Back Burner Novels - Books We Haven't Gotten to Yet

I've also had this idea floating around in my head for a real science fiction/fantasy crossover. A damaged starship is forced down on planet populated by Humans, Elves, Unicorns, small dragons, Gryphons.

More of a short story, but, "what if the second coming already happened, but it happened in Victorian England, and Jesus was thrown in an asylum?"

Also, long time no write! Hopefully I'll be back for a while, now that my degree is finally over.

I have a lot of these... My five WIPs are just the tip of the iceberg (so to speak). Three are rewrites - one is a partial manuscript I started back in 2006, I want to update it to today's technology with social media playing a huge role in the local metal music scene; another one is the rewrite of a novella I wrote in 2000, but with updated technology and more believable characters (they were not 3 dimensional, more like 1 dimensional); the third rewrite is of one I started a few years ago and a companion story to another manuscript. Two are new ideas, one is a standalone story that a friend of mine sparked in my mind, and the other is another companion for the same story as the one rewrite.

Yeah, I have a lot rattling around in my dusty old brain right now. I'll be happy if I can settle on *one* story and get its first/rough draft finished by the end of next year, in between real life and everything else going on in my writing life.

kwanzaabot said:

More of a short story, but, "what if the second coming already happened, but it happened in Victorian England, and Jesus was thrown in an asylum?"

Also, long time no write! Hopefully I'll be back for a while, now that my degree is finally over.

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Like this. I can picture a young Messiah eeking a life in the slums, making match boxes and the like, and being driven further from his followers who've embraced the dawn of mass production consumerism.

I don't know if you could get a novel out of this, but a story idea that came to me recently is, "What if every night when you enter the deepest part of your sleep cycle, your body goes into a death-like state where the neural matter and other physical features are reformed based on the events of the previous day? Like if you've been really struggling to master a skill, during this state, the memory will take in the information of the day's past few failures, and make it so when you reform, you will have an easier time doing said skill." But I don't know where to go from there with it. Sounds way too much like Philip K. Dick and I know rabid Sci-Fi fans are going to leap all over me, but I have tried and failed many times to get into Philip K. Dick. In fact, in general, I have difficulty with Sci-Fi outside the YA genre. The other stuff seems so dense and hard-to-understand, or they spend all their time explaining gadgets and doodads and I'm like, "When I pick up a story, I'm expecting a story, not Sharper Image Erotica."

Emermouse said:

I don't know if you could get a novel out of this, but a story idea that came to me recently is, "What if every night when you enter the deepest part of your sleep cycle, your body goes into a death-like state where the neural matter and other physical features are reformed based on the events of the previous day? Like if you've been really struggling to master a skill, during this state, the memory will take in the information of the day's past few failures, and make it so when you reform, you will have an easier time doing said skill."

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That's what actually happens when you sleep. Well, almost. Your neural networks reconfigure/reinforce themselves while you sleep - you could even say your brain's rewiring itself, seeing as this process involves connections between different neurons. This is why you might spend a whole day practicing something, never quite get it right, then get a good night's sleep, you find you get it right. Plenty of studies have shown that people perform better the next day after a good night's sleep. That's not just because they're well rested, but because an important part of the learning process happens while you sleep.

It's also why staying up all night to study for an exam the next day is a very bad idea and why it's a much better idea to do a regular, sensible amount of study over many days previously and always ensure you get a good night's sleep, especially the night before the exam.

Of course, there's plenty of sci-fi potential in much more dramatic reconfiguring of the human mind/body while you sleep, which is probably what you meant in the first place.

Tim Archer said:

This one has me intrigued right off the bat.

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I won't lie, I'm just really interested (and also horrified) by archaic mental health practices, and it seems such an obvious fit. Think of all the times the media has portrayed a person with severe schizophrenia as thinking they're the son of God. What if it was actually true just one time?

Imagine if Jesus appeared today and said, "Hey everyone, I'm Jesus of Nazareth, how're you all doing?"
He'd be laughed out of town so fast his crown of thorns would spin.

kwanzaabot said:

More of a short story, but, "what if the second coming already happened, but it happened in Victorian England, and Jesus was thrown in an asylum?"

Also, long time no write! Hopefully I'll be back for a while, now that my degree is finally over.

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I think Dostoyevsky had a chapter in his book "The Brothers Karamazov" where he explored Jesus coming back, only he came back during Inquisition-Era Spain. As you can guess by the dialogue between him and his inquisitor, things don't go well.

Okay, here's an idea I'm offering up to anyone who might be interested.

The fantasy genre is choked with Chosen Ones destined to defeat the Dark Lord, often foretold by prophecies handed down through the centuries. But let's consider Christianity. Christians have been waiting some two thousand years for Christ to return. And in those two thousand years, we've had countless denominations form with so many interpreting the Bible in nearly every way imaginable. So whenever I hear about some fantasy order where the prophecy of the Chosen One has been carefully preserved and passed down through the generations, with no one interpreting the text differently or altering it in any way, I raise an eyebrow.

So my idea for a fantasy story is rather than one agreed-upon Chosen One, over the years since the rise of the Dark Lord, many sects have emerged, each with their own idea as to who the Chosen One is. Some of these so-called Chosen Ones genuinely believe they are the Chosen One. Others are more of the, "Hey it's better than beating a living out of the soil until you die of whatever Plague-of-the-Month going around," variety, but a few parameters for anyone writing this story.

First of all, you can't have it ever confirmed once and for all that So-and-So is the Chosen One. No deities showing up and proclaiming that Hero is the One or anything like that. Also, whichever of the Chosen Ones defeats the Dark Lord and comes out on top, they triumph because of ordinary virtues like courage or cunning, not because they are the Chosen One, gifted with some special magic that only can be used by one person. You can have one of the Chosen realize, "Hey we share a common enemy," and from there, the triumph comes as a result of all the Chosen Ones uniting to defeat the Dark Lord. Oh and you can have it turn out that the Dark Lord is well aware of all these prophecies and has deliberately been doing his/her part to spread them around, even forging more, so that the various sects will be too busy fighting each other to come after him/her.

kwanzaabot said:

More of a short story, but, "what if the second coming already happened, but it happened in Victorian England, and Jesus was thrown in an asylum?"

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Also think this sounds so interesting. I'd read it if you ever decide to write it...and especially now that I'm learning a little more about Christianity and Catholicism through my boyfriend and his mom (who just became a lay nun), I'd show them this, as well.

As far as back-burner novels, I have a couple ideas floating around in my head, ones I haven't sat down to outline yet. Nod to my boyfriend who came up with the initial ideas while we were on vacation recently:

-A couple are going somewhere exotic for vacation, but when they're there, they see someone who looks exactly like their son or daughter, who died years ago, forcing them to unravel the mystery of what's really going on.

-A man/woman/couple are on vacation on a cruise ship when they see a strange, flickering light out at sea. Thinking it's someone who has been stranded in the ocean, they send help...and that's where it ends, because I haven't figured out which direction I'd want the story to go in.

Also have a couple old novellas sitting around that I wanted to expand into a full-length novel...but work and life and my fantasy series is eating up all my time right now, sadly.

Just had a thought. We've seen so many dystopian fics where the plucky rebels overthrow the evil oppressors and everything's okay afterwards, but I keep wanting someone to do one of those stories where they succeed in overthrowing the oppressors, only to pave the way for an even worse regime. Like I tell people, that's the depressingly common outcome of most revolutions in the real world: overthrow the Czar, only to wind up with Stalin down the line. Trying to establish a democracy in a country that has known nothing but a long series of autocrats and strongmen, usually results in a short-lived democracy and an even worse tyranny later on.

I think you'd have to be a pretty lucky/skilled writer indeed to not have unfinished novels or half-thought out ideas. I have a book I wrote a long time ago that I cringe at now. I got one of those (not very good) agents to represent it. (She charged a very small 'postage' fee. There's a thread about her.) So, it's on the back burner and so is its sequel. I used to start new novel chapters on my smartphone. I must have four or five I transferred to my computer.

Lots and lots and lots. Some ideas; some have chapters. One I finally got back to working on last month, and may actually finish. Here are some of them:

--Pro cyclist dies but is instantly reanimated. Realizes he's disintegrating into a zombie, and he and love interest have only days to figure out who murdered him before he's all braiiins, braiiins, grrr.

--Psychic falls in love with the ghost she was supposed to banish, and is driven to figure out whether he actually has been luring women to their deaths--and if that's what he wants from her, too.

--Disgraced doctor and opium-addicted young man team up to fight vampires that are trying to take over their island off coast of Maine ca. 1770.

Then there's the gay romance set at the Congress of Vienna; the female pirate who tries to readjust to normal living; the brilliant slave girl in Rome who learns to manipulate and kill to survive; the dragon book; the medieval Welsh healer...and of course the two WIP I have going, one of which is Book 2 of a four-book series.

I've had a Second Civil war novel brewing for years. Sad that I might be able to do it soon.

I've also got about a dozen stories lined up for a new series I want to do. Plus a trunked story that might make its heavily modified way into that series.

I've had an idea kicking around: for years, various lore has foretold of members of oppressed groups growing wings and flying off. No one is certain the winged people exist nor do they know where they fly away to, until the spoiled scion of a wealthy family, wrecks his ship in a storm while trying to sail around the world and stumbles onto their island. Once discovered, the islanders have to deal with a flood of outsiders who want to study and learn from them, some out of genuine curiosity, others for less than noble reasons. Some of the Islanders believe that they were discovered by outsiders for a reason and therefore, must engage with the outside world and can't escape it. Other Islanders, still reeling from stories of persecution passed down from one elder to another, believe that they must find a new place to hide to escape the outsiders, believing that outsiders would only bring death and misery. Haven't written it, but if I did, the Islanders would be predominantly women and PoC.

I've also had an idea for a graphic novel, but graphic novels are a completely different format from, y'know, regular novels, so I'd have to learn how to work in that form. Plus I can't draw worth shit and I'm not sure how to find an artist and work out a deal with him/her. It doesn't help that I'm a control freak. I like to succeed or fail by my own efforts and not have to worry about someone else.

Anyway, graphic novel idea: a blue-skinned alien girl crashes her telepathically-controlled airship onto a farm. The crash severely damages her ship's computers, leaving her stranded. All she knows is that an apocalypse is coming and she was sent through time from a distant moon to prevent it. But due to the damage from the crash, she cannot remember where she was sent from or what is the apocalypse she's supposed to prevent. In the meantime, with help from a young boy, she takes on the alias, Moon Girl, and tries to fight evil and do good in the world, in hopes that she will either remember what the apocalypse is or prevent it from happening. But at the same time, there is a council headed by a man known only as The Shadow (who I would depict, if I could draw, as a blocky silhouette) who wants the apocalypse to go on as scheduled for reasons of their own.

Of course, I haven't worked out the details of what the apocalypse is nor why said council would want it to happen. That's another reason why I hesitate to make this graphic novel happen: I am a pantser. I create a vague sketch in my mind as to how I want the story to go, start writing, making it up as I go along, then I go back and edit the sucker until it makes sense. Don't know if graphic novels are the kind of field that would lend itself to that kind of writing and if I could find an artist to work with, he/she would probably find that approach very frustrating. That and since I'm broke and live way the hell in Podunk, USA, I'd have to figure out how artist and I could work stuff out without an in-person meeting.

Sorry for the thread resurrection, but I thought of another one:

For the most part, everyone ages normally until the age of eighteen. Once you turn eighteen, your looks/lifespan hinges on who you are as a person. A thoroughly evil bastard of a person will age very rapidly and die young, but a saintly person who spends their life taking care of those in need, can possibly live for centuries on end.

I've wanted to do a modern fantasy global warming solution adventure,
telepathic networking of hierarchical trust to overcome government spending on pollution
as a radical green type underground movement.
Embassy standing to validate submarine rank.
The telepathic transition of wild animals into an astral computer,
love inserted not love extracted into
enjoy eating, fear danger, basically apathy
wilderness animals.
The animals are asked to scry the stop ensuring the intoxicants of elites,
and that doesn't invade them and their affiliates within Islam isn't invaded.

There are no drugs underwater,
the animals have the highest odds of preserving
intoxicant: love can be used to synthesize any,
and to prevent the necessity of doing so by
scrying the longevity of the ice caps.

Frivolous rank government agencies engage in warfare with greenarchists,
resulting in gory gun battles.

I am happily going through a WIP (novel) I have tried to write for four years. Another is a play I started over a year ago, and there's a tiny bit I need to finish before the first draft is complete (aaand wow, do I have big plans for the second draft. I will definitely be posting in the AW Research forum about it, but need to finish the current one first).

Run-on sentences ahead.
I have tons of notes for a Peter Pan retelling I started planning two moths ago: Hook and Smee are women who have been romantic partners for ten years, Peter Pan is a drug-dealing youth gang leader who is cheating on Tinkerbell with Wendy, and Hook and Smee are lawyers who are trying to disband the gang and send them all to juvenile hall until they're twenty-one. Wendy and the Darling boys got caught up with Peter, who is manipulative. They get sent off to a fancy rehab and then have to do five hundred hours of community service because their parents use their wealth to circumvent the law. Hook was injured by an alligator, resulting in a hook-shaped scar on her arm. She has a phobia of wristwatches and non-digital clocks. More ideas will likely be added.
Please feel free to use my ideas for your own version! I'd be excited to read different versions of this.

I have lots of stuff on the back burner, but what is interesting (to me, anyway) is the fact that I was dabbling away on the "Given five words to incorporate,Write the Beginning of a Novel" game/exercise thread and came up with an idea that may have actual possibilities. A woman breaks off a going-nowhere relationship and posts a profile on a dating site. But one of the first men to reply seems to know everything about her--even stuff her best friend doesn't know. Stuff no one is ever supposed to know.

iszevthere said:

...I have tons of notes for a Peter Pan retelling I started planning two moths ago: Hook and Smee are women who have been romantic partners for ten years, Peter Pan is a drug-dealing youth gang leader who is cheating on Tinkerbell with Wendy, and Hook and Smee are lawyers who are trying to disband the gang and send them all to juvenile hall until they're twenty-one. Wendy and the Darling boys got caught up with Peter, who is manipulative. They get sent off to a fancy rehab and then have to do five hundred hours of community service because their parents use their wealth to circumvent the law. Hook was injured by an alligator, resulting in a hook-shaped scar on her arm. She has a phobia of wristwatches and non-digital clocks. More ideas will likely be added.
Please feel free to use my ideas for your own version! I'd be excited to read different versions of this.

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Hee hee. I love this. BTW, when we had a swimming pool, and I would float around on my back with the water up over my ears, I could hear the underwater sound of the Creepy-Crawly ticking along cleaning the pool. And the sound always reminded me of the crocodile with the clock in its belly swimming to get Hook. Feel free to use that observation if it comes in handy, because I don't foresee having a use for it.

Marlys said:

Lots and lots and lots. Some ideas; some have chapters. One I finally got back to working on last month, and may actually finish. Here are some of them:

--Pro cyclist dies but is instantly reanimated. Realizes he's disintegrating into a zombie, and he and love interest have only days to figure out who murdered him before he's all braiiins, braiiins, grrr.

--Psychic falls in love with the ghost she was supposed to banish, and is driven to figure out whether he actually has been luring women to their deaths--and if that's what he wants from her, too.

--Disgraced doctor and opium-addicted young man team up to fight vampires that are trying to take over their island off coast of Maine ca. 1770.

Then there's the gay romance set at the Congress of Vienna; the female pirate who tries to readjust to normal living; the brilliant slave girl in Rome who learns to manipulate and kill to survive; the dragon book; the medieval Welsh healer...and of course the two WIP I have going, one of which is Book 2 of a four-book series.

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Oooh... so when are they coming out?

1) A modern world where dragons exist but are being hunted to near extinction - the story told from the point of view of a young dragon.

2) An alien (with superpowers) has helped Earth rebuild its civilization, but two centuries later we need her help again. She's not too keen at first (mainly because she has severe phobias) but then we give her a very good reason to help.

3) A medieval setting in which there's a powerful sword that can only be used by those of royal blood. The heir was born disabled and swapped at birth with another baby. Then there's a big emergency when a neighbouring kingdom declares war.

4) Someone realises that it's not the monsters hiding in shadows that are the problem: it's the shadows themselves.

5) Those high-up wispy clouds aren't just clouds: they're demons.

I have two major “back burner” novel ideas, meaning ideas I’ve done a lot of research and notes for but can’t seem to get to the point of being ready to outline.

The first is about a young woman who’s a supernaturally-talented dog trainer and starts training her dogs to commit crimes out of a mixture of financial desperation and anger at the authorities of her small town refusing to address animal abuse. It all ends up going much farther than she initially intended, a little like the arc in Breaking Bad.

The second is about an extremely lethal plague hitting the modern world, focused on the feelings and experiences of people AS the disaster is happening, rather than trying to stop the plague or living in a post-apocalyptic world. This is a very tricky idea, though, both because of the research involved to make it realistic and the strength the characters will have to have to carry the story.

I suspect one reason those stories remain back-burnered is that they both only have mild paranormal elements and I’m used to writing high fantasy adventure, so it would be a huge change in tone and plotting techniques. I will get to them eventually, though.

I've one that's been percolating for about a year. I almost worked on it next, but want to finish up my trilogy first.

1992 Miami: in the wake of Hurricane Andrew, an unhappily married woman starts to write a true-story novel based in 12th century Iceland. She starts dreaming the scenes, and imagines herself as the wife of the hero. She uses the writing as an escape from her stressful life, eventually making a research trip to Iceland to find more about her character. She finds his gravestone - and her name on it as his wife.

The other project in my backburner file is a series of short stories. Each is from the POV of a cat. The cats are raised to do a job - to enter children's nightmares and protect them from the evils within. Each story is in a different time in history (ancient Egypt to begin with!). Each is also a different stage in the cat's life - kitten, student protector, mature cat, retired protector, etc.

Another Thread Resurrection, but thought of something:

MC (can be male or female) has been a complete and total a-hole, is visited by a spirit who chastises them for it and says as penance, they will have to die nine different times in nine different ways to save the lives of nine different people. If any of the nine die, [Insert Horrific Consequence] will happen to the MC. Much of the story consists on the character trying to figure out who they are supposed to save and what they are supposed to save the person from, while bracing for the pain of their death.

For the record, when I say "die," I don't mean some metaphorical BS about how they cease to be who they once were or something; MC will actually die. Think of it being like the MC in Happy Death Day. Every time the MC dies to save someone, they will wake up in a reset spot to go after the next person they're supposed to save. Feel free, of course, to explore the physical and psychological effects that dying over and over would have on someone's psyche.