Young Writers Society

So basically I have an idea for a fiction horror story and I wanted feedback on the idea.

Alice wakes up from a dream about a wonderland, that felt real. She tries to just shake it off. As she strolls around the woods she feels someone following her...she turns around and it’s a man. Almost furry looking with gleaming red eyes, fangs dripping the blood of what seemed to be fresh deer meat, she knew he wasn’t human. He begins chasing her and she trips and falls into a hole near a tree covered in cobwebs. She blacks out...as she awakes, she is chained to what seems to be a hospital chair. As she looks around and regains her sight, there are humans...in card costumes, dirty and almost bruised looking. They’re attacking creatures in cages...creatures that seem to strike a memory inside of alice. A queen bearing hearts on her clothes sits and watches as the damage takes place, constantly glancing over at her. She takes another look around and she begins to remember...the hatter, he’s being forced to make hats constantly and beaten every time the queen says its ugly.....the hare, shaking in a corner wishing he would be allowed to drink the poison tea....and the white rabbit. The one chasing her in the woods....keeping track of time although his watch was broken....and more. All of her friends...yes...it all came back to her. She was in wonderland...but she wondered what happened? Alice manages to break the chains loose and run for the door in time before the queen stopped her and sent her guards after her. Alice runs into the mushroom forest searching for any escapees. She finds Absolem and the chesire cat...but they look much different. Absolem is aging quite rapidly as the cheshire cat’s grin becomes smaller and smaller. They give her advice on how to save wonderland although she doesn’t want to believe it was the same place. So Absolem takes her back through time to show her the change...she knew that she needed to save wonderland, but how you may ask? One thing she didn’t realize is the the new wonderland has a tendency to mess with your mind...Alice sets out on a second adventure to save herself, her friends, and the rest of wonderland.

Sounds like an interesting enough idea, but there are a few things you should address:
1. How did Alice lose her memory?
2. Which version of Alice in Wonderland is this following?
3. How do you plan to make this a different kind of scary story revision of a children's book (I actually think these are pretty cool if done well, and I'm always up for collaboration)
4. How and why did the world change into a darker place?
5. And last but not least, what are you going to do to make this a unique horror experience?
Like I said, it's a cool idea, and I'm always down for collaborating. I myself am a huge horror buff, in fact, I'm going to post a pretty awesome horror short story I wrote tomorrow, you should check it out!

Who doesn't love a good 'ol Alice in Wonderland reinterpretation?

Alice in Wonderland is a story that has been reinterpreted numerous times. On this site alone I remember having seen about three of them. Most often (much like yours) they are done with a darker mood, atmosphere, twist. So saying that, the first thing I would urge you to do is to make sure that your story has attributes which make it unique.

1) Alice has been to wonderland but doesn't remember and thinks it's a dream.
2) Alice has to save Wonderland from a terrible impending disaster, war, evil dude.
3) The story is done with dark undertones.

These three points I've mentioned are very prevalent in many Alice fanfics and even in the [url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1014759/]2010 Tim Burton film.[url]

Now your job is to take these elements and to make sure you make them your own. What's different about your wonderland? What's cool (or even not cool) about your Alice? Basically, why should readers read your version.

Despite them being quite common, Alice fanfics still seem to attract quite a lot of attention (at least on YWS), maybe because we're still in love with the classic tale and love it even more when done dark. I myself often find them a tempting read.

So back onto your summary. Your premise looks really interesting. Then again a lot of the premises that I read look really interesting. The part where we begin to fall into the story is always the best. The initial discovery and heavy intrigue draws us in deeper beyond skin deep... and that is often where the cracks occur. What I find with some stories is that the beginning and the set up is really interesting, but the more I read the duller it gets and the more cliches I see (I mean just look at the television drama Lost). A good story needs to be good all the way through and not only have an interesting premise.

Alice sets out on a second adventure to save herself, her friends, and the rest of wonderland.

For me that was the most important sentence in your whole summary. The rest of it looks great, but what really concerns me is "the great beyond" you've left us here. That sentence basically frames your actual story. That's the part that really matters and needs to be addressed the most. Without reading what happens there I can't really say whether I think this is a good idea or not simply because the actual story has only been summed up in one sentence.

Another thing I want to mention is also that with "is my idea good?" questions, one very important factor to consider is how you write the story rather than what you write in the story. This is really important because I have seen so many times a book that had such a good premise fall excruciatingly flat because the author couldn't execute it properly. Whereas on the other hand sometimes I pick up a book that seems to have such and idiotic idea but then reading it I couldn't put it down.

What I'm trying to get to I think is that this in your hands. It's not about how good your idea already is but how good you can make it and how hard you're willing to try.

Some things to consider when executing:

Character development:

This is insanley important. We want to feel emotionally connected to Alice. Whether the reader ends up liking her or not, it is important that they feel something about her. Also don't forget to focus on her relationships with other characters and her family. How does she feel about being wrenched from home? How does she develop and change through the whole experience?
Also don't forget not to just focus on Alice and to add some good secondary characters too. They'll really drive your story.

Also please remember to describe the the setting really well. Give us an intense feeling of the mood and atmosphere. Transport us to Wonderland.

I have to go now but I really hope I helped somewhat Good luck with writing it!

Wonderland! Yes! Always with the more Wonderland.

Okay that said.

Reinterpretations of Wonderland are hard. There’s a lot of them already; it’s really hard to establish yours as unique and interesting while still honoring the source material and not just randomly changing things for no reason.

Things to consider:

1. If you haven’t done so already, I’d strongly strongly urge you to read both of the original books. I’m not saying this because I’m a Wonderland purist—although there’s grains of that, I’ll admit —but because the original books have a LOT of content that gets ignored by most reinterpretations and adaptions.

The easiest way to set yourself apart from the Wonderland pack? Give the overlooked characters a notable role. The White Queen who remembers in reverse order. The Red King who dreams the world into existence. The Mock Turtle and the Gryphon dancing dances and singing dirges. The Dodo and the Caucus Race. The Duchess and her son who turns into a pig. Also, there’s a lot of nonsense poems you can draw inspiration from.

Plus they’re good books.

2. Grimdark Wonderlands are really common nowadays so if you want to go that route—and it’s not an inherently bad route just because it’s popular—think about the ways in which you want to grimmify. I’d actually advise against just making it really violent/gory/full of horrifying-looking monsters, because that’s the easy route. Psychological, emotional darkness—that’s where the real meat is. (Also, original!Wonderland is plenty dark on its own—pretty much everyone except the White Knight ranges from kinda a jerk to complete jerk and the Red Queen is pretty much the only character who gets anything done)

3. Unless you’re explicitly basing this on the Tim Burton film, don’t use the character names from that (i.e. Absolem). It’ll just end up confusing people.

So those are the things that stood out to me as being potential weak spots in your pitch. There’s also one pretty big problem with what you’ve given us here: There isn’t a plot.

Well, there is, sort of. You’ve got the basic skeleton of it; Alice goes back in time to fix stuff. But—how? What went wrong originally and how can she fix it now? What you’ve given us is the set-up, but the thing about having a set-up is that you don’t really have a clear picture of where to go from here.

Knowing what’s going to happen over the course of the story is really, really important, even if it’s just a general idea of the basic shape of the plot.

But the thing is, ultimately, you can have a completely derivative, commonplace plot and still write an amazing, interesting, wonderful story. If you’ve got awesome, fully realized characters who interact in a dynamic and realistic way and good descriptive writing, you’re basically golden.

So when you get down to it, the only one who can decide whether your idea is good is you, and I think the best way to find out is to just start writing. Don’t worry about whether the idea’s good, don’t worry about being cliche, don’t worry about any of that; just focus on telling the story you want to tell and doing so to the best of your ability. If it’s a bad idea, you’ll find out really fast—because it’ll become hard to write really fast and you’ll find yourself in impossible corners that you can’t get out of without breaking things. If that happens, just take a step back and rework the plot until it works better.

Pretty much any idea can turn into a good story if you’re willing to work hard on it.

(And uh come talk to me about Wonderland if you want PM me or whatever Wonderland is my favorite)