Would THIS story interest you enough to read?

[BookSnake]

A very brief outline of a novel.
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Wealthy family have 14 year old daughter. Dad has very successful business, they live in nice, big house, girl attends private school etc.

They're also foster carers.

Their next placement is a 14 year old boy. Gone off the rails, had bad upbringing, heading towards the prison/young offenders route.

He moves in with wealthy family. After initial "class clash" the teens grow overly fond of each other and become inseperable. This leads to problems with boy teaches girl a more exciting part of life that she has since been sheltered from.

As his influence grows on her, hr behaviour declines and eventually she is excluded from her school. Her parents see this as the final blow and begin the make arrangements for boy to be taken back into emergency care. Upon getting wind of this, the teens run away together. After a few weeks on the street, they become involved in petty crime in order to survive which gets more and more serious as conditions worsen until finally they 'reach the point of no return' and go too far.

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That is very brief and I've made it sound cliche on purpose so the gist of it is easier to grasp.

Would it make an interesting story?

sorry, but too cliched. wouldhave to have some very very interesting twists.
also, if they are first time foster carers, thensurely it would be simpler to foster younger child.
if not first time, thenthe girl will be used to foster children, and wont be quite so sheltered as the outline makes out.

Who would it be aimed at? It sounds like a good 'teen ' novel idea.

Yes, I would read it.

Yes its like a teen novel. I agree it is very cliche in theory but I'm working on that.

They're not first time foster carers but its the first time they've had a teen. Before they have always had younger children so the girl has not had anyone to influence her in the way a teen boy could.

I suppose I could make it so that the private school child is a boy and he is corrupted by streetwise girl? that would be slightly different, boys always play the bad guys.

yep I would read. plenty of angst is my bag.

If it was written well enough then yes, it would be a good read.

Are you aiming for a happy ending or a sad one?

letmeeatcake, I get what you mean there.

That's why I like writing about teens. They're great, so full of emotion, world at their feet, not kids nor adults....they're brilliant subjects to write about.

yes might work better with a boy being corrupted

I'm not sure about the ending. I was toying with the idea of killing one of them off but I'm not sure if it would be 'too much' for the target audience iyswim?

It depends on how compelling the reasons for the girl's downwards spiral are! On the face of it, it sounds very cliched; for a nicely brought up, well educated girl to go off the rails, there would have to be some family problem - and that really is a terrible cliche (nice middle-class family are really weirdo control freaks or whatever). I think Stitch's comments are very sensible.

Speaking as that nicely brought up, private-school girl, it would take something quite big to have thrown me off the rails, and no boy would have managed it!

There would also have to be a very, very compelling reason for the parents to foster a boy of that age and with those problems. Few mothers/parents would want to bring such a child into their home!

But many stories are based on apparent cliches, so good luck with it...

Thanks for our input Dottoressa. Do you think a boy would be more likely to start doing daft things to impress a girl?

I'm working on the reasons the mother wanted the 'bad kid', I'm kind of going on the 'mother earth' thing, thinks she can heal the world with a few choice words and a bit of TLC iyswim? she's actually based on a real person who believes in such a theory.

BookSnake - that's an interesting one. My gut reaction was: no he wouldn't. But having read others' opinions, I'm not so sure. It would perhaps seem less cliched if it were a boy who went off the rails. If he were a boy who'd previously shown no interest in girls and who had been a trainspottery type, his parents could sort of have reason to think that a 14-y-o girl wouldn't be a particular distraction, whereas I think even the most woolly liberal parent would think twice about introducing their 14-y-o daughter to a dodgy boy. However, the ages might have to be amended a bit; few 14-y-o girls would be interested in 14-y-o boys (they'd surely be more likely to go for a 16/17-y-o boy?) I suppose you could get round this by making the girl deliberately set out to send the boy off the rails (she could see it as a challenge - and I'd have thought that most 14-y-o boys would not be immune to same-aged girls in the same way that girls might be to same-aged boys!)

I think the 'mother earth' thing would be reason enough for someone to foster a child from a difficult background (well-meaning Guardian-reading parent has the best of intentions kind of thing). However, there might be another potential clash in that 'mother earth' characters who want to understand the underdog and re-habilitate problem cases (and so on) wouldn't normally have children in private schools. Again, it's not impossible; it's just something you might have to justify (and given that people can justify pretty much anything in RL, there's no reason why they can't in fiction too!)

As for killing them off... hmm. When I was a teenager, I'd probably have gone for that - but now I'm a mummy, I couldn't bear the idea of anyone's child - even a fictive one - coming to harm, so would have to wish for some hope at the end!

Happy writing...

Here's some ideas for twists.
Foster family have something in past that they are trying to make up for. Maybe one parent lost a teenage sibling, cousin or had a friend of that age who disappeared...
Or their parents had a different child adopted..
Or inherited loads of money and feel guilty about it..
or the father isn;t the real father of their "own" child...(maybe he doesn't know)
it can't be too bizarre because foster service would have gone through all these issues..
But then again, maybe they didn't tell the fostering agency something, and are terrified that they'll be found out.
[inspiration running dry]

Here's some ideas for twists.
Foster family have something in past that they are trying to make up for. Maybe one parent lost a teenage sibling, cousin or had a friend of that age who disappeared...
Or their parents had a different child adopted..
Or inherited loads of money and feel guilty about it..
or the father isn;t the real father of their "own" child...(maybe he doesn't know)
it can't be too bizarre because foster service would have gone through all these issues..
But then again, maybe they didn't tell the fostering agency something, and are terrified that they'll be found out.
[inspiration running dry]

Perhaps you could do some research into fostering agencies. I expect they have different ideas, and some of them may have some very strange ideas indeed! Once you have your character clearly sorted out, you can take them where you like. You may find that the character will lead you through some interesting times!

not sure it makes sense to have boy and girl of same age - maybe make one of them older or younger than the otherwise sounds grat

It's Wuthering Heights! Yes, I like the idea.

Bonnie and clyde! I would read it!

Hmmm....boy introduces girl to sex but girl introduces boy to ... & the combination/personality mix together leads both to going off the rails. More of a combustible solution kind of thing?

I like the foster care idea. My mother is a foster carer for youths who have been remanded. I like!