What do you think to this plot? (brief)

[SineadTemptation]

Jist of it is that main character was a bully at school to one girl inparticular.

She becomes an adult, has kids of her own, feels guilty about her bullying behaviour and searches for the girl she bullied on facebook. Finds her, realises she's led a pretty crap adult life and makes it her mission to help her achieve more.

Things go ok for a while but the whole thing brings back memories that the bullied girl had actually surpressed and whilst the main character focusses on helping her build some amazing life, the bullied girl is actually plotting revenge.

Very, Very early stages yet but I'm thinking it will involve adultery, theft, humiliation etc etc as well as a bit of light comedy?

Would you give it a go?

Oh sozzle OP - thought your plot sounded rather intriguing. Two points of view would be a nice way to tackle it - unreliable narration on the part of at least one undermining the account of the other, so to speak. So for instance, one could desribe an event in terms of the kindness and support of her friend; we as the reader would be only too painfully aware of the underlying malice & vengeful motive

OP - I think the plot has legs.
Both characters have a decent story arc.
How will you structure it? Will you write from both characters points of view?

As the posts about you never becoming a writer because you used incorrect grammar etc BOLLOCKS.
I have had five books published, soon to be six. I have sold them in lots and lots of countries. I have sold the audio rights and the large print rights and the film options...I am dyslexic. I have terrible grammar.

On plot vs structure (sorry for cluster-posting: bored at work) - the plot is generally thought of as the chronological sequence of events that constitute the narrative.

But the structure of a novel need not take a temporal-linear structure, with one thing happening after another: it can unfold those events in any way the writer chooses.

So for instance, you could tell the tale of Humpty Dumpty in the ordinary fashion, or perhaps begin with the King summoning his horses and men to a scene of eggy desolation and yolky destruction; have him questioning the aghast passers-by as to what the devil has happened; and then have a peasant step forward and recount the tale.

The two stories would have the same plot, but different structures. And stuff and shit.

You said that so much better then I did Bloofer .

For me, structure is always more important than plot. How you tell the story, rather than what you tell is what makes the difference between a good book and a great book.

This is also the way that we writers keep ourselves challenged I think. There are only so many things that can happen in a story...but you can play with so many different routes.
You can make it really really difficult for yourself

Don't blush Belle, or I will too!

I'm a writer and an editor.

I say "what do you think to that", dunno if it's general Northerness or a bit more specific, but anyway. I do talk and often post using some peculiar regionalisms but I know the difference between when to do so and when not. And as I tend to be informal with friends (and MN) I wouldn't expect to have my writing/editing skills called into question on the basis of how I communicate in a non-work related setting.

In a nutshell, although I'm enjoying your comments Cote - I think you're a bit harsh on the poor OP. Is she still about?

I think structure is more individual then the plot, how the novel is written is very personal. I don't think about how I'm writing, I just write. I'm not sure if it's the best plan but it works for me at the moment. Do ask again when the agent tells me to piss off though. I am currently scratching my head in an attempt to work out if I've put the commas in the correct place.

Belle, are you about to send work to an agent? Forgive me if this is well-trodden ground: I had no idea there was a CW thread, and am intrigued!

I've already sent it. Apparantly it has 'a lot of potential' but it needs work. It's been sent to an editor, I now have it back and am 'working' on it. I have to send it back when it's feeling better.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/creative_writing/1099701-For-anyone-else-who-wants-to-start-progress-finish-writing-a-book-in-2011 Come and join us.

Oh Lord you all have an actual thread !

Brilliant, it's like a year-long NANOWRIMO!

Top work on the potential! Don't worry about having to keep going over it. All writing is re-writing! Can't remember who said that, but he or she was terrifically important, so you know. Must be troofs.

Yes, it's been there for a while. It's very helpful.

I'm not 100% sure about the commas before speech and if there's a capital letter at the start of the speech after the comma. I think so? 'Can I have your iPod?' Tom smiled hopefully, 'it will need a good home.'

I have to add that Cote's thoughts about a mathematician needing to know his/her timestables is not relevant....writing is an art, rules can be broken and bent.

Irvine Welsh wrote some books in dialect...not even remotely grammatically correct.

I've been lurking Belle!

Yes, stylistically you need a capital letter after the comma. It should also really be a full stop or a colon rather than a comma, but as I guess this is just an example I won't wank on and on about why!

Mumbling- Mathematics is also an art; people obtain MAs in mathematics; it is a subject of great beauty.

I have heard it described as an art Nerf but there are no right and wrong answers within writing....one can break rules and come up with a piece which is totally outside the usual...there have been writers who could barely grasp grammar and who have been successful.

oh god not that old arts v sciences jihad chestnut
op your plot obv has something! Just write it good now

Yeah OP write it really, really good. It's only when you write good that you get on in this life ...

Where has OP gone? I want CW fred friends dagnammit

Rather dismayed that a question asked by a young writer has been hijacked by unpleasant pedantry. Also it is rather ironic that it appears to be intellectual bullying of a sort. Especially as Cote has made several mistakes in her own post, including ending a sentence on 'for' - a preposition. You cannot write off someone with one mistake, even the publishing industry is not that bitchy.

I proofread and trust me, you would be quite shocked how many (quite famous) writers struggle with spelling and grammar. They have deadlines and they are pressurised, so to pick over a sentence when 90,000 words is required would be madness. That's where an excellent editor comes into play. Different role. Of course a manuscript is preferably picked over by a editor before submission, if it can be afforded.

OP, I hope you are still around and that some petty person has not stamped on your dreams. If you feel the plot is burning in your mind - write it out, try it.

I am sure that you will 'write it good' indeed.

Cote, it's not so much that you're wrong, but rather that there's just no need to go on quite so much about the title of the thread, when the OP was seeking advice about her actual post. It comes across as malicious.

I've worked in publishing and have signed up a few new writers (nowadays I'm just another wannabee). Generally I'd agree that publishers want people whose writing is very polished - there's isn't perhaps the time or money to do the level of editing that might have been done in the past - but there is always exceptions, and an occasional error is really no biggie. You wouldn't want it in a query letter, but really not so important on a thread about plot.

Fwiw, I think the plot sounds okay, though if your primary character is the bully (or they share equal time, or bully goes first), you're going to have to make her sympathetic early on or a lot of readers just won't care about her fate.

CelebratedMonkey & cherryburton - My initial post was a simple comment. The only reason this subject got dragged over several hours was because others denied that a good command of the English language is a prerequisite for writing good books.

I am not talking about spelling mistakes or even grammar mistakes, which can indeed be corrected in subsequent editing. Imho, "think to this", like "could of / would of / should of" is symptomatic of actual linguistic shortcomings. I would not read a book that features either phrase, unless they are used for characterization purposes. Not that such a book would be published, of course.

Reading this thread (especially comments like your "make your character sympathetic or people won't care what happens to her"), I realize that perhaps the books people here have in mind are very different to the ones I read. Some of my favorite books have the most unsympathetic characters imaginable, like the one losing his mind in the throes of mental illness in J G Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition". I'm not a fan of Hannibal Lecter books but they have sold very well and I can't imagine that is because readers sympathized with him.

Is it in the genre broadly described as "chick-lit" that such concerns manifest themselves? Characters need to be nice and lovable, otherwise readers will not care about the story? I am asking because we have read a few books in our book club that were clearly written for a female audience (like Memory Keeper's Daughter and the truly awful The Saving Graces), and reading their Amazon reader reviews, I was surprised to see such comments. They were also very badly written and curiously devoid of profound reflection and even complex sentences, so maybe people on this thread are correct, authors of this genre are not required to be particularly good in their chosen language.

Meanwhile, re the laugh-fest Bloofer et al had yesterday over my mistaken use of the word "good" - I don't intend to write books and I have never claimed to have perfect command of written or even spoken English, especially since I am not a native speaker.

Still, don't let that stop you from rolling on the floor laughing at what is clearly a hilarious situation

Nah, it's still funny

cote I think when people say characters have to be likeable what they really mean is that they have to engage the reader.

A reader has to care enough or be interested enough to read on and discover the character's story arc...I always say my characters, even the ones who do hideous things, have to be seductive rather than likeable. Wich is why writing passive characters is buggery hard.