nano prep week 1: develop a story idea

[lostinthelightss]

4     W A Y S     T O     D E V E L O P     A N     I D E A

choose one (or multiple!) of the following methods to develop an idea!

1. borrow a plot

Spoiler

first, write 3 summaries of books/movies/stories you love. include important characters, major plot turns, and setting.

then, choose one of the summaries and start changing around different parts - characters, setting, plot turns, adjectives, verbs, anything else you like! see where those changes take you and keep writing when you get inspired.

change around the elements of one or all of your summaries.

and there you have it! feel free to share your summary(-ies) in this thread!

 

2. borrow a character

Spoiler

invent a history or future for someone. maybe it’s a friend you lost touch with after college, a teacher you had, a family member you’ve heard stories about, or just someone you’ve seen in photos or on the bus.

who is the person that intrigues you? what was their childhood like? what did they dream of? what was their greatest desire? what obstacles did they face? what was their greatest triumph?

finally (since most novels aren’t someone’s entire life story), you have to find the story. what part of that imagined life has the most drama, the most ups and downs? a moment of adventure or possibility or danger, when things changed? remember, you’re INVENTING this person, so feel free to go wild. 

feel free to share your character in this thread once you're done!

 

3. news you can use

Spoiler

pick an event from the news. imagine it from the perspective of different people involved with it. so a story about a river flooding might include the park ranger called in to help, the farmer who lives down the road. feel free to use the basics of the news story for inspiration, but make up your own details - change the place, the time, the specifics of the people involved (age, gender identity, personality). 

what news stories have stuck with you?

what kind of people might be involved? What are their lives like? how did they end up in that situation? what will they have to do to get out of it? what might have happened years before or what might happen years after?

have a new fictional news story that will grab headlines! feel free to share it here with your fellow nano preppers!

 

4. a whole new world

Spoiler

scroll through interesting images on pinterest until you find one (or more!) that sparks something for you, then pause and write your questions, wonderings, and ideas.

what kind of place is this? how did it get this way? who might live or travel through it? how do they feel? what is it like for them there? what challenges do they face?

once you've answered all those questions, feel free to let us all know the wild new world you've just created!

 

so? what did you come up with?

Edited September 2, 2022 by lostinthelightss

[lostinthelightss]

alrighty!! gonna be a little cheater rn but i already have an idea for nano, but hopefully this exercise will help me flesh it out a bit more! i think i'm going to do the borrow a plot exercise with to all the boys i've loved before by jenny han (putting focus on the first book but tbh let's see how that goes), the chase by elle kennedy, and american royals by katherine mcgee. they've all got some elements that i want to bring into my project, which will hopefully come to light as i work through this!

i'll be back with summaries in a bit, but i'm excited to get started on this!!

[lostinthelightss]

okay so here is my first summary:

to all the boys i've loved before by jenny han

Spoiler

lara jean covey is a 16yo girl with an older sister (margot) and younger sister (kitty), who lives in virginia. after margot leaves for university in scotland, kitty mails out love letters that lara jean has written to all the boys she's loved in her life - one of which makes it's way to peter kavinsky, who lets lara jean know he's not interested, thereby exposing that her letters have been sent out (the horror!). when josh, margot's ex-bf (and lara jeans good friend) asks about the letter sent to him, she lies and says she's dating someone - and the first boy to come to mind is peter, who is walking down the school hall, and she immediately kisses him to prove her point. peter has just broken up with his gf genevieve (lara jean's ex-bff) so they decide to fake date and put together some rules for the relationship.

when josh kisses lara jean, she realizes she's over him and her relationship with peter has become somewhat real, and he reciprocates these feelings on a school ski trip. the two kiss in a hot tub, but when they come home a rumour is spread that they had sex in the hot tub; because peter doesn't deny it, lara jean begins avoiding him. (in the movie, peter lets genevieve take lara jean's favourite scrunchie after spending the night in her room.) kitty invites peter to the covey's holiday party, but josh steps in - exposing that he kissed her, which margot finds out about. margot and lara jean make up, and when kitty's part in the letters comes out, lara jean is initially upset but they also reconcile. kitty gives lara jean all the notes peter sent her during their 'fake' relationship and lara jean decides to write a real love letter to peter. they make up and start dating for real.

so what do i like about this story? i love the fake dating storyline, which is something that will be the focal point of my project for sure. the rules for the relationship are certainly going to play a part, but i don't think i'll be doing any sort of letter writing, simply due to the setting (which will not be in high school nor will it be in virginia, lol). i also don't think i'll be incorporating the josh storyline in it's entirety, but i might add in the whole 'kiss another person and realize your fake relationship is actually real'? not sure yet, we'll see...

i also really love the hot tub scene from the movie, so there will absolutely be a hot tub scene  (but the whole rumour thing / alleged insta sex tape from the movie, i'm not sure if that's something i want to include). i do kinda like the whole 'person meddling in your relationship' though, and i have an idea of how to make it new and fresh in the context of my project, so that will be fun!

i think out of the three summaries that i'm working with in this exercise, this one will probably be closest to mine once i get that ironed out, because to all the boys revolves around the fake dating trope and so will my project, but it will also be very different, due to the characters and the setting, and i'm excited to see what aspects of the other two stories might influence me / give me ideas!!

[lostinthelightss]

aaaaaaaaaand i'm back! second summary:

the chase by elle kennedy

Spoiler

summer di laurentis is halfway through her junior year when she gets kicked out of brown after (accidentally) setting her sorority house on fire - and when she transfers to briar university in boston, kappa beta nu refuses to let her live at the house (i mean... kinda fair tbh...). she decides to go out to deal with her worries (she's a trust fund baby with two trust fund baby lawyers as parents, so she's not overly concerned about housing), and since it's new year's eve, goes out to party with her older brother dean and his gf. dean's bff and the bff's gf, along with some of their old teammates on the briar u hockey team (dean and dean's bff recently graduated) join them - colin fitzgerald (fitz[y]), hunter, and (mike) hollis. 

fitz is a video-game nerd, and since summer is a fashion-focused trust fund elle woods type, he judges her somewhat, but they've met before and both are attracted to one another. when dean's bff garrett teases fitz about this attraction, he makes up excuses for why they could never happen - and when summer overhears him calling her 'fluff' and 'superficial', she's very hurt, and even though she'd been flirting with him all night, ends up kissing hunter at midnight. unbeknownst to them all though, dean will ask the boys if summer can live with them and they agree.

at some point, fitz finds out that summer heard him at the party, and he apologizes. the two become closer as friends because of this, but then summer gets into a bar fight and fitz rescues her - something he doesn't like because he doesn't like drama, and summer is 'drama llama'. so although they kiss outside the bar (if i remember correctly), he continues to keep his distance from her. at some point, fitz finds summer worrying about a school project and offers to help her out (she finds it easier to talk through her ideas with someone), and in return for his help, he asks if he can sketch her likeness for a video game he's building. as such, they get closer again. at some point, there's a small party at their house and when fitz walks into the room where everyone is playing spin the bottle, the bottle lands on him and he has to kiss summer. while they both think the kiss is super hot, neither will admit it to anyone else because of everything between them.

meanwhile, hunter has been interested in summer since their kiss on new year's, and asks summer out on a date and she agrees, but when fitz tells her not to go right before the date, she asks him to give her a reason - and he can't. so summer goes out on the date, but halfway through realizes that he doesn't make her feel like fitz does. she goes back home and finally kisses fitz (and then sleeps with him). they get together at this point. summer's class fashion show happens, and there's a whole b-plot with a creepy professor, but we don't have to go into that, and at some point fitz gets invited to a gala by the ceo of a video game company he's been interviewing for. the ceo dislikes summer but fitz sticks up for her, and they're super cute (although dean walks in on them during spicy times lol).

ok, so there's more in this summary because there's more in this book. i'm very inspired by the characters themselves, because summer and fitzy fit the vibe i'm going for, but i also really like some of the elements in this story. i do like the idea of a bad first impression at a party (and i think i have the perfect idea for what kind of party it could be), but i don't think i'll have the love triangle be there (or at least, as prevalent). i'm also not going to have them live together, since we're going fake dating trope instead. other things i think i'll incorporate / draw inspiration from is the two of them helping each other out with important projects in their lives, the spin the bottle kiss (although actual spin the bottle probably won't happen), and possibly some sort of jealousy (but like i said, probably gonna stay away from a full blown love triangle). also the shitty ceo who makes fun of summer but then turns out to be an alright guy and the creepy professor i might be able to merge into one storyline (same vibes but not the same plot, if that makes sense), but we'll see where that goes

i love the characters of summer and fitz though - summer is super bubbly and sweet and fitz is more reserved (due to some divorced parent trauma), and that works out well with the characters i'm going to be using (lol, three guesses who). knowing these character backgrounds will probably definitely help with how i explore my characters' backgrounds, so tbh this excercise is quickly becoming super amazing at helping me work through this!! (it's also really fun, so although i'm breaking these summaries up into separate posts so i don't get overwhelmed, i'm coming back to this thread a lot quicker than expected!!)

[ineffable_season]

Let's flip some fanfiction into original fiction, shall we? Take two. Seriously. I mean it this time.

So how am I approaching this? Is anyone surprised that I'm going to be chiefly relying on the "whole new world," approach? I'm not.  

But I'm also sort of going for a more generalized "borrow a plot," vibe on top of honing in on this world I aim to create. Nothing specific beyond "Hallmark Channel Holiday Film," vibes though. You know, "big time career girl escapes to a small town after an embarrassing thing happens to her and falls in love with the witchy town gardener." Or something like that. Doesn't take place around the holidays, but we're going for those very warm and fuzzy cozy vibes. 

But here's more on the world piece...and with a subpar picspam to boot!  My very basic answers are beneath the spoiler tag!  

Spoiler

What kind of place is this? A magical one! Folks live off the land and rely heavily on natural elements to hone in on their individual magic. It's located in a secluded town in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains. (It's going to be very weird to have non-British voices taking up residence in my brain for once). All residents of this town are magically inclined or they are magically sensitive (differences tbd), but the place is entirely secluded from those who are magically adverse or ignorant (again, differences tbd).  

The focus of this novel isn't so much the differences between magical and non-magical people, since both of my MCs will be magically inclined. But I do have plans for two supporting characters to have a novel of their own where this becomes a big focus. I'm still mulling all of that stuff over.

There will mostly be lots of small town drama, but toss in some magic for added fun & chaos.   

How did it get this way? I'm thinking the town was developed by witches fleeing persecution that often occurred between "old and new religions." I'm thinking of The Winternight Trilogy type stuff, but with more than just one of them, and a cluster of folk to act as a support system. Still, I imagine it tore some families apart and was not entirely harmoniously. Anyway they built themselves a small, functioning village in the middle of a major mountain range.

Who might live or travel through it? Mostly magically inclined or they are magically sensitive folk. But occasionally a magically adverse or ignorant individual happens upon the town. Something conflict-y likely happens when that happens. What that something is, is yet again another tbd. 

How do they feel? Mostly warm and welcoming, but there are some key characters that pop up in nearly every small town (i.e. old curmudgeons who struggle to embrace change, kind and hot widow(er)/single parent?, idk maybe more but those two chiefly come to mind). 

What is it like for them there? Nice mostly. Some magical peeps come here to "get away," so it's a known "touristy town," among them. My one MC, Rose, will be one of the tourists as she tries to get away from the difficulties of her current life. 

What challenges do they face? Being isolated tends to not appeal to younger folk. And so the younger generations are trying to make this place appeal to others. My other MC, Emmeline, who is native to this place, tries to work through this as part of the magical system is that your magic fades with time/age/overuse. 

[lostinthelightss]

last but not least, american royals by katherine mcgee!

Spoiler

america has a king, and that king is george iv. he has three children: beatrice, his heir, and sam and jeff (twins). beatrice has been tasked with picking a husband, since her parents are worried about her being the first queen of her own right, and to do so, they're throwing a ball. sam and jeff are both back from their respective gap years, having been captured by the paparazzi during their various exploits, but with the ball coming up, they're put off a bit to the side. jeff's bff is ethan and sam's is nina (who once kissed jeff, who had a gf at the time, daphne, who in turn hooked up with ethan).

at the ball, sam hooks up with one of the nobles, teddy, in the closet, but beatrice asks teddy out on a date - with the whole family in attendance aka sam is also there. however, beatrice only cares about her bodyguard, connor, whom she kisses during the ball. later, connor and beatrice find themselves stuck in a cabin together, and they start a secret relationship. meanwhile, jeff and nina get together, and when daphne admits she still has feelings for jeff, he shuts her down. sam is sad because in the public eye, beatrice and teddy are dating, but she still likes him.

the king admits to beatrice he has terminal cancer and she proposes to teddy. nina and jeff get caught by the paps and she begins to get harassed online, withdrawing from both sam and jeff. sam visits nina at her dorm, and when sam complains about her own problems, nina blows up at her and the two friends have a falling out. sam is asked to help teddy pick out an engagement ring - awkward; and connor finds out about the engagement at a press conference. he proposes to her but she can't accept and he resigns as her guard. jeff and nina reconcile.

sam finds out about her father's cancer. he warns her that the public's vitriol that is directed at her is likely because they're scared to say something directly about himself or his heir, beatrice, something sam never considered. daphne sabotages nina's dress for the engagement party, indirectly sending her to sam for help and they make amends. daphne and ethan dance together at the party but her mom interrupts them because she has big dreams for her daughter.

connor finds beatrice and asks to come back, and she decides to be with him and end her engagement. she tells teddy and he asks to tell sam. they reconcile but are worried about what will happen after the broken engagement. daphne corners nina and admits she sabotaged her. she sows doubt in nina's mind about being with jeff since he's a royal. when nina tells jeff about it, he stands by daphne and the two break up. daphne and ethan then go home together. 

beatrice tells her father she wants to break off her engagement but he's not for it. while arguing, he collapses. nina goes to the hospital to be there for her friends but finds daphne and jeff holding hands so she leaves before anyone realizes she's there. sam is upset when beatrice and teddy go for a walkabout to assuage the public's concerns since the engagement hasn't been ended publicly yet. their father dies and beatrice is made queen.

now that i have the summary written out, i can see that this one will likely be the least similar to my nano project overall. i'm mostly going to be inspired by it for the subplots for some of the secondary characters, and also just the general theme i found of paparazzi and the public's perception of people. so obvi going with the fake dating trope, but i don't think i've mentioned that both parties are high profile, so i think the paps are def going to have their part in this story.

i'm also a sucker for the bodyguard trope, but unfortunately i can't exactly see a way to incorporate that just yet... i also really love these quasi-love triangles, but with the characters i'm using, idk if i'll be able to do that either *sigh*... honestly i was hoping that this summary would be as helpful as the other two but i'm not sure that it was in terms of inspiration. perhaps it's good though so i can see what i don't want to include?

[singmetothesun]

3. news you can use 

I wrote a missing scene from DC Titans 3x01. We see a different character react to the news report of a character death so I wrote a different character's perspective in a different city.

248 words to keep within the rules. 

Quote

Titans Tower, San Francisco. 10pm. 

ROBIN FOUND DEAD: GOTHAM IN MOURNING AS ROBIN FOUND MURDERED IN AMUSEMENT PARK. THE MAIN SUSPECT THE JOKER IS IN CUSTODY. 

Gar couldn’t take his eyes off his phone screen, frozen to the spot as it washed over him the real reason Dick had disappeared after the Gizmo fight without a word. Kory had casually said it was to do with Batman and that he’d be back in a few days. Never could Gar have imagined that this was what they were hiding from him. 

Jason was dead. 

Jason. 

Robin. 

Murdered by the Joker. 

Kory had lied. 

Feeling the green surge up within him, he stormed out of his bedroom, his animal instincts identifying her to be in the common room. Gar all but threw his phone at her as he tried to avoid losing control through his seething anger and pain. One glance at the screen and he could see her expression crumple, the mask dropped.

“Did you know Jason was dead and didn’t tell me?” he yelled at her, his voice breaking and tears flowing. “Did I not deserve to find out? Jason was my friend, why would you keep this from me?” 

Kory placed his phone on the couch before opening her warm arms to him, offering the safety and comfort of the adoptive mother she was. Gar ran into them, sobbing loudly as Kory did her best to calm him down. 

They kept losing people and it wasn’t fair. 

[Oregonian]

I looked at the five suggestions for developing a story idea, to see which one most closely matched the process I went through originally in conceiving the story that I dubbed The Crofter and The Snake many years ago. That was just a working title, plopped onto the manuscript at the start so that i would have something to refer to it as, but my son said he liked the title, so I kept it.  The story was born when I was taking a class offered by MNFF about writing Missing Moments, so I had to find a Missing Moment, and I picked the one on page 210 of Deathly Hallows where Remus Lupin reads in The Daily Prophet that homeschooled students are now being required to come to Hogwarts.

So i suppose my method is a combo of 'Borrow a Plot' (Hogwarts during the 1997-1998 school year, of which there were a fair number of stories on MNFF) and 'News You Can Use,' because it arises from the prompt statement in The Daily Prophet.  It is canon that those students existed, but beyond that fact nothing at all is known about them, so I have been slowly creating a clearer picture of one of them over the years. 

[ineffable_season]

Well I already posted about the magical wlw story set in the middle of some woods, but I also began developing an idea for the Regency Rep challenge that I think is taking precedence for the moment.

It's funny because for the work above (tentatively titled in my brain Love Among Thorns), I focused on the world first, the characters second, and the plot...somewhere in between all of that, I guess. But I feel that is pretty natural giving it's a magical universe that needs to be developed in its own right to make sense/stand on its own.

Whereas my Regency story is just a straight up Regency romance. Which lead me down another path/a different approach to creating that story. 

It began as a mishmash of stolen plots/moments from a couple of different sources.

First I took a particularly poignant moment from Emma (particularly in the 2020 film adaptation, thank you Johnny Flynn & Mia Goth). See below for more jumbled thoughts.

Spoiler

It's the moment where Harriett is jilted out of a dance by her former, unrequited love interest, Mr Elton, and Mr Knightley steps in and offers to dance with her is what I aimed to steal. Harriett was going to be Molly (Prewett, naturally), and Mr Knightley was going to be Arthur (Weasley). Basically Molly was going to go to a ball with intentions of wooing a particular gentleman, only to overhear him say something particularly rude about her and then Arthur was going to step in, dance with her, and feelings were going to be realized. But the more I tried to write Molly and Arthur into a Regency setting, the more difficult/unnatural it felt for me.

And the more my brain moved to turn these two characters into original ones, the easier writing a story for them felt for me. So we squashed this idea being a total Molly/Arthur swap out with Harriet & Mr Knightley (who don't even end up together in Emma LOL, but that's besides the point), and maybe or maybe not Maria and Arthur will have their sweet little dancing moment. Jury is still out on that one.

Then I took the plotline of "feuding cousins who own their own mines and heavily oversee them, but are still part of the landed gentry," from the TV series (and novels of the same name) Poldark. See more below if you're curious.

Spoiler

The Poldark books/series are actually set the in the previous time period. HOWEVER. I did read a really interesting article about why Mr Darcy in P&P is so rich and one theory is that in addition to farming, his family has investments in mines and smelting as well. Which could actually be plausible since Derbyshire was considered ore-rich during the time. Anyway, this led me down another particularly interesting research path about mining in Regency Era, which I felt could later contribute to some conflict between my two families because there is a lot of complicated stuff about how one could actually profit from mining. 

I also have some side plotlines that follow the "news you can use," process. 

Spoiler

"Five Chinese sailors getting stranded in GB during the start of the Napoleonic Wars," is probably the most reliable one to share at this stage because it directly impacted one of my supporting characters by giving her a backstory.

So as you can see, this is going to be novel length. And while Maria and Arthur's romance will be heavily featured, there will be other stuff happening too. I hope I can pull it off. Because apparently I like to work on overly ambitious projects. 

Courtney

[quill2parchment]

News You Can Use is one that's influenced In this Darkness the most - and the one that probably continues to dominate a lot of its topics.  

Quote

 

There are definitely a lot of current events and events that were current while I was growing up that have helped shaped the political climate in this tale. Growing up Mexican-American, the everyday tales of politics were never easy to hear. Really heavy topics were something that were a reality to me at a very young age because they were just a part of everyday life. And while my own life was very privileged, in the large scheme of things, the fact that basic rights were not available to everyone was a reality I grew up knowing. 

 

In In this Darkness, most of the characters are lucky enough to have grown up in this kind of "golden, progressive" era of peace of the defeat of Lord Voldemort, and so they kind of see the world around them changing, but they have a level of innocence to them that doesn't allow them to understand just how much is at stake and how dark the world can really be if people don't stick up to evil. 

 

Then there's the love story aspect of it and I guess that one I would be consider more "borrow a plot." There wasn't a specific plot I borrowed but it definitely leans on trope-y sometimes (maybe a lot of the times?) which I'm totally fine with, tbh hehe