Friday, January 30, 2009

ASSEMBLE!

So, I'm taking a publishing class, and on Tuesday we have to submit our first book proposal.

To me, this means taking all my crazy ideas and choosing which one I think someone is most likely to pay me for.

Crap.

I'm going to need your help once more, gentle reader. For you non-blogger-account-havers (most of you that read this, I believe) I would really appreciate some form of feedback because this is driving me crazy.

These are all the books I want to write, keeping in mind that ideas look really STUPID when you write them out like this.

1.) Gaiman/Adamsesque supernatural adventure story about a completely normal boy who gets commissioned by a flamboyant Englishman to deliver packages to supernatural people like old ladies who have learned how to stop time by keeping lots of cats or undergound gnomes who operate traffic lights. Later on he'd travel to other planes and encounter his alternate reality self who ended up becoming evil because on his first day of work he decided not to roll his sleeves.
(examples: http://immaculatechronicles.blogspot.com/search/label/Justin)
Think a more lighthearted American Gods, or a less spacey Hitchiker's Guide.

2.) A supernatural horror adventure about a guy whose brother dies mysteriously. When he investigates the brother's room he finds lots of paranormal books and clues and attempts to discover what happened. When the body is found missing he has to travel into the seedy and ghostly underworld, with some allies he picks up: Burn, who burns things, Sleep, who makes things sleep, and Ishmael, a polite but mostly faceless ghastly thing that everyone seems to fear. Think Yu Yu Hakusho and a British mob movie combined (?????????)

3.) Seven Songs for the End of the World: Seven stories, each taking place on a different day as the world ends. Each would feature a different character coping with their lives and situations as shit goes down. The first day is mass histeria, the second is horrible disease, the third is war breaking out; the first chapter would be about people in general, second about a doctor trying to cope, third about a soldier trying to not die and so on. It would end roughly the way this does: http://immaculatechronicles.blogspot.com/2008/12/day-seven.html
Except, you know, spread out and expanded on a whole lot because it's 1/7th of the book.

4.) Similar to #1, a normal boy starts to work at a teashop where it turns out is an interdimensional tea shop afterhours, where all manner of beast and god come to have tea. Hijinks ensue.

5.) Dystopian future city in which classes are separated by technology and giant walls. A poor young man finds a bloody prostitute lying in an alley, and is inexorably drawn to her. Turns out she and her boss are not getting along, because she's trying to leave the city. The problem with this is that the world has supposedly ended and this is the only city left. He goes with her, and tries to flee a surprisingly bitter pimp and eventually the military as they break into the posh and sterile first sector, picking up a dirty hippie who thinks the world is talking to him and a rebellious would-be revolutionary who thinks the government is lying and that there is a whole world outside.
Example: http://www.sheezyart.com/view/1110362/
Think Children of Men but with more psychic hookers.

I KNOW I had more. I'll add any if I think of them. All but 3 and 4 I've already started in some capacity, but these are the ideas I think have the most potential.

Any input would be greatly appreciated. The truth is I need to start concentrating on one work to try and get published and this class is going to kick my ass into high gear. I just have no idea what to do.

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