Post by Jayeee on Oct 3, 2012 23:32:12 GMT -5
Lucas and Finley Sanders are more than brothers; they're identical twins, well practised in the art of synchronicity. They use their uncanny connection to shut out every student surrounding them at St. Lucy's college in Central London. Even the playful advances of Summer Montgomery are swiftly rejected in favour of seclusion and a social circle consisting of two.
The arrival of American exchange student Max Anderson changes everything. His perseverance and excitable demeanour are more than enough to rival the insults and defensive manoeuvres that the Sanders brothers put in place. Every rumour that they deploy only fuels Max's desire to enter their world, until they have no other choice but to let him in.
That is, before he disappears with no trace or record of him ever having been there at all. As Fin and Lucas begin a resilient effort to search and - if called for - rescue the only person they've taken the time to like, the brothers travel to America and back again, meanwhile learning that being identical doesn't mean it's them against the rest.
...
What's this, Jay not doing fantasy?! Two years ago, at the start of my very first NaNo, I posted this:
And up until very recently, I still thought that was true. Actually, it may still be true even now! XD The thing is, not only do I love fantasy, but I also love young adult literature; I read a lot of both, and while for the past two years of my NaNoing life i've combined the two together, I feel that this year it'd be a really interesting turn of events to see if I can just write a normal Young Adult novel, without anything fantastical whatsoever.
I feel that it'd be a nice challenge for me. I'm used to filling up my fantasy writing with elaborate descriptions of everything, because that's pretty much required when you're writing about a whole different world! XD But I think that standard-YA is different. I don't plan to explain what buildings look like because it's set in this realm. I don't need to explain what everybody looks like, because there's no nymphs or monsters or whatnot in this story. So I feel that it'll be a big challenge for me to make 50k words this way. It's not something that I have ever attempted before, but hey, what is NaNo if not a time for challenges? If this ends up as a failure, then at least i'll know for the future.
The decision took me a ridiculously long time to come to. Up until a few days ago, I could not decide whether to go standard-YA, or fantasy, because I love them both so much, and they each had pros and cons to them. But in the end, risky story won out, and then I could finally start planning.
So enough of my inner-mind workings. Back to my story!
I first started trying to think of some kind of interesting take on the normal YA literature. I love writing in first-person, so that was a definite thing I wanted to do here, but then I thought about how interesting it would be to write twins. I have never read a book with first-person twins in it before (i'm sure it exists XD), and I thought that'd be something incredibly cool to explore!
I know that having twins who are outcasts or whatever is a somewhat cliché representation on them, but I figured that maybe writing them both in first-person will kind of destroy that with this novel. I'll be alternating between the two throughout the book, so it has been so intriguing to build characters who are essentially the same to everybody on the outside, but the reader sees the differences between them, as well as the times when they're alone and get to be just brothers who aren't putting on some kind of a show to scare people away. So they definitely have their own personality traits.
Max is just going to be fun. That's literally the best way I can describe him! XDD He's undeterred by anything and everything, and is pretty much always cheerful. This of course, is a front too; like the twins, he's totally hiding something. What i'm not going to do though, is turn this into some kind of mystery novel! XD Max's disappearance is more to facilitate character development, and that's not to say that it's just a silly plot device where he'll turn up fine again a few days later! XD It just allows a little twist to occur within the story, instead of it just being like 'twins are alone. they find a friend. yay. The end!' XDDD And so Max is somewhat mysterious, but mostly just nice and wanting to put the effort in to be their friends, despite how mean they are to him! XD I'm pretty excited to write him, especially from the point of view of the twins.
And then finally there's Summer. She's not going to have a major role in the story, but I was very aware of how male central my story was becoming! XDD So I had a think, did some more planning, and here she is. She's more-or-less just your average, nice girl with a crush on Finley, but due to his allegiance to his brother, and Lucas' hate of being thought inferior, they refuse to talk to her, but deem her usable when they need to do something devious. She'll be nice, but unwilling to sit through the insults and meanness, unlike Max! XD Honestly, she's not really that developed yet. I'll need to plan her some more to make sure she doesn't just become this Mary-Sue who is perfectly nice and just waiting for Finley to come to his senses and fall madly in love with her! XD This definitely isn't a romance story of any kind, it's more friendship/bonding/brothers, but as I said, female character was needed in some form! XDD
Those are the four that i've come up with thus far. Obviously on top of that, there'll be parents, teachers, classmates and the like. Finley and Lucas will be having school therapy once a week at the request of either their mother or the headmaster, so I definitely need to develop a character there.
And then as the synopsis suggested, they're be travelling to America. El Dorado in Arkansas to be precise. So characters are definitely needed there too.
SOYES. This is my story.
Hopefully it works out okay! I'm both excited and incredibly nervous! XDD
The arrival of American exchange student Max Anderson changes everything. His perseverance and excitable demeanour are more than enough to rival the insults and defensive manoeuvres that the Sanders brothers put in place. Every rumour that they deploy only fuels Max's desire to enter their world, until they have no other choice but to let him in.
That is, before he disappears with no trace or record of him ever having been there at all. As Fin and Lucas begin a resilient effort to search and - if called for - rescue the only person they've taken the time to like, the brothers travel to America and back again, meanwhile learning that being identical doesn't mean it's them against the rest.
...
What's this, Jay not doing fantasy?! Two years ago, at the start of my very first NaNo, I posted this:
Epic/High Fantasy is the only way to go for me. If I tried to write some non-fantasy, I know i'd have the overwhelming urge to just include masses of magic and things in it.
And up until very recently, I still thought that was true. Actually, it may still be true even now! XD The thing is, not only do I love fantasy, but I also love young adult literature; I read a lot of both, and while for the past two years of my NaNoing life i've combined the two together, I feel that this year it'd be a really interesting turn of events to see if I can just write a normal Young Adult novel, without anything fantastical whatsoever.
I feel that it'd be a nice challenge for me. I'm used to filling up my fantasy writing with elaborate descriptions of everything, because that's pretty much required when you're writing about a whole different world! XD But I think that standard-YA is different. I don't plan to explain what buildings look like because it's set in this realm. I don't need to explain what everybody looks like, because there's no nymphs or monsters or whatnot in this story. So I feel that it'll be a big challenge for me to make 50k words this way. It's not something that I have ever attempted before, but hey, what is NaNo if not a time for challenges? If this ends up as a failure, then at least i'll know for the future.
The decision took me a ridiculously long time to come to. Up until a few days ago, I could not decide whether to go standard-YA, or fantasy, because I love them both so much, and they each had pros and cons to them. But in the end, risky story won out, and then I could finally start planning.
So enough of my inner-mind workings. Back to my story!
I first started trying to think of some kind of interesting take on the normal YA literature. I love writing in first-person, so that was a definite thing I wanted to do here, but then I thought about how interesting it would be to write twins. I have never read a book with first-person twins in it before (i'm sure it exists XD), and I thought that'd be something incredibly cool to explore!
I know that having twins who are outcasts or whatever is a somewhat cliché representation on them, but I figured that maybe writing them both in first-person will kind of destroy that with this novel. I'll be alternating between the two throughout the book, so it has been so intriguing to build characters who are essentially the same to everybody on the outside, but the reader sees the differences between them, as well as the times when they're alone and get to be just brothers who aren't putting on some kind of a show to scare people away. So they definitely have their own personality traits.
Max is just going to be fun. That's literally the best way I can describe him! XDD He's undeterred by anything and everything, and is pretty much always cheerful. This of course, is a front too; like the twins, he's totally hiding something. What i'm not going to do though, is turn this into some kind of mystery novel! XD Max's disappearance is more to facilitate character development, and that's not to say that it's just a silly plot device where he'll turn up fine again a few days later! XD It just allows a little twist to occur within the story, instead of it just being like 'twins are alone. they find a friend. yay. The end!' XDDD And so Max is somewhat mysterious, but mostly just nice and wanting to put the effort in to be their friends, despite how mean they are to him! XD I'm pretty excited to write him, especially from the point of view of the twins.
And then finally there's Summer. She's not going to have a major role in the story, but I was very aware of how male central my story was becoming! XDD So I had a think, did some more planning, and here she is. She's more-or-less just your average, nice girl with a crush on Finley, but due to his allegiance to his brother, and Lucas' hate of being thought inferior, they refuse to talk to her, but deem her usable when they need to do something devious. She'll be nice, but unwilling to sit through the insults and meanness, unlike Max! XD Honestly, she's not really that developed yet. I'll need to plan her some more to make sure she doesn't just become this Mary-Sue who is perfectly nice and just waiting for Finley to come to his senses and fall madly in love with her! XD This definitely isn't a romance story of any kind, it's more friendship/bonding/brothers, but as I said, female character was needed in some form! XDD
Those are the four that i've come up with thus far. Obviously on top of that, there'll be parents, teachers, classmates and the like. Finley and Lucas will be having school therapy once a week at the request of either their mother or the headmaster, so I definitely need to develop a character there.
And then as the synopsis suggested, they're be travelling to America. El Dorado in Arkansas to be precise. So characters are definitely needed there too.
SOYES. This is my story.
Hopefully it works out okay! I'm both excited and incredibly nervous! XDD
