Weekly Plot Help - Week of November 10th

[alison-sky.livejournal.com]

Got a problem in your NaNo? Who doesn't?! But we've got a way to help!

Post here with your plot problems, and all through the week members of the community will scan through and see if they can help.

AKA - The best way to procrastinate is to help others!

So post your problem. Then take a moment to look at everyone else's and see if you can help them.

People helping people. That's what makes this community great :)

So have at it!

Comments

[hireadd.livejournal.com]

A lot of my novel takes place in two major cities, and in those major cities, a lot of the action takes place in restaurants. I'm running out of ideas for places to have MCs meet, so... if anyone could give me ideas for reasonably simple types of restaurants/bars/night-clubs/etc., that would be great. It can't be anything too fancy for my MCs, but classy places would work great for my villains, so really, anything goes. Names for the restaurants would also be awesome. :)

[my-cream-tea.livejournal.com]

Private Gentlemen's Club for those oh-so-classy villains, maybe? This isn't the 'strip club' variety, more of the 'elitist' London type (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_London%27s_gentlemen%27s_clubs).

[stagemanager.livejournal.com]

In every town, there's a Franks (usually a bar & grill). Your "Frank's" could be a hot-dog place, if you're so inclined.

Chowder House is a good name for a casual place.

[irishkitten441.livejournal.com]

For your MCs, Irish Pubs are always fun. So are 50s style ice cream parlors. And you can't go wrong with a hole-in-the-wall Italian or Asian place.

For your villains, you could send them to one of those fancy revolving restaurants that are usually on the top floors of skyscrapers.

Seattle and Los Angeles Help, Especially Japanese and Hispanics

[runa27.livejournal.com]

OK, this is a weird combination of questions, but I suppose it's a weird story. :P The book in question is set in Seattle, and features a young high-schooler who's a Seattle native and another high-school age character who's just transferred there who's from Los Angeles and is of biracial Japanese/Mexican descent (her dad's Mexican descent, mom Japanese).

1.) For people who've lived in Seattle a long time: I need to know more about the layout and "feel" of Seattle, little coffee shops and stuff that locals would know, info on one or more local high schools, that kind of thing. All I know right now is there's lots of good coffee places, it rains a lot, it snows in winter, and the teenagers wear a lot of hoodies. Not much to go on. :) Can anybody who lives or has lived there help me out on this?

2.) Same verse, same as the first except plug in "LA". The book may not be set there, but one of the main characters is from it, and I'm sure the transition for her will be noticeable! Also, if I finish this one, one of my next projects would be a prequel, which would be set in LA anyway. If you can help, please do?

3.) For those of either Japanese or Mexican descent, or both, from LA (or people very close to kids in those groups): What is like being raised by parents of that particular ethnic group - do they try to assimilate, or do the opposite, or a little of both? What are some of the things that make it awkward or make you feel "different"... or some of the advantages of it? And how would your family or friends react if you married (as this character's parents did) someone of that other ethnic group - would it be just "a little weird, but no big deal", or would it be somehow scandalous? Or is not something that would be a big deal now, but might have been 20 years ago?

Thanks for any help you guys can give. :)

Re: Seattle and Los Angeles Help, Especially Japanese and Hispanics

[hireadd.livejournal.com]

1) I haven't lived in Seattle since I was little, but I live up in the northwest about 2-3 hours away from it and have spent a lot of time there. :) Seattle has a very strong feeling to it, particularly to someone- like me- who's somewhat of an outsider there. If you've ever seen Advent Children, the lighting of Seattle is very similar to the lighting of edge- very gray and bright, particularly in the autumn and winter, and tending towards cold. It tends to sprinkle a lot- wussy, drizzly rain-, with the occasional dump of rain, and less snow than you'd expect (in general, in the northwest, snow is actually a surprise).

It also varies a lot from area to area. Downtown and places like West Lake have a lot of sky-scrapers, big stores, and things like that (West Lake is, unless I'm getting my Seattle geography turned around, where the Gap, Nordstrom's, and Macy's are). But if you go over to the University District, everything has a much more quiet, local feel to it. I don't recall the name, but I've been to a tiny local coffee shop in a backalley in the U-district (and it was a very nice place, warm and comfy and with great food, even though you had to leave the place and go around to some stairs to get to their balcony seating). There are a lot of little local bookstores and thrift stores, as well as cafes and coffee shops.

In general, Seattle has a very... well, northwest feel that sort of hard to pin down (probably because I live here). It's often cold even if it's sunny, because you spend a lot of time in the shade, although every so often it's hot. A lot of people wear Converse and Doc Martens and knock-offs of both, despite them being pretty impractical for the usual weather. There tends to be a vaguely subdued feeling, as well, with gray skies being more common than blue ones.

Also, as a landmark, consider the Seattle Center- home of the Space Needle (http://www.spaceneedle.com/), Experience Music Project, Science Fiction Museum, and a lot of other attractions.

I hope the above rambling helps at least a bit... :D;

Re: Seattle and Los Angeles Help, Especially Japanese and Hispanics

[majesticjac.livejournal.com]

I live 30 minutes out of Seattle. I'm not sure how I'd describe the feel of it, though. There are different areas of Seattle that attract different crowds and that may affect where exactly you write about. If you mean the central downtown area, then that's the busy area where everyone is minding their own business (except for the few people that...don't) and yeah, every other person has a cup of coffee or something. There's the international district, which is laid out to attract people of asian heritages, which also goes to mean it will attract anyone who's into anime and manga, bubble tea and stuff. There's Capitol Hill where Broadway is. That place attracts a more eccentric crowd, its also known as (in a joking sort of way) "the place Washington puts its gays". It's where Cornish school of the arts is and thus will have a lot of artsy college students.

So yeah. Like I said, different areas attract different people. Like I would know some of a couple places in Capitol Hill or the University District (right out of Seattle) because those are the places that attract me. I rarely find myself going into central downtown Seattle just to hang. Though I have a few times.

As for coffee shops, I think it will depend on your character as to what kind of coffee shop she goes to. If she's a simpleton or lives for convenience in anyway, Starbucks is definitely the way to go. The original Starbucks is in Pike Place Market (Seattle) and you can find a Starbucks on just about any damn corner in Seattle! But if she's more of an independant thinker and likes to stray a little, she'd probably find her own cafe to fit her own feel.

As for high schools, I don't know too much about 'em. But I have a friend who attended the Center School (High school located in the Seattle Center, where the Space Needle is) and its a very small, private-like school. Probably about 20-30 people per class, very personal, a lot of the same classes. Being in Seattle, its also a very modern school. People bent on exterminating discrimination (unlike some of the suburban-Seattle schools that are much larger where people will make fun of someone for being gay. That would never happen in the Center School!)

And like hireadd said, snow is a surprise! It's been snowing a bit more in the winters lately, but we're lucky if its enough to last 3 days or so. It will melt quickly, and likely rain, which will make the snow melt even faster. Unless we're lucky and it freezes over night and makes it even more dangerous to go out driving and stuff. Mind you, a lot of the times school will be canceled if there's that lucky 3-day snow plow because nobody knows how to deal with the snow! That makes us a danger to ourselves.

Feel free to ask me anymore questions. I hope I was helpful to you, even though I wasn't very specific in some cases. But if you come up with more specific ideas then I'd be happy to help you out. :D Good luck on your novel~!

Re: Seattle and Los Angeles Help, Especially Japanese and Hispanics

[my-cream-tea.livejournal.com]

OK, sorry but this is my experience of London as opposed to LA. But still, big city, very ethnically diverse...

My brother is married to a Japanese woman and lives in Japan. He had to work a little hard to gain the respect of her Father, but I think that's just a son-in-law thing as opposed to him being a foreigner.

I think with my sister-in-law some of the things she found difficult about living abroad for a long time was expressing affection. Her family also had a tendency to 'drift' and not discuss things openly. Also, she was extremely shy and sometimes my slightly extroverted family were a little intimidating (in a very nice way).

This isn't meant to be a conclusion on Japanese culture but just my own experience. I hope it helps :)

[inner-ch1ld.livejournal.com]

I wrote the outline for the story in early 2007 and decided to finally work on it for this NaNo and well the character simply is not in the mindset to do what I wrote. The plot does count on this moment, this desire for a revenge of sorts but she is more sympathetic to the situation.

Any thoughts?

[stagemanager.livejournal.com]

Make your character an unwilling witness to someone else who gets the same (type of) revenge on wither the same person or someone else. Also, can be used as a growth experience for the revenging person.

[escherzo.livejournal.com]

I am almost 30,000 words in and I have yet to specify the city it's set in. (It's a post-apocalyptic story so the setting is basically "large city that is destroyed!" and so the layout isn't so much of an issue, but still)

Am I better off just continuing on without specifics or would it be better to find some city that fits the bill? I'm torn.

[stagemanager.livejournal.com]

There are those of us attached enough to certain cities that, if you specify, and screw up the details, we'll get very very upset. For me, it would be New York and LA. For others, Chicago, Houston, Seattle, San Francisco. Bottom line: If you specify, be very very careful.

[loki-scribe.livejournal.com]

If you were trying to convince a 2000 year old man in something of a Flying Dutchman situation that he'd been missing opportunities to do a lot of good/cool stuff, what would you bring up?

(For some reason, medical stuff is all that's coming up in my head and the conversation I'm coming up on needs to consist of more than that.

Thanks in advance,
Cheers!

[runa27.livejournal.com]

Film! :D

*movie fan*

[ink-kee.livejournal.com]

I have to kill off one of my minor characters. Severely injured won't be good enough for what I have in mind. There needs to be a death for for the plot to continue.

The problem is he could very well play a bigger part in the story. I really like his character, and... and he's adorable. Do I have to kill him? T_T

[walkertxkitty.livejournal.com]

I'm in a similar situation, only it's my main character.

You could pull the classic "It looked like I died but not really" and play with misinformation so that there's doubt that the death occurred. That gives you a chance to bring the character back if you want.

You could also explore taking him near death but not really killing him. I suspect the reactions would be the same and it would provide a growth opportunity for your other characters.

Putting him into a profound coma from which he is never expected to revive might give you the same options. He could die later or he could recover.

[walkertxkitty.livejournal.com]

I didn't have time to do my usual research and now I've nearly (or maybe I did) killed my main character. This is a real, modern setting. Magic doesn't exist beyond what you might see a Wiccan or a faith healer do. And that's the problem: I'm not sure realistically the faith healer can do anything for this guy. Saving him with a prayer seems like a cheesy cop-out.

Suggestions?

The character in question had a run-in with datura (that's jimson weed) poisoning a while back (no, he doesn't use, the bad guys put it in his food). Now he has gastroparesis (that's a partial paralysis and slow emptying of the stomach) resulting from nerve damage...and my resident pranksters decided that a load of hot pepper in his food would be just the thing. For various reasons (*cough*stupid male pride*cough*) the main character felt he had to go through with eating the meal.

So, as you can see I've nearly killed him.

Suggestions? Thoughts? Cookies? I really do not want ot use the miracle faith healer card if I can at all help it.

[situationgirl.livejournal.com]

As a person who has dealt with stomach and intestinal ailments, I must say that this character will need a strict diet by which to continue living! At least until you find a cure. And if he recovers, he may find he has lost the ability to tolerate some foods, say, like a wheat sensitivity or something. But I think that would be intersting. If something that drastic happened to me, I'd mourn the loss of those foods for a while, and then my tastes would change to accomodate the foods I can tolerate. Maybe this will affect him in other ways, too, like how he views the world. Or maybe he'll be able to read personalities by the ways and things that people eat.

For a cure:
Take a moment and remind yourself that you're writing fiction. Then take ten minutes and look up some treatments for gastroparesis; even if the options are limited, you can use science as a basis to concoct a cure. There are many herbs and natural healing aids that my doctors were willing to discuss with me, so feel free to use those sources, too.

Just a few things I know of:

Swedish bitters - used to stimulate the stomach and prepare it for the reception of food.

Ginger/liquorice root/calendula - separately, or in a tea, used to calm the stomach.

Garlic - to fight off parasites and stimulate the immune system.

Honey and cider vinegar - used to tame stomach acid.

Turmeric - used to treat inflamation of any kind.

Anyhow, I hope this helps!

Character help?

[g0shawk.livejournal.com]

I have two main characters with different stories (sort of). I am absolutely in love with my female character and her plot, and her parts are really easy to write. My other character isn't interesting enough, though. At the moment I have him as: a man in his 30s, a cop, gets along with pretty much anyone, very easygoing, doesn't really have any close friends (maybe because he had a best friend when he was younger, but s/he died and now he's afraid to get close to anyone). I am setting him up with my female character's sister who is pretty spunky. I don't know what else to do with his personality...I feel like he really needs something else...unique. Any ideas?

Re: Character help?

[situationgirl.livejournal.com]

I think your character is repressing a bunch, especially since he won't get close to anyone. You have to find the button that's going to unlock all of his craziness. What's sacred to him? Find it, and poke it with a stick, and then maybe laugh.

If your female MC's sister is spunky, she's probably going to try to press all his buttons for you. I'd let her happen to find out about this dead best friend, then take him to a seance and see what happens. Even if the seance is crap, he'll probably react, right?

calling history buffs!

[agardenafter.livejournal.com]

My novel includes many historical vingettes and personages. In preperation, I did my research on several people who I thought would fit what I needed (Kit Marlowe, William Shakespeare, Lordy Byron, etc). However, now that I'm writing, I've discovered that I don't really want to use these people and I'm in a bit of a research chrunch. I could use a direction to go for round two. I'm looking for men, alive and operating during the Elizabeathan era and after who were involved in the arts. I'm particularly looking for authors and musicians with a certain je ne sais qua. A little bit of mystery, tradgedy, a sprinkling of controversy in their lives... any or all of the above. The less well known the better, but not really a requirement. Thanks for any names you can toss my way, guys, it means a lot!

Re: calling history buffs!

[renjiluvah.livejournal.com]

Hiya,

Well, according to this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_I_of_England), Queen Elizabeth was Queen of Ireland and England from the late 1500's to early 1600's and at that time, The Renaissance & Reformation in Northern Europe and Italy was going on.

Some artists from that time are El Greco for short (Domenikos Theotokopoulos), Mathias Grunewald, Albrecht Durer, Marcus Gheeraerts did a portrait of Elizabeth actually, Pieter Bruegel "the elder", Caravaggio (one of the big names), Artemisia Gentileschi (she had some controversy as a female artist), and I can go on forever but I don't know exactly what the time frame you want is so I tried to aim around the time Elizabeth ruled and was alive.

I got this from my textbook "Janson's history of art: The western tradition, seventh edition" if you're interested in looking for a book about artists. It's a great book because it also tells you about the history going on at the time and about the artists.

Hope I was helpful. Good luck. :D

NaNooooooooooo...

[clayshaper.livejournal.com]

I couldn't get started with NaNoWriMo untill tonight, because I was out of town away from computers or time enough to scribble it out either. :P So here I am, ideas in my head, and a strong theme and general plotline, and most everything I need to play catch-up...

...EXCEPT...

I can't think of a main/motivating reason for my Main Character. (augh!) He is running, scared or emotionally driven or emotionally upset... Driving out into the near-wilderness to seek out a relative's very isolated, and currently uninhabited Estate.

Why?

Did he kill his GF? That seems SO patheticly over-used. What other reasons can he HAVE, that he is so desperate to get to a place he hasn't been to in forever, and no one else goes to, that is SO far away...? The 'I have a body in the trunk' thing feels fakey to me.

Help? Whyfor is he driven to flee there? Did he DO something? Did someone do something to HIM? What would make a person so disoriented and yet so driven?

Ideas?

Re: NaNooooooooooo...

[ahavah]

How about there is no good reason. We slowly watch his decline into paranoia and only realize later that there's really nothing going on with him except in his head?

Generation Ship Inhabitants

[ahavah]

Trying to keep my initial crew to about 150-200 people, and trying to narrow down just what kind of people I need aboard. My current list, and a brief synopsis, can be found here for anyone who'd like to help. Thanks so much!

[meretia]

I have a story I'm working on that's a fantasy with an 1840sish frontier town setting. It's something like Rhode Island or Salt Lake City where the members of a religious splinter sect had to leave/thought that society as a whole was doing it wrong anyway, so decided to go start their own town somewhere else.

The plot of this second one, such as I have it, involves the infiltration of Greysfeld, the little haven-town by the faiakha, the race of magic-using shape-changers who live in the wilderness around the city and the lunatic human exile who's been putting ideas into their heads. A few of them take human form and hitch into town with him on a wagon train of goods coming into Greysfeld from another nearby-ish town. My MMC is very much an outsider even though he's lived in Greysfeld for around twenty years (he's a materialist atheist gay snob who isn't afraid of the faiakha, so he's really not making himself any friends there). He lived among the faiakha for a while himself--it's something they'll rarely tolerate, for a certain price--so he spots them right off and knows that they aren't up to any good. The antagonist spooks him right out too, because he also recognizes this sort of person and just how dangerous they can be. He means to say something about it to everyone else, but he's also a coward who doesn't want to have to explain how he comes to know these things, so he keeps his mouth shut.The Antagonist is charismatic as all hell--I think it might even be a magical ability he's using--so people in town start to really like him. Greysfeld is in a monarchical nation in which the big cities are ruled by a Regent who act on behalf of the king. Greysfeld is too small for one, which Antagonist brings up. A significant enough number of people in Greysfeld like him that it isn't any big thing when he decides that he ought to act as their Regent.

Now, this story just powered up out of nowhere and ran over the nice story for which I had a synopsis written and a final scene sketched out. It's an offshoot from an ancient draft of my current non-NaNo novel in progress so I have a vague idea of where the story goes, but even parts I know have big vague patches in the middle of them. The part after Antagonist comes to town and makes everyone like him falls right into the middle of one of those. What I want to happen, ideally, is something in the vein of Stephen King's "Needful Things," where everything seems okay at first, nothing major happens except for little wrong things gradually, creepily building up until there's just too much Something Wrong to ignore. Unfortunately, I have no idea what those things are. I know Antagonist is basically a lunatic revolutionary who got sent away from one of the major cities for stirring up trouble there. He wants, in his own screwed up way, to make things better for people. So he would be doing things that really do improve on Greysfeld's standing in the world and at the same time just sneaking not-so-good things by people. Unfortunately, I have no idea what any of those things would be.

MMC is basically a buyer for the general store and tavern--he's from the city that's The Big City in this part of the country, so he knows more about doing business with the urban merchants from whom the stores get their supplies than do people who've lived in this wee little town a hundred miles from anything all their lives. I had the sudden idea to send him away on business for a week or three (all their travel is by cart, carriage, and horse; and I've figured it at roughly four weeks to get to the nearest real city and back) and have things be notably weirder when he gets home. I'd been planning to set a chapter break there, ending one just before MMC leaves and picking up the next one of his when he comes back.

I'm worried, though, would that be leaving too much important plot development offstage and in "as you know, Fred" conversations? I do have my other main character I can leave in town, but I might send her off with him since I don't know what happens while he's gone and I'm not sure I could keep minor changes in a small town from either getting boring or taking up way too much space in the plot.

[moritzpascal.livejournal.com]

Alright, I'm basically just lost with everything.

My plot summary that I put on the NaNoWriMo site is: "Five years ago, Brian, Lea, Susan, Vanessa, Neil, and Seth got to New York, ready to make their dreams come true. Brian, wanting to become a novelist, Lea, a painter, Susan, an actress, Vanessa, a clothing designer, Neil, a game show host, and Seth, a dancer. Four years later, Brian still hasn't gotten past the first line, the only place Lea's paintings are any worth are in her apartment, Vanessa dropped out of design school, Neil never made it to the television, and Seth is still dancing on street corners.

Now, Vanessa's in the hospital for a suicide attempt, Lea and Susan are stuck in their own ruts, Brian's been fired, and Neil and Seth are struggling to try and convince their parents to suck up their homophobic ways and come to their upcoming wedding.

Things are changing faster then any of them had planned. But maybe that's not such a bad thing."

It's all from my MC, Brian's, point of view. And it starts off with them all in the waiting room of the hospital for my other character, Vanessa. I have the first part done, where Brian walks out of the hospital without telling anyone where he's going and goes to the bar to drink his problems and thoughts away.

But where do I go after this? I need reasons that Brian's been fired, (he works at an office. Think Dunder Mifflin from the Office type) and I need more PLOT. If anyone's willing to read what I have, and totally BE MY SAVIOR and give me a hand and a few tips and plot ideas, I will be your best friend and give you lots of virtual hugs.

...help? Please?

[renjiluvah.livejournal.com]

Hi there,

I read your summary, and I think maybe the conflict you're facing is that you don't have a clear goal for each character. It seems like each of your characters are facing different dilemmas in their lives, so I'm assuming that the end goal of this story is how each character moves past these obstacles and finds happiness?

I'd say the best thing is to write a character outline - with their personalities, who they connect to, what their initial problem is and the goal you want them to reach by the end of the story. Then you can work on the details of how they each either reach the solution or don't reach it at all depending on their reactions to these obstacles. Another thing, is each character has their own idea of happiness and can handle these life problems differently, so maybe a car might make one of your characters happy but not another, ya know? Looking up character types can help, too or personalities- that way you can better handle how your character acts with that type/personality as a "template" of some sort.

Ok. I ramble. Sorry lol. :D As for why Brian's been fired- he doesn't really need a reason actually. If this is a story about New York (which I unfortunately happen to live in, damn city), then it could simply be the bad economy if this is a modern day story. Just today I read the newspaper about them raising metro card prices again- to 3 bucks and gas money and under staffing places like fire stations, and so many companies like Circuit City closing down stores or companies letting large amounts of employees go, especially after the stock market crisis we've been having here lately on wall street. A character doesn't always need a direct reason for something to happen because sh*t happens lol, and sometimes it can't be controlled.

Does this help? O_o I hope. :D

Genre Problem

[renjiluvah.livejournal.com]

Hello everyone,

I am having trouble with what genre my fiction novel falls into. The plot has futuristic elements like AIs, lots of techy talk and computers, but there's also an other wordly fantasy part to it that goes beyond that, like a paranormal higher being kind of thing. I'm stuck between science fiction or fantasy and there's action in it, too. Do authors pick their genre based on what the novel has the most of?

Re: Genre Problem

[rachel21321.livejournal.com]

i think genres are usually defined by the readers and what spin editors want to put on the book. But from this little description I would call it scifi simply b/c of the futuristic elements.

Science/Tech plot help?

[renjiluvah.livejournal.com]

Okay, I have another problem. Anyone who is good at science, or computers or something of the sort may be able to help.

There is a part in my story where my characters will be thrown into a prison cell, but by using the materials on them (they were thrown in carelessly at the time, one of them with a smart noggin and was able to sneak something inside), break out because the lock is an electric lock that opens with an electric current.

I know you can use a light bulb, some wires, and batteries to create a current to make a bulb glow - will that work if let's say, it was a cell phone battery (or does it have to be a regular battery?), metal bed springs (which of course my characters can't touch or they will be electrocuted), and the light bulb in the prison cell? And somehow by applying it to the electric lock, they can pass the electric current to open it?

I don't know if anyone can help, but any links or help from someone who has a better understanding of electricity than I do, I will greatly appreciate your help/tips. Thanks in advance.

[taystwin-14.livejournal.com]

My MC's parents just died. He's eleven. He ahs no other living relatives. I need a name for the Oprhanage he's gonig to. Situated in Tulsa, OK.

POV help...sorta

[rachel21321.livejournal.com]

I really want to have my entire novel be a convo between my MC and his shrink. The catch is I wanted the shrink's only dialogue to be through the title of my chapters b/c therapists do more listening than talking. The problem is my character can't give very vivid descriptions through dialogue... any ideas to remedy this?!