Writing Passionates discussion

If you are stuck on a certain point in a story just write about it and others can give you some ideas on how to get going again. Hope everyone can give and get the help needed!

Ill start.
Im not really blocked but Im running out of ideas for things to take up the time before the main character overhears that her step-dad is her real dad and therefore her stepbrother is her half brother and her half sister is her real sister. The main character's name is jessie, she doesn't particularily like reading or writing, her mom had her when she was 16. Jessie has an 8 year old brother and a newborn baby sister. she has a crush on the new kid brian, has recently broken her dominant wrist, is in 8th or 9th grade, lives in michigan, and is 14 years old. any ideas?

Perhaps she could learn about her being his real daughter from one of her siblings. Like they find out from their dad and don't know that she doesn't know and so tells her - although you would probably want her siblings to be younger than her, just learning to talk perhaps.

As for her wrist, I don't know. Do 9th grade, then you can write about how scary it is to be in a new school with all of these older, almost adult, people.

Brian can fend for himself. Maybe Brian could have a crush on her to, but neither of them know that the other likes them. Is Brian popular? Is he a - excuse the term - nerd? Or is he a jock? What? That would most likely be helpful to know.

hey mckenzie!
Her youger brother doesn't know about the whole weird family mix up thing and her sister is about a day or two old and can't talk. I already know for sure that she is gonna overhear her parents talking. And I can't change her siblings, I already have the basic stuff laid out.

The anxiety about 9th grade is a good idea... but it is april so if she were a 9th grader she would be used to it already, but with 8th grade I could work it in better.

And as for Brian, he will ask her out later in the story, I was thinking after she runs away(cuz she finds out about the wierd family thing), although it may fit in better if it was a kinda main event leading up up to the climax, which is her running away.
Also, to answer your question about who brian is, I kinda modeled brian after my brother, except brian is really into baseball. But you don't know my brother so basicly brian is the slightly athletic cool kid that everybody loves, kinda like Nick P.
Although maybe(not sure about this part yet, not sure if she will even say yes yet...her mom doesn't let her date...) when he asks her out it could be a dare or something but then he realizestoo late that it is immiture and she finds out and gets p.o.ed but then he actually likes her and grows up a bit and then she hates him for a while but everything turns out happy in or near the end.

but i still need stuff to fill in before she finds out! that was the one point I was stuck on...but I'm not sure you fully understood what I was asking. Although what do you think about my last point? and shoud he ask her out before or after she runs away?

Before, she could have a ton of stuff on her mind and get annoyed that he asks her out. Then she will find out about his asking her out was a dare and decide to run away because of her many problems.

As for filling in, maybe you could put something in that her parents do with them. They could go to a baseball game or something.

Oooh, maybe you should have her find out on her birthday. That would really up her morale for running away.

I really need help coming up with a case for my story.

The title is 'Missing'. It's about a group of kids who help the police solve crimes without the police knowing who they are. The main characters are Mark (the leader), Marissa (the screw-up), John (the brain), Kirk (Dominics twin), Dominic (Kirks twin), and Shana (the reader).

In this story a kid runs away, then Mark runs away when the group is in the middle of trying to solve a crime. The kid that runs away is Marks friend Andrew who is not in the club. (the club is the SNEAKS which is the main characters club). Andrew's aunt just got married to a police officer who is put on Andrew and Mark's case.

So far I have had Andrew be found and Mark returns home after he learns that Andrew was found. Now that Mark is home the club can start up again on their case. The only thing is I haven't yet thought up what the case is. In the first book jewels go missing from a store and hundreds of cats from the city go missing. I need a fresh idea for a new crime and I can't think of one.

Never mind...I got one. Although, if someone had a good idea for another case I am open to your thoughts!

How about a friend from school or church or sports or whatever is severely injured. The injured person claims that somebody was trying to kill them but the police don't believe the story because of their age or reputation of being careless, but the person who got hurt isn't lying and everything gets crazy.

Hmm...I could run with it. I also have two...imaginary creatures. One is a manikan, not plastic though, the other one is a garden gnome. I really need to give them a background in my story, so far they are just, you know, there. They help with the story in the first book, but then they kind of fade off. I know that one of them saved the others lives, but I can't figure out which one should have.

Is anyone else stuck? This topic is still open! :)

veronica--
well, to take up time before the big news comes out, you can definitely mention how tiring and obnoxious her little silbings are. trust me, i have five. so once she gets sick of them, is totally in love with brian (again, trust me. my crush is named brian, too), and tries to make a move that he is totally oblivious to, she's really depressed and starts thinking about her real dad. (what's his story? did he leave them? did he die?) she feels betrayed that he's not there anymore, and once the news is out that her step-dad is her real dad, she feels totally angry that he had lied to her for so long.

just an idea, maybe it'll start something.

also, kinda unrelated, but this is weird. my crush, brian, is this jock who plays baseball and is liked by everyone. is this a coincidence? or are we both thinking of the very same brian joseph van noy?

ok, not really stuck, just inexperienced. what i need are ways to make a story scary. i'm trying to write a horror. it's about this girl who goes babysitting and all these things freak her out, then the kids disappear, the parents never come back, and in the wee hours of the night, the unknown gets her, and she dies.

yeah, not too scary, right? so i totally need freaky details to juice it up.

any ideas are always welcome!

thanx

I have this book called the daring book for girls and it has a bunch of useful things to know in it. One of them is how to tell a good ghost story. This is what it says:

COMMON CHARACTERS
*A young girl
*An old woman
*A camper
*A person driving alone
*Two friends who think they are braver than they are
*A person from the city's past
*A distant relative
*A hitchhiker

COMMON GHOST FEATURES
*Able to be sensed by animals and children
*Haunting the place where they died
*Appearing at night and vanishing by dawn
*Playful or prankish-playing music or moving things to scare people

COMMON GHOST MOTIVATIONS
*Ghost needs to find an object or person they left behind
*Ghost needs to warn the main character about something
*Ghost needs to delivera comforting message to the main character
*Ghost is out for revenge

COMMON SETTINGS
*Your house
*An abandoned mine
*A graveyard
*The woods
*Your local scary place(cranky neighbor's house, the old creek, etc.)
*A long empty hallway
*A castle
*Any isolated spooky place

COMMON SITUATIONS
*Going out alone at night
*Being alone in a spooky place
*Getting trapped in a haunted house overnight
*Piking up a hitchhiker
*Disregarding a ghost's warning or local legend
*Triggering events that summon a ghost

This is coppied directly from the book and is meant for telling ghost stories, but I think it would work for writing one too. Hope it helps :)

that is a pretty sweet book. thanx for all the lists of scary stuff!

I have gotten a past for my 'creatures.' Their names are Groggy-the gnome and Crumple-the manikan. Groggy has a family, a mom, dad, and little sister, Mindy. Crumple was created, and his creator died so he's on his own. Something happens (can't tell you, it would spoil the end of the second book) and Groggy and Crumple get stuck together. So far that is all I have for their background written. What I have in my head, now that's a different story.

make sure to at least jot down what you have in your head breifly in a place where you wont lose them, even if you aren't going to use the ideas for another 10 chapters. Ideas are easy to forget and if you don't write it down you could forget about it entirely and the good idea will be useless and lost. I have definitly had this problem before so in the story I started today with a sudden burst of inspiration. you can look at my writing if you want, it doesn't have a title yet so the title says to look back later for a title. i think that you can look at my profile and see my writing kenzie, but I'm not sure so I'll post the link here anyways. Please read the description that I gave it. right now it is still really short(I just wrote it today after all) But if you don't read it then I can show it to you at school. I would really like you to read it.

http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/9...

Okay, my story is coming along nicely. The only problem is that my characters don't come across enough conflict in getting to the final battle or whatever. Does anyone have any ideas for battle/danger/conflict scenes for a fantasy story? HELP!!

You could have them argue about something stupid and go off in seperate directons to recooperate. Or maybe someone could die. Death is definitely a danger.

I totally agree with kenzie. do you know how many fights are started my something completely stupid? to get an idea, you should read A wizard's dilema by Diane Duane. And if you want backround on the characters you may want to read the first four books in the series: So You Want to be a Wizard, Deep Wizardry, High Wizardry, and A Wizard Abroad. The 5th one is the one I recommend because two best friends (also partners in wizardy)are fighting because they are too hormonal to apologize for a simple disagreement. Well at least the girl is hormonal and stressed...but still...the fight is really dumb. Oh, and I totally agree with the death thing, especially when it is an important character that is like the leader or whatever. Or if it is genocide, which causes quite a bit of tension. But the two combined really hits it home sometimes.

May I ask why first that she's been led to believe her real dad is her step dad? That might help me to help you.

Maybe her mom was married to someone else at the time she was conceived and later divorced him (the guy she thought was her real dad) and married her real father but is ashamed or afraid to tell the world or her family. Maybe she's got a high powered job or a very religious family.

In real life, my daughter-in-law hates her real dad and loves her step-dad and considers her step-dad as her dad. She thinks her real dad is a scoundrel that caused a lot of trouble, plus he never comes around. Maybe her real dad is alcoholic or a gambler or just not very nice? There's got to be a reason this throws her for such a big loop. Some kids would be happy to find out that man is their real dad.

One more thought/question, then I'll be quiet for now.

What is the conflict between the heroine and Brian? Maybe she's a jockette and he's a nerd or a new kid. Or vice versa. Maybe he's her friend's little brother that used to be a bother and has grown up to be cute. Maybe he once made fun of her or she thought he did - you know, he was trying to be cool in front of his friends - teenage guys do that weird stuff. Or maybe they're best friends and he has a crush on someone else and she's trying to prove she's the right one for him. (or vice versa). There's all kinds of possibilities. Maybe it's totally different and they witness a crime together, or maybe just something out of place at the school they need to report.

Watch some horror movies (or read a few horror novels - but this takes longer than watching the movies) and take note of all the scary things. Then brainstorm with someone or by yourself. Write down everything that you find scary. Snakes? Rats? Ghosts? Bumps in the night? Boogie man? bugs? howling wind? phone goes dead. The electricity goes out. there's blood smeared on things. Big sharp butcher knives are out of place. I'm just brainstorming, but that's the idea. Feel free to use any of the ones I mentioned.

Ashley - I'm sorry I havn't responded to your questions about my story. I havn't visited this discussion post in a while.

The reason the main character (Jessie) thinks that her real dad is her step dad is because she was born sometime after her mom turned 16. He ditched them both and was "never to be seen again." So, about 12 years later, her parents begin dating again and then get married eventually. Jessie is now 14 and her mom is pregnant(actually she already had the baby in the story, I'm just giving you an idea of how it was at the very begining). Her parents simply never told her the truth.
So, she gets mad when she finds out because her dad ditched them, she felt like her parents were lying to her when she had the right to know, things are crazy enough already with her life both inside and outside home, and she is an emotional, hormonal, 14 year old girl.

As for brian, he is the new kid. Everybody loves him. He is athletic. He is nice. He is very hot. He and Jessie become friends and Jessie wishes that they were more than that. He asks her out as a dare, and she finds out. She is really mad. Later on, he realizes what a jerk he was, but it is too late, his mistake was made, and she isn't ready to forgive him.

The main thing that I am looking for is events to lead up to the climax(finding out that her step-dad is her real dad and running away because everything is too crazy to stand) Her mother has already had the baby at the point where I am at. So, what can I do to make her life crazy? I want to have a lot of things that build up before so it will make more sense when the straw that breaks the camel's back comes along and she is pushed over the edge.

Hey, Veronica. You could have someone spread an untrue rumour about her at school. She could be deserted by her friends because of something someone else said. Are you wanting to make her life miserable?

yeah, pretty much, but they should be things that can be at least somewhat resolved in the end that happened. I don't like to be cruel, but for things to work out, everything in her life has to be going wrong at once.

Kenzie, do you remember when we were in 6th grade and that 7th grader, Tony, was killed in a snowboarding accident and how is was really sad? Do you think I could put something like that into the story, or would it be too dramatic? and if I should, do you think it would be best if it was someone she talked to sometimes or someone who she was friends with? Because if she was friends with them it might have to cancel out all the other bad stuff that happens. When somebody close to you dies, not much else matters.

I just had an idea. It completely changes the plot of the story though, and the attitude it is told in.

What if all that stuff happens (not the death part that I was just discussing) then it is all happy ending la la la, but it doesn't end? Instead, just when she is getting really close to Brian (best friends and bf/gf and very spiritually connected) something happens to him and he dies(or is at least severly injured). I really think that this would lift it out of the shallowness which I have recently realized and provide an interesting (and very unexpected) plot twist. As she is dealing with grief, she grows up a bit and realizes things that most people don't realize as an 8th grader, like how valuable life really is.

Hi,
I have a story idea for a girl (Carmen Sparks, 15) who atteneds a school for spies. Now I know that that idea has been used alot, but my definition of 'school' is really different from the others. Well, anyways, she just got the messege that she is going on her first mission and that is a really big thing because you only get to go on missions when you get to be a senior. Well, I know that her three best friends (Alera Roma, Becky Clayton, Emily Marshal) are going to go with her, but I can't think of a mission idea. Should they go to a public or private school, pose as transfer students, but really be looking for new recrutes for the spy academy? Please help.

I think your idea of looking for new recrutes for the spy acadamy is a good idea. I think it would be cool if there was an area of lockers that if you opened up the back of the locker, you would find stairs leading to the acadamy. If you do do this though, I think that it should be a private school, because it seems like in a public school it would be easier for the lockers to accidently go to the wrong people.

as for their mission, are you thinking locally(and if so, where? after all, it could vary from city to suburbs to country) or nation-wide or world-wide?

Maybe all of the nation's spies go missing and the kids have to try to find them or take over thier jobs until they are found. Or perhaps there is a lunatic sending serious death threats to the president's body guards to get at the president.

Hope my ideas are of some help!

Thank you so much for the ideas!
The school that they go to is in San Francisco and it's not exactly a building. You see, while one class could be in China Town, another could be at Pier 39. So the locker thing doesn't really work there, but it could at the school they're going to.
I just don't know what should happen at the school.

Veronica,

You have a great idea for your story. I am strongly aposed to the death of Brian, however. You would destroy all of her happiness all at once. Of course something bad has to happen to Brian, but don't kill him. Her life has to get better, well, not really, but it should. Unless you are going for the whole one thing after another uptake, if so, kill Brian. Although, if you killed Brian you would have to bring in someone to take his place for the main character.
If you are going for drama definitely have someone die. If she saw them die that would be even worse. She would be on the edge of cracking. Oh, that would be great. Definitely run with the death idea.

I have to write a suicide note for the story I am writing. It was written by a 15 year old boy who stabbed himself who is very persnickety about grammer. He is mad at all those who lied to him, and wants revenge. He is a ghost, but his family doesn't know it.

I have the first part here, but I have written more than what is posted in my notebook, but I think the begining should give you a good idea of what is going on.

http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/9...

Any ideas as to what I should put in?

Have him leave a special note for Jo. Maybe have it in her room or something. She's the one his was closest to and she will feel betrayed by him. If he leaves her a note it will at least comfort her.

The suicide note...well, I don't know. I've never written a book about a ghost.

What if he left Jo his diary?

Also, the fact that he is a ghost doesn't really matter, only that he wants revenge.

I am updating the story right now to include chapter 2.

He has a diary? Wow, I definitely should have been informed of that. That would be great! Personal view of his life. Maybe you should still have him leave a note for her, explaining why he did it, and telling her that she now owns his diary. But that's just one persons opinion.

I had this idea that I thought was really good, but I got completely stuck after the first few chapters. It's about three princesses. The youngest one is timid, the middle one is brave, and the oldest one is a little of each and creates a kind of balance. But then the oldest one disappears, and no one knows what has happened to her. Not too long after her disappearance, the youngest sister starts seeing ghosts. A few years go by, and one day the youngest sister sees the oldest sister--but she isn't a ghost. Somehow, she's trapped in the spirit world but she isn't dead. So the youngest sister and the middle sister have to find the oldest sister somehow. But I don't really know how. I've tried to develop the idea in my head for months, but I can't think of anything. Any ideas?

It sounds really interesting. Maybe the oldest sister is being held hostage in the spirit world by someone who wants something from the princesses father?

This sounds a little cheesy, but I came up with this idea about a story of stuffed animals. They can talk and move and stuff, but only when their humans aren't around. It's kind of like The Doll People by Ann. M. Martin. I had an idea that they always get neglected by their owner and they're fed up. The owner buys a new stuffed animal (the book would be in his view) but pretty soon he gets neglected too. I had an idea for them to run away or something, but I don't know what would happen after that. I need some kind of plot! Any ideas?

Kind of like Toy Story, right? Only with stuffed animals. I'm no help with plot. I can't even keep my own straight!

Yeah.

Good luck with your story. I'm sorry I can't be any help.

Brigid-

Maybe in your story, the oldest sister's soul got taken on accident instead of someone who died. Then they would have to find the person who was supposed to be in the spirit world and somehow switch that soul with their sister's soul.

I also like the idea of the oldest sister being held hostage. Thats kinda cool.

yeah...that's a cool idea.

It would be really exciting if she was being held hostage...I would definitely want to read that!!

Hostage? That's a cool idea. Could you imagine writing from a hostage's point of view?

yeah...actually, it's one of those stories where the perspectives change every chapter. so maybe i could write a few chapters from the kidnapped sister's point of view. that would be interesting.

Yeah, it would. Maybe the person who held her hostage in the underworld wants something for the king, and he says he won't let her go until the king does that, but really he isn't planning to let the princess go anyway...so the sisters have to help her escape before the king does what the villain wants and the villain kills her! Kind of like a ransom

awesome :) thanx

Hi. I'm new to this group.
Veronica, I've been reading about your story. I have a suggestion. What if there was another guy who liked Jessie? And she knows that the other guy likes her. And if Brian gets severely injured, then maybe he could try to jump at the chance to get her as his g/f. Then she can realize how much she really likes Brian and tell the other guy off.

Like a love triangle, right?