Young Writers Society

RAMBLE NO.1:

These seemed far too tantalizing to pass up...sort of like Pringles, but without the partially hydrogenated soybean oil (or something such; whatever they are made of is far too good to be organic).

Anyway! In the tradition of all good novel rants, my current attempts:

GREEN: [being edited]

A sort of satirical sci-fi in which a model, named Andromeda, and a scientific experiment with a half-human, half-computer brain named Ferdinand pretty much save the world from oppression.

And...oh, yeah, there's Bellamy, the psychic.

Basically, they overthrow the president of the world in the process of trying to prove Andromeda innocent in the murder case of her adoptive father...which suspiciously happened after Andromeda snogged the Vice President (who is quite a bit younger than McLachlan, who is a hundred and forty, thank you very much) and after she poisoned Ferdinand and they hitchhiked from Baghdad to Vladivostok...

Can't you tell it was a NaNo?

HOURGLASS: [writing stage]

There are several storylines, each held together by the fact that they are stories being told to the subversive school mathematics teacher in order to prove themselves innocent in the case of the murder of Adelais Fonbleu (whose parents are actually German, but adopted the French language and culture in order to appear trendy and rich). Gah, I have a thing for murder cases, don't I? I've got quite the macabre streak...

Anyway, as far as storylines go, there is:

DAVID:who's a bit of a space case after living with his extremist Puritan mother bent on destroying his self esteem and being kidnapped by his father, a fashionable (albeit crude) lawyer in Boston- also a Jew, because anti-Semitism is kind of big in the 18th century- who married a seventeen-year-old girl named Sonya, who is, dare I say, a bit sex-obsessed. She has a thing for Davy, which cannot be good for his mental health.

...poor kid.

UPTON: was the product of Liberty's older sister (Liberty is another character; she's pretty cool but she needs major developing) and an Indian man captured by the British army in Bombay. Upton was sent back to Virginia (also known as the United States, but just to stick it to the man I changed it) to live with Mr. Barclett, an accountant also near Boston, and develops obsessive-compulsive disorder after being trapped under a crashed carriage in the forest for three days.

JEREMY: joins the British army after going through a period of teenage angst over his brother [Luke] and father (British immigrants don't have such a great time in Virginia), and since he's technically too young to join- and the Crown is desperate for new recruits- he's placed on a so called 'Death Brigade' (average life expectancy: three weeks) that pretty much controls angry pioneer farmers and anti-Crown mobs in big cities.

And then he finds out that his commander is actually a woman, and this is bad. Baaad. Lots of good conflict, nonetheless.

LUKE: has a story line far too complicated to comprehend without prescription medication, so here it is watered down:

1. Set of twins born in England to hormonally-overrun slum boy and exiled princess. One named heir to the throne of Britannia [name also changed to stick it to the man].

2. Heir smuggled into Virginia. Heir kinapped, tortured, and imprisoned on an island in Long Island Sound.

3. Heir breaks free and breaks into gargantuan bank account with help of rogue banker Barclett. Heir attends school for incredibly rich.

4. Heir chased by assassins out of the country. Is put on the List through several convenient deaths.

5. Heir marries hot Spanish princess and finds himself with no friends.

...this is where the outlining gets a bit weak.

THE FOURTEEN SINS OF CLEMENTINE MALLOY: [outline and prologue writing]

Clementine Malloy is a bit of a ditz. She's the gorgeous heiress to 'Malloy's Delectible Fourteen Scents', a successful soap company in Chicago- so basically, she is Paris Hilton in a crinoline.

But ah! Adversity strikes, by way of a chlichèd Latvian curse, and she finds herself abducted by a street gang of guys named the Vices- that means that they all have symbolic-ish names like 'Hypocrisy' and 'Filth'. She has to restore these guys to their normal selves and make up for her...er...Fourteen Sins, so basically it is 'A Christmas Carol' on steroids.

----

And so ends my first Rambling. Hope you enjoyed your stay- don't remember to clean up after yourself.

(That didn't make any sense, did it? Good.)

I love your writing, Sam.

Murder mysteries rock!

Yay!

*is waiting to read Green and Hourglass*

Good luck, Sam.

Cal.

Your novels sound so interesting, Sam! I shall have to keep an eye on this thread.

((And the description of Green made so much more sense when I read that it was a NaNo novel. ))

Sam, you haven't updated Hourglass or Green for ages. I can't wait to read them again

...waiting to see Hourglass and its reams of [angry mob of?] characters. ^_~

I would like to read Hourglass more. It's rather original than Green.

Good on you Sam! You stick it to that man! Stupid man, thinks he's so good ...

Ah, you guys are so cool...Lucy, you're right. That man is a bit of a prat, isn't he? Down with him!

RAMBLE #2: 'PURGATORY' AND INTRODUCING WEIRD CHARACTERS:

May as well make this thing useful- I'll figure out a way to...er...LIGHT THE PATH OF KNOWLEDGE! IN YOUR BRAIN!

Sounds like a bit of a threat, no?

Anyway...new story idea! A shorter one, this time:

PURGATORY:

Teen angst- with a twist!

Basically, it's an exercise for me in making a character helpless and likeable, ergo, not whiney and horrible.

If you don't live anywhere near northern Lake Michigan, it's fine if you don't know what the Peshtigo Fire of 1871 is. You can make an educated guess, but really, it's okay if you don't get it right.

If you live there and still don't know what it is, quit your job, leave your family, and curl up inside a cardboard box off the freeway (or, in the middle of a cow field- take your pick). That's where you belong.

Anyway...the Peshtigo fire happened on the same day as the Chicago fire, and was pretty much ignored, even though eight times as many people died.

So! Papa's-golden-boy Charles, who is used to doing everything faster and better, suffers injuries much worse than that of the rest of his family, and so is transferred to a hospital sixty miles away, where he must give himself a total personality makeover in order to deal with the fact that he's the last Peshtigo survivor to be released.

And...about all the crazy people he meets sitting and doing nothing except regrowing tissue round the clock.

More epic and exciting than anything else out there? No, not really. But I think it'll be cool, just to try something. I have a hard time making characters suffer without having people slap them for being annoying. And I myself can't do any sort of writing without cracking a joke, lame or not (this is where I understand most of my characters' pain, as usually the urge for a 'Yo Mama' comes in the middle of formal research exams), so it shouldn't be all doom and gloom.

I've probably jinxed myself by saying that, right?

INTRODUCING WEIRD CHARACTERS:

I have lots of problems writing introductions- and reading a lot of pleas for help at the bottom of literary posts, it seems I'm not alone.

You get going with all the character development, have a bunch of cool quirks and...bam! They're flat on the page. (Not really bam. More of that 'wah-woh' sound.)

What to do? Put 'em on display.

If you're in band, you probably warm up right before you begin to play, correct? Same principle applies. In order for quirks to be brought out- like good sound- there has to be some getting used to them at the beginning.

...now, for rambling about Hourglass to prove a point.

David lay prostrate on his bed, eyes sorely focused on his headboard.

It was Lent- a word he liked to repeat over and over again because it rolled nicely on his tongue. Lent meant that he couldn’t eat.

He hadn’t for five days, actually, because God didn’t want him to. David would have some bread the next day, maybe- if He was well-disposed.

But for now, he was stranded in bed in only his shift, his Costume spread all around the floor because Charles was sick with a cold and couldn’t help him put it on. David’s head ached quite awfully, but all he could do was stared at the wood and make it worse, searching for designs in the loops and whorls of the grain.

And then a man with a pistol comes in and David takes a nap! It's all very grand and exciting, right?

A lot of writers think it's good to put your characters in action at the beginning- and this may be true sometimes. However, your characters aren't really themselves during swordfights or dogfights or any other sort of fight (either this or dramatic love letters and farewells), and it takes a really good writer to pull themselves out of the pit that excessive action creates. Unless you write the story first and then go back and preface it, your characters are probably going to stay pretty flat throughout the whole thing.

BUT MY CHARACTERS AREN'T ALL THAT QUIRKY!

One of my more...er...dramatic characters is Upton. He's got OCD, so I preface his bit with a scene featuring him shaving off a single eyebrow because it didn't fit into place with the rest.

But! If you just need a somewhat normal character, still put them in a scene where they can really be themselves. That way, if something terrible or emotional happens, you can tell the difference from normal and distraught (if you start in a duel and they're all super-intense, and then all the rest of the scenes is about their life as a drill instructor, there's no contrast and to your reader they're not human).

Pah, I've got to go write something. Poor David's been marooned for eh...eight days, now. "My bad", as they say.

So!

A new current undertaking- this one submitting three flash-fiction stories to 'The Claremont Review' for a contest.

...the prize? Publication!

That be as wonderful as two wonderful things can be, but eh- the writing prompt is a bit vague. "Entries should reveal something about the human condition."

Basically, I've got this story about a Polish girl [the title of which I can't spell properly] that my English teacher liked quite a bit (grand praise, considering she's the type that doesn't especially like anything over fifty years old ).

That leaves two more.

There's another one, "Obaa-san", in the works...but the last one is yet to be decided. Blargh. I'm thinking something historical- perhaps delving into the Navy?

I've been reading too much Jacky Faber recently.

But some recent readings, of much inspiration:

THE FOURTH BLOODY JACK, BY L.A. MEYER: Ah, I luuuurve Bloody Jack. Basically, a girl dresses up like a boy and joins the royal Navy...

The type of thing you'd want to read if you want to know how to do melodrama and plot. The character devlopment isn't all that spectacular, but they are really fun books to read. The type you sit with for six hours at a time, without food, water, or bathroom breaks.

...perhaps I'm the only one who does that?

AN ABUNDANCE OF KATHERINES, BY JOHN GREEN: Brilliant characters- the male ones, anyway. There's Colin, who's a prodigy concerned with his transition into 'genius'- anagramming every phrase he can get his hands on and only dating girls named Katherine. There's "I'm Not A Terrorist", aka Hassan, who worries Colin because he's a frightful genius but has no ambition...and of course, there's all the side characters, the farmers and hicks and the guy who emphasizes every other word.

His female characters, however, aren't that great- they're not bad, of course, but they either tend to be irreverent or slutty, stereotypically so.

And there's math in it- oh, joy, unbounded!

THE ASTONISHING LIFE OF OCTAVIAN NOTHING, TRAITOR TO THE NATION, by M.T. ANDERSON: I think this is my favorite book.

Honestly, it was dark. It was beautifully written. It was set in latter 18th century Boston!

...can't say too much about it, though, because all of the little wonderful cogs and gears of yummy plot twists often lead to the discovery of another.

___

REGARDING HOURGLASS: I think, as soon as I finish stuff for the Claremont, I'm going to outline like crazy.

And then I've got a lazy week off to write it, or at least get a start. I haven't even begun on Luke or Jeremy yet, and my daily Lieutenant fix is therefore lacking.

Argh?

THE ASTONISHING LIFE OF OCTAVIAN NOTHING, TRAITOR TO THE NATION, by M.T. ANDERSON: I think this is my favorite book.

I have always been meaning to read this. Everytime I set foot in the bookstore, I see it, and want to buy it. But, since you like it oh-so-much, I've put it on my BookMooch wishlist.


I've also put An Abundance of Katherines on my list as well.


YAY, Bloody Jack!

...

How exciting.


Cal.

...who just outlined the first part of her novel?

Hmm? Anyone? Take a wild guess!

No, not Angelina Jolie, you goons. ME!

http://www.youngwriterssociety.com/viewtopic.php?p=179383#179383

There's the first section of Hourglass, if you're intrigued. The new outline should take me from this until David and Upton come in- which be a barrel of fun and not hard at all, because it is so easy and fun...

Yeah, right. Famous last words.

That is too awesome, dahling. I always suck at outlining.

Heehee, David and Upton. w00t!

As soon as I finish some Guttersnipe and stuff, I am so going to get around to looking over Hourglass.



Good luck.
Cal.

YAY!

I am very, very behind on my Guttersnipe...I suppose I'll have to go on an CL-only critiquing spree?

...is it possible to love writers, but not their writing, per se?

I found that it can happen, with Libba Bray in particular. I loved the first book in her series (A Great and Terrible Beauty), but I was so mad that she didn't snog Kartik in the second book that I put it down.

Uhm...so I'm a bit shallow? Yeah.

I was looking for writing tips on authors' sites listed on Teens @ Random, and found that Libba Bray lists 'Harold and Maude' as one of her favorite movies.

I have never found anyone else who has watched 'Harold and Maude', though it is perhaps my most favorite film.

This is amazing. Perhaps I should forgive that Kartik- all of his brotherhood duties would get in the way of snogging, after all.

A grand writing excercise from her site:

Open a random book up to a random page, and start a story with the first sentence.

Bah, I'm going to have to try that when I don't have Science homework...

REGARDING HOURGLASS:

I cannot figure out how to portray Matthias correctly- he is supposed to be fairly loveable, but his personality when he's not drunk is a bit off. And when he's writing- who knows how he'll act!

He needs to soften up to Jeremy a bit, though, or we'll never get this story past the initial, "I'm half a prince!" epiphany.

Urgh, yay. A scene that I hated writing the first time through- Matthias tells Jeremy about why he doesn't have a mother. Fun stuff, really; all filled with angst and Princess Diaries-ness. [Basically, the King of England sent his dissatisfactory youngest daughter out into the country so he wouldn't have to worry about marrying her off quite yet. Then, Matthias runs away from home and falls off his horse, fracturing his leg, and then is taken into the Manor to heal and become a servant. Things happen.]

Don't you love clichèd plot devices?