This struck me in the middle of a lecture. More specifically, I saw the MC struggling to carve her name into a wall already riddled with others' in an attempt to leave something of herself.
Slightly related to my Hunger Games ripoff.
Working Title: Four Walls
Genre: Horror/maybe even Literary
Protagonist: Elizabeth, a 19-year-old Midwestern American WASP. She has frizzy, medium-brown hair that she keeps in a low ponytail, and she's rather skinny but average height. She's only talkative around friends, although she doesn't mind being around people.
Other Main Characters: Raj, a 20-year-old American of Indian heritage. He's a bit boy-faced and a people-pleaser, although he can get fairly pushy with his Christianity. He had recently been accepted into medical school, which is a huge deal at this point in time.
Liliána, a 27-year-old Hungarian woman with thin, dark brown hair that curls to her shoulders. She knows a bit of English but stays silent for (as far as I can see at this point) the entire story and spends
most of her free time sitting on her bunk.
Thulani (name could be changed), a 15-year-old African (country not yet determined, but not a well-off one) boy who's quite
obviously been underfed his whole life. He speaks some English and is quite cheerful and plucky.
Adil, a 30-year-old Saudi Arabian man with hair of average length and a broken nose. He's a Muslim and generally quite kind, but when he gets angry, run. He's fluent in English.
Momo, a 14-year-old Japanese girl who's from the country and knows little to no English. She's very small-framed and wears her hair without adornment to her shoulders. She is loosely Shinto, the lonely type, and cries easily.
Others will be added.
Antagonists: Sometimes the guards assigned to keep them where they are, but most often each other.
Setting: On a wide scale, future Earth with a disturbing population problem. The story itself is contained in a dilution camp with bunk-bed cabins that hold about sixteen but are often crammed much tighter.
Plot: Elizabeth and the others have been selected randomly (well, by stratified sampling—randomly chosen after being divided into groups based on race, gender, class, and religion) to be allowed to starve in a system that has been around for some time to curb population growth. They don't exactly all hold hands and quietly wait for the end.
Point of View: First person (Elizabeth).
If resources are a problem, then wouldn't it be more efficient to turn them into soylent green? That could add a time crunch to the story. Letting them starve doesn't make much sense to me...
ReplyDeleteBut this is a troy I'd like to read... Maybe I could borrow part of the idea for the backstory of my wind elementalist? He escaped from something or other, and this sounds good...
Mim
Hey, use whatever you like. Pairing up the soylent green bit and this for his backstory would be okay with me; this one kind of relies on them starving, even if it's weird. I'll try to work it out. Maybe food isn't the main population issue.
DeleteThis seems like a really interesting idea. With a bit of tweaking (like making the setting quite different from Panem; i.e. no districts, maybe some different technology or culture, and less ceremony around the executions of the characters) it could stand on its own without too many similarities to HG. I like the fact that the characters come from all over the world, and the reason that they're chosen to die makes sense (though, the other reviewer has a point - wouldn't it be easier and more humane just to shoot/inject them or something? Maybe the government is trying hard to maintain its hold over an increasingly dissatisfied population, and they're struggling to show that they're the good guys, they don't execute people; the people just 'disappear?' Maybe instead of being publically chosen, they're just abducted?) The idea of the protagonist trying to carve her name into the wall is quite chilling; it gives off the idea that there are just too many victims, too many untold stories, for hers to make an impact.
ReplyDeleteEh? Are we talking about 34 or 38? The settings aren't *that* similar; just the population issue.
DeleteI do like the disappearing idea, though.
I'm not saying that their settings are similar; it's just that you haven't expanded much on the culture or setting of this place, so just make sure that it's different.
Delete