I'm back with the plot again. The framework is satisfying enough, and as old as the hills:
Boy is born of odd, dubious or unusual birth/parentage. His mother dies. His father becomes cruel.
He is unloved, ugly, powerless. But the boy makes friends amongst the lowly and downtrodden. He meets a fairy and falls in love. Things eventually things come to a crisis and the boy flees his childhood home and goes to a faraway place.
He grows up, acquires wealth, becomes a great warrior and meets a Princess. He defeats a rival to win her. But he is still not complete. He has not forgotten the fairy, nor has not faced the thing he fears most (his father). He must return home.
His father now casts a great shadow over the land. Our hero is not recognised at first, and is able to move unhindered. But finally he has to reveal himself and slay the Monster his father has become. Now he rules the kingdom and can choose to become a monster himself or not. He must also choose between the fantasy fairy and the real Princess.
That's the bones. I like it, but I can see that many might consider it a farrago of half digested old lumps of meat. So I am going to chew over the ingredients some more before spitting them back into the stew.
About Me
- Nick Poole
- Now over fifty (ulp!), Nick Poole has spent most of his adult life avoiding writing and drinking booze instead. The writing has finally caught up with him. He is a veteran of many Jobcentres, on both sides of the desk. He has signed on at Chatham, Purley, Croydon, Maidstone and probably another couple he has forgotten. He has (poacher turned gamekeeper) worked as an Advisor in Catford, New Addington, Greenwich and Forest Hill jobcentres. He has also devised and run courses for the long term unemployed. Despite these unproductive years, he still has delusions of genius and a grossly exaggerated idea of his own literary importance.
2 comments:
Nick,
Your listing of events sounds arbitrary and for me doesn't call anything to mind. The attributes of the characters, their desires and their demons, are the things that need to determine the course of the story.
How about framing your story in terms of Boy Trying to Learn How to Grow into a Man, and the series of problems he has to overcome along the way: 1) Conflict with his family, particularly a cruel father. Boy has to have certain characteristics that (after a battle) enable him to move on . . . And so on, with each of the episodes facing the Boy with a new set of challenges that threaten to overwhelm him? Something like that, seems to me, would be a schematic you could work from.
And why not post this stuff on the Shed?
Yeah, it IS about a boy learning to be a man.
I use this blog to talk about my favourite subjects (me and my writing). Not sure if the Shed wants to talk about my work the whole time.
Don't know why they wouldn't though.
The conflict with the father is good. Picking up friends (and girls) is good (and skills). At least one SPECIAL girl. Then I thought home to face the ultimate challenge as a man that he didn't face as a boy. Is that what you had in mind?
Nice to have you pop in, Bill.
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