Any book ideas floating around?

[sleepingzombieXD]

I´d like to share concepts and ideas about any book projects you guys may/or may not have. As I guess that there will be concerns about stealing and such I though we could share basic concepts, nothing specific (if you dont want to) but enough to give feedback on.

"silence". . . . I guess I will start then.
My name is Adam, my book idea is to make the reader expects an event but to suprise them with a different twist.

The same events will be seen by different charaters that will in turn contribute with different perspectives.This way I dont have to bore the reader by going ower everything at once and I can weave it in peice by peice.

One character may note the mood of the crowd, another notes the sentries posted up above the crowd as they gather in protest. A third will see a man hurry from the crowd with a strange look on his face, a fourth will see the bomb, hidden as a peice of trash.

OR they just take turns perceiving clothing,mood details and and hidden enemies.

[Drinnik]

I've got the first 8 or so pages started of a book. It's about a character relating a tragic event in her life, intercut with her reminicing about her childhood whilst slowly coming to the realisation that she is a fictional character and the reason shec can only remember the bad things that happened is because she's being written.

[sleepingzombieXD]

I've got the first 8 or so pages started of a book. It's about a character relating a tragic event in her life, intercut with her reminicing about her childhood whilst slowly coming to the realisation that she is a fictional character and the reason shec can only remember the bad things that happened is because she's being written.

Abit like Sophies´ choice, forgive the comparison.
Just to probe, how is the plot indended to affect the reader?
What feeling do you want them to feel, and why. Is there any specific settning?

[JustAName]

Oh gods, those kinds of situations make my head hurt.

I've actually had an idea for a book for a very long time that I'm not going to share because it's so dear to me... I've never started it because I'm kind of afraid of it being lackluster, though. :/

Aside from that I do have two started and stalled projects: One was a series of character studies from a mental hospital. This was based on a game that a friend an I wrote and submitted but never got played, so I wanted an outlet for the ideas. The other was a series of articles about a made-up world that I was writing with my friend in the style of the letter game; we know nothing about the world but what's written, and we don't discuss it at all, so every time one of us puts an article up, the other learns something new about the world and perhaps their plan for how things would go is changed. It was a lot of fun, and that's the one that I'm actually hoping on continuing because I *have* started my next article. They're both blogger blogs, if anyone's actually interested; the one's url is at nonsensicalsounds and the other collaborativeworlds.

[Drinnik]

I've got the first 8 or so pages started of a book. It's about a character relating a tragic event in her life, intercut with her reminicing about her childhood whilst slowly coming to the realisation that she is a fictional character and the reason shec can only remember the bad things that happened is because she's being written.

Abit like Sophies´ choice, forgive the comparison.
Just to probe, how is the plot indended to affect the reader?
What feeling do you want them to feel, and why. Is there any specific settning?

Basically, as it progressed, I wanted the reader to realise that she knew exactly what she was going to make them feel, and she was going to start verbally abusing the author, to such a stage were there would be a dialogue on the page between her and the author.

It was set in London, mostly.

First page:

As we start this, our reader/author relationship, I feel it is my duty to be honest with you, even if it is just once. I am, I will fully admit, a heartless, cruel and spiteful woman. I will not pass up the opportunity to belittle someone, for stupidity is a plague that riddles society. I hate stupidity. Every day I see examples of someone’s stupidity and it galls me that these people can be given any kind of responsibility in an organisation. I feel like sometimes I am the only one who can see that the way an action is performed is the direct result of someone’s incompetence. It is something I have felt for my entire life. When I was a girl, I could see when the other children where about to do something so monumentally foolish that I would have to comment. As a teenager, I would be the ringleader of the bullies who picked on the solitary pregnant girl. The others in my group would laugh at her swollen belly, over-sized tits and waddling gait, whilst I would laugh at her ignorance, at how she had ruined her life for some filthy fumble with a boy in an alley to impress her friends. I would laugh at a life squandered by a ten minute, forgettable encounter that she would forever judge all her future sexual partners on and still, because she was a fool, a slut and a whore, believe it to be the finest encounter of her life.

As a student, I would be the one who lead the dispossessed and the downtrodden against the establishment. The pseudo-nepotism that was rife in all of the student-ran facilities in the college often felt the sting of our actions. I was a firebrand, a burning figure of hate, and I enjoyed it. I feel strongest when I have something to fight against and when I win, it’s better than fucking. I am also a crude woman, described by those who dislike me as far too masculine, by those who know me as a man in a woman’s body, and by those who encounter me as a creature inflated by her own self-importance. But these are traits I am well aware of, and I do not care for others opinions. I am who my creator made me, and that is simply me.

Now, as I reach my mid-thirties, I am considered one of the ‘lonely singletons’ of Britain. I am considered a spinster and a woman who will never meet a man. It irks me when I hear the whispers of, “I’d hate to be the man she marries, but love to be the one who tames her” behind my back. I am not a wild creature, I am not a beast to be broken and ridden and put out to breed. I am a person, a woman of strong bearing and owning a personality that most would prefer to see coming out of a human with a penis. More than once have I been told that I should be more feminine, that I should act and speak like a lady. I scorn such opinions, and act to my nature.

So that is who I am. That is what you must remember of me as you read this treatise. Keep in mind who I am and things will not shock. Not that I plan to shock, mind, but I will tell you how and why I did the things I did, rather than sugar coat it and hide it in metaphor, distracting you with semantic smoke and mirrors. These are the details of why I am the woman I am today, and if it wasn’t for these experiences I would not be her. I would not be writing what I am about to, it would be a completely different order of words, saying the same thing but giving the same meaning. I would not be me and my life would not be mine. I say this not to confuse, but to help you understand why it is I put these words together and create the tale of what made me. I do not want you read this work and think ‘she was a woman of peculiar personality’ and close the book and walk away. I am not Lucy Snowe, I am not Elizabeth Bennett, I am Elspeth Brekenridge and my story is not like theirs, it is mine.

[sleepingzombieXD]

Oh gods, those kinds of situations make my head hurt.

I've actually had an idea for a book for a very long time that I'm not going to share because it's so dear to me... I've never started it because I'm kind of afraid of it being lackluster, though. :/

Aside from that I do have two started and stalled projects: One was a series of character studies from a mental hospital. This was based on a game that a friend an I wrote and submitted but never got played, so I wanted an outlet for the ideas. The other was a series of articles about a made-up world that I was writing with my friend in the style of the letter game; we know nothing about the world but what's written, and we don't discuss it at all, so every time one of us puts an article up, the other learns something new about the world and perhaps their plan for how things would go is changed. It was a lot of fun, and that's the one that I'm actually hoping on continuing because I *have* started my next article. They're both blogger blogs, if anyone's actually interested; the one's url is at nonsensicalsounds and the other collaborativeworlds.

My sympathies, though I could help you deal with your concerns of the quality of your work. Talk with some nice friend who have an interest in storytelling and get feedback. What I do is that I post snippets of my texts without context to them so none of the plot can be stolen. I get feedback on my writing and my story is safe, IE win win.

[JustAName]

Eh... Pretty much all my friends are prolific writers, and a lot of the time I end up musing for them (that is, listening to them talk about their current project and offering ideas until they know how to move ahead. Apparently I'm quite good at this.) but they're not that great at musing for me, so I can't really get help that way. I'm kind of too busy lately to work on it anyways, but I may give it another go when I have more time.

[sleepingzombieXD]

.

It was set in London, mostly.

First page:
(quote)

I like it, continue doing your thing. I wondered if you chose London to make the reader feel something. Like how haunted mansions were chosen as a settning for ghost stories.

. . .London rains alot some purpose with that?

[sleepingzombieXD]

Eh... Pretty much all my friends are prolific writers, and a lot of the time I end up musing for them (that is, listening to them talk about their current project and offering ideas until they know how to move ahead. Apparently I'm quite good at this.) but they're not that great at musing for me, so I can't really get help that way. I'm kind of too busy lately to work on it anyways, but I may give it another go when I have more time.

Seems like you need to find someone with a similiar talent to yours. I just find people and trade texts and talk to friends who say: why and how and gives me their opinion. One specific one is a kind and kind of a idea generator. We are very simiiar so meybe that is why it works for me.

[asrz]

My name is Adam, my book idea is to make the reader expects an event but to suprise them with a different twist.

The same events will be seen by different charaters that will in turn contribute with different perspectives.This way I dont have to bore the reader by going ower everything at once and I can weave it in peice by peice.

One character may note the mood of the crowd, another notes the sentries posted up above the crowd as they gather in protest. A third will see a man hurry from the crowd with a strange look on his face, a fourth will see the bomb, hidden as a peice of trash.

No offense but I think I saw this movie. I can't remember what it's called though.

I've had an idea for a shape-shifter story for a very long time but have held off on writing for the same reasons as you Fayili. To be fair, my idea also bears heavy similarities to a movie called Jumper.

[sleepingzombieXD]

No offense but I think I saw this movie. I can't remember what it's called though.

Rest assured, that was a scenario that I thought on the fly. My has something much more subtle. Each character thinks and therefore perceives in his/hers own way. One may not notice the blood tattered cloths of a person on the street but have a sense for their surroundings and were the danger of an ambush is closest.

As for jumper:

Ey! keep it coming and you can turn a concept done bad into something really good. When I view unskippable I think I see some good stuff that were attemted. I think You can learan from others mistakes, as long you know why something crashed.

[Dutch guy]

I've had a storyline/universe/plot in my head for some time. I have yet to decide what form would suit it best, but I lean towards TV series myself as the story lends itself to be "episodised". I haven't really put anything on paper yet, and I don't think this will ever become something. In fact, I'm not even sure if it hasn't been done before yet.

Basic premise: A somewhat nerdy guy lives a crappy live, feeling rather inadequate and purposeless. Then, while crossing the street he gets distracted by a girl in a blue dress across the street and is hit by a car/bus/whatever (With the usual cliché slomo effect) He's taken to the hospital and dies in ICU. He goes towards the light (Cliché) And wakes up in a different world/universe, slightly different from "his own".

Here's when i get a little vague on what I want to do with the story. I'm thinking he ends up in a world, where he's a person of little significance with where he gets a moment to do something important. Only he screws up and dies again. And ends up in a different world. Repeat a few times. He gets frustrated (Cue cliché trying to off himself repeatedly) and starts noticing every time he dies, he sees that girl in blue clothing.

Note that I don't intend the main character to stay humanoid in this, he could be a winged creature capable of flight, or a 4 legged horselike one with great speed, or a 3 legged walrus and massive ears (Although I have no idea how that would work)

Season finale, he talks to the girl in the blue dress and they are happily holding arms watching the sunset after beating the antagonist. He hears a click, turns around, goes "Ohhh for the love off......" and gets shot by a minor character (Cut to black).

I don't think there would be many happy endings. He just starts accepting at some point he will die, and try to do something useful before that happens. I really have no idea where to go from there. I'm not really a writer, or a cinematographer or even just a storyteller.

[sleepingzombieXD]

I'm not really a writer, or a cinematographer or even just a storyteller.[/quote]

"a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" you grab that pen before it gets away and HAVE AT IT!

[iamafish]

@Drinnik you seems to have created a really interesting character, that I'd like to rad a little more about, the main problem with the start of your story is that you simply tell your reader all about her. try showing us instead by having her relate a series of incidents from her life. That way we can come to our own conclusions about what kind of person she is, rather than simple being told it.

As for story ideas I have several.

One of which is set in a Plato's Republic style dystopia in which two young adults begin to question the status quo (influenced by an elder mentor) and eventually flee the city for various reasons which I won't give away because I do plan on writing this thing one day.

Another is set in Classical Greece. A young Spartan becomes disillusioned with his city after they refuse to send help to the Athenians at the battle of Marathon. He flees to Athens with the love of his life and an older friend. I know it sounds a little like the first one, but I think the main emphasis would be on the protagonist trying to become a part of Athenian society, rather than focusing on sparta, whereas the first story would focus on The Republic a lot more.

I also want to write one about a Gladiator who has become emotionally dead because of his life of fighting and killing, but i need to work on this idea a little more.

I have an idea for a fantasy series set in a land stuck in the middle of a war between two opposing empires.

I've recently started writing a short story which starts with a guy dying in a car crash. His 'ghost' wakes up in a hospital bed just as he is declared dead. The story follows his attempts to adapt to his new life and to work out why he's still concious despite being dead. I'm going to be publishing it in about 12 (maybe fewer) instalments in Downright Fiction, a monthly e-mag, starting with the first part in next month's issue. (http://www.downrightfiction.com/)

I probably have some other ideas tucked away in my brain somewhere, but I can't remember them.

[Drinnik]

@Drinnik you seems to have created a really interesting character, that I'd like to rad a little more about, the main problem with the start of your story is that you simply tell your reader all about her. try showing us instead by having her relate a series of incidents from her life. That way we can come to our own conclusions about what kind of person she is, rather than simple being told it.

I do later. The bit I'm happiest with is when she's talking about school. Sorry for the long post, but here's that bit, if you're interested:

Richard told me about himself. He was the middle child of three, with a younger and older sister. One of his sisters was a lesbian and lived in Plymouth with her girlfriend; the other was engaged to a plumber from Ealing named Brian. Sally, his lesbian and elder sister, worked in the Public Relations department of Plymouth City Council as some sort of Gender Equality Supervisor or some such, his other sister lived with her fiancé and looked after her 5 year old son whom she had birthed whilst still in school to a boy who she never knew.

I decided to tell him about my childhood, if only to pass the time. I am not usually so forthcoming with strangers, so I had begun to suspect there was more to this conversation than appeared on the surface.

“Where to begin?” I started, as most people do when talking about their past. “My mother was a solicitor named Jane, my father a banker named Lawrence. I was born in Liverpool, raised there and call the city home.”

“That explains it,” he said, off-handed.

“Explains what?”

“Your voice,” he said, “Beneath the elocution you’ve still got an accent. A slight Scouse twang.”

“So? There’s nothing wrong with a hind of an accent.”

“But Scouse?”

I looked at him, ready to retort. But he had that grin on his face, the grin that said ‘I’m fucking with you’ and it completely disarmed me. I laughed, “At least I don’t have some pseudo-Estuary accent that’s been developed by the media in an attempt to sound cool.”

He made a face and grinned again, “Anyway, you where born in Liverpool?”

“Yes. When I was 5 my parents send me to a boarding school. I hated it. They thought little girls shouldn’t speak with an accent, and we had mandatory elocution lessons to all sound like perfect little 1950s Stepford children. I think it’s my natural defiance that’s let me keep my ‘twang’.” I said, sliding down the wall to sit on the floor of the lift. I took my high-heels off, a blessing as they where really were not designed for comfort.

“The entire time went, an uneventful, bland experience. When I got home my mother fussed and fretted, and eventually they decided that going to another boarding school would suit them. I was shipped off the September after I finished primary school, and, once again, my parents could live their child free lifestyle.”

I can see why, though, They wanted the liberty of a childfree home, but someone to continue with the family name. My father was an only child, and I think disappointed I wasn’t blessed with a penis. It often was painful to me the way he’d say he wished I was a boy. I suppose it’s why I’m so hard now. I tried to be masculine to please him. My mother, however, wasn’t particularly interested in my upbringing. I was foisted onto au pairs, nannies, any one who could deal with me and not have me interfere in her precious business. But they where my parents, and I did love them. After a fashion.

“The secondary school was another all-girl’s school hidden in the dales of Yorkshire. We younger girls would be expected to act as dogsbodies to the elder girls, all out of the teacher’s radar. The things they made us do, but we accepted it, and did it to the younger girls when we became old enough.”

“So, you where raised in the 50s then?” Richard smirked.

I laughed, once. More an exhalation of air than a sign of mirth. It’s true, my childhood does seem to have taken place in a time that was earlier than the 1980s, but some places still act like that now. As far as I know. Not that I’d send any child of mine to one. Oh, my poor little…

Anyway, I told him that life was slow until my parent’s death. “Then things started to change. I began to lose my patience with people. I saw stupidity everywhere and I fucking hated it.

“Why are people so stupid? They go about everyday, thinking they’re clever and they’re not. They’re as thick as fucking pig shit. There was a girl at the school, named Amy Hale, and she thought she was it. She thought she was so fucking intelligent, but she wasn’t. She cruised by on her popularity. She had this way of making teachers feel sorry for her. Her Dad had died in the Falklands and she fucking milked it. When my parent’s died, I never once tried to use their deaths as an excuse for failure.

“Except once, a month after the funeral. It was in maths, and I was trying to hear Mr Layton, our teacher, talk about triangles, angles and Pythagoras. I felt my eyes watering. I looked out the window and it was grey and raining. My friend, Julie, was sitting next to me and she leant over and said, ‘Why are you crying, El?’

“I reached up to my face and wiped the tears away, and looked shocked. I was numb, cold and alone. I could feel my chest tightening, and I started to cry. Big, embarrassing sobs, streaming nose, puffy eyes and red cheeks. I couldn’t hold it in, it just burst out of me and I cried and I cried.”

I shifted position on the floor of the lift, to face him and get more comfortable. “When Mr Layton asked what was wrong, I couldn’t answer. He let me out of the lesson, sending Julie with me. We went to the toilets, always a bastion of female security in any building, and Julie helped calm me down. I’m not sure how long it took, but I remember it took a while.”

Actually, it took longer than I care to remember. There is something comforting about crying your eyes out in a ladies’ lavatory. And when something like that happens, it’s not the gentle cry you have when you read something sad or see it in a film, it’s those huge, body-wracking sobs that cause you to pulsate with misery. The tears sting your eyes and cheeks and you know, you know that if you cry a little harder, it’ll push the pain out.

I’d locked myself in a cubicle. At the time, it seemed like the logical thing to do. But this was an old building and the cubicles were not simply little ply-wood boxes. Solid brick surrounded me on three sides, and the door had only a slight gap before the roof. I remember the paint was that awful hospital-green that toilets often seem to be painted, as if someone, somewhere, is trying to say “our loos are as clean as a hospital.” And the irony being now they probably are.

I held my shirt in both hands, wringing it and sobbing hard. Someone was frantically banging on the door, asking if I was alright. I kept trying to answer, but the reply bubbled in my throat and I just choked on a mixture of tears and saliva. My hands shook as I reached for the door lock. One of the simple sliding bolts, but I fumbled and couldn’t grip it. So I sat, and sobbed and mourned in the only way I knew. I mean, fuck it, my parents had just died, and despite not having the closest relationship with them, I still loved them, I still needed them.

A man’s voice called out to me. It was Mr Layton, and he wanted me to come out. “I can’t,” I sniffed, “I can’t unlock the door.”

“Leave her alone, sir,” that was Julie, “She’ll be out in a minute.”

He grumbled and left, I heard the door to the toilets banging. “Open the door, El,” I heard Julie call, “He’s gone.”

I heard the flick of a lighter, then the sharp smell of cigarette smoke. A hand holding the cigarette poked under the bottom of the door, and I took it. I know, smoking at 14. What is the world coming too?


I’ve often wondered at my supposed masculinity. At why people think that I’m very male. I’m most definitely female, and I’m most definitely a woman. My voice is that of a woman, though I may sound male. It’s a perplexing conundrum. So, I sound masculine? Is that a problem? I know a lot of people would say it is, but that’s not my problem. Why am I so concerned with how masculine I sound? I digress, I’m sorry.

I took the cigarette and had a long drag. Then coughed for about five minutes. I’d calmed enough to unlock the door by now, and slowly dragged the bolt back. Julie was there, a cigarette of her own in her mouth. “What are you going to do?” she asked, hand on one hip, hair pulled back, a child trying to look like an adult, a child who thought looking like a whore was cool.

I shrugged, and ran a hand through my identically styled hair, stood up and placed a hand on my hip, “I don’t know. I mean, they’re dead. They’re gone. What am I going to do?”

She blew a cloud of smoke and sighed, “It’s shit, El, but I know you. You’ll just repress it, or ignore it or something. And then, in twenty years when you’re an old woman you’ll explode and kill a load of people in a city centre somewhere.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. And I’ll be the one handing you the ammo.”

She grinned, and we both laughed. I climbed out of the cubicle and walked over to a sink. The water was cold, and I let it run for a while, watching it swirl down the plughole. Occasionally, I’d spit into the water and watch the bubbles struggle in the current. “They had no brothers or sisters. My grandparents are dead too. I’m all that’s left.”

“Oh, woe is you, El,” Julie said, hefting herself onto the sink next to mine, “You’re here, and you’ve got me. What more do you need?”

The sob wracked my body, and I fell to my knees and rested my head against the cold ceramic. It was refreshing, the cold, hard surface draining the heat from my face. Julie left me there, she allowed me to cry freely. I was glad of that, it helped, to allow myself to grieve, to let out the pain I’d kept inside since they’d died. After a while I stood and washed my face again. “I want to go to my room.”

Julie looked at me and nodded, “I’ll take you.”

She walked me to my room, past the classroom with the gawking girls, all wondering why the bitch had broken down into tears. I ignored them, I blocked them out and hugged my arms around me as Julie lead me through the school and to my room which I shared with her.

She left me there, alone with my grief, and headed back to class. I wish she had stayed with me. I needed someone then. I had no one. I had to deal with it myself, I had no one to show me how to grieve. So I decided that I wouldn’t need anyone again.

[TheRocket]

I wrote a 3000 page story once. And no one will EVER see it.

[King Kool]

Three thousand PAGES?

How big was the text?

[TheRocket]

I hand wrote it... soo... normal handwriting size? I dunno.. it's fucking huge. It's holding my broken bed up now

[King Kool]

Good to hear the marriage is going well.

[TheRocket]

It's only funny because you guessed right.

[King Kool]

Guess? How else do beds break (except for jumping on them, up to a certain age).

I've never broken a bed by masturbating. Yet.

[Tally]

I have at least 3 children's book ideas plus one Jeremy & I came up with together, two novel ideas and my mom and I thought maybe someday we'd write a book about t-shirt and other clothing mods. When any of this might come to fruition I have no idea. I got a degree in creative writing and pretty much stopped writing as soon as I graduated. Huh.

[VanHelsing23]

I once started work on a novel about a group of Americans and ex-pats living in New York who decide to found a sovereign state on an unclaimed island in the South-Pacific as a haven to political refugees who are denied asylum in western countries (in a similar vein to Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon). Much of the plot would revolve around the U.N. and other organizations attempting to shut them down. I wrote about four chapters, but was discouraged when I realized that it was becoming the kind of book my grandmother would recommend to me in the middle of one of her hour-long phone calls.

[Lord Chrusher]

I have several ideas for a science fiction / alternate history series. It is history of a people told by following one of the ruling families through the centuries.

[Drinnik]

I have at least 3 children's book ideas plus one Jeremy & I came up with together, two novel ideas and my mom and I thought maybe someday we'd write a book about t-shirt and other clothing mods. When any of this might come to fruition I have no idea. I got a degree in creative writing and pretty much stopped writing as soon as I graduated. Huh.

Me too, I did English Lit and Creative Writing and the writing sorta stopped. The only thing I've done really is the thing with Elsie I've posted some of and the first couple of pages of a horror story (that's not got to the horror yet...).