The return of the weekly plot help thread!

[alison-sky.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know you've all been waiting in eager anticipation for this thread to start up, and now you don't have to wait any longer!

So, for the new kids in the community, here's the basic gist:

This post goes up once a week. In here, you can ask for help on your plots. Each week I start a new post. You can keep asking for help each week, but try to ask for something new each time.

Also, if you want to get help, you also have to give it. Which means that you take time when you can to go through the help "requests" and see if there if anything that jumps out at you that you want to toss a suggestion at.

One of the beauties this community has is the willingness to help each other along in our 50k goal. And here is the place to do it.

And of course, that said, here's the BOO part.

With the thread means that these types of posts are no longer allowed to be individual posts in the community. So if you see one go up, feel free to leave them a comment and point them to the current week's help thread and the rules. I'll catch up with them eventually, but that kind of help (which alot of people are already doing for intro posts) is really appreciated!

So that's it. Feel free to start getting plot brainstorming down before NaNo, and help one another out. :)

Comments

[shimmertofade.livejournal.com]

The way my plot is outlined in my mind (very roughly) is basically three stages: 1)Girl is viewed as being successful at everything she does, apple of parents' eye, etc. 2) Found to have a mental disorder and looked down upon as if she had made a mistake, even though she should obviously not be faulted for it at all.

There obviously needs to be some kind of resolution for stage 3- but I'm terrified of cliche and desperately want to avoid a "See?! You were all wrong all along!" moment as my conclusion. Thoughts?

[andersenmom.livejournal.com]

Make it part of a study? Where she's investigating how people with mental disorders are looked on (down on?) or something?

Totally reaching, I know. Sorry.

[creativelywrite.livejournal.com]

This is a good idea. Perhaps the character could be a journalist of sorts and she begins to "investigate" support groups, doctors, and other individuals who suffer the same ailment. Through that process she gains better understanding of herself.

This may fall into the cliche area though.

If you wanted to go a darker route you could (after having done all this research) have her have a breakdown and retreat into her own mind where she takes all that she has learned and "cures" herself.

[foxtrot-sierra.livejournal.com]

You could shift the focus of the story from the girl to her parents. Then your 3 acts could be 1) Parents adore their perfect, only daughter, for whom they've sacrificed everything, while ignoring telltale signs of mental problems, 2) Parents discover only daughter has mental problem and feel that their life, their goals, and everything they've worked toward has gone up in flames, and 3) Parents come to terms with their daughter the way she is.

Or you could have ONE parent come to terms with daughter the way she is, while the other strikes out on his/her own to find something else meaningful OR the other strikes out on his/her own because s/he's become a nihilist.

[shimmertofade.livejournal.com]

I like this. In my brainstorm freewrites I've tentatively established that her father is, for (negatively connotated) reasons unknown, out of the picture...if he were to, say, reappear, only to find that the daughter he has heard so much about has sunk into this negatively percieved disease....

Does this sound too cliche, though?

[foxtrot-sierra.livejournal.com]

Sounds interesting. Fuckup dad could return hoping for hero daughter, only to find that daughter is a fuckup, too, and he could eventually realize that he likes her better this way.

[shimmertofade.livejournal.com]

Thank you. SO much.

That's nearly perfect.
She can stay screwed up but find someone to relate to- so she's not stuck in the "no one understands me! My life is a lie!" crisis, but still doesn't save everyone's soul either.

Awesome.

[ripter.livejournal.com]

I like the other suggestions given here.
My thought was maybe, after having a hard time coping with the real world. her metal disorder causes her to save her parents life. Or (depending on the disorder) she overcomes it and saves their lives. Thus she really is their saviour, and she learned to work with her problem.