I sort of want to write something about a high school writers' group whose characters become real. Is there already too much stuff out there about people's writing becoming true?
It depends. If you're just writing for yourself, go for it. But if you're writing to get published... Well, it's a tricky question. There are a few stories where the writer's writing comes to life, but it's all in the presentation. I think you can write anything if you present it decently. Think about it. How many stories are out there about dragons and wars and magical battles? And yet people continue to write them, and readers continue to read them.
"The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly." ~ Richard Bach
Sounds all right if you know what to do with it. And in my opinion, depending on the kind of story, it doesn't really matter how many other people have done it as long as you can make it your own. The exception is issue books, IE books about drugs or eating disorders.
Please, sit down before you fall down.
Belloq, "Raiders of the Lost Ark"
"The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly." ~ Richard Bach
Thanks for your replies...I'm still in the very early stages of this idea. At first I wanted to write about these two high school kids whose English teacher makes them critique each other's work (one's a model student, and one's a slacker), but I couldn't think of a plot for it; all I had was the two characters. Then this idea occurred to me, and more characters, and I decided to make it about a small young writers' critique group at a high school. I'm thinking each member will have one character who comes to life. I think one of them will be a Mary-Sue character for laughs (if you don't know what I'm talking about, go to http://www.nanowrimo.org/modules/newbb/ ... &forum=151 or go to http://www.angelfire.com/gundam/otto/gr ... -test.html to take the test to see if your characters are Mary-Sues...), and I think maybe the main problem will be that one of the characters will be a stereotypical, cliched villain who they have to deal with. And the group has to decide whether it would be moral to destroy the now-living characters. I also want some sort of surprise at the end, like maybe a person (perhaps a member of the group) who the reader thinks is a regular always-has-been-real person turns out to be a made-up character.
So far here are my ideas for characters (as in, the writers who are in the group, not the characters they create):
Peter "Red" West: Senior. He's failing his English class (doesn't turn in most assignments and shows up to school drunk and stoned), and his teacher agrees to give him enough extra-credit to pass if he joins the critique work and writes some stuff to be critiqued. What the teacher doesn't know is that Red actually writes constantly outside of school, and he has talent. As far as I've thought of so far, he's going to be the only member of the group who has real potential in writing, but he's undisciplined, writes in spurts, and never edits. Red's the sort of person who people wouldn't expect to write. Chevy--I think I'm going to have him play in a rock band.
Elisabeth Torrance: Sophomore. She's sort of a wannabe goth. She's depressed, but it's almost like she tries to be. She gets great grades in English class, though, and enjoys it. Shortly after the novel starts Elisabeth is offered a publishing contract by a Publish America type company (for those of you who don't know what Publish America is, I think the URL is http://www.publishamerica.com and they have a high acceptance rate and don't give an advance), and Red tries to convince her not to take it, but she does. She doesn't like Red at first because he's a jock (she hates jocks and cheerleaders) and a drunk (she hates alcohol and drugs) but they become friends. She writes mostly fantasy (low and high). Her character who becomes real is going to be the villain.
Amanda Davies: Freshman. She just started writing. She writes mostly grammatically-incorrect fanfiction, and when she tries to write original fiction it usually comes out sounding like a copy of Lord of the Rings anyway. Her character who becomes real is going to be the extreme Mary-Sue, a fantasy character--a princess or something. When she arrives in the real world she instantly becomes the most popular girl at the high school, president of the student council, star soccer player, and everything else you can think of.
I think I'm going to add a fourth, but I'm not too sure about who it's going to be yet. I think it might be a really condescending kid who's already had a successful trilogy published by a major house and is really full of himself/herself.
Not really, if you consider it was written with the help of a seven-year-old. I liked the idea because it allowed fora story that had the strange, random imagination of a young child, but was written with a proper structure and clear conflict.
Please, sit down before you fall down.
Belloq, "Raiders of the Lost Ark"
To be a master of metaphor is the greatest thing by far. It is the one thing that cannot be learnt from others, and it is also a sign of genius. — Aristotle, Poetics
