I need heeeeeeeeeeelp!!! (please.)

[Dante'sJuliet]

So I've got this idea. It's been brewing in my head for quite a long time. A story about a school, when the school seems perfectly normal. Well, maybe not perfectly normal, the teachers are sort of odd. . . (one of them, Miss Mache, is a sort of twenty-five year old mad scientist. I mean *mad*. She continually wears Gothic, midaeval clothes under her lab coat. Another, the principal Miss Wellington, seems not to realize that this is the twenty-first century and we do, in fact, have several wonderful inventions that make life easier. *Phones*, for example. She prefers that the students don't use normal paper, but rather scrolls. She's fond of assigning papers that are to be a foot and a half long. Oh, and the sports teacher / nurse is named Miss Payne.) One little twist is that all of the teachers are under thirty five.

Now, at this somewhat strange school, even stranger things start happening. For instance, there is a ghost in the attic. The girls start getting into fights, some of them saying that they can hear him/her/it talking at night and the others saying that this is mad. Then one night, it makes so much noise that there's no doubt in anyone's mind that someone is up there, albeit some don't think it's a long-dead, bodiless human. However, when the girls tell the Teachers at breakfast, do the teachers panic? No. Do they say the girls are lying? No. Insane? No. What do they do?

They name the silly thing. Claim they've been hearing it forever, but didn't want to tell the girls lest it frighten them. And this is only one of the many, many, many unusual things that happens.

The problem? (At last?):

I have no plot.

None whatsoever. Nothing. Silch. Nada. Zero.

I've got everyones personalities, tons of wierd things (the ghost, the garden, those doors the students aren't supposed to open, the ball. . . etc.) and yet I have no way to link them together. I've concidered just writing all the little bits I've got and praying that something coherent comes out, but all in vain. And I still have no ideas for plots!


Can anyone help me? Is anyone still reading this stupid rant? Even just one suggestion might break the flood gates. . .


:rage: ARGH!! :rage:

[Snukes]

If you've decided on everyone's personalities, do you have favorites? One or two characters who are more dynamic than the others? You could try developing them even further - give them families, histories, etc. Since conflict is what usually drives a story, you'd then have to figure out what these characters want, and why they can't have it.

Take Harry Potter, for example (speaking of stories set in whacky schools): All Harry wants in the first book is to get away from his horrible family, find out more about his parents, and find a way to finally be good at *something*. Pretty traditional, really. What makes the story unique is the fact that to handle these conflicts, he leaves home to become a wizard, deals with a sorcerer who's trying to kill him, and takes up quiddich.

So who are your characters? What do they want? How will they get it?

[Miranda]

Dante, sometimes stories have a life of their own and all you have to do is put pen to paper and begin to write and go where the characters take you. Maybe you don't need a plot and the story would take shape once you begin to write it. But I think that it sounds a great story, full of imagination, mystery and ideas. One thing that strikes me about what you have written here - and which grabs my attention immediately is 'why are there no teachers under thirty five?' Maybe if you can think of reasons why this should be, you can find your plot. Your ideas are great and I think that you should pursue this. It is hard to tell someone what their plot should be - cos stories come from inside you, and you make them and you know where they are supposed to go. I think you need to put your confidence in your ability to create the story from your ideas because I am sure that you can. The story is inside you. Begin where you feel you should..and write it! Go by your instincts and follow your inspiratation and it won't let you down.

Miranda

[baddad]

Si amigo, what Miranda said seems to me quite true. Just start at the beginning, you'll be pleasantly surprised how the tale may take on a life of its own......

[mono]

I definitely think you have something brilliant in mind, Dante'sJuliet. Snukes, Miranda, and baddad have given the best of advice, and, indeed, if you have contemplated and decided the personalities, behaviors, and cognition of all of the characters, what ranges seem their responses to the apparent problems - the very peculiar teachers, and odd noises coming from the attic. Though I give horrible advice, I would recommend developing each character individually, then create as many interpersonal connections (strange or otherwise) as possible, like tossing in chemicals to a brewing pot to see how they react.
If all else fails, take advice from Anton Chekhov:

You could write a story about this ashtray, for example, and a man and a woman. But the man and woman are always the two poles of your story. The North Pole and the South. Every story has these two poles - he and she.
In other words, start simple, define your bounds, and expand.
Best of luck! ;)

[Dante'sJuliet]

Thank you all so incredibly much! Snukes, I should have thought of that myself. Oh, and Miranda, thanks a lot (and the teachers ARE all under thirty five, not over. teeheehee).

Here's the plot as of this moment:

School starts out pleasantly enough, even for our two main characters, Emily Haybrook and Isabelle Smithers. But, as the school year goes on, the girls begin to sort all of the odd happenings into two groups: the weird things that do not bother the Teachers and the weird things that do bother them.

Gradually, the school turns into something closely akin to a prision. The girls aren't allowed to leave, the grounds are always watched (if not by teachers than at least by their dogs, Deogi and Llama), and anyone caught out of her room after hours is severly punished. The girls have a strong suspicion that all outgoing mail is being read by eyes not intended to. Emily and Isabelle focus all their powers on escaping. Not running away and never coming back, exactly, but on leaving the school for just a little while! Maybe going to the village and doing some shopping or something.

But what they don't know is that the students aren't the prisioners. The real prisioners are the Teachers!

Something is going on that not even the Teachers understand fully, all they know is that someone (or something) is trying to get into the school. It turns out that the Teachers aren't keeping the girls litterally locked in because they're mean, but because the school is quite suddenly the only safe place for any of them. On top of that, the Teachers aren't sure which students are good, which are bad, and which are simply clueless. There are some who they think would be unwaveringly loyal to them, and others they think have been planted there to spy. They aren't sure which way to turn or what to do.


The only thing I have to do now is perfect a few documents/forms and actually write the darn thing.

:banana: Again, thank you all so, so, so much!! Special GP brownies for all!! :banana: