Spinning Still -- Shade's NaNo

[Shadaras]

So, up until yesterday I had three ideas. Then I threw out one 'cause I didn't want to write it. Then I gave up and went with the least developed but most persistent idea.

And that idea is Saviour.

Sci-fi, slightly dystopic, psychological horror, with psychics and at least a little romance. xD To quote the rather messed up summary I have on the NaNo site that is as good a description as I've thought up yet:

Psychology. Angels. Demons. Haunting images, fear for ones life. Hatred and despair. And lights that shine through all the darkness: Saviours, come to guard our souls and our lives.

Saviour follows three people:

Matthias Lionel, a lonely young man whose search for friendship leads him to unexpected places.

Colleen, a scared young woman whose inability to trust others is only matched by her inability to trust herself.

Sumati, a woman trapped in a high-tech life support system that keeps her mind alive in a failing body, preserving and boosting her psychic capacity.

Saviour is a story of redemption, of light in the darkest of places, and of crumbling walls of fear. It is a story of dreams, and of haunted faces too scared to admit to fear. It is a story of psychology and psychosis, of all the little things that can add up into things too big to name. It's a story of hate, and despair, and of all the things we call Evil. But it's also a story of those angels come to Earth in human form, and of how there is always something better just around the corner.

It's a story of plastic and steel, of dirt and rust, tears and blood. It's a story of cleansing and freeing. There are monsters in the night, but there are also heroes to save you from them. There is always, always a saviour out there for you.

You just need to open your heart, and look.

*

And to prove that I've had more free time and inspiration this morning than I really should've...

SPOILER: Click to show

sig-banner


cover page

Yup. So, Saviour. =D I actually do have an idea of how to write this, and I bet that half the stuff I do during October to prepare has to do with defining character and setting better. Plot is plot and can be improvised. So can the rest, really; I'd just like to have a fair starting point by the time November comes.

[Deleted]

Sounds awesome ^.^

(And I'm jealous of your artistic ability

[Shadaras]

Thanks. ^_^

I want to draw Sumati actually looking like a girl at some point too, but. xD What I drew is one of the images that Saviour came from. Not exactly the same as my mental image, but close enough for this.

... *feels like she's being a tad over-excited and hyper about all this* xD

[Deleted]

It's not possible to be over-excited...it's almost November!

It doesn't help that my birthday is in November too.

[Shadaras]

It totally is, because the over-excitement keeps me from doing homework, and I have promised myself that I will not write until I've finished homework. Useful promise, usually.

Ah, that does make life more fun. xD

-=-

...someone talk me out of trying to average 5k/day. Please. I know I can; I've done it before. It's just... gah. xD I have a life! Really!

And this totally isn't going to help talk me out of this. =D

Whatever. I will hit at least 100k. If I do average 5k/day, I will hit 150k by the end of the month. Which might stretch over two stories, which is fine, 'cause I have more stories that I could write.

...so yeah. NaNo-excitement comes. Let's see if I can use that to get Inquisition to a decent length. Really.

-=-

Edit:

Right. I'd forgotten that. xD Last night, whilst going to sleep, I described Saviour to myself as 'Torchwood crossed with Dollhouse, with something else that I cannot remember thrown in'. And I believe this to be fairly accurate. =D Even if I can't remember what that third element is. Possibly the Matrix, but not really.

[Trilly (18426 words)]

Sweet! I can't wait to see this. ^___^ I always love the psychological feel in your writing (which I could not manage to save my own life). And Torchwood-Dollhouse-Matrix is a win combination!

[Shadaras]

The entire idea I'm writing is about psychology, this year. xD I mean, seriously? This is how I'm writing it:

Sumati is trapped by life-support. And she dreams dreams so realistic that she believes them to be true. But really, the main characters of the dream are parts of her, and the rest are just shadows, not really anything but props.

But we don’t know that, of course. It’s a first-person dream of a third-person novel. (Or a third-person dream in a first-person novel. That one's more accurate to the truth, but the second is more accurate to the feel.)

...yes. xD This concept is going to make me love it as much as hate it. But I knew that when I decided to write it.

It is a win combination! It's also bloody strange. But that's okay. xD That's the point of NaNo, ain't it? Trying new, strange, things?

[Trilly (18426 words)]

That does sound really cool! ^^

Yep, and it's great for practice because it forces you to write even when you're "not in the mood" or at a really difficult part of the writing process and you'd like to keep putting it off.

[Tam]

I haven't even started reading this story and my brain already feels like it's dribbling out my ears. I think that's a new record, even for you, Shade. xD

Needless to say, this sounds unbelievably cool. <3 ...I don't really know (or maybe I just don't understand) what it'll be about yet, but the images I've picked up in that post create the picture of a very complex reality, the kind you can't wait to start exploring.

[Shadaras]

Trills - ^_^ Yes indeed.

Tamia - xD Dribbling in a good way, I hope? Because I'd hate to make your brain dribble out your ears in a bad way. I mean, that'd just be sad.

I haven't really given it a good explanation yet. >.> It's fine if you don't get what it's about. I kind of doubt I will give a good explanation, even though I know perfectly well what the story is. I'm glad it sounds cool even with this sort of scatterbrained explanation, though. ^_^

[Tam]

Oh yes, dribbling in the best way imaginable. =D You've done a most excellent job of inducing the benign variety of brain-ear-dribbling, really.

Yeah, but that's okay. =D I find your stories to give a first impression that's very... aesthetic? I'm not quite sure if that's the right word. But they really create strong pictures and impressions in the reader's mind, even if they can't infer a plot summary from them. I don't think knowing exactly what it's about initially is really important, anyway; in my opinion it's giving the reader a feel for the story from the beginning that matters. =D

...That's not to say that I don't have every confidence in your plotting skills as well, of course. xD; I'm positive this is going to be a strong story, and that you'll write it beautifully as usual.

[Shadaras]

Awesome. ^_^ I'm glad for that.

Thanks. :3 I'm kind of surprised by that; I don't tend to have more than a few strong impressions of my own to go along with any given story, let alone actual images.

<3 It's going to be an interesting story, to say the least.

[Shadaras]

Ohlook, I have something approaching a plot summary. =D


Mistral College is a lonely place. It outright says that on its recruitment material. Matthias Lionel just didn’t expect it to be this lonely; everyone is so focused on their projects that they don’t have time to talk. And once you’ve entered Mistral, there just isn’t any good way out. It’s the hardest and best school of psychology there is, and everyone knows that you only go there if you’re serious about learning and studying. It gives Mistralites a reputation for being stuck-up know-it-alls. Matthias Lionel knew all this. He even knew how horrible a city Mistral is next to. The outskirts of that city, Grebes, are pristine. Picture-perfect. There are no flaws to be found; everyone seems to be happy, in the outskirts of Grebes.

Colleen knows better. She lived in the outer city for most of her life. For all that her father was a high-ranking computer scientist, and her mother a devoted and loving housewife, there were problems in the family, not the least of which was her father’s anti-social behavior. You see, anti-social behavior gets noticed. And you don’t want to get noticed, in Grebes, because getting noticed, in the outer city, means that the government takes you in for treatments to make you more ‘normal’. These treatments are administered by Mistral College personnel, which tends to mean students.

It also tends to mean that these ‘treatments’ include experimental drugs, drugs that would not ordinarily be used on a given problem, and drugs that have unexpected side effects.

Those side effects, in Colleen’s family, tend to be insanities, which require more treatments, which just makes it worse. Colleen had a mild treatment as a child, for asking too many questions and thus giving the impression that the teachers were incompetent. It left her with an overactive imagination. This wasn’t a bad thing, until her father has one treatment too many and snaps. His rage destroys much of their perfect house, bruises her mother, and forces Colleen to escape into her mind and imagination to avoid her mind being devastated.

It doesn’t work.

Besides the fact that her father going insane is enough to ensure that her family is sent to the Grays, Colleen turns so far inward that all she sees is herself. Especially her flaws. She can pull out into the real world sometimes, but not usually for long. While there, she is perfectly cogent, perfectly aware, perfectly herself. But she can only hold the façade for so long before she slips back into depressive introspection. She’s noticed. And she’s taken in for treatment.

Matthias Lionel is the one assigned to give her the treatment. Instead, he decides to take her on as his special project. He’s allowed to choose any one subject and study them, un-medicated, for one year, so long as, by the end of the year, they appear mentally sound once more.

Colleen doesn’t trust him at first. But, slowly, he coaxes her out of her shell and back into the real world, because he’s found a friend, someone in the pristine darkness of Grebes he can love.

-=-

A couple other fun things. This is about two-thirds? of the plot. The rest is Sumati's story, which is the frame story for this. And I get to use dream logic in Matthias Lionel and Colleen's parts. =D This makes me kind of ridiculously happy to realise.

I would like to know why Matthias Lionel is called Matthias Lionel and not Matthias or Lionel. It's sort of tempting to call him Matthew instead, but that doesn't fit at all. And neither do Matthias, Matt, Lionel, Leo, or anything else I can think of. xD Michael doesn't, even, which fascinates me. But anyway. Character name-ramble done now.

And I should do useful stuff and not try to work out what Sumati's plot is until after I've done said homework and stuff. Likelihood of me doing said useful things? Probably not that high. xD

[Shadaras]

I talk too much sometimes. =D Anyway, somewhat decent plot summary that involves all the characters. Pay attention even somewhat and you can see how details and stuff change each time I try to write one of these. xD


Sumati is a psychic. She is also broken, mentally and emotionally. She has no will to live, and only survives because of the myriad life-support machines plugged into her unresisting body. Trapped in life despite wishing to let go of everything, Sumati dreams of a city where everyone has the appearance of happiness, if not the actuality. This city, Grebes, is controlled by the Norm, a name applied to both the government and their drug of choice.

Colleen Brennan’s family has been severely affected by the Norm. Her father’s line has poor reactions to the Normative Drug, typically resulting in insanity. Colleen herself experienced this as a child, with the result being an imagination powerful enough to feel real. Her father, when given the Norm, became emotionally unstable. After he raged through the house once, destroying many breakables, hurting Colleen’s mother, and forcing Colleen into her imagination to avoid being part of the rage, the government took all of them in for controlled study and Norm use, with the cooperation of Mistral College psychologists.

Mistral College has a reputation for anti-sociality and tough courses. Matthias Lionel Sampson knew this when he chose Mistral’s psychology program. He just didn’t expect to be at a total loss for friends. So when he’s given the option to monitor a family that has been fighting the Norm, he jumps at the chance to meet people who aren’t Mistralites. When he meets Colleen, Matthias Lionel takes the withdrawn young woman on as his special project, betting his career, if not his life, on a claim that he can heal her without the Norm to aid him.

[Shadaras]

How to try and figure out how any given world works: play around with first-person monologues, with the assumption that about half of whatever is written, I will remember and actually put into the novel. =D



Everyone here has something to hide, Da always said. Even me? I’d ask in return. He’d smile, and say, that yeah, even I had something to hide. Then he’d change the subject, leaving me wondering what it was I had to hide. That went on until I grew up enough to realize that the Grays would never believe me that I was born here, grew up here, and that, yeah, that was something to hide.

Norms get sent here when they lose the Norm. Grays leave the Works only when the Normatives let us. Da spat, every time he heard someone mention a Pure Norm. We down here? We’re the ones with bad blood. We can’t live in the Norm. The soft chemming of the water in the City drives us mad, and they Norm us back down to the Works.

I’d mind more if the news didn’t say that the Norm meant being nothing, or if they didn’t say that there was nothing of substance there. We down here, in the Works? We do things. And they matter, Maybe they matter only to us, but they matter. And the Normatives need to trade for a lot of their makework from us. We worked things out. That’s how we are. That’s who we are, down in the Works.

-=-

Mistral College. You know, with a name like that, you’d think it’d be somewhere pretty. Instead it’s by Grebes. Everyone in the state’s heard of Grebes. Mostly we hear to stay away; that the center’s a mess and the outskirts are worse, but from the pictures Mistral shows, it seems decent. Not good, sure, but decent. Besides, how likely is it that I’ll ever go there? Mistral College is in Mistral City, the town that sprung up to foster Mistral and, if what I heard is right, to get away from Grebes.

I’ve looked at all the psych programs near enough and cheap enough for my family to afford. Mistral’s the only one good enough to go to. My friends can call me insane all they like; there’s something there that the other places don’t have. And, well, giving up a non-existent social life isn’t really much of a price to pay for knowledge and true learning, is it?


Also, 'bout a half-chance of me figuring out a name that fits the story more than 'Saviour' does, but only once I write a fair amount of it. Because while I know that there's got to be a name that fits better (the story is purple and gold and silver, whereas 'Saviour', as a name, is earth-toned and rainbow-sparked, I think? Purple by contamination, but not really that color.), I have no clue what it is. =D