developments
I wrote four pages of story planning for the "Crimson" followup thing. I never write story planning. Huh.
Right now I've got background, setting and characters to die for, but hardly any plot whatsoever. I hate it when that happens. I used to do that with fanfic crossovers: spend hours coming up with logical, plausible ways to cross two or more fandoms, then realize that beyond the initial meetings, the story was as empty as a tin can. Dammit.
So, the redhead's name was Rachel. She's dead. This is not in question. No miraculous reappearances of the Rambina girlfriend. She's in a morgue somewhere downtown, stiff as a board, no coming back. So. How did she die? I have no effing clue.
Main guy's name may be Jesse. Has a best friend named Thaddaeus, an underground-Catholic mother whom he loves dearly, and an associate named Daniel who I am building like a combination of Saiyuki's Ni, Serenity's Mr. Universe, Stargate's Daniel Jackson and an RPG character of fiyero06's named Danny, who had this childlike-gay-vampire-journalist thing going on. Ultimately the new "Crimson" Daniel is a little manic, a little self-centered, more than a little creepy, a total perv (but in a more flirty, non-threatening way than Ni) and an utter nerd with deep government & academic connections. He looks vaguely like Ni. Has an abiding love of lab coats, anyway.
No fantasy elements, although I fiddled with the idea. Set in America, a sort of depressing this-is-where-the-road-of-apathy-and-class-separation-will-lead-you future with a national church that is all but militaristic and a gulf so wide between the rich and the penniless that having no money is no longer a consignment to death or homelessness -- barter and black market notes take care of the bottom 99% of the nation. It's become scientifically clear that the human race is evolving to compensate for overpopulation by producing more and more people who are infertile or homosexual, and history has amazingly not repeated itself in the form of attemtped genocide, but has rather rolled over on its apathetic side and hit the snooze button of eternity. Basically no one cares anymore, and sexuality is commonly accepted as ambiguous. Touching has become more taboo than ever in high society and much more normal and accepted in the lower classes (in a sort of half-hearted "fuck you" to the bigwigs, mainly -- it's funny how people can change for the better for all the wrong reasons, but the approach to touching and sexuality in this future is a lot healthier than it is in America now). The rich just don't give a damn about everyone else anymore. The scary church-military is the only organization that keeps tabs on things, that people are really afraid of.
So there's my setting. The only plot ideas I've come up with so far are A) scary military church conspiracy theories, B) depressing character deaths, and C) Jesse finding out inadvertently that Rachel wasn't killed at random, then trying to find out who was behind it.
So, any opinions? Too cliche to live? Cliche but still readable if written well? Any alternate plot bunnies coming to mind? Different characters or places to represent parts of the society you're interested in? I'm still in simmer-on-low-for-a-few-days mode, and I need more stuff to add in to get the texture right. So please tell me your ideas. Pretty, pretty please. With chocolate and kittens and shiny objects?
I've been thinking about doing NaNoWriMo for a while now, but I wanted to come up with something original before November or else I would've wasted precious writing days doodling and scratching my head. And here I am, with something original, primed to write, less than a week before November 1.
Clearly, NaNoWriMo and I were meant to be. This year, anyway.
-rave