Sometimes good ideas come from terrible places maybe?
I'm currently reading a YA novel called Delirium. It's another dystopian romance, and the schtick behind this one is that love is considered a disease, and everyone has to have a brain surgery as of age 18 to "cure" them of it. It's like the film Gattaca in that the society spends a hell of a lot of time and resources gender segregating teenagers and trying to find "uncured" people, sympathizers, and anyone showing excessive emotion or the smallest bit of affection. "Science" says love kills people, therefore we must micromanage everyone's lives? I'd rather see how a society gets to that point, really.
The writing is over-wrought with flowery metaphors, which succeeds at creating nice imagery often but spends far too much time on it, and there's a lot of spelling the obvious out for the reader. The love-at-first-sight romance is as silly as ever, but I've been especially thinking about the protagonist.
I don't profess to reading a huge amount of YA literature, but there seems to be quite the trend in leading female characters who are super average and plain, and kind of anti-feminine. I'd characterize myself as having been both of those things growing up, so I can relate, but it seems to be becoming this weird cliche. There's also this trend where females who aren't feminine are portrayed as being...almost better than those who are. These plain, tomboyish, quiet/shy girls still wind up getting guys, of course, despite being pretty passive in the courting scene. It's a very strange direction to take female protagonists.
I was thinking about this a bit tonight, and then I just thought "this is so easy I can do it in my sleep." So I wrote up a book summary and tried to make it as generic as possible, about a super average and boring girl who suddenly gets noticed by a guy. I then went to the kitchen for a brownie, and while there came up with a ~crazy plot twist~ that sounds pretty gimmicky, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I could spin it to make what might resemble real characters with actual depth. Woah.
This is actually my first idea for a serious novel in years, and I don't think it's half bad. Maybe it's actually doable. Now it's just a matter of staying motivated and actually writing the thing.
Oh, and I passed math! So now I get to take my first ever computer science course, but it's online which means I have very little motivation to do it. I may go into my school's Applied Human Sciences program, since I really liked the class I had in the subject last year and did quite well. We'll see.
Boyfriend and I had our anniversary over winter break, and for Christmas he hand-sewed me a dress! it's a gorgeous 50's pattern in this lovely silky purple fabric. He and I hosted a fancy wine and cheese (and boardgames) New Years' party, so I got to wear it for that. 'Twas a good time indeed.
Does anyone have any New Years' resolutions? I don't usually do them, but I think I'll try to write more in 2014. Maybe I'll try to start another writing journal. :>
Stay classy, LJ.
The writing is over-wrought with flowery metaphors, which succeeds at creating nice imagery often but spends far too much time on it, and there's a lot of spelling the obvious out for the reader. The love-at-first-sight romance is as silly as ever, but I've been especially thinking about the protagonist.
I don't profess to reading a huge amount of YA literature, but there seems to be quite the trend in leading female characters who are super average and plain, and kind of anti-feminine. I'd characterize myself as having been both of those things growing up, so I can relate, but it seems to be becoming this weird cliche. There's also this trend where females who aren't feminine are portrayed as being...almost better than those who are. These plain, tomboyish, quiet/shy girls still wind up getting guys, of course, despite being pretty passive in the courting scene. It's a very strange direction to take female protagonists.
I was thinking about this a bit tonight, and then I just thought "this is so easy I can do it in my sleep." So I wrote up a book summary and tried to make it as generic as possible, about a super average and boring girl who suddenly gets noticed by a guy. I then went to the kitchen for a brownie, and while there came up with a ~crazy plot twist~ that sounds pretty gimmicky, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I could spin it to make what might resemble real characters with actual depth. Woah.
This is actually my first idea for a serious novel in years, and I don't think it's half bad. Maybe it's actually doable. Now it's just a matter of staying motivated and actually writing the thing.
Oh, and I passed math! So now I get to take my first ever computer science course, but it's online which means I have very little motivation to do it. I may go into my school's Applied Human Sciences program, since I really liked the class I had in the subject last year and did quite well. We'll see.
Boyfriend and I had our anniversary over winter break, and for Christmas he hand-sewed me a dress! it's a gorgeous 50's pattern in this lovely silky purple fabric. He and I hosted a fancy wine and cheese (and boardgames) New Years' party, so I got to wear it for that. 'Twas a good time indeed.
Does anyone have any New Years' resolutions? I don't usually do them, but I think I'll try to write more in 2014. Maybe I'll try to start another writing journal. :>
Stay classy, LJ.