So I had a few characters and a few plot lines - now what? I put it aside for about two years before picking it up again.
Revisiting my idea, I worried at the characters in my head, trying to figure out what stories they had to tell. I mentioned the story to a few friends and in talking through the story with them, built more structure around the original idea. Minor characters died off in this process before they had a chance to live and major characters changed rapidly.
During this, I started some research into the cruise ship industry. I wanted my story to be more substantial than a light fiction novel or a thriller - I wanted there to be some meat behind the stories. The novel needed to be realistic, and educate without boring or lecturing the reader, which is no small task, particularly for a novice writer. I suspect most fictional novels set on a cruise would revolve around the passengers (with at best a romance with an employee). I decided I would turn things upside down by focusing primarily on the employees, using them to show the readers how life really is on working on a cruise ship. In order to highlight the rigid social stratification that occurs on these ships, I wanted to have roughly a character per "level" - from officer to staff to crew serving crew. Creating realistic characters was an integral part of developing the plot lines - these employees each needed a story of their own, they couldn't just be a placeholder.
Will I be capable of showing these multiple points of view without confusing or alienating the reader? I hope so, but that's to be determined.
Revisiting my idea, I worried at the characters in my head, trying to figure out what stories they had to tell. I mentioned the story to a few friends and in talking through the story with them, built more structure around the original idea. Minor characters died off in this process before they had a chance to live and major characters changed rapidly.
During this, I started some research into the cruise ship industry. I wanted my story to be more substantial than a light fiction novel or a thriller - I wanted there to be some meat behind the stories. The novel needed to be realistic, and educate without boring or lecturing the reader, which is no small task, particularly for a novice writer. I suspect most fictional novels set on a cruise would revolve around the passengers (with at best a romance with an employee). I decided I would turn things upside down by focusing primarily on the employees, using them to show the readers how life really is on working on a cruise ship. In order to highlight the rigid social stratification that occurs on these ships, I wanted to have roughly a character per "level" - from officer to staff to crew serving crew. Creating realistic characters was an integral part of developing the plot lines - these employees each needed a story of their own, they couldn't just be a placeholder.
Will I be capable of showing these multiple points of view without confusing or alienating the reader? I hope so, but that's to be determined.
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