New Fiction Idea #34

This was an idea from some time ago, when I was wondering if I could basically write more Hunger Games fan fiction without it actually being the Hunger Games. Better title suggestions are welcome.

Working Title: Tournament of the World

Genre: Horror/Sci-Fi

Protagonist: Corey, a 17-year-old Canadian and one of Region 4's randomly-chosen athletes for the year. He's not actually particularly athletic, although he does pride himself on being a very good swimmer. His hair is a medium brown and kept short. His eyebrows have a solid look to them. He's a bit of a people-pleaser, although he can loose his cool if someone's a bit too irritating.

Other Main Characters: Pierce, a 21-year-old American and another of Region 4's athletes. He's a star wrestler on his university team and looks the part. Reasonably handsome, he has blue eyes and dark, cropped hair. He's more annoying than kind verbally, but he's not opposed to helping people out every once in a while.
Aiko (愛子), an 18-year-old Japanese (Region 3). She's quite small and not much of an actual athlete, although she's determined. She's also quite the doormat about anything she's not so devoted to.
"Rin" (Екатерина), an 18-year-old Russian and athlete from Region 17. Slender but toned, she's tall and keeps her dark hair in a low ponytail. She's fierce and not very friendly, although she's a team player when she sees strength in numbers.

Antagonists: The other athletes in the 16-23 bracket, as well as those in other age groups if the protagonists get that far. More trouble will usually come from within their group and the elements.

Setting: Future Earth, with a much-too-large population that has already started many wars just to reduce itself. The council of civilised nations has condemned such activities but opened up a life-or-death international competition. Nations compete to host as they would the Olympics, but the competition is once a year. The world is divided into regions for the purpose of the competition, and a certain proportion of "athletes" of reproductive age are randomly chosen (although some nations send out a suspiciously high proportion of actual athletes) from each region. Each competitive bracket is thrown into a vast arena with each other until few (or, in the final competition, one) remain alive. Competitors are given a meal and a pack of supplies before each round and helped no more. Around-the-clock footage is provided so regions can cheer for their athletes, although the cheering is more often by country.

Plot: Corey and company struggle to stay alive, particularly in the way of food, in the outdoor arena. They also struggle to stay together when certain revelations (say, Corey having a real-life girlfriend despite keeping up an online relationship with an anonymous young woman who may also be in the competition) come to light.

Point of View: First person (Corey).

Abandonment Issues

Sometimes ideas go places. Sometimes they go places I don't want them to. And sometimes they just don't go anywhere.

In any case, a lot of stories just aren't going to see the light of day. That's part of the reason I'm sharing so many of my novel ideas—I have little interest in some of them, and some I may just never get to, but I feel like they all deserve a little bit of limelight time just for being nice enough to tap on my shoulder and amuse me for a while.

That being said, not every idea needs to be written. I've yet to find a story that beckons me to write it every moment of every day, but I still need to feel some sort of pull to do any actual writing. Ideas that are just a world without much of a story (as in the first draft of Wanderers), or characters without much of a story (as in Suture), or some such thing just can't draw me much. Even if I like the basic idea, I can't see anything happening in my head if, well, nothing's happening in it. I'm guilty of doing very little plotting before I actually start a story, but I'm fine with winging it if I've at least identified a few points along the journey.

Even if an idea comes with enough of a plot for me to get started, that's still no guarantee the book will be finished. If, for any number of reasons, I lose interest along the way, there's no promise I'm getting it back. I may not find the characters interesting enough to play with, and I would have to go back and change too many things (i.e., do too much work) to get another chapter out. I may start the fic without realising the scope of the story and what I'm getting myself into. I may start a story for the sake of fans rather than my own interest only to crash and burn halfway through. I may just stop caring because of life and time constraints. I have indeed finished a few fan fictions, and I completed NaNoWriMo last year, so I'm not always doomed to give up on my stories. I am somewhat scared by the number of those left incomplete, but I know I'm capable of finishing the writing of a story.

Of course, once the last chapter comes to a close, the story still isn't really finished. I hacked out 50,109 words for my NaNo novel and reached the concluding sentence, so it is in one way complete, but I haven't looked back at the thing since I uploaded my final word count. I don't know if I ever will. I have a certain writer friend who says I should look it over and try to publish it, and another who has browsed it and found it doable, but I'm still not sure. To be honest, I don't even know how I was able to stick with my one awkward idea for an entire fifty thousand words, let alone how I can summon the verve to revise the monster. It is certainly in no condition to be published at present, and I feel it's probably less than half the length it should be for its genre. I don't feel the pull to put that much effort into it. I proved I could finish writing a novel, but I want to go elsewhere to prove I can finish revising a novel. I don't know whether I'll get The Long and Winding Road or Mayflies into publishing condition first, but I am certain that both of them will beat out Dreadful Valley (the NaNo novel).

So, out of some 33 novel ideas to date, only five (The Long and Winding Road, Mayflies, Chasers, Piracy Cruise Lines, and Figments) have made it to the writing phase. Only The Long and Winding Road, Mayflies, and Piracy Cruise Lines are being written currently. Will they all be finished? Will they all be revised and sent off to be published one way or another? I can't say for sure until I've reached that point, but at least The Long and Winding Road and Mayflies are looking pretty good right now. I'll just keep working at it and hoping the muse will hang around where she ought to until I'm done.

Dream Journal #14

I woke up early, tried to repeat this to myself, and went back to sleep. The details suffered, but oh well.

3 Aug—4 Aug

I was in a large arena, probably a basketball one, although not one I knew. The halls were all empty, blank, and dark-walled, and few of the lights on since the arena was closed. I had snuck in to steal a petri dish from one room in the arena that looked my Genetics lab room. I got into the lab, but in the Histology room just behind it was Dr. Phelps*, working on some sort of experiment. He was very excited about what he was doing and didn't see me, but I still lay down behind one of the lab tables for a while. I could somehow see his reflection in the wood, although the Histology lab was on the other side of the room. Finally he looked away long enough, so I swiped the petri dish from the counter and hurried back out. I had to go upstairs to get out, but luckily there was roof construction, so I could get in a lift.

In another, similar room, I met up with another teacher. He was bald, wore a white lab coat, and was someone I apparently knew from school. He was preparing for some sort of party/exhibition, so he pointed me to a few piles of pinky-size action figures and asked me to link them together. All of the figures had magnetic hands, so I started putting them in a line for each group. The first group was all superheroes. I got overly excited when I saw he had some Ben 10 figures.

At some point, I had to use the bathroom, so I snuck out of the room. A three-stalled bathroom was right outside, with two more closed doors leading outside. All of the walls were a plain white, and everything was clean. I settled down in one of the stalls, but, when I came out, Molly** and two others were standing in the open area of the bathroom chatting. For some reason I had stepped out without covering myself, so the girls immediately took out their phones and started taking pictures of my rear end. I chased them out, though not without finding out this was actually the bathroom that connected to their shared dorm room.

I went back to the second teacher's room, where I realised I had accidentally started putting the action figures down the sink. I started pulling them out carefully and, knowing that if I pull out the wrong one the rest would all fall in, I started picking out the unique figures (there were a lot of copies of the more popular superheroes). Then I realised I could just use their hands to link them, so I tried that and pulled out a long chain of them.

Later, I had finally escaped the arena, but someone had found out that I had killed one of the three girls with a weapon that looked like a giant, blue, disposable flosser. For this I was on the run.

* My Cell Biology teacher. He's not typically deadpan, but he was still a bit too cheerful in this dream.
**The residence assistant, she was one year older and lived in my dorm to keep an eye on us.

The Action Girls

Somehow I got it into my head that I should rank my fighter girls in order of badbuttery. So here we are.

(Spot number one should probably belong to Rin, but her story hasn't been posted yet, so we'll skip over her for now. Ena should also be on here, but she has so little characterisation at this point it's hard to rank her.)

1. Michelle (The Long and Winding Road): She's not a part of the main story, and, at this point, I'm not entirely sure if she'll actually come up in discussions, but I would really like her to. My head-image of her is some sort of cross between Joan Jett and Pat Benatar. While she would qualify as "Most Likely to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse," she somehow seems to have, um, died in it a lot sooner than 5 or 6 on this list. Anyway, she was Emile's fiancee and kicked some serious rear in her time. She has the survival skills and combat skills necessary to get up this high on the list, and the calm and faithful way she handled her upcoming death (although she kind of got burnt alive by paranoid villagers before she could be zombie-fied as she expected) gets her the top spot.
2. Kaliause: Scatterbrained is certainly her normal mode, but thankfully her muscle memory doesn't seem to have been hit by her brain injury. Surviving on her own on a wartorn planet certainly isn't easy, nor is trying to keep Tommy alive when he stumbles across her path, but she handles it with the kind of ease that cements her spot in second place.
3. Loretta May: She may be a city girl, so she's not so experienced with wilderness survival, but she still hasn't had it easy. Surviving an abusive father and a bunch of other experiences with misogynists (although she does tend to think of all men as women-haters), she can handle herself just fine, whether she's executing a flawless robbery or striking and knifing her way out of a dark alleyway.
4. Cerise: A dark mistress of magic, she has to "mask" herself just to prevent her aura from attracting everyone's attention. She may not have skill with weapons, but when she can detonate an area in a snap, why bother tossing knives?
5. Rachel: Up against zombies and vampires alike and still having a blast with it, she plows herself across America with nothing but an RV and a good attitude. And a gun (which is why she's a bit lower than some of the close-combat users) and some friends, of course.
6. Charlotte: While her older brother and a few kindhearted villagers may be how she got through the worst part of the apocalypse, by the beginning of her story, she can hold her own against zombies and humans alike. A bit handicapped in total wilderness survival but an expert in scrounging through the remains of civilized areas, she's been through a lot but has come out rather bright and cheery. She's also very goal-driven, and not too terrible a shot.
7. Andromache: Although she could easily be called a pampered princess, that hasn't stopped her from getting a feel for the soldier's life. She may not be that tough physically, but she's got a good handle on magic and more than enough heart and loyalty to make up for it. She will be knocked down, but she will get back up.
8. Darla: Fearless in battle (perhaps not so much with real life), she can take a hit and deal one, too. She's not so hot once she's swordless, but she'll find a way to get her (or her opponent's) weapon back, and she's not afraid to take a few wounds in the meantime.
9. Pink: With a determination that can rip up mountains and cast them into the sea, she will not stop or take a detour. She's an average fighter and hasn't much experience with weapons, but she can run like nobody's business and, in her story, that's the only physical strength she really needs.
10. Scarlet: Fierce and proud, she'll whatever she has to to help her loved ones, even if that means bristling under the enemy's control until she can find a way out. She's not very tough physically, but she can figure out how to put a Cyber suit to good use, and she's not afraid to do so, either.
11. Michelle (Crime or Punishment): She may be quiet and a drug addict, but she's still a trained policewoman in an urban area, and she will kick rear by hand, gun, or nightstick. Only her fluctuating mental status keeps her down on the list.
12. Danielle: She's been trained as an assassin from a young age and can handle her job. Unfortunately, her story gets around to breaking her down more than 11.
13. Vanessa: She may be young and untrained, but she has a killer instinct and a pretty good trigger finger. Beware all who challenge her.
14. Athena: Being cast out from civilization, she's tough and knows how to survive. She's combative to a fault, but she'll still expend some of her strength to lend a hand.
15. Kori: A bit paranoid and bewildered, but she can use her brain, and she has excellent endurance. The whole bit about launching her corrosive blood at others or at inhuman barriers doesn't hurt her status.
16. M: She really has no idea what's going on, and she's not in terribly good condition physically. She does, however, have an astounding magical ability that only continues to grow stronger, along with her will, in the course of her story.
17. Josephine: She's rather frail and too lost to be very determined, but she's a swift runner and can be surprisingly strong when it comes to helping her allies. 
18. Helen: More stubborn than determined, she still has guts and isn't afraid to chuck a stiletto heel hard at somebody.
19. Sophia: Although she's a bit timid at the beginning of her story, she still develops and is fiercely devoted to her friends and getting them out of the cage alongside her.

A Very Good Place To Start

Story beginnings are an art form all their own. They have to ensnare the reader, set the tone, make promises about the whole story, and start building connections between the reader and the characters. Tall order, right?

Well, since one of the worst things in the world is a blank document with a line blinking mockingly at me, I have to get something out to start, whether it's the best line/spot to open or not. The perfect opening can wait until revision.

That's not to say I don't try to make the opening interesting and relevant in the first draft. In my serially-published fan fictions, I don't even have the chance to write the entire story and then edit it before posting. I just start.

Here are a few of my beginnings to compare:

"Holding her breath, Charlotte carefully aimed her rifle. The surest shot was right through the sorry creature's brain. That way, it couldn't even survive long enough to notice and attack her. So, she stayed quiet, watched the motion of its head, and...

With a sharp bang, her gun spat out its bullet, and the bit of metal buried itself in the creature's grey-green forehead. The monster fell to the ground dead long before the buzz faded from Charlotte's ears." 

— The Long and Winding Road (original version)

"I just manage to get the door closed behind me before I can be impaled by a rapier."

—Piracy Cruise Lines

"She awoke with asphalt grating her back. No warm light touched her face, and a look straight ahead to the sky confirmed the sun wasn’t out. Nor were any clouds, nor were stars. Only a vast black canvas hung above her.

Something seemed off about that."

—Chasers

"'Can you see anyone over there?' my brother starts, voice even more hushed than usual.

Taking a step onto the white path, I cringe as gravel scratches the blisters on my feet. As if standing on a sign of civilization wasn’t bad enough in itself. I do get a better view of the field from here, though. Maize in neat rows, dipping in the breeze, beckoning poor, starving souls towards them."

—Mayflies

As far as Dead Man's Hand goes, I felt like starting with the quote "Adrian had come to the conclusion that Nietzsche must have been a complete sociopath." But that would open the story with nothing but a while of reflection, and I know that I'm prone to putting the book down after a few paragraphs of that. Instead, I think I may start with Adrian procuring one of his cards for the round.

What kind of openings do you like? How long will you go on reading before you decide whether the book is worth continuing or not?

Promptness

I've browsed a few other writing blogs, and there seems to be a trend in writing from prompts. I think I may start doing this, and I'll make it a series if you readers are interested. I'm going to draw my prompts from the Forward Motion Writers generator, or maybe a few from the example sentences in my Mac dictionary when I find them (they're quite curious sometimes) and then write an unedited drabble that may or may not have anything to do with the actual story of a character.

So, my first shot, the prompt being "Crowds are funny things. They can be chaotic, unpredictable, unma[n]ageable. And they can be dangerous, [especially] when rumors and complaints are running like water through them.

Today, your character finds themselves smack in the middle of just such a crowd, the threat of a riot all but certain. What they do about it is up to you."

and my randomly-chosen character being Michelle:

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Michelle had some basic riot training, of course. With the streets eternally clogged with crowds, and few of the citizens made any happier by this fact, general discontentment could spark into destructive anger within a few words. It was something that happened and something that forced her to sort damage reports. A common nuisance, nothing more.

At least, that was how it looked when she was behind police office doors or sturdy, clear shields. When she found herself standing unprotected in the middle of the crowd, the idea of a riot was a bit more worrisome. The lack of zap in her system—and, judging by the trembling arms across the throng, in the others'—did not help the situation, either.

A man with a shaved head a bit darker than her skin pounded at the front door, which looked more like an overgrown wooden shutter than a proper barrier. It would probably buckle quickly once those in the front decided to bust it down. But no—there was a secure metal door just behind it. Wasn't there, the last time she was inside? That was right, yeah...

Dangerously close to losing her balance, Michelle tried to keep up as her part of the group approached the knocking man in the front. What were they going to do when they found the door wouldn't come down? How was she going to get out of here before things escalated? How was she going to get out of here at all if she didn't get her fix?

The crowd had just come to a stop when she heard the shouting. Rising above the grumbles and cries of the rest, a man's voice called for them to unite. To strike. They all deserved another helping of zap no matter what the organization was trying to do, and together they could secure it. Even if the addicts had to claw every brick from the walls, they would get inside. 

It took little more convincing before the horde was crushing itself to get closer to the building. Everyone was eager to do his part in the distribution of just rewards, even if to do so he had to send his fellows sprawling and ready to be trampled. 

The sweating bodies pressing in on her, the feeling of air going thin in her lungs, and the roar of excitement finally sent Michelle forcing her way past those in front of her. As if these grungy, reeking zapheads deserved to get their fix more than her! They were leaving others to die so they could get a little closer, while she was a perfectly good policewoman who saved people. She would put the energy to much better use than any of them.

She never faltered in that thinking as she fought past anyone in her way.

If only her coworkers could see her now.

New Fan Fiction Idea #17

Came up with this one after reading that, on average, women can tolerate more alcohol than men.

Working Title: "The Drinking Contest"

Fandom: Hetalia: Axis Powers

Length: Oneshot

Genre Tags: Humour/General

Protagonist: Germany.

Other Main Characters: None in particular. Maybe Denmark, Belgium, and/or Prussia.

Antagonist: Nyotalia Germany.

Plot: Germany and his female counterpart have a drinking contest. (Surprise, surprise.)

Setting: Present-day, probably at some public place that serves alcohol.

Point of View: Third person, omniscient.