Hello again, back from the tunnel, sorry for interrupting,
I wanted to read the entire thread before posting, but an emergency has come up and I seriously need your help right now. I'm at a critical point in my WIP (mainstream fiction novel, 125000 words, in beta reading), and have started to doubt the underlying guiding metaphor, thus challenging future editing on the piece as it is. Please read on.
+++++++Long book synopsis+++++++++
Noah is an addict, escaped convict, and boat owner. He fought his way to freedom and survived the first flood, now making his way through a drowned world on his boat, diving for his needs in sunken cities. Is he “the” Noah?. He doesn’t feel chosen. White-knuckling with guilt ridden memories from his past, he runs from himself, stumbling into ill fated encounters with other survivors and asking himself “Why am I surviving”. As he nearly escapes a deadly fight with ex convicts on a small island, suddenly there is Adam, a strange rescuer, friend and enemy, who leaves him stranded in an empty city where he is confronted with the enemy in himself, but then Adam reappears and brings him to a camp where survivors are constructing a large ship. Noah’s attempt to flee fails, leaving him in the worst prison he has ever experienced. His only rescue is to dream of a woman in the camp, he secretly loves. But as his evil twin Darryl, a man on the other side of the law breaks him, and makes him work on the ship, Noah discovers something about himself that changes everything, but also, gives him no choice but to flee once again, and leave the woman behind, if he wants to protect the new found ground. Just then, the flood comes again, trapping him in an underground bunker with Adam where they learn to depend on each other. They get out, but the woman is dead, leaving him to ask himself why he destroys what he loves. Again, Adam saves him, as suddenly, Darryl forces Noah to take the final jump over his inner line in a last showdown, revealing that his rescuer Adam has betrayed him. But he finally turns into what he always was, boat owner and captain, leading a last group of eight survivors into a new world to complete his journey to higher ground.
+++++++Short book synopsis+++++++++
A fucked up guy who's name happens to be Noah who happened to survive a flood, in a boat, does a lot of really fucked up stuff, almost dies several times, then realises he has build himself an inner ark all this time, finds his strength, and finally gets on the goddamn boat (figuratively and really), thus becoming a new man.
Here is the question:
Should I drop the whole "Noah and inner/outer ark" thing? This could potentially be an entertaining book about a fucked up guy named "Jack", surviving a flood in a boat, finding himself. Might not be as strong, though, because what drives the story is the fact that you wonder how he gets to the ark at the end (it's not the ship he was helping to build, but his original boat). I'm just not sure if it is a bad choice for a first novel, being overdone, silly, not sellable, no matter how fantastically I pull it off? (I don't have any beta feedback so far, am currently hiding under my desk where they can't find me)