I'm letting the other one sit for awhile until I go back and edit/rewrite. The first draft is done, but I need some distance from it before I can make it better.
After a ton of research, it looks like if I want to make any money writing AT ALL, then I need to be doing paranormal romance 5-7 book series's. Yikes....
So I'm biting off a lot more than I can chew, but I'm trying it. Gargoyles in modern times. Yep, totally using the cartoon for inspiration!
My first book in the series is about a gargoyle guy who's only friend is a stone angel statue, a real one. He thinks he's the last gargoyle on earth.
When he goes out at night, he meets a hospice nurse at a sandwich shop that looks a lot like his angel statue, and they start falling in love.
And....that's all I have figured out for now.
I need an internal conflict, which I think is covered by them being different races and her not believing in anything paranormal because of her job.
I need an external conflict, which I don't have! I could take it a few different directions, so if you feel like it, you can tell me which idea you like or if you have any others.
*His stone angel could seem to come to life somehow and threaten their relationship. (But what would she be? I do not intend to write in any other paranormal creatures at this time.)
*More gargoyles could be looking for him and find him, and try to take him away, disapproving of the human/gargoyle romance.
OR?
Obviously I'm seriously lacking on plot. I need something that forces them to spend time together so they can fall in love, and then threaten their lives or love later.
See, I can figure out the characters and their love arc etc, but this is one of my big weaknesses - giving them something to DO, lol.
I'm terrible at world building *sigh*.
Of course you don't have to suggest anything if you don't want, I'll figure something out, but I just like asking another equally creative brain! I'll comment if I think of any other direction to go, and hopefully you will too.
Love you bunches, hope you feel better soon!
After a ton of research, it looks like if I want to make any money writing AT ALL, then I need to be doing paranormal romance 5-7 book series's. Yikes....
So I'm biting off a lot more than I can chew, but I'm trying it. Gargoyles in modern times. Yep, totally using the cartoon for inspiration!
My first book in the series is about a gargoyle guy who's only friend is a stone angel statue, a real one. He thinks he's the last gargoyle on earth.
When he goes out at night, he meets a hospice nurse at a sandwich shop that looks a lot like his angel statue, and they start falling in love.
And....that's all I have figured out for now.
I need an internal conflict, which I think is covered by them being different races and her not believing in anything paranormal because of her job.
I need an external conflict, which I don't have! I could take it a few different directions, so if you feel like it, you can tell me which idea you like or if you have any others.
*His stone angel could seem to come to life somehow and threaten their relationship. (But what would she be? I do not intend to write in any other paranormal creatures at this time.)
*More gargoyles could be looking for him and find him, and try to take him away, disapproving of the human/gargoyle romance.
OR?
Obviously I'm seriously lacking on plot. I need something that forces them to spend time together so they can fall in love, and then threaten their lives or love later.
See, I can figure out the characters and their love arc etc, but this is one of my big weaknesses - giving them something to DO, lol.
I'm terrible at world building *sigh*.
Of course you don't have to suggest anything if you don't want, I'll figure something out, but I just like asking another equally creative brain! I'll comment if I think of any other direction to go, and hopefully you will too.
Love you bunches, hope you feel better soon!
I've heard that there are authors who write that way. Two or 3 projects at a time. They use the mindset of switching to a project to make sure it stays easy to understand, accessible and interesting. Then they say what would I want to read next and write it.
ReplyDeleteSo some ideas which are totally random and I don't know how they fit in. But gargoyles have always been protectors and that's why they are on buildings. They are very honorable. There's like a motto. Evil doers will be smited by the wrath of gargoyles. Sometimes they will fight unbeatable odds because of that urge to protect or kill evil. which is why their numbers get depleted. They have to find psychological ways to deal with that. Like part of the reason he likes the statue so much is that he protects it. It's part of his territory to protect. So you can see that once he finds the woman he will transfer his protectiveness and that will can cause problems too like she sees him at her work etc. Problems like a drunk patient attacks her and he over reacts and shes about to get fired.
Also maybe he meets her in the cafe and they talk and she can tell he's in pain. He's being a tough guy of course but she sees a drop of blood hit the floor. He's stabbed in an awkward place like upper back ribs. He has to have her medical help and continued help to change bandages. They fall in love that way. One of the time honored tropes of gargoyles is that turning to stone heals them. So why would he not heal? Something he'd get stabbed with accidentally. Like a rusty pipe with gasoline on it. Or a shard of mirror they were cutting cocaine on. So he's full of glass. Or maybe just that's the effect of demonic weapons. He thought he could take on two but then a third showed up.
I know that you don't intend to write in anything else paranormal but also part of gargoyles and churches and protectiveness is demons. Going back to his coping. He knows that he can't takes on packs of demons because his angel (nurse) needs him so he only takes on guaranteed wins. So he is fights demons and occasionally evil men too. I don't know if you've seen that skrillex music video but it's kinda like a little girl is an angel and she baits pedophiles and when she gets them alone she kills them. So it could be also said that he hunts down those type of bad people. That he also has some small powers related to that. Like he can hear heartbeats and screams and tell the difference between innocence and evil.
All kinds of rifts from that. Like obviously the nurse has an innocence about her or she would not care for people. Also the idea of the prostitute with the heart of gold. He could have other human female friends who are prostitutes. He could win them over with a line like outside of doing a job your just people and why should your dignity matter less than anyone elses.
ReplyDeleteSomewhere he could need to help the nurse or a little girl or run and hide and the prostitutes he calls ladies of industry could help with care or hiding.
I agree that at some point there should be demons and also other gargoyles. I don't think that they would disagree with his romance depending on how you build the world. Even if they disapprove they would not take action because there is so few females. They would be relieved he is occupied. On the other hand most paranormal romance make the pairing make sense because they need fresh dna and using human woman to reproduce makes sense.
So you would need to deal with the egg myth like how vampires let people in on their reality . Baby gargoyles would essentially be like chickens in that anything hard would be soft and cartilaginous or missing till they were older. They could be normal babies. Or an idea that just came to me.
People who hunt gargooyles. Using a hammer on them will hurt them or kill them. Modern humans aren't such a problem anymore because they don't believe. But what if a female gargoyle who is pregnant was smashed? Then the egg would be her very tough stone womb. It would be sad. Also a tie in to dragon eggs and eggs that don't hatch for 1000 years.
Also from minecraft I like the idea of interesting buildings. Also WoW. Why should all buildings be square grey boxes. Also the idea of Asia. How because of their isolation how iconographic they became. So the best thing to me about gargoyles is the world that you could build just for them that's influenced only by them. Buildings, writing, language, decorations, clothing etc. etc
Like obviously they would live in big mountains and have tunnels that go down into earth. Huge open caverns in the earths crust. How they would enjoy extreme temperatures because of their hardiness. Artic bases away from humans and steam baths near lava fissures. If they were to build a building of their own what would it look like? How would they protect against smashing? Maybe they turn to stone in shifts and it depends on age? Maybe they have gargoyles who do magic or have technology and they have visual illusions that make a building look glassy or like a flat stone wall and they hide behind that when they are stone. You can tell that in modern days every major city would have an outpost just for them. A glass building like the ford building where all the glass is an illusion or their own church with a tower. Powerful gargoyles might even have a modern building of their own and put in a key and make the elevator go down to a lower level penthouse.
ReplyDeleteThey might love soft stone because they would be great artistic carvers, they might love gems and rocks. Because of their special clothing needs they could have entirely different clothes and concepts for closets. They would love leather with rivets and spikes and things that would tie on around their anatomy. If they shift between full man, gargoyle and stone they would have to have clothes that would accommodate. They would wear leather trench coats or cloaks.
Their writing would be confused for ancient Sumatran because they would make the similar triangular shapes with claws. They would write temporarily in soft things like mud or things to be destroyed like wax or things to be archived like clay tablets. Leads to ideas like a giant library that you have to fly to use and it's full of clay tablets.
You could talk about upper-class gargoyle writing means make a quill of their own claw and slipping on a silver quill nib on their nail and using ink. How if you were a brainy sort like a scholar you had a permanently black stained claw. So super rich gargoyles would have someone do it for them so they would not look lower class. How maybe the middle class would have a liquid they dip into to clean the ink when they were done.
You would think that they would eventually speak English and that if they lived long enough you could have gargoyle linguists that speak 20 languages or languages that don't exist anymore. It could be part of an art form for them. Speak old language no one knows for poems or epic stories so that people appreciate the sound more. Their own language would of course be deep and rumbly and he could sing to the nurse to put her to sleep.
For gargoyles even rules separated by gender. Given how they worship rocks and gems and females. Men only wear unpolished gems and woman get to wear polished ones. Some female gargoyles would have special jewelry for the number of births they've had.
Which would lead to another problem. Female gargoyle jealousy of human females. Even if it makes no sense!!!
ReplyDeleteYou can see that gargoyles would love to crush up stones to make pigments and they would have great paintings and murals, and even wear makeup. As much as they like leather it would be a sign of leisurely life to wear a brightly dyed pretty outfit. Even librarians would wear pretty things.
What would music be like? You can imagine none of them or only very rarely have the ability to use a wind instrument. They would use drums, xylophones chimes bells. Versions of things grander and separate than strictly human. Maybe an entire chamber the size of a football field to give a concert. They could play the piano because of large hands and also play harps but only wire strung ones because they would tear strings. Human wire harps can be training instruments for young gargoyles and professional concert level could be a giant one curved like a wave and in order to play they would have to crawl across it and fly up it and also be able to pluck notes with claw tips on their wings.
Taking asian geisha as an example for gargoyles. It could be a highly honored and trained position to live as a type of gargoyle geisha. Initiating into full membership would involve having their wings pulled off so they would be dependent on that lifestyle and also look more like human woman. Which would be a huge novelty and comfort to businessmen with the scarcity of gargoyle woman. A way to increase the chance for a lower class female gargoyle to eat and be taken care of and sample many men to get pregnant. If they get pregnant with a businessman's baby he could choose to marry her. As much of an honored position as it is for lower class woman you can imagine some are sent they're against their will or as punishment, or a breeding problem. Higher class woman disowned and sent there. Or a young middle class gargoyle who's husband dies and she is widowed and in normal circles not wanted because of a broken wing. Or someone who has proven they could get pregnant outside of a relationship and so they are initiated to help keep making babies.
You can imagine that young gargoyles, old ones, sick ones, and injured ones would still need to be able to participate in gargoyle society. So a human lover would fit in in a time honored way as well. Cue jealous female gargoyle trying to kill human in the city. How would nurse use the gargoyle archive?
You can also imagine that for the human lover she would become great friends and have staunch defenders in the underdogs. The young, old, infirm and injured.
You could also think that once a human was acclimated to the gargoyle world she would have more value or that once she gave birth once she would also increase in value. So maybe another gargoyle male try's to abduct her or win her by challenge and so your gargoyle lover would have to overcome that.
TY for all the ideas, I've written down several of them for use!! I'm sure you will recognize them when you finally get to read it :D
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