You know the drill:
A) Kingpin type puts together a gang of criminals, who may or may not have worked together before. Probable protagonist via a tight or limited 3rd person omniscient narrator is an amoral anti-hero in the Parker vein.
B) Said Gang of crooks rob a bank/armored car/floating casino/who knows what else (art museum?).
C) Something goes horribly wrong, as in unknowingly robbing a mob front, the police are tipped off, etc.
D) Gang members barely get away from the fiasco and turn on each other, the kingpin, etc.
E) Climactic scene of gore galore. Anti-hero gets away by the skin of his teeth, his dim view of humanity confirmed, to rob another day.
F)The end
And yes, anything and everything under the Hard Case imprint is the guiltest of guilty pleasures thank you very much.
The Dark Fantasy/Horror book I'd planned to write has become increasingly less to my taste the more I'm outlining it. I'm on the verge of junking it, but don't want to jump ship without the vaguest idea of what to do next. And the idea to write something with characters with clear motivations, a reasonably clear plot, etc., is somehow appealling. It also seems like the sort of work that might be uniquely suited to a program like NaNoWriMo, since I think you could actually write a novel like this in 80,000 or so words, perhaps even fewer.
Thoughts?
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50,130 / 50,000
oct. 12, 2008 - 12 09
Go for it!
This is obviously the plot that tickles your fancy, the direction is pretty clear, the rest is creative embellishment in one fast and furious output. Which is what Nano is all about! Exercise your writing and explore a different tone doing this, and maybe you'll feel tempted to go back to the other story after.
Again: Go for it!
Best of luck,
L
50,167 / 50,000
oct. 12, 2008 - 16 12
I'll go even further and suggest that you take my first Dare from the Mystery Dares thread: make your kingpin a costumed villain, complete with mask and secret identity like in the old pulps and movie serials.
I just thought of a great twist that will add in the last dare in that message: make the caper the burglary of a mansion, and make the masked Kingpin turn out to be the butler.
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Blackout in Tinseltown 2004 (Winner)
The Door Into No Place 2005 (Winner)
For the Good of the Legion 2006 (Winner)
Bottled in Blonde 2007 (Winner)
Counting Electric Sheep 2008(Winner)
50,251 / 50,000
oct. 12, 2008 - 19 17
It's possible to do a caper in fewer than 80K. I did a caper last year. I had it pretty much planed out scene by scene beforehand and just bashed it out during NaNo.
I had it in basically three parts: Introduction to the criminals and the setup, planning/research the heist, and performing the heist/getaway. It took about 14 days to bash out the rough story, 21 days to cross 50K, and then I started editing. Going back, I would probably add another 15K words of description and dialogue in a second draft to polish it off, but I've only fixed a bit so far.
In my stories there were complications, but the criminals got away with it. Much more like one of Donald Westlake's comic capers than Reservoir Dogs.
50,049 / 50,000
oct. 13, 2008 - 10 06
You seem to have the plot covered, and I think if you're happier writing this sort of novel than what you had planned- go for it!
Perhaps it'd be a good idea not to completely drop the Fantasy idea, salvage what you can and maybe do that next year instead :D
0 / 50,000
oct. 14, 2008 - 05 12
Thank for the thoughtful input, everyone. I think what I'm going to do is give what I've got another week, but if I'm sitll spinning my wheels come next Monday or Tuesday or so, this is going to be my Plan B.