Advice for a novel idea

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Mid-1980's, Southern California...

Kyle Yeager is a boy in a funk. He's been an adoptee since birth, and has a complex relationship with his "phony" parents, Jennings (a successful writer) and Lisa. Their lives are a disaster zone. Kyle hates himself and his "owners"; Jennings is the victim of Lisa's guilt trips, and feels the burden for not being able to procreate on his own, retreating to the realm of his fiction when necessary and isolating himself from everybody; Lisa reproaches Kyle for not being her dream child, and wonders why she adopted him in the first place, all the while snorting massive amounts of cocaine and having multiple affairs; and so on.

But people change, and the summer of '85 will do just that to the three of them.

I won't be able to work on it, because I'm too busy with Redesigning Eva at the moment. We can talk about some of the deep feelings I have about the project, though.

And, NO, it won't be a trainwreck like the last adoption post I made.

Kyle is in his late-thirties, early forties, as he reminisces about that summer at the grave of his biological mother; he was fifteen then. I don't exactly know how the plot unfolds, but the gist of it is that they're trying to heal their wounds and reconnect. It has a bittersweet ending: Kyle gets over his funk, and he and Jennings confirm their love for each other. Jennings and Lisa are implied to have gotten a divorce, but it was for the best. Sometime before the frame story, Jennings dies (presumably of cancer) and Kyle manages to get the records opened, resulting in the aforementioned graveyard scene. Kyle, having found closure, leaves, and meets a woman named Melissa. It's suggested he starts a family himself.

Wow. I never shoulda left that webcam on...



Seriously, what is the goal of the story? Redemption? Resolution? Revenge?

Is there a boy-meets-girl story arc?

Is there sex or violence?

What are the macguffins?

Resolution and redemption.

Boy-meets-girl? Only at the end.

Sex implied, no violence.

No MacGuffins.

Giftorcurse, I admire your ability to come up with good plot ideas for novels. What helps you do that? I've always struggled with plotting.

My advice: Avoid making every character a victim; either of themselves or of someone else.

Last edited by Zokk on 04 Sep 2011, 6:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Two words: characters and themes. I come up with people whose lives are tied together by some statement or idea (in this case, "you don't get what you want" and "there are other ways to leave traces of yourself behind.") and let them act and react accordingly.

In response to Zokk's post: Yes, they grow pairs.

Its not about whether they do, it's about whether they do it before the reader throws the book away in frustration and boredom because the characters are behaving in ways that aren't helping to progress their character arc in any discernible way or at any discernible speed.

I haven't figured out the plot yet. I have a starting point and an ending but nothing in between.

I know how that goes.

What I do to get around that (usually over a period of days, weeks, or months) is to come up with a list of about six to ten major events or situations I know I want to include in the story, and then put them in a basic chronological order to test their compatibility with each other. Then I start filling in the much smaller gaps between those events with what seems like a natural progression from one event to the next.

I'm really desperate for advice about how to make this idea work. It's... just... powerful, IMHO.

What if it was a science fiction story involving time travel?

If that's the case, then maybe it's not meant to work out; at least not right now. When it comes down to it, all the help and advice in the world is not going to get the story written. You have to take the initiate and write it yourself, without outside help and influence.


That sounds like you're compensating for a lack of other, more grounded ideas.

I've changed the subject quite a bit since the last post. Now, Kyle prefers to be called "Wolf" and has Asperger's, which further adds to his isolation from the Yeagers. Jennings is now a homicide detective, Lisa a best-selling writer. I've also decided to make it a psycho-thriller too, if anyone's asking. The new setting is the town of Cox, which has been in a stranglehold of terror for years by an elusive serial killer known as Bradley the Black. Bradley is none other than the new shrink for the Yeager family, Cameron Barton. Wolf takes the hint early on that something's up with Barton, but like the old fable, no one believes him. Then the games start, if you know what I mean.

Little over the top, isn't it?

Start at the beginning. Then look at the end. Ask yourself, like the Talking Heads, "well, how did I get here?"...

I once read 8 rules for fiction (it's a list out there, somewhere...), and one is to be sadistic to your characters, so that people will know what they're made of. Put things in their way they have to overcome, and show how they do it.

I just let things percolate, most of my plotting is done in the shower, the morning drive, just before the snooze alarm goes off, etc., but just let the ideas mull around.

Good luck.