand
0 / 50,000
Okt 7, 2009 - 15 53
Well my summary is only one word at the moment..... ZOMBIES!!!
Not sure what I'm doing with them yet. I'm thinking of starting in a diary format and having the writer get interrupted during writing and take it as a real time story. Maybe have them get infected and turn into a zombie and continue it through their perspective. I've been dieing (no pun intended) to write a new undead class for the World of Darkness by White Wolf, so this might be my chance to hash out some details!
Oh, and I think this is my first post in the Naperville forums. I did (and won) last year but I never really got involved locally. Hopefully this year I will come out!
0 / 50,000
Okt 7, 2009 - 20 10
An absurdly truncated gist in 36 words...
Man writes book. Book brings fame. Fame wanes and man can't write. Noticing sales skyrocket after an artist dies, he concocts pseudocide plot. Disappears with wife and continues to write/publish books "posthumously" via wife. Madness ensues.
0 / 50,000
Okt 8, 2009 - 07 31
Man writes book. Book brings fame. Fame wanes and man can't write. Noticing sales skyrocket after an artist dies, he concocts pseudocide plot. Disappears with wife and continues to write/publish books "posthumously" via wife. Madness ensues.
I like that! I hope you entice us with some excerpts. :)
0 / 50,000
Okt 8, 2009 - 09 43
First.. I'm Deanna.. first timer in the NANOWRIMO thing.. scared and excited :)
Here's my novel idea in 40 words :
2238 C.E.: Climate change is a fact. Eight people on an expedition deep into the Antarctic, find the first trace of oil in more than half a century. They learn their grant money had surprising and very deadly strings attached.
*shrug* we'll see!
69,844 / 50,000
Okt 8, 2009 - 10 14
Here goes:
Orpi discovered a plot that is destroying the living stones that are the foundation of her world and is now missing. Her husband and three children must follow the clues she left to rescue her and save everything they know.
If all goes as planned, the story will include a double edged allegory. Youth Fantasy.
S
0 / 50,000
Okt 8, 2009 - 16 18
Man writes book. Book brings fame. Fame wanes and man can't write. Noticing sales skyrocket after an artist dies, he concocts pseudocide plot. Disappears with wife and continues to write/publish books "posthumously" via wife. Madness ensues.
I like that! I hope you entice us with some excerpts. :)
I'm not really a fan of the "Writers Writing About Writers" thing, but it was the medium that worked best for the story for me. I considered filmmaker, artist, musician, athlete, etc., but author worked best.
I also thought that this would probably appeal most to the NANoCrowd. :D
0 / 50,000
Okt 8, 2009 - 18 33
Ack! Condensing it into 40 words was harder than I thought it would be--I either ended up with a few too many, or just a bit shy of 40. But I managed.
"The ancient Beast continues to ravage a world declining into oblivion, now freed from a long imprisonment. Taso, a young teen, sets out to understand his dreams—filled with Dragons and darkness, and an ever-growing need to protect his world."
Far from a groundbreakingly original idea, true, but I hope to present it in an interesting way that hasn't been done to death.
There's a good deal more to it than just that, but that's the core idea, the most basic summary I can give in 40 words--the rest are details you don't NEED to know to get the gist of what's going on, and that's what the 40-word summary is about, right? The basic idea?
----------http://kagesora.deviantart.com
http://www.fictionpress.com/~kagesora
14,325 / 50,000
Okt 14, 2009 - 07 20
So far...(in 42 words!) :
A group of suburban teens with the world at their feet decide to tip fate on its head. Little risks turn to cult-like behavior, just for fun –but at what cost? Some will be forever changed from this Year of Dangerous Living.
----------Freelance Writer & Creative Writing Teacher for Young Adults
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Blogging at:
http://www.writerinspired.wordpress.com
http://www.writelikeCRAZY.wordpress.com
40,708 / 50,000
Okt 15, 2009 - 13 12
Thanks to Dave, I think I've got it down to 40 words.
Castaway Prophecies
Three human castaways on an uncharted planet discover a time paradox that holds the clues to returning home. They ally with outcasts from warring disparate alien cultures to find the lost common life-source to unite the planet and save themselves.
Do you ever stop tweaking these things?
RAN
46,270 / 50,000
Okt 16, 2009 - 11 37
"They say it's the coward's way out, the last resort when all else fails, or a purely emotional decision lacking thought or forward thinking. What it is, however, is a choice, logic in a way most others can not understand."
I'm not sure that even really begins to make sense. Bah. Forty words isn't enough. >_<
11,000 / 50,000
Okt 16, 2009 - 11 43
I'm not sure that even really begins to make sense. Bah. Forty words isn't enough. >_<
It's not so much that it doesn't make sense, I don't think.. it just doesn't tell us. But, on that same note, it makes you WANT to know more! Haha, it'd make me pick up that book, for sure. :] I want to know what /it/ is.
----------Send the Troops Your Love
"To shrug." - Ayn Rand
113,810 / 50,000
Okt 16, 2009 - 11 57
It seems that I have been branded the expert and enforcer of the 40 word plot summary!
Here are my ideas for this year. I am going to start with Legacy's Choice and if I have time work on Legacy's Price.
2009 - Legacy's Choice - Will recount Quant-ne's journey from an awkwary adolescent to teacher to leading prolitical figure until he must chose between the peace of his world or self imposed exile. (28 words)
2009 - (?) Legacy's Price - Will recount the role Sol and Jenn Trumbull have in ending the Corporation wars and their decision to leave Earth to raise their son in a safe sanctuary. (28 words)
(See How Long Have You Participated thread for my prior novel plots.)
Dave
aka TRRDEDEAN
Naperville Region Co-ML
3,221 / 50,000
Okt 17, 2009 - 23 51
As it always seems to happen, I'm considering changing my novel idea. XD Here's my possible new idea, which I'm pretty sure I got from the adopt-a-plot thread a billion years ago:
Wilder is a shapeshifter, but he has no control over when he changes, or what he'll change into next, and he can't die. He's never been the same thing twice, and he's never been human. He's been around so long that he doesn't remember anything about where he came from or how long he's been changing. The only constant and familiar thing seems to be the overwhelming desire to find his way back to the same place every time he is a lucid enough creature to think about it: the house of a woman whom he has watched for as long as he can remember. He feels inexplicably drawn to her, but he can't quite comprehend that he's in love.
Eventually, he changes again, and this time he's human, but he's a long way from her. He struggles not only to deal with being human, something so completely different than anything he's been before, but also to find his way back to the woman, but all of the roads look so different to a man than they did to a beast. I haven't decided what happens when he finds her again, or if he's human long enough to have a chance at love before he changes again. I'm considering letting him stay human long enough to marry her and have a child, and long enough for him to wonder if maybe he'll never change again, only to have him get restless after a few years and to have him change at the end.
Not sure. But I really, really adore the idea. I'm just not entirely sure how I would draw something like that out into a full length novel, and how I would pace it. Hm. I've got lots of thinking to do. XD
----------NaNo 2004- WON! 56k | NaNo 2005- WON! 54k | NaNo 2006- WON! 93k | NaNo 2007- WON! 51k | NaNo 2008- WON! 50k
Planning to win for the 6th yr running!
46,270 / 50,000
Okt 18, 2009 - 02 27
I'm not sure that even really begins to make sense. Bah. Forty words isn't enough. >_<
It's not so much that it doesn't make sense, I don't think.. it just doesn't tell us. But, on that same note, it makes you WANT to know more! Haha, it'd make me pick up that book, for sure. :] I want to know what /it/ is.
Well at least it does some good then. haha Thanks!
Attempt Two:
They say that suicide is the cowards way out, the last resort when all else fails. For Amberlynn, it was a choice; logical in a way most others can not understand. Now, she must continue to live with that choice.
I think that's a tad better. Bah, I have major planning left to do. Where did October go? How do ya'll do it?
25,873 / 50,000
Okt 21, 2009 - 03 28
I'm not even going to attempt the 40-words thing, as I don't have a solid plot yet.
But basically it's a sequel to my 2005 novel. A psychic has found her destiny... and been chosen as to be the avatar of a god she doesn't know. All she has been told is that she will be that god's weapon in a war that has raged since a time lost to all knowledge.
Meanwhile a gunslinger (formerly the psychic's bodyguard) was betrayed and murdered by a traveling companion. But just as she died, a voice spoke to her and told her she still had a purpose to serve. With renewed life, she finds herself filled only with revenge.
This is my starting point. Now I just have to whip up some actual plot.
29,371 / 50,000
Okt 21, 2009 - 11 26
Wilder is a shapeshifter, but he has no control over when he changes, or what he'll change into next, and he can't die. He's never been the same thing twice, and he's never been human. He's been around so long that he doesn't remember anything about where he came from or how long he's been changing. The only constant and familiar thing seems to be the overwhelming desire to find his way back to the same place every time he is a lucid enough creature to think about it: the house of a woman whom he has watched for as long as he can remember. He feels inexplicably drawn to her, but he can't quite comprehend that he's in love.
Eventually, he changes again, and this time he's human, but he's a long way from her. He struggles not only to deal with being human, something so completely different than anything he's been before, but also to find his way back to the woman, but all of the roads look so different to a man than they did to a beast. I haven't decided what happens when he finds her again, or if he's human long enough to have a chance at love before he changes again. I'm considering letting him stay human long enough to marry her and have a child, and long enough for him to wonder if maybe he'll never change again, only to have him get restless after a few years and to have him change at the end.
Not sure. But I really, really adore the idea. I'm just not entirely sure how I would draw something like that out into a full length novel, and how I would pace it. Hm. I've got lots of thinking to do. XD
That sounds amazing!!
----------The jet pack, though, has never really taken off, Wilson says. The problem is its practical application. While a rocket belt could propel a screaming human to 60 mph in seconds, its fuel lasted for only about half a minute, "which led to more screaming,"
3,221 / 50,000
Okt 21, 2009 - 22 51
Wilder is a shapeshifter, but he has no control over when he changes, or what he'll change into next, and he can't die. He's never been the same thing twice, and he's never been human. He's been around so long that he doesn't remember anything about where he came from or how long he's been changing. The only constant and familiar thing seems to be the overwhelming desire to find his way back to the same place every time he is a lucid enough creature to think about it: the house of a woman whom he has watched for as long as he can remember. He feels inexplicably drawn to her, but he can't quite comprehend that he's in love.
Eventually, he changes again, and this time he's human, but he's a long way from her. He struggles not only to deal with being human, something so completely different than anything he's been before, but also to find his way back to the woman, but all of the roads look so different to a man than they did to a beast. I haven't decided what happens when he finds her again, or if he's human long enough to have a chance at love before he changes again. I'm considering letting him stay human long enough to marry her and have a child, and long enough for him to wonder if maybe he'll never change again, only to have him get restless after a few years and to have him change at the end.
Not sure. But I really, really adore the idea. I'm just not entirely sure how I would draw something like that out into a full length novel, and how I would pace it. Hm. I've got lots of thinking to do. XD
That sounds amazing!!
:D Thanks! I did some figuring the other day, and I think I have about 75% of it figured out.
----------NaNo 2004- WON! 56k | NaNo 2005- WON! 54k | NaNo 2006- WON! 93k | NaNo 2007- WON! 51k | NaNo 2008- WON! 50k
Planning to win for the 6th yr running!
25,873 / 50,000
Okt 22, 2009 - 03 03
Okay, so... I know I already posted, but I'm also thinking about another story idea because frankly I have no idea where I want the aforementioned book to go. I know where I want it to end up (leading into a third book, which would conclude the story), but... I've also been thinking of a book with more of a political feel to a lot of it.
A lich has the power to turn undead back into rational, thinking beings. The undead form a sovereign nation... which leaves the lich with the significant task of convincing the living races that they're no longer monsters.
37 words. :) There's more to it... like the fact that the lich didn't not choose to become undead of her own volition... but the largest parts of it would be her journey into lich-hood, then her trying to convince the leaders of the living races that her people deserve to have their own kingdom. After all, they're certainly not going to be welcomed back into their original societies.
I don't know. I'm still kind of torn between the two. I really haven't been thinking about this long enough to be prepared. :/
15,819 / 50,000
Okt 23, 2009 - 18 03
Okay, here is my attempt at a concise summary (38 words) of my NaNo novel “Astrid and the Hex”:
Astrid is a newly betrothed 16-year-old girl living in 14th century Norway. Busy with wedding preparations, her life is upset when her family and fiancé die from the plague. She must adapt to living in a post-plague society.
I'm afraid it sounds pedestrian, but I hope once things get going, it'll be more interesting :D
----------There are many questions which fools can ask that wise men cannot answer. - George Polya
En dåre kan spørre mer enn ti vise kan svare.
28,150 / 50,000
Okt 27, 2009 - 14 21
Warning: My plot is only a day old.... needs much work.
Naomi, facing mid-life, a dead-end job and an ungrateful family, decides on a whim to apply to graduate school. When she is invited to attend a group interview at said school, she must face her family and fears to reach for her dream deferred. In her struggle not to betray them, she meets the ultimate sacrifice = herself.
----------Dream Higher
Crystal in Naperville
57,458 / 50,000
Okt 29, 2009 - 06 41
God, I got no idea if I could fit my story in 40 words.
Three years ago, Alexandra Durham lost her twin brother to a force she could not understand, and has spent the last three years in a disguised depression. Now, though, the force has returned, this time going after her two younger siblings. Trying to prevent losing them, Alexandra is instead pulled with them into a alien world. Now, she must reconcile with her siblings while trying to bring them home . . . and stop her brother, now the ruler of the alien world, from committing genocide . . .
Not the best or most accurate description but I think I managed to fit it in.
41,759 / 50,000
Okt 29, 2009 - 09 22
Here goes...
After a strange adventure in a magical world, Steven Parker is ready to embrace a normal life with preparing for college and hanging out with his girlfriend. His plans are disrupted with the arrival of his troublesome stepbrother, and when an unexplained rising of dark magic draws Steven and his friends back into the Isles of Aleanya, they must discover the source or risk never finding their way home.
Well, that's about 70 words, but in my defense I decided to write a sequel and the first 30 words are a summary of last year's novel. ;)
48,317 / 50,000
Okt 30, 2009 - 12 30
I'm also not going to try the 40 word summary - it is too undefined in my mind. Although, I'm sure the exercise would help me focus my thoughts.
I am thinking about three main characters a boy, maybe teenaged, and his younger sisters, twins? They stumble upon a mystery and decide to do a little detective work. Not sure the nature of the mystery yet. Their father died when they were young and his ghost/spirit is going to be involved in helping solve the mystery and they will learn something about themselves and their family/father, etc.
Egads, that sounds really weak and scatterbrained. I really have no idea what I am doing this year. I hope to start writing and let the 'magic' of NaNo take over. Wish me luck.
Good Luck to all!