Young Writers Society

I have this idea I'm really excited about which I would like your opinion on. I'm really bummed though because I'm having some major writing block. Seriously, I've been kind of mad lately, so I'm not really in a great mood to write a love story. I just can't seem to get the creative juices flowing through me lately. What do I do? What do you do when you have writers block?

Okay so here's my new idea I've been trying to develope for a while. It's just a brief summary.

An overly confident football player finds himself love strucken by the way to beautiful broken girl in his English class. Isabell, who's mother committed suicide that summer, is struggling to keep her grip on her sanity and her father who blames everything on her.

-that's all I got on the summary part so far-

But basically this is what happens in short term

-Isabell's father told her to give her mom these pills, which she thought were her anti-depressant pills, to later find her father switched them to kill her mom to get the insurance money and drove her into a depression by belittling her self-esteem. All the while, he's like a drunk. Always drinking and to get rid of his guilt, he put everything on Isabell and blamed her for everything.

-Corey is like the school's womanizer. He doesn't respect girls. He uses them. Thinks they are a piece of meat. It's sick really. He spots Isabell in his English class and he's just immediately attracted to her. But something inside of him tells him not to play her and just to leave her alone. But the attraction pulls him to her when they're partnered to read Romeo and Juliet in English class together [clique, yes? kind of want some help on that]

-As time goes on Isabell shares her story with Corey as Isabell's father. Corey breaks down and he's a changed man. The big point in the story here is that a man will care about a girl on all levels but a boy will only care about sex. Corey will grow into a man who truely loves Isabell and understands that she is a human being too. Basically;; he grows up, grows a heart.

-Isabell's dad talks about her killing her mom, deserving to die,ect. Emotionally abuses her.

-One night Isabell is at home talking on the phone to Corey when her dad comes in on her. She hesitates when she hangs up with a worried corey. Her dad basically pulls a gun out on her, Corey comes to the house, and in then end, Isabell takes a bullet for Corey because whenever he came in, her dad was going to kill him first because... well, Corey could take him. But Isabell got in front of the bullet, he watches her die and then Corey kicks the dads boo-tay, kills him and himself.

All the while it makes a deep refrence to Romeo and Juliet.

Ideas or Comments?

I'm intrigued by the idea, which is a plus because I actually heavily dislike the genre (love/school/abuse YA stories?), though I feel like it needs some work.

I like the idea of the hedonistic womanizer boy coming to learn how to truly love and engage in a relationship of equals with a girl, especially because the womanizer ideal is so trumpeted in our society. So it'll be a nice theme to take and if you can handle it naturally, Corey's character development will be a beauty to read.

My main issue is that...Isabell's home life just seems a tad over-the-top. Granted, your description is just a brief summary of the entire novel, but already I'm finding Isabell's father so evil he seems ridiculous, almost unbelievable as a character. Maybe the trouble is that Isabell's home life doesn't seem anything different from all the other tragic home lives other YA teen characters live through? But I dunno, it just doesn't resonate for me. It just seems too melodramatic; I'm more one for subtlety in character relationships, so this might be my personal preferences speaking, but I feel it'd be better if you toned down the drama a tad.

And PLEASE no references to Romeo and Juliet, that play's so overdone and very few of the people referencing (coughMeyercough) have any idea what Shakespeare most likely intended. I highly doubt the play was actually meant to be romantic; it always read more to me as a ridiculous story of two teenagers who barely knew each other let their lust overtake their judgment and the advice of their elders and everything went downhill from there. Perhaps I'm just cynical, though. Still, it's a good idea to nix the Romeo & Juliet stuff, you can be touching and romantic without any of that.

The basic idea's sound, though (and it seems my problems with it have to do more with my preference for less drama, more subtlety, when it comes to character relationships). And I'm very interested in seeing how this romantic relationship develops. I do have a secret...wouldn't say fetish, exactly...but I do get some secret pleasure in seeing a bad boy turn into a genuinely nice guy. So if you can do it well, I'd like to read it.

If it makes any difference about the Romeo and Juliet idea, The characters are stating exactly your opinion. Corey believes that Romeo just wanted to get with Juliet and shes easy because they married and had sex within a couple days. So basically, he sees it in an extremely vulgar way. Isabell on the other thing think's its ridecoulus that they moved so fast and didn't really like the story, much to my own opinion. She thinks it's over dramatic.

In the end, it'll make a reference to how they died for their loves and maybe they understand their intentions just a bit more. I don't know. I'm working on the connecton part. But I do see where your coming from on the Romeo and Juliet part.

Unlike Stephanie Meyer, I'm not glorifying the play. But I do see your point.

As for the overdramatic part, I'll give it some thought and see what revising I can do.

Thank you =P

That makes a lot of difference, actually. ~_^ I'm really glad you're not going to be glorifying the play, because that's just been so overdone already. I like that your characters will have a more cynical view of the play, and it definitely sounds like you're working the play into the story in a slightly more low-key manner, instead of throwing around allusions left and right and overblown metaphors and analogies and suchlike.

Again, the too much drama thing might just be my preferences versus yours, but yeah...just think about keeping the characters human. What I find helps is thinking about what I or people I know would do in a similar situation. Which leads me to writing my characters as a bunch of bleeding cowards, but oh well...>_>

Glad I helped!

I was very hesitant when reading through your plan, firstly is sounded so typical of a love story. It's a story line I have read and heard so manny times yet when you mentioned romeo and juliet I was suddenly more intriuged.

Firstly I think before you write this you should down play the characters slightly, be different, make this idea slightly more orginal but at the same time still keep to the general plot. I think incorprating romeo and juliet into the story is a fantastic idea, it makes this story already more sofisticated. Afterall Romeo and Juliet where the unconventional couple with the odds against them both, there are so manny strong relations to your own charcters that I think it could really work.

As for writers block, I think sometimes when people write they write because they want to produce high quality work. We create so much pressure on ourselves that I think we forget why most people write, because they enjoy it. Try writing a chapter from your plan, any chapter, you could write the end, just enjoy it. Write it in the most simplistic basic way you can, then rewrite it, change it, make it better. Its really helped me to get over some hard starts and chapters.

good luck