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. :)

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.

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!

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

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.

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?

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!

Edited 2008-11-11 04:46 (UTC)

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?

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!

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.

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?

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?

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.

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.

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?!

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Seattle and Los Angeles Help, Especially Japanese and Hispanics

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Character help?

calling history buffs!

NaNooooooooooo...

Generation Ship Inhabitants

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Genre Problem

Science/Tech plot help?

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POV help...sorta