Lost My Way and Could Use Some Ideas

[AlishaS]

I seem to have lost my way a bit and could use some help with coming up with some idea's.

Awhile back I started to seperate novel's that went nowhere. Then I decided that the two stories could actually be combined into one. I was really into the story had a beginning, middle and end in mind but with the my time being divided between this new story and finishing the edit for my other completed novel I put this one on the shelf.

Well I re-read the seventy or so pages I had of this new story and am lovingt he characters and what I have so far however I forgot my intial plans for it. I am really bad at making notes and working on outlines so I just have two characters, a hook type thing I wrote months ago and 70 pages. So I thought I would see what people could come up with for idea's as to where to take the story.

So this is what I have so far... Oh and please if there is a better place for this question please feel free to move it, I really wasn't sure where this should go.

Gavin Rhodes is waiting for his life to begin. Plagued with dreams since he was child of a girl he has never meant he spends his days hoping she’s real. The dreams have a sense of longing and need to them, his perfect girl rolled into one.
Lahna Suriel is waiting for her life to end. Weighed down by a failing body struck with leukemia she can’t help but give up. The trials and tribulations of a cancer that will most likely kill leaves her scarred and lonely.
What will happen when one is waiting to die and the other might just have the cure to make life go on?

This is YA written in alternating first person POV. Basically Gavin is sure that he dreams of his soul mate. He writes down each and every dream in a journal in hopes that one day he will be at the right place and time and meet her. Which happens. They have a quick second moment where Gavin sees her and Lahna has a 'I think I know him from somewhere' moment. Lahna is has spent the last few years in and out of the hospital but decided if she is going to die she want's to live a some what normal life until the end. The end of what I have so far is them meeting up at school for the second time. Lahna is a bitch to him becuase she does not want to get involved with some one if she is going to die and... that's all I got. No idea what ending I should work towards.

Sorry this is such a long post. So if you stuck it out till the end thank you and please any crazy idea's you might have would help!

[AlishaS]

Haha thanks Alleycat, I was expecting at least one person to make reference to that, so thanks for being the first and getting it out of the way!

I think I would like some sort of paranormal element here, since there sort of already is one with Gavin dreaming about a girl that he finds out is real, and of course with it being paranormal anything could happen so maybe she doesn't die, the tragic melodramic death that people will be expecting.

[Cella]

I actually feel like the reader would be expecting her to live. I wonder if the twist could be that they both die and find themselves in an alternate reality.

Of course, life after the death that's been so feared throughout the book would be a big topic to cover...

[maddicharmed]

Well, before I start saying my ideas I want to ask you a question, what do you want to happen? Think about that before you start reading my suggestions, because otherwise you're using my idead and not your own (not that I mind or anything :]).

If you want a paranormal affect, maybe Gavin is destined to be healer and he is dreaming about the girl he is meant to save from death? I don't know, does that sound good?

Or maybe you could scratch the entire idea of him dreaming about her and they meet, and he falls in love with her and so does she, but doesn't want to get to close to him. Maybe he gives her the last few months of happiness and then she dies. You could do a novel about a girl and boy that grow and face death together.

Hope I helped in some way.

[Starhorsepax]

Maybe something happens to make her dream about him? Maybe he gets hurt and she feels bad for acting like a jerk-no matter how good her reason?
I've got a story idea that's morphing madly mid way too. So you are not alone. It can be kind of like trying to catch a wild animal!

[Lindzy1954]

Wow, I have a similar situation. I have been working on a YA for a few months now that I originally categorized as a paranormal but now, it has suddenly changed and become a psychological thriller - who figures. Anyway, with regards to yours, I like the idea of him dreaming about an unknown girl who he is somehow meant to save but doesn't know why or where to find her. Perhaps you could have a series of events and flashbacks of their lives that are like puzzle pieces leading up to their ultimate meeting and then, decide if you want a happy ending (they both save each other. . .the end) or a bitter ending (they both die. . . the end).

[Penang]

You could have him be a bone marrow match that is discovered during a donar drive (not sure about the technicalities of that but haven't there been communities that have blood drives to screen people as potenital matches for bone marrow transplants).

If you dropped the love aspect you could go with them being adopted siblings and he has memories of her which come through as dreams that depict her as older.

As for the ending you could go with the life continues scenerio: He can't heal her, they fall in love and she continues her battle with cancer, but with him giving her a reason to fight.

[shaldna]

i'm not great at making notes either. I tend to wing it. But recently I did something almost identical to what you are doing - combining two separate novels into one, merging plots etc.

What I did was cut up a couple of sheets of paper into small rectangles then went through each book and wrote hte basic events - one on each note. I did one book in red and one in blue so I knew which bits came from each.

Then I removed all the bits that I knew I DIDN'T want. I spread the rest on the table and began to put them into an order of events that made sense to me.

Once I was done I numbered them all, selloptaped them to a big sheet and stuck it above my desk.

It was the only way I could get it all together in my head.

[AlishaS]

Thanks everyone for the great help, I love your idea shaldna. If only I had an office to hang my work up lol.

[shaldna]

Originally Posted by AlishaS

Thanks everyone for the great help, I love your idea shaldna. If only I had an office to hang my work up lol.

I'd go mad if I didn't have my study.

When we moved in it was originally going to be a guest bedroom, but over the course of weekend when my then-partner was a stag do, I painted the walls, got a new carpet and moved my desk and bookshelves in.



I'm a big gamer too, so it suits me to have a room where I can play WoW all night without bothering anyone and I can leave all my writing out without worrying about kids completing it in crayon.

[Dwight]

Shaldna, my experience (YA novel now finished) was in the opposite direction: MC pursued two stories, which he would visit alternately. It worked out far too long, and was a total no-no in the end. I cut half of it out – the less interesting story – and went totally for the other, more interesting, one.

Alisha, if this is your debut novel, you won’t like what I’m going to suggest but it’s what I think is for the best. I hope you’re sitting down.
I think an agent or editor will not like a book with two MCs, and will want you to pick which one is telling the story from their point of view. The alternative is to try writing a gripping story which jumps – not easy.

[Kazel]

When I started reading your summary, I was really hoping for a twist other than her being the girl he was dreaming about. I would love a story that wasn't paranormal where it was about him coming to grips with the reality of the fact that she wasn't his perfect dreamed of soul mate. So a story of his perfect image of her slowly being ripped down to reality, and having that be better or just as good as his imagined future.
Or have him continue to dream of the perfect girl, but have him start to fall in love with your MC, who he doesn't believe to be his destined soul mate, and have him struggle with the concept of the reality of now versus the imaginary future.
Could keep the paranormal dreaming aspect, but make him drawn to her for reasons entirely unrelated to her being his destined love. Make it so he's a social outcast thats dreaming about a girl, so he imagines that she is the one that he is destined to have an epic romance with, but in reality it has nothing to do with romance, and is wrapped up in something completely different.

I am also sick to death of the romance plot in which the only reason they are not together is because neither of them will just sit down and talk to the other person, for not apparent reason. It seems like your FMC may have decent logic, but "I want to have a normal life, but don't want to get close to anyway" has some obvious dissonance to it. Unless she is dealing with that in all aspects of her interactions instead of being very specifc to your MMC, it can come off as cliche. Just something to be aware of.