A post! What a novel idea...
And yes, that was a terrible pun. I know. I'm sorry.
Today, I made the stunning realization that my story is not actually about overthrowing an evil government.
Instead, it suddenly became a love triangle...
As I mentioned, though, it didn't start that way. Originally I was going to have my protagonist, an orphan/genius computer hacker by the name of Nigel Quinn, overthrow his dictatorial government. Basic, right? Fun, yes? Yes. Absolutely. At the beginning of my stages of planning (aka mid-June), I decided that I was going to reach 100K this year, as a final no-holds-barred crazy adventure before my noveling time gets sucked up by college next year.
At the moment, however, I have very, very little written planning-wise. What I've been doing lately is writing vignettes based off an old 31-Days prompt table (May of 2011, for the curious). I love 31-Days. But anyway. I discovered something.
Nigel, my previously mentioned protagonist, is an orphan. He is an orphan and a genius and cynical and guilty and alone and afraid and a risktaker. And a hundred other things (that I'm sure you don't want to read, gah). His best friend is Gideon, a loudmouthed, enthusiastic, energetic, positive and extremely--painfully--cheerful people person. They're both thieves--in their world, where politicians rule everything and people are just pawns to be squashed in the battles, information--that is, secrets and scandals--is incredibly powerful. And valuable.
So these two band together and trade information for money, which they then use to buy food and pay rent and whatnot. Okay. Cool. So far, so ordinary. I'm sure you can guess--they're working against the government (yes), they're going to come across a big secret (yes) and that will lead to the evil government's downfall (yeah, maybe).
Yeah. That's how it was going to go.
Remember those vignettes?
Yeah. So this year my planning has been totally different (and I'll explain that in another post if anybody is actually interested...though I'd post anyway because I'm stubborn and rather self-centered like that). I usually fill out a million character profiles and write up a few plot points and maybe write a couple of stories.
Those darn vignettes. I started more or less mid-story, during a part I won't chronicle during the novel...and wrote...and wrote...and discovered--a love triangle.
Yep.
So. Nigel. He's independent and cynical, and pretty much afraid of people. He gets along with them, but he doesn't trust any of them. This doesn't actually serve him that well--he still ends up working for the evil dictator due to blackmail. Which is kind of a problem. He's in the middle of a mission--read: he is stealing a politician's life secrets in the form of an information chip--and is leaving the mansion when he meets (dun dun dun) a girl. Remy is fierce and rebellious and working for an underground resistance movement. She and Nigel basically try and kill each other when they first meet.
They make it out alive (naturally). But they keep meeting up. And they realize: We're on the same side. Because neither of them wants the government to exist in its current form. They're just hacking away at it differently--Nigel from the inside, Remy from the outside.
I'll spare you the details, but basically...they more or less start dating. They sneak out at night to see each other. They slip away for a weekend to go camping far away from the political drama of their city.
There are only two problems with this. The first? Gideon meets Remy before she starts dating Nigel, and he falls completely in love with her. He does everything extravagantly, and this is no exception. And this leads us to the second problem: Nigel doesn't really love Remy.
Yes, he's attracted to her. Very much so. Dangerously so, in fact. But he doesn't love her the way Gideon does, and he knows this. You might have noticed in my scary string of descriptive adjectives that Nigel is "guilty." This is why. Because he knows that Gideon should be dating Remy, not him, and yet he's too attracted to her to stay away.
It used to be that this was a minor conflict. But the thing is, it's really hard to write about overthrowing a giant government, mostly because first it is necessary to come up with the government's structure, flaws, etc. It's much easier to write about a love triangle set against the backdrop of an oppressive government.
So I am now officially writing tragedy/dystopian/romance. And I am massively excited about this. Sometime in the next day (week? hour? who knows), I'll probably post more about how my planning methods differed from last year, and how this largely influenced the whole love-triangle thing. I am massively excited about this. Luckily, I only have to wait five days to start writing it for real!
Today, I made the stunning realization that my story is not actually about overthrowing an evil government.
Instead, it suddenly became a love triangle...
As I mentioned, though, it didn't start that way. Originally I was going to have my protagonist, an orphan/genius computer hacker by the name of Nigel Quinn, overthrow his dictatorial government. Basic, right? Fun, yes? Yes. Absolutely. At the beginning of my stages of planning (aka mid-June), I decided that I was going to reach 100K this year, as a final no-holds-barred crazy adventure before my noveling time gets sucked up by college next year.
At the moment, however, I have very, very little written planning-wise. What I've been doing lately is writing vignettes based off an old 31-Days prompt table (May of 2011, for the curious). I love 31-Days. But anyway. I discovered something.
Nigel, my previously mentioned protagonist, is an orphan. He is an orphan and a genius and cynical and guilty and alone and afraid and a risktaker. And a hundred other things (that I'm sure you don't want to read, gah). His best friend is Gideon, a loudmouthed, enthusiastic, energetic, positive and extremely--painfully--cheerful people person. They're both thieves--in their world, where politicians rule everything and people are just pawns to be squashed in the battles, information--that is, secrets and scandals--is incredibly powerful. And valuable.
So these two band together and trade information for money, which they then use to buy food and pay rent and whatnot. Okay. Cool. So far, so ordinary. I'm sure you can guess--they're working against the government (yes), they're going to come across a big secret (yes) and that will lead to the evil government's downfall (yeah, maybe).
Yeah. That's how it was going to go.
Remember those vignettes?
Yeah. So this year my planning has been totally different (and I'll explain that in another post if anybody is actually interested...though I'd post anyway because I'm stubborn and rather self-centered like that). I usually fill out a million character profiles and write up a few plot points and maybe write a couple of stories.
Those darn vignettes. I started more or less mid-story, during a part I won't chronicle during the novel...and wrote...and wrote...and discovered--a love triangle.
Yep.
So. Nigel. He's independent and cynical, and pretty much afraid of people. He gets along with them, but he doesn't trust any of them. This doesn't actually serve him that well--he still ends up working for the evil dictator due to blackmail. Which is kind of a problem. He's in the middle of a mission--read: he is stealing a politician's life secrets in the form of an information chip--and is leaving the mansion when he meets (dun dun dun) a girl. Remy is fierce and rebellious and working for an underground resistance movement. She and Nigel basically try and kill each other when they first meet.
They make it out alive (naturally). But they keep meeting up. And they realize: We're on the same side. Because neither of them wants the government to exist in its current form. They're just hacking away at it differently--Nigel from the inside, Remy from the outside.
I'll spare you the details, but basically...they more or less start dating. They sneak out at night to see each other. They slip away for a weekend to go camping far away from the political drama of their city.
There are only two problems with this. The first? Gideon meets Remy before she starts dating Nigel, and he falls completely in love with her. He does everything extravagantly, and this is no exception. And this leads us to the second problem: Nigel doesn't really love Remy.
Yes, he's attracted to her. Very much so. Dangerously so, in fact. But he doesn't love her the way Gideon does, and he knows this. You might have noticed in my scary string of descriptive adjectives that Nigel is "guilty." This is why. Because he knows that Gideon should be dating Remy, not him, and yet he's too attracted to her to stay away.
It used to be that this was a minor conflict. But the thing is, it's really hard to write about overthrowing a giant government, mostly because first it is necessary to come up with the government's structure, flaws, etc. It's much easier to write about a love triangle set against the backdrop of an oppressive government.
So I am now officially writing tragedy/dystopian/romance. And I am massively excited about this. Sometime in the next day (week? hour? who knows), I'll probably post more about how my planning methods differed from last year, and how this largely influenced the whole love-triangle thing. I am massively excited about this. Luckily, I only have to wait five days to start writing it for real!