who's got a plot?

I think I have a plot. Though I had a plot before and decided not to write it this year. But my new plot revolves around an old University and a group of girls who play a dangerous game in order to fit in.

Of course that summary doesn't do the plot justice. As of now, it is lit fiction but I may end up having to move it to horror depending on how it goes.

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NaNo 2008 - I Dare You

That actually sounds incredibly cool, and like something I would love to read.

My novel sort of is out of the framework for a real, outline-able plot, but it has a general leit motif. It's a series of vignettes, all taking place in autumn, in which each notable character (and oh, there will be many) has a James Joyce-like epiphany, all varying in importance and degree. It ends at the beginning of winter, with a final (kind of sad but hopeful) epiphany.

I defend the fact that it doesn't have a real plot but is a novel by the fact that Chuck Palahniuk's book "Haunted" is a series of connected vignettes and is still a novel. Also, I read right here on this website: "If you think it's a novel, then it's a novel." I took it to heart!

I'm cheating. I will be exploring complex personal and societal issues, including a harsh criticism of the tendency to blame the victim of a rape, by re-telling the myth of Medusa from Medusa's POV. This gives me plot, and the skeletons of the characters; all I have to do is flesh them out. This lets me focus on the good bits- character development and social criticism- without worrying about that pesky plot too much.

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Liberal Feminist Hippie

I don't see that as cheating at all! It just sounds like an excellent idea. Myths are fair game to be retold any way you like, and that's one of the most interesting storytelling techniques. Margaret Atwood wrote "The Penelopiad", which is a novel retelling the Odysseus myth from the point of view of Penelope, his wife. It isn't a fantastic book, but it was a great idea.

Yeah, that's where I got the idea. xD

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Liberal Feminist Hippie

I like it. Does your character intentionally put himself in harm's way to make sure his goal is accomplished, hang out on train tracks, join a street gang, etc?

I have absolutely no idea what I am going to write about come November....

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"They must find it difficult, those who have taken authority for truth, rather than truth as the authority."
- G. Massey

Ha! Well, see? By proxy, it is still a good idea. It isn't even stealing the idea, either, because it was totally done before she did it.

Sooo.....do gangs, drugs, and self-destructive tendencies due to falling in....something or other....with gangsters fall into this category??? (not the authors tendencies, the MC's - lol - though the jury is still out on how self-destructive it might turn out to be trying this the second time in a row.....)

I still can't seem to grasp the difference(s?) between mainstream and lit fic - on the 'pre-renovated' forums someone suggested adventure - which was a HUGE eye opener for me since I always kinda dismissed adventure as "kids going on pirate hunt" type storylines. So it might even be that - but I'd feel better if it fit in here (denial maybe? lol).

The loose storyline is that a woman gets involved with her husbands cohort (at her husbands request) who turns out to be a full-on gangster. The story looks like it might be more about how she struggles with the choices she makes in an attempt to be accepted by the gangster group as she falls further and further .....

....oh whatever! That's the part that I guess isn't going to come forward until November!

Like that was enough info to make any sense.....D'oh!

Well, is it plot driven, or character driven? If the plot is just kind of there, and you plan on focusing more on developing the characters and how they react to the plot, then it might be more lit fic than mainstream. Bonus points if the novel has elements of a social critique (like, "This is why gangs are bad"). Extra bonus points if you kill off your MC. xD

What's it feel like, to you? That's what matters most.

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Liberal Feminist Hippie

Via my profile...

"Millie Faust has been raped; at least this is what her mother assumes. But as the truth emerges, such accusations are challenged. What really happened on October 5th, 1943? And who is at fault?

This sleepy New England town is about to get a wake up call."

That's it in a nutshell. Already totally in love with my characters and their stories and this whole plot, which is working itself out very nicely I might add for the first time ever. Ecstatic for November! Mdieva, I love your idea, it's intriguing and I'm curious to find out how your MC does this, definitely something I would be interested to read.

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I'm going for a story about the frontman of a rock band that's on tour but being pressured to write a second hit. He's going to have some sort of anxiety disorder and perhaps an odd sexual attraction toward one of his bandmates. I'm going to try to leave out the typical stuff like almost-ODing and fights within the band, yes? I want it to be a lot more about the guy's self-discovery, with a little bit of the rock band element mixed in because that's something I feel like I can really throw my interest into.

I haven't set anything in stone yet, but I've been playing with the idea of telling a story based on the nursery rhyme Lucy Locket. I stumbled across it in my travels a few months ago, and had never heard of it before. For some reason it really got the wheels turning.

Lucy Locket lost her pocket,
Kitty Fisher found it;
Not a penny was there in it,
Only ribbon 'round it.

As with many things, I tend to dig deeper into even little things I'm intrigued by. Apparently Lucy Locket was a barmaid at a pub called The Cock located on London's Fleet Street back in the day. Kitty Fisher was a very real, very well-known courtesan of the time. The pocket refers to Lucy's rich lover whom Kitty took up with after Lucy cleaned him out.

The characters intrigued me, and the basic story feels like something I could run with, so I thought it might be interesting to use it as a starting seed and see if I can't grow it into the plot of a novel. We'll see though. It may turn out to be better as short story material.

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Visit My Website -- Add Me On MySpace - My Tips for Surviving (and Winning) NaNo

not especially. like he says, "Kurt Cobain already killed himself, so I'm gonna have to come up with something else."

many thanks to you and everyone else with similar sentiments. i'll try to keep my stuff updated. i'm excited to see what everyone else comes up with, too.

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"the difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."
- mark twain

http://noweekwillbewasted.proboards.com/

Hmmm....good, very good, question.
----> thinking.....

I don't think there is much in the way of plot (yet?) as compared to the character dynamics. So - yeah - I think it's going to be more character driven. I think the plot sorta just jumps around incidentally. Then again, who knows what could pop up in the next few weeks.

I kinda like the idea of kiling off the MC. I didn't think of that - and it would be something quite different than where my brain usually goes with my typical characters. It wouldn't be a far stretch either, since there more than ample opportunities for such things when it comes to gangster dynamics.......food for thought!!

I'm doing a story about a super hero who meets a ex comic book writer, and somehow convinces him to write his life story. Once the story is published the super hero is black mailed for a lot of money by a private detective. Once this happens it is clear to him that this book is putting him in harms way he takes great pains on trying to cover it all up. Simply put? What would drive Superman to murder.

All I know about my novel is that it will focus on a group of people who identify under various labels along the spectrum of sexuality (sexual, demisexual, asexual, with a heavy emphasis on the latter) who meet and end up becoming good friends. I KNOW, I KNOW, it sounds totally lame, but I'm determined to make it interesting. I'm just really excited about featuring asexual characters (I'm envisioning it turning out like an asexual version of Queer as Folk or The L Word).

I'm sort of hoping that, once I learn a little bit more about the characters, their relationships will start to develop naturally and will carry the plot along on its own. If that doesn't work, then...I'm out of luck.

Back in Lit Fic again, I am! I dunno, I TRY to do something more mainstream and plot-drive, but in the end, it always comes back to characters and societal issues for me.

I've got 50 stories, each 1000 words... I hope. If I overshoot that then I'll just summarize and move on. Each of them pits my heroine in a situation that's completely new to her, and how she reacts, and what she observes. I plan on exploring various types of societies and philosophies in a way that's YA-friendly (basically I'm writing the Sweet Valley-esque books I wish I'd read), but not dumbing down the scale of social issues that I think children should be aware of from early on.

I'm trying to run the gamut of genres from fantasy to scifi, satire to comedy, and cover all sorts of societies (I'm currently reading Marilyn French's From Eve to Dawn in preparation) and stuff like economic policies (and how they affect people), gender issues (tell me they're irrelevant when we have no more gender), human rights, and sexuality. Some of it will be very abstract, and I'm trying to make them into concrete examples.

We'll see whether I'm sane at the end of the month trying to accomplish this.

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Halifax Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia, Canada.

50 Stories; 1,000 words each... will I survive?

Current story:

My first time in this area and this is the closest thing I could find to what I'm aiming for, but I'm not sure if it's correct?

It's based around a central character, Johanna, who is a university student that drops out after her high school-age boyfriend is killed in a school shooting. She is determined to find out what happened to her boyfriend until the boyfriend's long-lost tramping/musician/comedian brother, Philip, comes back to town and coerces her to go on a roadtrip. From there, Johanna learns more than she thought she would about love, death, herself and who her boyfriend, Riley, really was.

SOUNDS LAME. But I had a dream about it and this just seemed perfect.

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o8: Neon Apalonia

I've been writing short stories based on stuff I've seen in dreams. It always turned out awesome. So no, not lame (and that's a bit able-ist to say, haha) - good luck!!

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Halifax Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia, Canada.

50 Stories; 1,000 words each... will I survive?

Current story:

Umm... my plot.

This woman runs away from her abusive husband. She starts her life again and meets other people and becomes obsessed with a man (you know, she's traumatized and all. Let her life a little). Her husband tracks her down, kidnaps the two believing the man is her lover. The man pleads with the abusive husband and tells him that he's not his wife's lover. Wife, mentally awry, gets very angry and even though her husband is a nut, she tells the police that the other guy had kidnapped them and then she and her husband go la-di-daing off together again.

Does this fit literary fiction? I'm a bit confused. I don't really understand what lit fic is all about. I read some stuff about it... Is it... character driven? That's sort of what I understood.

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I iz teh Batman. I haz built-in pecs.

2007: Waddle 118K

Yeap, Lit Fic is vaguely explained as "character driven" and there's more focus on stuff besides what happens in the story!

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Halifax Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia, Canada.

50 Stories; 1,000 words each... will I survive?

Current story:

my (likely flawed) definition:
1) character-driven, as opposed to plot-driven
2) you are at least a little bit mean to one or more of the characters
3) SUBTEXT!

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"the difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."
- mark twain

http://noweekwillbewasted.proboards.com/

Mine's about an English 20something druggie with a penchant for elaborate pranks having to take care of his 10 y/o American Halfbrother after their mother "visits" and dumps him there.

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The mind can be a playground if you use it.

Planning progress: I know that it's set in a hotel.

Why did I never venture in here last year? I have a feeling lit fic is going to be my niche... I love character-driven, my plots tend to be too weak to push me through a story, and I love being mean to my characters.

My story is about the kid from The Lorax who gets the last Truffula seed. As he grows up and moves to a different city, he goes through phases of being very conscious of his responsibility to the environment, and getting caught up with the rest of his life. I'm exploring social responsibility, environmentalism, social activism, and throwing in a healthy dose of not-too-subtle criticisms of the college-aged tendency to join a cause for the purpose of dating.

The landscape for the story (as I see it now) is a very bleak, dull world, rather opposite the typical Seussian flavour. But hopefully, because I'm using his work as a basis, I'll be able to mix in some colour and frivolity.

My only concern is that this story will be considered fanfic. I wept when I realized that.

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Meals are books for the body.

"Lies are attempts to hide the truth by willfully denying facts. Fiction, on the other hand, is an attempt to reveal the truth by ignoring facts." -John Green

That sounds awesome! Definitely hard issues to explore without making your character squirm!

Oh, it won't be. To be a fanfic, you have to set your own elements directly into the setting of the work you're drawing bases on. Unless you're using his characters, and making it clear you're specifically in HIS world that he's already written, it's not really fanfic. Even then, you can still re-write stuff and still have it considered not fanfic.

It's not like anybody called Paradise Lost Biblical fanfic, after all, even though it's clearly drawn directly from the Bible.

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Halifax Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia, Canada.

50 Stories; 1,000 words each... will I survive?

Current story:

Mine's kind of weird. I wouldn't call it a growing up story but rather the main character's realizations that the world around him isn't as shiny and awesome as his brother made it look like. There's also talk of the issue of assimilation or the 'melting pot' idea in that the MC wants to be more like his Caucasian brother because he sees it as 'better'. It's kind of weird. ha ha. And, as a random side note because they're not blood related there's issues with him liking his older brother as more than a brother possibly because he can't see himself as attractive and his brother is like...the idealized form of what MC thinks someone should look like and if he is with his brother it's like he's somehow making himself better wtf am I even talking about?! I don't really know where it's going either. It's gonna be an odd book, that's for sure. I just have NO CLUE what's going on. I'm pretty much getting nothing from both of them. They do not want to open up and tell me their story at all *sigh*

That sounds interesting... I'm in a play dealing with immigration / integration issues so I think that's a very cool issue to tackle.

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Halifax Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia, Canada.

50 Stories; 1,000 words each... will I survive?

Current story:

Mine is about the nature of vice. The major idea is a support group for people who can't seem to quit smoking, but each of the members of the group have other issues of their own. One works at marketing for a company that sells fattening dinners and has to sell people on questionable health claims. One in a devout Christian politician driven to near suicide because of the lies he tells. The therapist is so bored with his life he tries all the psychoactive research chemicals he can find.

my main character is a man whose life is almost completely devoid of human contact. he walks with a cane and stammers and his only pleasure is derived from collecting rare post-punk vinyl. he lives in a dilapidated building next to an old incinerator. local legend states that one can sometimes see a ghost climbing in and out of the incinerator. one of his neighbors is a cheerful med student who kidnaps homeless people and vivisects them during "study sessions." their lives intersect on several occasions, but our hero has become so obsessed with seeing the ghost and his own bad state that he hardly notices anything going on around him.

the novel begins with a disastrous sexual encounter involving our hero, and ends with him capturing the ghost on camera and being utterly disappointed with the results.

that's all i have.

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Originally, I had this really complicated plot, but then I thought of this other one, and the more recent one won for my NaNo novel (the first I'm still planning on doing, but not for NaNo).

Basically, it's about this girl who is convinced that she would never die happy in old age, and is therefore waiting until she has an amazing and thrilling moment in her life, and she plans to die on that high. Odd, but it intrigued me.

I haven't read any bad ones of these yet! I really the Lucy Locket idea - I've been singing that nursery rhyme for years and never knew that it was about lovers!