This year's NaNo stemmed from my outrage of the "swine flu" vaccine, the forcing of this vaccine on people, the allowance of authority figures/the media to use scare tactics in favour of vaccinations, and also from the deliberate ignorance of the general population. My novel is called Inoculation and is a dark, semi-political satire about a vaccination craze gone wrong when the vaccine begins to turn people into flesh eating zombies. These are not your ordinary zombies, though, and the twist will shock you!
As you can see, a plot or story idea/premise can come from anywhere. I have a difficult time helping people with discovering a plot because I can come up with them so easily. I had five ideas for this nano alone, but none of them made me so excited that I wouldn't want to stop working on it except for Inoculation. This story is one I came up with on a whim and have not done much of any planning for prior to Oct. 1st. So, the tiniest thing can spark an idea. A great source are news articles. Find the ones with a good story and use a piece of the premise as the start to your idea. Or, you can think of a scenario that sparks your interest. For example, I had a thought that it would be interesting to explore the concept of a young woman who escaped from the compound of a crazed religious cult and was fighting to rescue other girls and boys from said cult.
There are ideas everywhere, but you just have to keep your eyes and mind open for them. A great thing to do is to play the 'What if...' game. "What if you were stuck on an island that was completely silent and still... no insects, no animals, no ocean sounds, no breeze" and you can continue the what if's from there.
Now to switch gears, I'm going to talk about my first character. He is not the main Protagonist in my novel this year, but he is one of the side kicks, I believe. His name is Logan Shepherd and he is a day time television actor (soap specifically) who is somewhat dimwitted and often believes he is the personification of the character he plays on television. His hair is also of most importance because it is feathery and perfect. This is his most noticeable attribute and the thing he flaunts the most. (Anyone know if there is a difference between cinnamon sticks that are more red in colour and ones that are more brown? Maybe I will need to research further...)
A Logan Quote:
"Oh, I'm a doctor! ...Well, I play one on Television."
I think I have figured out a second character as well, but I worry that I may have two sort of goofy characters and this bothers me. Why the feel to my story should be funny in a dark, somewhat disturbing sort of way, I don't want to have two overly funny characters. It might make the story more lighthearted than I would like. If they are humourous in different ways and not over the top, it's possible that they could make a nice pair and play off one another. This is something I must consider further before deciding to introduce this potential character. His name is Dave, by the way, and he is the 'Zombie Expert' so to speak. That is.... if I decide to keep him.
At any rate, I have blathered on enough for now. I must return to some research!
Also, I saw on Twitter today that Literature and Latter is offering the amazing program Scrivener at a reduced rate if you "win" NaNoWriMo this year! It's a great deal! Head over to this link and check out the details. So if you have a mac and you want an awesome program to work on all your NaNo and Writing projects, I suggest taking this offer up!
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