Wednesday, October 23, 2002
Roughly a week left until the start of NaNoWriMo and I’m still flailing around for an idea for my novel. Last year I tried to write something that was half-contemporary and half-fantasy, but completely came to a grinding halt when it came to writing (very much to my surprise) the fantasy segments. On the other hand, I had a lot of fun writing the bits set in our own world, so I think I’ll try for something with a contemporary flavor.
Sonya is writing a superhero novel, which is just too fab for words. Lish might participate too (sometime in between all the other stuff she has to do in November!); her advantage is that she’s already creating a character for a play she’s been cast in, and can use those ideas for her book. Cindy has two good ideas; some people have all the luck!
Meanwhile, here I sit on the edge of inspiration, trying to collect rainwater in a sieve.
I know the reason that I failed last year. It’s one that Chris Baty, who runs the whole enterprise, pointed out in one of the newsletters’ “tips” sections. I can’t find the particular page on the site anymore, but it seems that the relevant bits are in this year’s FAQ list:
It’s pretty obvious that my idea block right now stems from a fear of the very thing I’m supposed to be embracing. Well, since I’m having trouble aiming low, it can’t hurt to slum for ideas from those who are unencumbered by concern for my artistic integrity!
I’ll get the ball rolling. Let’s say that my tome will be a faithfully autobiographical tale subtitled… oh, The Adventures of Selva Morales*, International Super Spy. Post some interesting ideas as comments to this entry and I’ll use them! All of them. That’s right, every single plot element, character and/or setting suggested by your followups will find their way into my novel.
Promise!
Jot down as many gems (or turkeys) as you want — just don’t try to tie them all together. That’ll be my job. Wow, this is starting to sound like fun!
Comments
What genre is this going to be? How about a comedic sci-fi suspense story that takes the protagonist across the globe in search of tbhbwthhlo (the blue haired babe with the hott hott leather outfit) in hopes of mating and preserving the dwindling species of hhlo-donning freaks? Perhaps some super secret scientific agency has found a correlation between hhlo-donning freaks and who knows what (psuedo psychic power / manual dexterity / hand-eye non-coordination / something else) that just happens to be necessary for controlling the XSF-3292, a powerful device necessary for saving the world.
You should include a motorcycle chase scene. And cookie baking.
Ok, ideas from dreams:
1. There’s a huge explosion on a boat. It just so happens that an alien was one of the passengers, and the protagonist (or other main character) is invited to do the alien death ritual because they were close friends. So they’re in some very sterile place, and she gets the honor of removing the “soul” or “essence” of the alien for burial. This involves splitting open the head (not at all bloody) and removing an egg shaped thing from inside. I should mention that the aliens look surprisingly human on the outside. Anyway, during the ritual, they see that this particular alien has lima bean shaped things near the ears, and this is extremely important because only aliens with a special danger-sensing sixth sense have them which prevents them from dying in situations such as boat explosions, SO how did the saboteurs manage this?
2. X (random character) is at the airport in a large hallway with lots of people and a couple escalators in the middle. Some whacko in army fatigues, we’ll call him W, with a gun comes running in and everybody quickly disperses to the sides of the hall or out except for X who is in the middle and does his/her best by trying to hide at the bottom of one of the escalators. W decides to take X as a hostage and holds gun threateningly to X’s head, but then W decides that he has a better chance of escaping if he distracts everybody by shooting X in the head, so he does. X dies.
3. X is dead and wakes up in a wonderfully lush green grassy place. Two close friends lead X to a concrete ditch area (think inverted slabs, but a long windy road of it) filled with people in togas. Most have some sort of disgusting wound showing cause of death (bloody hole in forehead, wrist slits, rope burn marks around neck, etc.). X sees two previously suicidal friends, let’s call them L and M, and they realize they’ve got enough for a game of skat.
4. B is asked by D, some random stranger, to go on a job interview with him because he needs the support. B reluctantly agrees. In the waiting area, B starts to get a bad feeling, and somehow it dawns on him that D is interviewing for the position of anti-Christ, but that somehow B is destined to get the job. Sure enough, this hideous dog-headed beast comes out and rips a hole in B’s chest by eating into B and turning B into the anti-Christ.
5. C peels his/her skin off.
The prot. works for a random intelligence agency. The kicker is that the agency is remarkably stingy since the new boss decided to bring some “financial discipline” to the agency. Needless to say, things just go to hell after that.
So now all the spies are flying coach and their missions are suffering because of it. Ex. one agent falls asleep on recon. because the agent took the red-eye while sitting next to this kid that WOULDN’T STOP WAILING. Too bad their mark happened to assasinate Random Very Important Government Official(tm) while the agent was dozing. Or the fact that one agent wasn’t able to fulfill the mission because the equipment had to be checked in and ended up getting routed to Algeria. Quite a shame a lonely part time baggage claim clerk / terrorist in Tangiers got to take home a complete set of explosives inc. Semtex & C4. And etc.
Basically, a bunch of corporate bs-caused mishaps with profound consequences. Dilbert meets Dirty Pair perhaps?
I don’t care what it’s about, but I think it should include a cameo from the character I’m writing MY book about. If I write my book. If I have time.
Mid-20s gothbitch, calls herself Jizz, likes fishnets, combat boots, black hairdye/lipstick/nailpolish/eyeliner. Listens to Prodigy and Marilyn Manson. Draws. Moshes. Smokes pot and cigarettes all day. Falls for someone totally inappropriate. Give her a brief moment of glory, and I’ll be happy. (I’m trying to get a cameo into Sjet’s novel too.)
1) I think I met the gothbitch at a party once. She got all drunk, hung all over a couple guys who valiantly tried to push themselves out from under her bulk, and then she passed out on the sofa with lipstick-tinted drool rolling down from the corner of her mouth down into her very low cleavage (stretch marks all over her breasts). I think she’d fit great into a nanowrimo novel.
2) Boy and robot conquer the world together. (b) Girl and robot conquer the world together.
3) Boy meets girl, girl turns out to be a robot/demon/betwitched animal. Boy decides that the special powers girl can bring to the relationship make it “OK.” Or vice versa, switching genders.
4) See 3), but the Mary Gaitskill version.
5) Do I dare to hope for something resembling Westbound 90 - this plot summary cracks me up!
That dangblasted MT ate my hyperlink! Westbound 90: http://www.theonion.com/onion3839/my_novel_addresses.html
Protagonist’s longtime friend has the annoying habit of quoting lines from very lame songs, such as “Oops, I Did it Again” or “Who Let the Dogs Out”, when explaining his/her take on the mysteries and wonders of life.
Long-time borderline anorexic gives up on the world and commits suicide by eating herself to death.
One person: Cornelius X. Murching
I can give you some character development material for him if you’re curious.
perhaps the novel could contain a secret message concealed in the third-from-the-back candy bar in one of those vending machines whose wares are stuffed into the interstices of chrome corkscrews which rotate one turn to dispense their contents. It’s one of those candy bars that gets relatively little vending-machine action, like Violet Crumble or Chuckles. Our hero/ine is under the gun to read this message. S/he starts feeding the machine dollar bills, all of which are held for an interminable second, then contemptuously spat back out, even though they are seemingly relatively crisp. So s/he feeds change into the machine instead, working her [abandoning gender nonspecificity here - Ed.] way to the third-from-last candy bar (D9, D9, D9, D9, D9). Some of the quarters aren’t swallowed on the first pass and have to be fished out of the change slot and re-inserted. She’s on her last 65 cents when the crucial bar comes to the front. The corkscrew rotates a turn but the bar doesn’t fall. It hangs there by a thread, impervious to all bangings and kickings. Not sure where to go with this. Maybe spy panache is exercised or a kid comes along and tickles the machine in just the right place.
perhaps the novel could contain being kicked off the side of a building and plummeting back-first to the cement below and at the moment of impact jerking awake in bed, the lightest landing.
perhaps the novel could contain the moment when the red HAS in the FedEx pickup box’s “Today’s pickup HAS occurred” turns to the green HAS NOT.
perhaps the novel could contain the eternity between the moments of [seeing one’s car keys on the seat just after initiating the car-door slam] and [pulling one microsecond too late on the door handle].
The story culminates with a 60+ person mass murder, ending with a person saying “Touche!”. Heh, okay you can have an epilogue.
Protagonist meets W, a binge-drinking sot who is likable though P never sees W sober. (W is genial yet surly in a cute way?) One night W offers P a drink, and next thing he knows he’s waking up groggy with stiffness and a soft spot in his lower right back (I’m not assigning gender to P BTW). After seeing his doctor, P finds out his right kidney has been swiped. P pulls in a few favors and picks up a matching kidney on the black market — turns out he bought his own kidney… only it’s his left kidney! When they look where his left kidney should be, they find…?
P is on assignment (or somehow set up on his own) to meet an informant during mid-December (in Italy? Europe? Malaysia? U.S.?) in an area where the enemy has many ears. In a severe miscalculation, P is to show up at a community center as a Santa and the informant to bring a child to yap with Santa (while info/material handoff is made), but turns out the center is being used as a mosque/temple during the arranged time. Can P salvage the operation? What happens to the informant? the kid?
A chase scene involving Formula 1 cars. (This came from an unrelated discussion tonight with Jet.)
Young hobbit inherits evil ring of great power. Embarks on quest to destroy the ring in the Cracks of Doom. Accompanied by heir of Isildur, wizard with funny hat, gay interracial dwarf-elf couple, and random interchangeable provincial hobbits. Hilarity ensues.
Cheesy, but an entire chapter that is a dream, but the reader is not aware until the next chapter.
Not trying to do the standard “it was all a dream” thing, nothing super wild or crazy, just trying to capture that feeling when you wake up and have that 5 or 10 minutes where you are trying to figure out if you dreamed about something happening or it actually happened.
An example: I had a dream where I was late for my one of my finals in college and that I had to do it in 10 minutes. There was the exciting “chase” sequence of running across campus and then the mad sequence of actually trying to take the test.
When I woke up, I seriously had to figure out for 5 or 10 minutes that yes, I had already graduated college years ago and it was just a dream.
Maybe start the chapter out with the waking up - that would avoid the cliche. The protagonist is just trying to piece together whether the events were a dream or real.
P has a dream where she meets someone in the Blogverse who she’s never met in real life, and the person she meets calls her a white giant, but only because the other person is a very short Asian, and P is a five-foot-nine Caucasian.
No wait, that was me.
We find out that a character has zemmiphobia when he/she comes face to face with…..
The Great Mole Rat!
Nina - ha! Okay, maybe I’d best clarify. The gothbitch (as I’ve personally imagined her) is more the covered in piercings and tattoos, silver jewelry, tough-as-nails, body like a well-oiled-machine type. Not so much the drooling drunken sloppy goth. ;) A little more on the badass-hardcore-punk side, a little less on the trashy-drug-addicted-mess side.
I have to say, the idea of you meeting up with this person at a party is pretty hilarious. Maybe I’ll put it in mine!
Heh, I get it… yours is more of a Carrie Anne Moss type! But can we have both?
man from the bank falls in love with protagonist and writes (with pee) “I love you” in the snow in the wee hours of every morning outside the window of the protagonist.
ha. now i bet you feel even dirtier. hahahaha.
ok. i’ll behave. you started it ;-)
the inevitable recurring inflatable love sheep in far too many scenes. Perhaps all the minor characters have them or just a few too many of the major characters.
(Oh man, I can’t wait to see you try to integrate this with all the other suggestions here….)
Somewhere off the coast of Korea, a dingy boat bobs in the tranquil waters, carrying one unconscious passenger who is tightly clutching something in his left hand. Shortly thereafter, you find out that his right hand is missing.
The events leading up to this might be gradually revealed through flashbacks occurring throughout the novel, or just told up front. It turns out that he’s actually a brilliant 14th century scholar who was widely praised for his elegant poetry and flowing brushstrokes. But because he was left-handed, people were always suspicious of him, because of the widely-held belief that left-handedness meant evil or misfortune. Ironically, efforts to disprove this belief by diligent research into the matter actually caused the scholar to develop a great interest in the dark arts — communing with the deceased and such. And during one seance session, he screwed up his mantra and allowed the spirit of a recently killed great warrior to enter the real world. Unfortunately, spirits no longer abided by any allegiances it held when they were alive, and so this spirit warrior proceeded to sweep through Korea and then Japan, slaying all those in his way. To stop this creature, the scholar chased after it, which eventually led to a confrontation on a boat off the shore of Japan. In the ensuing struggle, the scholar’s right hand was chopped off, but he managed to ensnare the spirit warrior inside a bronze medallion he was carrying by chanting the entrapment mantra. (The container could’ve been anything; he just happened to have this trinket on him at the time.) He then sealed the trapped spirit in the medallion by inscribing it with powerful characters, written in his inimitable script in his own blood. (Lucky for him that it was his right hand that was cut off!) Then, severely weakened, he collapsed on the boat, clutching the medallion in his left hand, and muttered a mantra which sealed him, the medallion, and the boat in the present (i.e., 14th century), while the rest of the universe continued to flow forward in time.
Fast foward to the present, where the boat suddenly reappears out of nowhere. It turns out that someone or something inadvertantly cracked the time-stasis mantra, causing the scholar, the medallion, and the boat to rejoin the time flow. They are soon discovered and taken to a hospital, where an attendant accidentally effaces the blood script from the medallion. The spirit warrior springs forth and resumes its killing spree. It of course seeks out the scholar, but as the warrior raises its sword to finish the job, the desperate scholar chants the mantra that fuses his spirit with the only suitable thing nearby: a nearby dead doctor’s Palm VII (OK, an iPaq, if you feel so obligated due to company allegiance). The scholar then travels across the wireless network, but the spirit warrior, catching on to what had happened, crushes the device before the upload is complete, effectively giving the spirit partial amnesia. The incomplete program finds its way to an unsuspecting user’s machine, and thus begins the story of some geek and his trusty wireless device out to save the world.
One notably underspecified element which might be useful as a minor plot device: whoever or whatever broke the time-stasis mantra might be instrumental in solving the crisis.
Bona fortuna.
(from GNE): absinthe drinkers… trying to procure the real stuff when it is illegal.
There is a lot of evil happening, and it’s all connected with dental floss. Is it the dental floss which makes people evil? Are the crimes committed with dental floss? Are people who use the same brand fated to be linked as perpetrator and victim? The only one who may know any of the answers to these questions is dental floss magnate H. Melvin Thropowicz, and he’s clearly not sharing all he’s hiding between his teeth.
The protagonist meets (in reality or a dream) a person who is reversed right/left, like a mirror image. Sure, in daily life it’s hard to notice, but it’s relevant if you’re looking for the liver or appendix or something. This would also work as an autopsy.
A haphazardly spilled cup of coffee yields a stain on the tablecloth which is a perfect map of Burkina Faso. The as-yet unmelted sugar cube is where Ouagadougou would be.
Extraterrestrials arrive on the planet with great aplomb, and announce that they are here to apprehend a group of nuclear physicists for one of the greatest known atrocities: the creation, via a high energy physics experiment, of nascent universes, terminating them before they are allowed to mature, thus snuffing out countless billions of lives which might have been.
I see her as Fairuza Balk with a bad dye job, lots of black makeup, and BIG FUCKING BOOTS. Also fishnets. And a dog collar. Carrie Ann Moss would also do. ;)
I think the novel should contain a night at a club. Protagonist gets dragged into said club, is surrounded by badass goth chick and her friends. Gets talked into taking some hallucinogenic element by hot goth-person. (Gender of hot-goth-person dependent on sexual preference of protagonist.) Wacky hijinks ensue.
Addition to Jim’s story: the aliens break into a musical number titled “Every quark is sacred.”
Cornelius X. Murching - Evil. He can make people’s heads explode when they’re in a VR pod somehow.
Consider giving him a Rich Tung-like Man-servant/Driver. Refer to him as X’s supplicant in a few cases, but perhaps only after things go really bad between Corey and X. Cornelius comes from Kashmir. He grew up in a post-apocalyptic Kashmir, a ruined and deserted wasteland. His parents were considered insane for wanting to live there, but they did it as part of their cultural heritage. His father is Indian, and his mother is English (hence the name Cornelius). Perhaps his parents were abroad when Kashmir got nuked (by terrorists or Pakistan?) in the first few years after 2002. They died due to radiation poisoning while he was young. This may help inspire & drive his madness.
Believes that religion is really just a group of rules to base a society on, instead of anything divinely inspired or for the purpose of individual happiness or fulfillment. This allows him room to justify adjusting religion to his own nefarious purposes.
I think you should include one of the following lines:
“I think my knee just copped a feel.”
“Don’t you dare stick your finger up my ass again.”
“Hey! Get that damn toe out of my testicle right now!”
“Where’s my beer?”
“Whose foot is this?”
I think the gothchick should look like Fairuza Balk, too. She’d make a kickass gothchick.
You have to have at least one cheesy Hong-Kong martial arts style scene. The kind with people flying around the room and slamming people through windows and using lamps as props. They should fling hot spaghetti at each other, too, and perhaps some cat litter if you can find it anywhere near hot spaghetti. And there should be a badguy that looks like Alan Rickman.
And a one legged goat that tells Chinese proverbs.
How about an alternate world where the high school cross country team has a pep rally before their big meets and the knowledge bowl team members sweep their classmates off their feet with their brain muscles? i was actually a football player in high school, but i fit in better with the nerdy crowd and the honors classes. i always stuck up for their need of recognition as well.
I think you should have a subplot involving goldfish.
In the very first scene, the protagonist is at the petstore, buying one goldfish. S/he takes it home and puts it in the tank with his/her two other fish.
At the end of every even-numbered chapter, a goldfish dies, and somewhere in each odd-numbered chapter, no matter what your protagonist is doing, you must get your protagonist to the petstore to buy another goldfish.
You could possibly make this into some sort of very meaningful commentary on cycles of life.
Note on jxg’s “reversal” comment earlier: the condition where your organs are totally internally reversed is called “situs inversus totalis”. I have a few colleages in the cripple circles with that. They often have other abnormalities too, some of which cause premature mortality.
I should not have read the other comments *first* — it has directed my thinking.
Have one of the high energy physicists have polysplenia (multiple spleens) or some other condition where they have extra organs. Make the pocket universes be created /in those extra organs/. Allow at least one universe to survive and have the aliens demand it so they can culture the baby universe.
Play with causality a lot. The protagonist notices that some major catastrophe happens every time s/he sits down and finishes a pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. The catastrophe is strictly based on which flavor it was. Pick some really yummy new limited edition flavor like “Honey, I’m Home” for discharge of chemical weapons in the Mideast.
aim low … interesting notion … maybe it’ll unblock my five-year period of creative writing procrastination
Might contain following idea scraps / quotes:
- someone ends up with a million little cuts on their fingers from opening wine bottles all night
- eating pomegranates in a bathtub
- the moment you can ‘see’ a thought occur to someone, such as being behind a car that suddenly changes the direction of its turn signal
- the condensation on a glass forming a pool on a marble table, dripping a single drop onto the floor
- the word “guffaw”
- the word “manichean” (religious or philosophical dualism / black-white view of world)
- a well-frequented bathroom stall that serves as a time-insensitive communication device for main characters
- someone who serves hoarded airline mini-liquors and snacks to their houseguests
- someone is the cousin of the person who invented Post-Its, and mentions this too much
- “Yes, it’s blue. Really.”
- “I am the other flirtatious divorced grandma.”
- “That’s the same damn thing he said yesterday.”
- “You are precisely the opposite of an emotional bargain.”
- “I still call them wife-beaters.” (referring to the undershirts)
- “What’s the worst thing you ever did?”
- “I believe the expression is ‘*three* sheets to the wind.’”
Protagonist is a saucy, yet brainy (read: Bette Midler) PI who is being pursued by a Virgo with a toenail fetish.
Words/names to incorporate:
1. inspoetica
2. matcha (green tea)
3. deoxyribonucleic acid
4. surreptitiously
5. autumn
6. buddha
7. chateau mouton rothschild
8. alopecia
9. epistemological
10. inspoetica
Entry: "NaNoWriMo 2005"
Excerpt: Okay, lovelies, since I’m attempting NaNoWriMo again this year after a couple years’ hiatus, I’m going to revive an old idea. Just leave a comment to this entry with an interesting plot or character idea, and I promise to incorporate it into this year’…... [more »]
Protagonist falls asleep after eating too much turkey and misses her flight to Ireland.
Protagonist unexpectedly meets up with a swingin’, sexy stereotype with bad teeth who asks her to come back to his place and shag.
(Why am I assuming a female protagonist? Hm.)