Young Writers Society

As a person who has a difficult time dedicating myself to plots (advice on this would be great, too), I've listed here a few plots that have been running through my head, though I've got no idea what to do with them and am unsure as to which are worth pursuing and which should just be dropped.

I would really appreciate if someone would help me decide, maybe rank them in terms of "definitely give it a try" to "no no no no".

Plot 1
Setting: Future, in joined continents (due to continental drift)
General Idea: Because of discoveries made by scientists, governments decide to invest in an army to band together against the creatures they believe will plague humanity. Turns out scientists are right, and so an army (equipped with soldiers, both highly trained and complete rookies, as well as doctors, nurses, surgeons, and scientists) is successfully constructed and keeps things together. Of course, that doesn't mean many lives haven't been lost. However, the army for the most part has kept things under some sort of control.
One day, things go awry and the technology they have crashes (insert reasons here). The tools they use to locate suspicious figures in locations nearby do not work and one of the bases is attacked by an enormous group of malicious creatures. A scientist pairs up with her childhood friend after being separated so long due to being overworked in the army, as well as a patient, a prisoner of the army, and a few other soldiers and scientists. Together, they attempt to survive without proper places to live, zombies at their feet, all while still trying to protect humanity and figure out just what exactly went wrong at their base.

Plot 2
Setting: Present, high school
General Idea: Unhappy with the educational system, a disruptive and eccentric student drags two students, one a selective mute with the whole brooding and cruel persona, and the other a Mr. Popular dealing with the gradual sinking of his rank in the social environment of high school, into her idea of "saving the youth". She pulls them into pranks and the three become known as huge delinquents, while they all try to find themselves together. Only the three of them known each other as well as they do, and they find that, in a world that only cares about personas, the actual depth of people can be fascinating but extremely hard to reach.

Plot 3
Setting: Fantasy World
General Idea: Loosely based on the tale of Rapunzel, a couple locks up their son in a tower guarded by just a handful of men and women, hoping to protect him from an expected natural disaster. Though the son is locked up only as a precaution, the natural disaster turns out to be worse than expected and many are left dead. However, the son and several guards remain alive and the guards continue to keep him locked up for his safety. They supply him with books and food and other necessities. One day, now having grown into a teen, the son finds the amount of food in storage has grown significantly low and goes to visit the guards only to find they are missing. Determined to find them, he sets out on a journey of self-discovery as he comes face to face with love, betrayal, death, grief, and happiness, after only hearing of them through books and tales and stories.
Thinking about adding this - On his way, he finds a kingdom with a female ruler, along with the community split into a cult in love with her, and the group that can't wait to get rid of her. One thing leads to another and he finds that the government in charge is responsible for certain events that tie into him/the guards/his family, and the two groups attempt to recruit him. Simple revenge becomes twisted in the intensity of political affairs.

Plot 4
Setting: Future
General Idea: Set in a time with a controlling government, a single mother drags her son along with her and quite a few others who hate the government with a passion outside the area. They live on their own for quite a while, as a small civilization. Though the hatred against the government is a clear passion of the people, the son is slowly sucked into the ideas of the government as told by an elder. Convinced his mother and others are delusional, after reaching his 20s, he abandons his group to return to his native civilization to find that the government is slowly being taken over by a revolution. As a young man who believed he was a complete believer in the government, he is transformed by sex, drugs, and the violence that accompany the slowly arising civilization.

Well, that's all.
Thanks in advance!

Firstly: Losing interest in a plot, for me, usually means that I'm doing one or more of a list of things:



Before I go on to plot-by-plot, I want to tell you something:

Your ideas are only as good as your execution.

You don't need an original premise or an original plot, or even original character outlines. What makes stories unique today is the way you execute them. Execution is in adding depth, and tossing in little twists in places where other people have never put those twists before. The execution is the writing, and how attached you are to it, and how attached you can make your readers to it.

With that in mind, my general idea of the plots without knowing how you'd execute them:

Plot 1:
I'm not going to pretend to be interested in this, because I don't like zombies. Usually. BUT there are decent ways to execute a pretty fab zombie apocalypse novel if you tried hard enough. Throw a new spin on why the zombies are zombies and sell that spin. Or something. I'm not going to say much about this one because I'm seriously biased against anything that has anything to do with the undead.

Plot 2:
This sounds like something John Green would write, which means that I mostly approve. My biggest warnings here are:

1) Stay away from lame love triangle/romance tropes that will basically eat what could be an awesome teen fiction plot and

2) Pleeease watch how angsty this dark brooding selective mute is. If there's a reason for their mute-ism, then make it something realistic. If they're just flipping the bird at the system or something, ehhh. Be careful. Again, it's mostly in the execution.

This one does seem extremely interesting though, so I mostly endorse it.

Plot 3:
Okay, so this one was pretty awesome UNTIL you tied in the romance plot and decided that, mysteriously and totally by chance, there's some coop thing going on that's totally anti-your-protagonist. I'd only advise adding that last bit if you can find a good, solid way to connect the two things and not have them turn into two different plots with a really weak transition point.

Also, worldbuilding. Pay attention to your worldbuilding.

Plot 4:
Probably my favourite concept. Only, revolutions are something that are being really heavily romantacized right now, and they're not actually all that romantic. They're bloody, gory, terrifying and should be treated as such. What interested me most about this plot is the potential for massive character development, honestly.

I'd also pay heavy attention to world-building here, because it can make or break your whole "revolution and crappy oppressive government" angle.

~Ish

I really don't like ranking ideas. I find the minute I let other people rank ideas for me, I lose interest in plots.

It means I'm writing for someone else. The story stops being mine, and it starts being "what would they find interesting?"

What do you find interesting? What do you want to do? Keep writing for yourself, keep looking at where you want to take the story.