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A Proposal: Bleeding Ink



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Mon Sep 07, 2009 6:46 pm
Angels-Symphony says...



Spoiler! :
Okay, so I came up with another novel idea the other day after I accidentally left an ice pack on top of one of the notes my friend used to send me in 8th-9th grade. The water leaked from the ice pack and onto the note, but rather than it being soaked in the morning, I found that the colors of the loose leaf paper and the ink and marker she did the note in bled through the page, and it turned into a form of watercolor art.

Anyways, back to the idea.

It's about a young boy, don't know his name yet, but he comes from a poor-ish family. And by poor-ish, I mean that his family is doing alright in life, just barely making a good living, owning a house, that kind of stuff. His father would have an unstable job since the economy wouldn't be going too well, and his mother would have a pretty stable job, put not necessarily high-paying.

The boy would definitely have siblings, but I'm debating between two younger sisters, or a younger sister and an older sister. The boy is smart, academically, and can manage pretty well on the streets. He plans to go to college, particularly a university, and so do his siblings.

However, the fact that the economy is doing so well, his family is making less money, and the fact that he might lose his house is making him nervous. He doesn't want to become a doctor, though he has the stuff to become one, or anything in the medical field because learning anything about the human body makes him queezy and doesn't interest him. He prefers other sciences.

He's unsure about most of the other fields, except writing. He loves to write, but the salary of most writing jobs does not satisfy him and the chances of getting these jobs are risky. And right smack when he starts freshman/sophomore year, he starts worrying about his future. His family is stressed out and they can't live the happy lives they once lived since they're always arguing about financial issues. He watches his family break apart, become selfish and materialisic, and he watches the rest of the world collapse.

And then, after it drives him mad, he decides to become a novelist.

I haven't decided exactly what he wants to write about, but I know that it has some sort of moral or message he wants to show the world. He wants to make a change, to give a message. He wants to be that voice.

He also thinks of publishing a novel as his last chance at a career he'd actually enjoy pursuing and the only way he can support his family and send his sisters and himself to college.

This next part is a bit sketchy, so bear with me.

He joins the writers club at school, does his research at libraries, and tries to find out all he can about novel-writing. The middle chunk of the story is mostly him and he changes while writing his novel.

After all of his hard work, hundreds of queries, he finds an interested agent based on his synopsis and query.

This boy writes his stories by hand, in ink. And the night before his meeting with the agent, the glass of water he always keeps at his bedside table, which now has a hole in the bottom, leaks into his manuscript, his handwritten and only manuscript.

I think what happens next is he freaks out, goes to the meeting, and ends up having to come up with something to say. After some inhaling, he remembers the very first day he started writing, what events happened that day, and how those events affected his story.

He remembers the story. It's all in his head.

So he ends up providing the first few chapters of his novels by memory. Luckily, he speaks his story with great power, with passion, and as he reads, the agent's eyes are wide with awe.

The end of the book would be the agent saying something along the lines of, "That's quite an interesting story you have there, Mr. soandso. I'm interested to see how far you'll go in this world." She hands him a business card and leaves.

So... I know there's a lot of holes in this plot, but tell me what you think ^^
-Shina


Spoiler! :
EDIT:

It's about a young boy, don't know his name yet, but he comes from a poor-ish family. And by poor-ish, I mean that his family is doing alright in life, just barely making a good living, owning a house, that kind of stuff. His father would have an unstable job since the economy wouldn't be going too well, and his mother would have a pretty stable job, put not necessarily high-paying.

The boy would definitely have siblings, but I'm debating between two younger sisters, or a younger sister and an older sister. The boy is smart, academically, and can manage pretty well on the streets. He plans to go to college, particularly a university, and so do his siblings.

However, the fact that the economy is doing so well, his family is making less money, and the fact that he might lose his house is making him nervous. He doesn't want to become a doctor, though he has the stuff to become one, or anything in the medical field because learning anything about the human body makes him queezy and doesn't interest him. He prefers other sciences.

He's unsure about most of the other fields, except writing. He loves to write, but the salary of most writing jobs does not satisfy him and the chances of getting these jobs are risky. And right smack when he starts freshman/sophomore year, he starts worrying about his future. His family is stressed out and they can't live the happy lives they once lived since they're always arguing about financial issues. He watches his family break apart, become selfish and materialisic, and he watches the rest of the world collapse.

And then, after it drives him mad, he decides to become a novelist.

I haven't decided exactly what he wants to write about, but I know that it has some sort of moral or message he wants to show the world. He wants to make a change, to give a message. He wants to be that voice.

He also thinks of publishing a novel as his last chance at a career he'd actually enjoy pursuing and the only way he can support his family and send his sisters and himself to college.

This next part is a bit sketchy, so bear with me.

He joins the writers club at school, does his research at libraries, and tries to find out all he can about novel-writing. The middle chunk of the story is mostly him and he changes while writing his novel.

When he finishes his novel and gets to the querying stage is where things get messy. He's sent hundreds of queries with no positive responses, and both his hard copy and electronic copy are fried do to the fact that a glass of water with a hole in it leaked while he was sleeping.

He freaks out, some fillers, and then the ending is him at some sort of cafe with a friend, or possibly by himself, and he's trying to figure out what to do. His friend tells him to try to remember the story. He doesn't think he can do it, until he starts thinking about the events that lead him to write the story, the events that affected his writing. He recites the first chapter, completely by memory.

Nearby, there was an agent listening. She walks up to the table, slides him her card and says something along the lines of, "That's quite a story you have there."

xD I know, I know, first proposal had a lot of plot holes, and so does this one, but it's still in the dough phase.

-Shina


Good with responses for now ;) Now my proposal is expanded on and sadly, at the bottom of my writing list -.-" Thanks again, guys!

-Shina
Last edited by Angels-Symphony on Tue Sep 08, 2009 11:08 pm, edited 2 times in total.
You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself into one.

The writer, when he is also an artist, is someone who admits what others don't dare reveal.
  





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Mon Sep 07, 2009 7:52 pm
Karsten says...



I'm zeroing in on the logic of the writing stuff here, which is pinging my radar a little.

(1) I'm struggling to imagine a situation in which a writer actually handwrites a manuscript. His family are in bad financial shape, so let's say they can't afford even a dirt-cheap second-hand laptop, which probably costs under £100. But the writer can't afford to use a library computer? For free? He can't afford to use school computers, or friends' computers? He just needs a £5 thumb drive to store his file on - or heck, he could just use the free library internet and keep emailing himself a copy. It doesn't make sense to me.

(2) An agent wanting to actually meet a writer based on only his synopsis and query seems unrealistic to me. Agents receive thousands of queries a year - like business cards, they look pretty, but they don't say anything about the quality of the actual product. Meetings don't generally come until after the agent has signed you, and in fact many agent-client pairings never meet at all.

(3) I'm wondering if it would be more logical for the writer to go to a conference. This would provide a more realistic venue for the writer to meet an agent face-to-face while preserving the handwritten manuscript part of the story. Conference pitches are paid-for, but you can meet agents at the bar, at dinner, wherever. And if they like you, they might ask: "What do you write?"

(4) I'm kind of wincing at the thought of your writer being invited to meet an agent and thinking that the etiquette is to literally word-for-word repeat the first few chapters of his novel. That's not really how this stuff is supposed to go.

I'm a bit stumped at the moment as to how to fix the plot holes I'm seeing, and I'm sure you'll be much better at fixing than I am at destroying. :P
  





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Mon Sep 07, 2009 10:37 pm
Angels-Symphony says...



xD Thanks for the help Karsten. I thought about that agent dealio, also, and like I said, the second half if sketchy -.-" I'm still working on smoothing out the second half.

I'm thinking instead of him having a meeting with an agent, he's eating somewhere with his friends, and he's trying to remember his novel. And while he recites the first chapter, the agent is nearby, and when he's done, she hands him her card?

-.-" *tries to make logic*
You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself into one.

The writer, when he is also an artist, is someone who admits what others don't dare reveal.
  





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Tue Sep 08, 2009 8:04 pm
Maddyc says...



I agree with a lot of what Karsten said about logic, but I think this could work. However, you really need to make this characters flawed as hell otherwise it would be just too perfect. Don't make him too much like yourself either, because lots of writers write MCs who are writers and it all gets a bit...
I think the best way for you to fix the plot holes is to let the ideas just come to you. For me, ideas come late at night when I'm trying to sleep. So if I'm stuck with something I can usually get the answer if I just think about it in my 'creative time' when I'm not desperatly trying to come up with something.
Good luck!
  





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Tue Sep 08, 2009 11:07 pm
Angels-Symphony says...



However, you really need to make this characters flawed as hell otherwise it would be just too perfect. Don't make him too much like yourself either, because lots of writers write MCs who are writers and it all gets a bit...

xD I hate that, Maddy. Mary-Sue characters make me shudder -.-" Especially when you have to mentor someone who can't understand why it's important to be non Mary-Sue :P

I have to hold one with this story idea, though. It's on the bottom of my super long list of things to write -.-"


My main goal is editing AS for that agent by September 30. *shudder*

-Shina
You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself into one.

The writer, when he is also an artist, is someone who admits what others don't dare reveal.
  





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Mon Sep 28, 2009 2:39 am
zoorah12 says...



This boy sounds eerily similar to me (his family and all). Up to him finding an agent, we are practically the same!
I read somewhere... how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong... but to feel strong.
  





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Mon Sep 28, 2009 2:41 am
zoorah12 says...



This boy sounds eerily similar to me (his family and all). Up to him finding an agent, we are practically the same!
I read somewhere... how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong... but to feel strong.
  








Life is like an onion. You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.
— Carl Sandburg