Urges Braindump #2
I’d like to say I’ve been thinking about my novel, Urges, but I haven’t really. For the most part I’ve just been moaning about being in pain (again) or studying for my driving theory test on Saturday.
The brief few thoughts I have had all derive from the same thing, that thing being the “meat” of the story. Oh, that ever elusive meat, the second act which makes a story a story, rather than a cool idea and a weak punchline.
Yesterday I posted about some of the ideas I had so I’m going to take this opportunity to develop them now, assuming I can remember what any of them were. This whole 750words.com thing does not lend itself well to referring to notes, but then again that is kind of the point, it’s meant to be an outpouring of words, a brain dump of text.
But I digress… back to thoughts on my novel.
So, we have the love triangle with Caitlyn, her boyfriend and I’m thinking either one of the other secondary characters I’m planning in making up the group of protectors (a group for which I’ve yet to come up with a name for, and to which I’m unsure whether I really want to go down the route of naming like some kind of cheesy superhero gang) or perhaps her best friend Zara. I don’t know whether I want to introduce a bisexual angle to Caitlyn, though perhaps there is some fun stuff I can do with the development of the relationships in a one-way kind of motive, where Caitlyn and boyfriend (who I do have a name for, but I forget – Robert or Scott or something) have a bi-drectional relationship and she has a one-way relationship with Zara – Zara providing the much needed domination she crave, but Caitlyn not wanting any other kind of relationship, sexual, emotional or otherwise beyond her existing friendship. Such conflict could provide rich fodder for introducing the Urges themselves, what with repressed feelings, resentment, etc perhaps attracting them. The actual laws that govern how Urges work I haven’t really worked out yet, so that’s probably something to focus on.
The main thing I’m lost on though is what happens after Caitlyn gets pulled into this seething underworld of personified, predatory Urges. I already decided that perhaps she comes into it at a bad time, that something is happening and that perhaps she is connected to the cause of it somehow (the boyfriend is too obvious for this, though I am considering him as a decoy to be used by whatever is behind everything, thus tying him in more closely to the story). What this controlling force is though, I’m not sure. Perhaps one of the Aware – ah ha, perhaps a name for the group after all – has turned to the dark side, as it were, and they are using their powers for evil, to to act out a sick desire they’ve harboured for a long time without it overcoming them and twisting them into an Urge. In fact the whole reasoning for their resistance against this transformation could be related both to Caitlyn somehow – perhaps some latent, passive power she has – or could tie into something related to discussing the science of Urges in the narrative as a combination of exposition and questing for answers by the Aware.
So, the basics of this whole plot as I have it start off with a very convoluted mindmap on mindmeister and end here in a list:
- Caitlyn realises she has needs and desires that she isn’t getting fulfilled.
- Caitlyn tries to bring these up with boyfriend but is shunned.
- Embarrassed, Caitlyn eventually mentions things to Zara, who she knows is into all sorts of weird things.
- Zara inducts her into the local community.
- Caitlyn gets attacked by an Urge or otherwise exposed to the world of Urges
- Boyfriend finds out about these meetings, is disgusted by her interaction with these ‘freaks’ and her participation in their sick games.
- Caitlyn gets rescued from her now abusive boyfriend by an Urge. Maybe he get’s killed, maybe not.
- This triggers the Aware, which have been watching her since the attack, to take her in for questioning as something is going on with the Urges and now one has helped her, she is implicated.
- Caitlyn is put on probation but now she is Aware, she has to stay involved. Relationship between her and Zara starts up.
- Boyfriend is spying on her, following her, gets jealous about her interactions with Zara and fuelled by his own suppressed urges becomes an Urge and attacks her.
- Caitlyn uses power she didn’t know she had to defend herself.
- Urge activity rises, Aware know something is coming to a head.
- Zara is revealed to be behind it, her urge, the one driving her, is an obsession with Caitlyn she has had since childhood. Tie in back story about imaginary friends.
- Caitlyn stops Zara, his submission to her dominance doing something or other and save the day in some way or other, need to think about that some more.
Well, that’s a rough idea for an overall plot anyway.