Young Writers Society

Credit to this goes to LastPaladin.

The concept: Everybody is already dead. (If you’ve ever seen Dead Like Me it’s a bit like that.) Our appearances change, so that those we used to know don’t even recognise us anymore, our lives change, but since we can’t remember dying we fill in the blanks with events that never actually happened. We don't even realise we're dead. For example, a man who was married might believe he and his wife went through a breakup, even if they didn't.

The difference between being alive and being dead is that the dead don’t sleep. While we think we’re going to sleep and dreaming of a strange group of people and an empty space that can become anything we want, in fact, each night we’re going to Limbo. Each day we find ourselves drawn to scenarios or places related to our death.

We don’t realise until one day we bump into each other, and discover that our dreams aren’t what they seem. Then, we’ve just got to follow the plot bunnies and try to work out how each of us died. Each persons death is linked to another in some way.



Character Profile:


If you have a history, hobbies, quirks, show them through your writing, not via cheatsheet

Example Profile:



The story starts in Limbo, were we are all slightly accustomed to each others presence by now. I need one volunteer who won’t die until after the story starts. We will all witness this persons murder (though the motive or exact cause isn’t known yet.) When that person suddenly ends up in Limbo we catch on to what’s going on.

Name: Eve Whistle
Age: 27
Dead for: Two weeks
Profession: Actor

Appearance: She's mid-height, with blond hair and dark eyes. She wears loose clothing, usually sportswear, and always the same battered white trainers. Her skin is clear, nails trimmed, she's always very clean and well pampered.

Personality: Eve is a great socialiser, loves talking and interacting with everyone and everything. She's extroverted and loves being the center of attention.
She is also very dramatic, doesn't cope well with stress and can over-react to problems that can easily be solved by some rational thinking. Occasionally she hyperventilates, too.

Contradiction: Hates being around babies and small children.

Drawn to: Rain, and a small, abandoned fairground a few miles from the city.

Name: Kevin (Slipstream05) Mills
Age: 25
Dead for: Six Weeks
Profession: Ex Street Racer now works as a Mechanic

Appearance:


Personality: He's a confident and arrogant person, powered by adrenalin and a total speed freak. He's a dab hand at mending cars and works hard at it. He runs every morning and after that lifts weights, meanwhile keeping mind awake with power-shakes. He's loved by girls but hated by guys -- often he's got into a fights but nothing major as he knows to stay away from worse dives.

Contradiction: Even though he's a total speed freak he drives with a seat belt on, retired at his prime and works as a mechanic helping others spruce and pimp their cars out.

Drawn to: A wall patch stained with something, outside a disused building.

Name: Rosetta Williams

Age: 19

Dead for: two weeks

Profession: Fashion designers assistiant

Appearance: Wavy brown hair, big gray eyes. Her face is pale and oval. She's about 5'6, dressing fashionably and in style all the time.



Personality: She's soft and sweet, mainly using her looks to get what she wants. She's smart, though, and she knows what she wants when she wants it.

Contradiction: Hates being around many people

Drawn to: a field out my the highway the leads out of town

Name: Gabriel Corr

Age: 16

Dead for: One week

Profession: School/Scoops ice cream for minimum wage

Appearance:

Personality: In the typical rebellious stage of his teenage life. He's anti-social and enjoys spending time by himself, preferably alone in a corner with a book or his laptop. When around his friends, which isnt often, he's quiet and actually quite soft personality-wise. He constantly tries to avoid his parents, who he fights with a lot, and sometimes doesn't even sleep in the house for that reason, but somewhere near his home. Some common places include the junkyard, a parking garage, the park, and a tree house.

Contradiction: Claustrophobic

Drawn to: Cars

Death: Nooobody knows...except myself. And Vern...Vern knows too.

Profile coming...

Edit: Profile.

Name: Elizabeth Harris.
Age: 22.
Dead for: 5 weeks.
Profession: Waitress.

Appearance:

Personality: Liz is happy go lucky. She's never normally mad and rarely unhappy about anything. She's kind and caring and really doesn't like those she cares for being harmed and/or threatened. She doesn't like violence and anger and generally tries to avoid it. Normally likes warm weather.
Contradiction: Sudden bouts of nasty temper & violence, and sudden love of cold weather.

Drawn to: The Freezers. Industrial ones--like the one out the back of the Restaurant she works at.

Name: Kevin Boyd

Age: 15

Dead for: 1 week

Profession: Writer. He published his first book when he was twelve. It was the start of his Night Stalker series.


Appearance:


Personality: He prefers the company of books. He relates awkwardly to others and easily becomes flustered and uncoordinated leading to clumsiness.

Contradiction: He does not like ice cream

Drawn to: An old oak tree

Name: Christina Miller
Age: 29
Dead for: 1 month
Profession: Personal Shopper

Appearance:

Personality: Chris is very proper. She likes to stick to etiquette, and she’s a neat freak. If there’s a stain on anything it gets a thorough cleaning. If you can get past the clean freak, Chris is actually a fun person, but this rarely comes out, due to the fact that nothing is ever clean.

Contradiction: Chris is actually a slob, nothing has a specific place, but she knows the general area that an item is in.

Drawn to: The bakery in town, she goes and stares at the window everyday at the same time.

Ah, it was this dream again.

Eve looked about the empty space around her. She'd had the same dream every day for two weeks. Every night she drifted off to sleep ito a black space that twisted and bent to her own command.

She imagined a giant, cushioned chair to sit and make herself comfy until the others arrived.

Maybe it should trouble her that 'illusions' that shared this space with her were so vivid, so intricate, that it almost seemed like they were real. But that was silly, right? This was a dream. She had even researched it on the internet, people who's dreams crossed over, supernatural stuff that she never really believed in.

Maybe she should stop busying herself and actually attend one of her appointments with her therapist. She hadn't been to see him in... roughly two weeks, was it? It's not like she had been busy with anything at all, really. Maybe she had lost her mind, maybe she had fallen too deep into playing the roll of Cerise Van Danhall in her latest movie. This dream of hers had a lot of maybes. She sighed and bowed her head.

'Hey.' Someone said.

That's how they always arrived, just at the moment she wasn't paying attention, she never saw how or from where they arrived, but they seemed to have just as much ability to manipulate this space as she did.

'Hello again,' she smiled and stood up to greet the arrival.

Kevin was growing sick of this dream. He'd dreamt about girls many times, but hardly in these circumstances and now it was largely getting on his nerves. Not to mention there was a little kid here. He just wanted to wake up everytime and get back to everyday business, but without fail everyday he dreamt this same prolonged reality. As he finally saw someone else, he sighed, wondering if he could just make this dream go how he wanted. Eve wasn't bad looking, and he wasn't choosy when it came to dreams.

The world was surreal, a variety of colours arranged in maddening designs and structures and seemed to breath or wobble as if it wasn't quite real. Great un-natural arches and amazing but disturbing landscapes, the stuff you would expect only in a psychological horror.

As she saw him she said 'Hello again.'

Walking over he was about to try and make this dream go differently, more to his want, but as he moved over the rest of the people started coming, looking annoyed or otherwise bored.

It never failed.

Well he would just do what he did most the time, act smart and hope someone wakes him up soon.

It was always the same, at least for Rose. The same mist around her, and she knew she was dreaming. She could her the click of her high heels as she walked down the lonely stretch of road.
She could hear her mother sing to her, an old spanish lullaby.
She always knew it would end out the same. Just Rose and a long stretch of road.

Chris

She popped back up in the strange mist. She was getting tired of all of this; it didn’t feel right for some reason. All of her other dreams involved her love for clothes, whether she was shopping for herself or others, it was just always clothes. The fact that they didn’t show up here once, bothered her.

Imagining a bike, she got on and peddled to the others. There were two here beside herself, and they didn’t seem anymore happy to be here than she was.

She swung her leg over the side on placed her feet on the ground, the bike faded as she left it. A big fluffy overstuffed chair was in its place. Sitting squarely in the chair, her attention turned to the others. “Well, what’s new?”