Lesson 2: Generating an Idea For a Novel

ASSIGNMENT: Lesson two

1. Generate a working title for your book.

Life Stream


2. Submit three paragraphs, the first describing the beginning of your story, the second describing the main goal(s) of your characters(s), and the third describing what obstacles they must overcome, and how the story ends.

At the beginning of my story an evil prince will rule over a society. Life Stream is the currency of the kingdom. Life Stream is an elixir drained from the bodies of members of the kingdom by "Juicers". The more Lifestream you drink, the longer you will live. The cleaner and higher quality the Lifestream is, the younger and healthier the imbiber stays. Most humans though, prefer it dirty, because it injects "hard vice" into their lives (somehow) and they have more fun. At the beginning of the story the conflict lies in the prince feeling threatened by the revelation of a new, clear and pure form of Lifestream showing up in the bottom rungs of society. A gambler who has borrowed from a loan shark and lost one last time avoids torture by becoming an undercover agent to try to get to the bottom of it.

The main goal of my gambler character is to look out for himself. By agreeing to work undercover for the government he will evade having flesh surgically removed in order to supply a pounds worth of Life Stream. In the process of seeking out the source of the pure Life Stream, he will have a huge change of heart and switch to working for the revolution. This is partly due to his concern for a young woman revolutionary who will become his love interest. This pivotal point in his character development will change him for the rest of the novel. The story will follow his adventure in discovering where the pure Lifestream is coming from and how the revolution can use it to overthrow the prince. A white wizard external to the society is supplying the pure Lifestream with the goal overthrowing the black wizard's prince and restore society to the way it was before the prince stole the crown.

The story is going to be an action adventure story and I expect to have a lot of cloak and dagger stuff where I can expose the inner workings of the society through the protagonist's eyes. There will be conflict in the form of the protagonist and his revolutionary friends having to keep from being caught by the prince's court of Knights. I guess I had the picture in my mind of having the protagonist and his revolutionary friends operate the same way the Viet Cong did in Viet Nam - visiting the equivalent of the Viet Namese villages when the prince's forces weren't there and collecting enough Life Stream to make their ranks grow stronger, healthier, and longer. Whoever controls the supply and quality of the Lifestream wins the battle. Also, by redistributing the Life Stream they steal from the upper classes (who take it away from the workers through taxes) to the "villagers"; he builds a base of support for the cause. Because some citizens are always going to choose to stay with the contaminated stuff, and because their will be rewards out for the revolutionaries' heads, the protagonist and his cell members always have to be on the lookout for betrayal.

3. You should have your story idea well in mind by this time. From your assignment in lesson one, I want you to expand your one-sentence blurb to a page-length summary of your story. (Grammar and spelling, please)

In ancient times, the kingdom worshipped a white wizard who provided his subjects clear, pure Life Stream. A black wizard appeared and casted a spell on the kingdom's Life Stream so that any of it present in the kingdom was contaminated. The contaminated Life Stream found popularity due to the enjoyment its users had in the way it opened the door to "hard vice" that was not there before (I'm not exactly sure how this will work but it is important). The white wizard withdrew from the society and the kingdom became corrupted from the inside out.

A self-serving gambler finds himself facing having a pound and a half of his body fat removed surgically so the "juicers" could extract a pound of Life Stream from it. He is given a way out by accepting the offer to infiltrate revolutionary cells and spy on them for the prince. He does so, but soon finds himself in a critical position where his feelings' for the people in his cell - especially a certain young woman - have become strong enough he does not want to betray them. He does not understand it at the time, but it is by partaking in the pure Lifestream the cell members have become so much more appealing than what he is used to. He becomes a double agent for the underground.

The rest of the book consists of the events of the civil war. I hope to make this part a non-stop action plot where the reader can not put it down.

In the end, the white wizard will come back and finish off the black wizard, and take the crown for himself.

(There is a heck of a lot I don't know how to do yet and I don't have much more than this worked out at this moment. I just hope it will come to me as I work more on it.)

Dave