Young Writers Society

So, I'm thinking about trying NaNo this year. I won it in 2009 then didn't try last year. I think part of the reason that I didn't do it again last year was that I had too many ideas floating around in my head and no one to help me with choosing one. I know that ultimately it's up to the author what they decide but it's always nice to have some outside opinions on ideas.

Hopefully this thread will help other indecisive people who need just a little bit of input on their ideas. I have two and any suggestions about either would be really helpful.

#1. Lifeless Friends: This would be adding onto a short story I already have written. So in the end it would have about 57k since I already have the 7k written.
It is about a foster mother who everyone calls Mama. She is a taxidermist who specializes in taxidermying squirrels and mounting them in various locations around her home. She has adopted five children: Lacie, Luke, Amber, Connor and Caroline. When the children turn 13 Mama begins to teach them. Lacie is the eldest, 15, and Luke the second oldest, almost 13 when the story begins. This is told by Lacie's point of view about her and Luke's experiences with Mama's obsession. Her rebellion will be the climax of the story, more than likely. And through out there will be many flashbacks to give insight into the other children's background and how they all got stuck with Mama. (I have done the most research for this particular story but I'm not sure if I can stretch it though 57k. I can try though. Any thoughts on if this should be expanded so much?)

#2. Untitled: This is my dystopian idea.
They are the prototypes, children of poor families who need the money. Their parents don't know what the Council really doing. And neither do they. On their 17th birthday the children are taken away from their homes for 5 months. Long enough for the procedure and short enough for the parents to be unsuspecting.

Chemicals in their brains are imbalanced to allow a new type of entertainment. A new version of television for the individuals to enjoy without bothering those around them. This new procedure will get them away from the technology that the people think they need. It taps into their subconscious to create visions so vivid it is unlike anything on a screen. The citizens of the world are eager to see if this works, this miraculous new virtual reality. But they have no idea how real it really is. For these test subjects their minds are a more frightening place to be then the streets they used to live on. They have no control of what their subconsciousness dig up.

They weren't supposed to go crazy but Parker does. The things the voices tell her make the visions worse. They whisper about killing seas and black shadowmen how are coming for her brothers that she is thousands of miles away from. Voice-Activating her has pulled more than she wanted out of a world that was supposed to be controlled by her a lone. With the images come the voices she can't silence and the public is awaiting. They want this more than she knows. They want to experience something new, better than any other gadget the scientists have come up with and they don't care what they have to do to her to get it.

Let me know which one sounds more interesting. And also I'm not sure if Voice Activating is what I want to call it but it sounds cool for right now.
Post your ideas here and hopefully we can all get a little help before NaNoWriMo 2011 gets here(: Happy writing!
~peanut~

I think the dystopian idea sounds pretty cool. Some of what you said doesn't make too much sense to my cold-addled brain, but I think I get the general idea--and it sounds cool.

I find it funny Parker's a girl, though. (YA skiffy dystopia generally has girl MCs, though. I mean, as far as series go, you have Uglies, Skinned, and The Hunger Games and, as a stand-alone, The Adoration of Jenny Fox. Even the sequel to Peeps gets a few female protags when everything goes to Hel.)

So, yeah. As far as I go, I have a few ideas floating around my brain--novels I have plotted/have started writing and could probably finish for NaNo and one idea that's floating around my head that is basically a spin-off of every RP/storybook I have ever come across because I feel like doing a fan-service this year or something.

I suppose I should explain some of those, so people can help me choose, but I have, like, waaay too many. So maybe I'll just go with 'most likely' and try not to choose something completely random to do instead?

1. Haze. I could finish Haze, a book I have recently started but have been plotting for a long time. Mostly it revolves around two guys, Jacksin and Blaze. Who are both berserkers. While a man called The Monster is culling the land for berserkers; forgotten super-soldiers that are now, once again, needed. That is, in The Monster's head, anyway. To The Monster, they're Odin's Warriors--and it's about time they learned their place in society. Monsters on equal footing with him.

2. I could (mostly) finish Shamger Bae, the sequel to Twins of Volengrad. Only, I haven't finished Twins of Volengrad. That is, I have a few more chapters to tack on and then I'm finished. :/ So, that probably won't work. (Which is unfortunate; all future Direnc fan-girls [and -boys] will be upset I kept him from them for extra time because I decided to do NaNo instead of finishing the first novel he starred in.)

3. I could finish Raven Fall, which is by far the goriest thing I have ever written. And most twisted. With too many -phobias and -isms. But it's meant to make people uncomfortable. Basically, it's fantasy-slash-horror starring the lovely and has-potential-to-bite-your-throat-out Princess Chastity, or Chas (as she prefers), the wheedling, weasel-like Fulke and other slave Macelina (Macel), a ruthless king that has killed out most of the minority races, and a certain battle that is about to befall all the little kingdoms. Suggestion: Do not kill off (a) witches/wizards, (b) giants, (c) elves, (d) dragons, and all the rest. They will probably somehow come back to kill you in a variety of horrific ways. (Thank goodness Chas is half-witch? She isn't pleased to be a survivor, but, you know, some people just have to live with people dropping dead around them.)

And, yeah, I went a bit too far with that Ursula K. le Guin quote, I know. "Fantasy is [. . .] insanity."

4. I could write this Untitled piece I have just started doing some background on. Basically, the world is in shambles. I mean that in a plague sort of shambles. I mean, the richest of us all are surviving and the third world is, to be literal, dead. The world is quickly becoming a ghost town with the economies of the world falling--and almost no one can have children. So, you get a bunch of teenagers spirited away randomly, but who knows who, and put in the middle of some random stretch of woods and beach, like some awful away-at-camp-parody, and they're informed they're meant to, well, redo the earth. From scratch. And if they try to leave, they get shot.
Basically, it's emo dystopia and urban fantasy (because I can't not have some freakish age old creatures romping through the woods) mixed with kiddie SAW.
Because I'm a twisted freak.
(This is the one that is a partial spin-off of all basic RP/storybooks I've got a chance to read about. The cast will also probably be over zealously eccentric because I'm fun like that.)