nanowrimo_lj | Weekly Plot Help - Week of November 10th

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. :)

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).

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.

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. :)

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?

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.

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.

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.

Thanks. That does help.

Heh. I am better off not specifying, I take it. Haven't mentioned any major landmarks of any city yet.

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;

Well, specifying does give the story a stronger feeling that it's taking place in 'reality'-- if you don't screw up describing the place, that is. I'd also say you'd need to go back pretty early on to specify where it's set, because having someone randomly go, oh, this is in Chicago! halfway through when the reader had been picturing it in New York would probably throw the reader for a loop.

On the other hand, not specifying allows the reader to mentally set it in their preferred city, giving them a greater sense of personal involvement.

How about making you own fictional city?
You don't have to give it a name, just keep calling it whatever you have been, or call it "The City", but include landmarks you've invented yourself - like memorials, or cathedrals or towers or famous monuments... mix and match from different cities around the world, and your reader might end up feeling more connected to the story if the city seems more real?

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!

O.O

YES. That helps enormously! Especially since the native Seattle..ite? (What do you North-Westerners call someone from Seattle?)... is bookish and shy and such, and I think she'd be fond of hanging out in the University District, from the sounds of it. :D

And your description helps me get a MUCH better handle on how to capture the feel of it, both from the perspective of the girl who's lived there her whole life and the California girl who's probably not at all going to like the cold, damp chill. ;)

Ahaha... I almost want to move to Seattle now. Or at least visit the University District. It sounds so cozy in comparison to where I live (I'm probably weird for thinking a drizzly city sounds more pleasant than sunny Florida, but I hate the heat anyway, ha).

Film! :D

*movie fan*

Oh, I'm glad! It's Seattleite, yeah. :D I'm sure she'd love the U-district, and there are a lot of buses in and out of the area. Also... I'm not 100% clear on what the policies for non-students checking out books are (it might not be allowed), but she would be able to visit the libraries on the University of Washintgon campus. Fun fact: the UW campus has a bigger collection of books (over six billion, I believe) than anywhere else in the United States. And the libraries are gigantic, beautiful structures (for example, see the Suzzallo library (http://www.lib.washington.edu/suzzallo/)). A lot of the architecture on the campus is like that as well- giant and gorgeous and full of fields, statues, and a lot of greenery.

From my experience, Seattle tends to seem fairly gloomy and gray to someone who thrives in or is coming from a much warmer environment (like your character from California), unless they're lucky enough to arrive on a sunny day, but actually has a pretty cozy feeling to it a lot of the time and isn't as depressing as people tend to paint it- the buildings tend to be very warm inside, especially cafes, and there's nothing like sitting inside a coffee shop with a cup of hot chocolate while it's rainy and gray outside. Although catching buses in the rain can occasionally be not so fun.

Glad to be of help. :) Seattle is a bit overwhelming to a small-towner like me, but in a lot of ways really nice (although it does, of course, have the same issues with violence and danger areas that any big city does). The University District has a really small, warm, local feel to it (and lots of good, cheap food). And man, I'm abusing parentheses today.

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~!

From my experience, Seattle tends to seem fairly gloomy and gray to someone who thrives in or is coming from a much warmer environment (like your character from California

iawtc!

My friend, who has actually lived in Seattle her whole life (until now) loooves the sun and the weather here tends to be a depressant to her. She's actually taking vitamin D now, in order to boost her state-of-mind/happiness, and such...

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 :)

Yeah, there are some people who the environment can be a killer for. My brother, who's part Vietnamese, has had a lot of issues with living in the north-west (he recently moved to Hawaii). I tend to find that, even as a resident up here who can't handle a whole lot of sunlight, I tend to be vaguely depressed and lame for a few weeks at the end of summer until I get used to the really gray, rainy weather and have to take vitamin D.

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!

This. XD In my small town, whenever we have snow for more than a day or two, everything just shuts down because no one knows what to do and the stores instantly run out of tire chains and other equipment.

It doesn't actually depress me but I get bummed when the warm weather starts going away. Once we're through the warm-to-cold transition I'm hyped up in the weather (I've loved rain my whole life X3). Its cozy and good movie-watching or novel-writing or baking & tea drinking weather. :D

Haha. It's hilarious. Throw a little snow into the greater Seattle area and people panic. XB

What 'small town' are you from?

Haha, it's always about what you're used to, isn't it?

Here in Central Florida, we get hit by so many hurricanes (like one or two at least come close to us pretty much every year) that we didn't even raise a fuss at anything below Cat 4 until Charlie made a mess at Cat 3. But even now, if it's "only" Cat 1 or 2, we pretty much just sigh and MAYBE we'll drain the pool a little so it doesn't overflow and MAYBE we'll board up if it looks like it might increase in power before it hits and we have some extra time and wood to spare, but mostly we just expect a lot of rain and maybe the power will go out for a bit. Then again, we got sucker-punched by that Tropical Storm Fay this year... but that was mostly just flooding from the rain. :\ The biggest danger is actually flooding and tornadoes, and it's certain areas that really get hit by those (like Barefoot Bay. Every single year they hit by tornadoes, I swear. And yet, it's predominantly trailer parks! You'd think they'd learn...). I'm lucky in that I don't live in one of those areas. :)

Then again, you have idiots like the Darwin Award Honorable Mention who tried to kite-surf in a Tropical Storm (Fay, specifically) and went flying and crashed into a building. Sometimes paranoia wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. :P

Weekly Plot Help - Week of November 10th

no subject

no subject

no subject

Seattle and Los Angeles Help, Especially Japanese and Hispanics

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

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

no subject

no subject

no subject

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

no subject

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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