Plan

I thought it'd be fun to show my plan at the outset of the novel and my notes at the end of it:


Beginning notes: (written mainly at 4/5 in the morning)


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----#-AS THE OCEANS BITE AT OUR RUSTED SHORE-#----
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...A man searches for his daughter in the crumbling dreamscapes of a senile inventor...

A mans daughter (they live alone together) is stolen through a portal. She had been complaining about people peeking in at her through imaginary windows for months but he didnt believe her. One night he is in there conforting his daughter and a portal rips open and a massive man leaps in and grabs her.

He follows. Emerges out the side of a hill covered in blackened machinery, is immediately restrained by two hulking butch-types. He sees his daughter restrained ahead of him and he tries to go after her but fails. The group assembled decide to bring russell as well as the daughter. They take them up a winding hill to a pinnacle which looks like a radio tower. Along the way one man is asked questions about the location, while he replies why it is so 'perfect' - for what, we dont know. He says that it has perfect transmission, that EMP wires grow there and that it is the highest point on the island. russell is terribly confused. the ground is bronze, it looks welded together with pebbles strewn across it and dents from lots of foot-stomps. it may be hollow inside. at the top russell sees his daughter strapped to a machine that looks very hastily assembled. she is strapped in and bound, wires are plucked from nearby and strapped to her head. The machine is turned on ('theres an on switch growing on this side!') and lightning explodes from the machine into the sky. However, there is a clap of lightning and the straps fall flat, because the daughter isnt there any more. The assembled people make it clear that there has been a major mistake. However, there is soon another clap across the island.

Russell is dropped immediately - he runs to the machine and screams for his daughter. There is clearly something very wrong. Lester tries to explain that there was a mistake. Russell goes for Lester and manages to punch him straight in the jaw but he is restrained again. Just then a nearby tree crackles into life and a microphone slides down the bronzed trunk. Someone is on the other end of the line and theyve seen the lightning. Lester explains to them that it was a result of his experiment, and it was vital that the child is recovered quickly. The other team sound shocked that Lester used a child like that but agree to collect the girl. Russell shouts that he wants to go and find her NOW, and though at first Lester is unenthusiastic he eventually relents. Lester is portrayed as a villain character throughout and Russell HATES him for stealing his daughter.

Later on, when they are walking, Russell overhears people talking about him and snaps at them. He describes the rusted countryside, and the clockwork sun hanging overhead. Amelie tries to comfort him, but he shrugs her away and she retreats. A microphone tree crackles into life again and Lester answers it. The other team has recovered the daughter, but she is afflicted with something and cannot breathe properly. Russell is at first outraged, but he learns that it is a routine childhood disease in this world. Lester knows of a place not far which contains herbs which can help heal her. [they go to SOME LOCATION, but a monster guards the herbs. lester dies trying to get the herbs, and russell saves sebastians life. before this lester has to be shown as the most powerful, who knows all the answers, who can save the rest of them, to leave them with a sense of dread upon his death, not only because he knew the island better tha anyone but because only he knew why russells daughter was to be used like that. before he dies they need to go to the beach and see it rust. maybe their path is blocked and they have no alternative? lester leads them through the intensely dangerous beaches to prove his character.]

[they have to get lost without lester!]

[as the oceans burn up the shores ocean-dementia-memoryhole-wraiths steal his daughter and he has to follow her into the heart of the old mans fear]

[another team pick up the girl - they find out via audio lines running through the island, like microphone/ speaker trees. however she is ill, cant breathe properly. they all go to collect her and on the way the scientist has an idea on whats happened to the daughter, by recieving updates on her condition via audio. they go on a detour to collect an artefact that can help. however, the scientist dies trying to get said artefact.]

[it would have just been teleportation but as she was flung through the air she went through a flock of electro-magnetic birds, which rarely nest on the island because they fuck with the island and cause it to spark up, fuck around and go mental. however the girls mobile phone gets mixed with the electrobirds and after that the birds follow the phone and fuck up everywhere they, and by extention the girl and the phone, go]

THINGS WHICH CAN HAPPEN
Invisible monsters! Magnetic energy? Electrical energy?
When the group get seperated one of the characters should meet Russell's daughter but not realise.
The thing they were trying to prevent because of the mishap at the beginning happens - they can't stop it, so the inhabitants of the steampunk world escape before it collapses and become refugees in Russell's world.
A MURDER
A facility which grows babies. Maybe a foetus tree? Hell, why not.
The sea laps the rusted beaches.
He dreams that he sees his daughter trapped in a glass bottle in the ocean.
A section in a furnace
In the ocean is a graveyard of derelict ships
A town near the ocean has been plated in teflon/ stainless steel so it doesnt rust and it destroys itself and remoulds itself into a boat. They steal the boat.
Climactic battle in LIGHTNING STORM, like on a lightning conductor in a storm? IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OCEAN. deserted oil rig?
An injury which needs an amputation which isn't the daughter (that needs a weird artefact to heal)
The disease the daughter gets infects the whole village she is being kept in. Quarantined and going paranoschizophrenia mad.
All the characters take some kind of drug to calm their nerves?
Russell has a crush on the female lead which he feels very guilty about, as its indecent to his wife. She likes him and sees him as the sole hope for their universe as all the men are sterile.
EVERYONE IS STERILE = they need a kid but there are none on the island. the sterilisation event blanketed the island and killed all the guys sperm.



The universe is the dream of an insane inventor. The world is dying because he is slipping into a coma. The world is intrinsically metallic, and cold, like his inventions. The grass is patchwork and tinged with bronze, and the sun is clockwork on a timer. The older life processes are clockwork or steam powered, but more recent things are electric and diesel powered. Like the sun, the seasons, the tectonic plates, are all clockwork and steam-powered. As the man has been moved to a hospital, there are horrific nurse creatures and syringes/ surgical tools which roam the land. The scientist needs the child because he wants to plug the childs supposedly dreamlike imagination into the world, stopping the creeping rust. However, the machine appears to malfunction, and it sends the child across the country. However, it appears that it worked perfectly but the childs imagination wasnt as pure as imagined... The procedure would have been instantaneous, like a reverse lightning bolt into the sky.



THe coma guy is an inventor - the world is metallic, electric, razor-sharp and dirty.
The guy is in hospital and is alone and scared - there are mutant nurses roaming the world, and anthropomorphic syringes and surgical equipment. The syringes are hunted and their blood is drunk.
The guy is deathly afraid of water - water is rising in the world, rusting everything and dredging up horrors from the deep

They know where they inhabit because there is a library somewhere on the island detailing his work - the scientist has read all the library and can understand the insland better than anyone.
They need to go to the library and get attacked in there, by book monsters?
It burns down for sure



---MAIN CHARACTERS---
Russell - father to an only child. his wife either died or left him, leaving him alone to raise a child. the experience left him very introverted.
Lester - a wires explorer leathered with scars. He knows lots about the island and hence picked the best place to transmit the daughters thoughts. He dies early on.
Sebastian - a seventeen year old whose dad died early on in his life. he had to fend for himself, but came to see Lester as a sort of father figure.
Amelie - a thirty year old explorer, witty and talented. Uncannily like Russells ex-wife.
Andre - a thief who takes maybe the
Dresden - large, slow-witted. Dies with Lester.
Dr Cinnibar - the leader of the research team on the other end of the island. Dies of mystery-disease.
Andre - A bandit who steals the artefact that they worked so hard to get.



And now the notes I had at the end:



Seb and melanie meet up and team up – they decide that melanie needs to die, though seb wants to kill russell as well
russ and belle fuck – drunkenness? Or is russell trying to get over juliet again? DOES SHE TELL HIM??
the sky falls down (the sun...) - causes MASSIVE FUCKING FISSURE
Melanie goes off again, and russell tells them about the exploding-melanie? [as if they didn't already know >_>]
RUSSELL NEEDS TO SEE THE PENDANT

[rain, sun falls down (earthquake maybe?]

[more intrigue: belle and russell fuck again, and sebastien and lester team up to kill melanie. He tells sebastien that sebastien killed his parents to make him believe that lester is really inside melanie. They agree to try to kill the evil spirit inside melanie but they think russell loves his kid so they cant tell him about it.]

[at the end the island takes the form of the baby head to speak to everyone.]

[Lester argues with the island at the end, and the island makes him realise that we dont have free will and he couldnt have done things any other way because of his curiosity and determination, when he asks if he was responsible for all that happened, the island assures him 'I relieve you of it'. And lester dies. FINALLY.
Then it turns to Russell and he asks about his responsibilities and the island tells him that he failed in his responsibilities, but he has another chance. ' you can save melanie a life of living with an uncaring father. You can do the right thing. You can let her die.' All he has to do is walk away, through the door. This is where belle has her big reveal and tries to come with him. He shuns her and walks away.]

[have another sex scene between belle and russell?]

[the island wants to take them to the tower so it can magnify its power and kill itself in one]

[theyre outside the door and reveal their plan to kill russell and melanie. 'lester' tells russell that they cant know that hes alive in the body of melanie. He says that they would think that he'd been possessed and russell bows to his greater wisdom. Turns out it was the island (he had been possessed) saying that.

[Sebastien sees the destruction Melanie has wrought and decides to pretend to be his friend instead of just killing him. Belle tries to double-cross Seb and take Russell]

[They try to save the island? End up going out to sea somehow xxx

[Belle tries to go with Russell and bring her unborn child but he LEAVES HER at the end of the novel and becomes a bachelor =p]

[melanie is holding the spirit of lester and also the island and the island is trying to kill itself you find out at the end]

[MELANIE is the villain. Fucking turnaround!]

[and LESTER killed russells wife, and he was too guilty about it not to help her!]

Remember, Remember, Revise in December; then add witticisms, good writing, and plot. Put your inner editor to rest with Shovel of Death, and next month, revise... a LOT.

JULIETS DAD STARTED EVERYTHING. HE LIVED IN THIS WORLD.
HE SET OFF THE BOMB WITH LESTER.
HE WAS CRIPPLED.
Lester thought that something Juliet had touched, or had an emotional connection to would be enough to set everything right, but it wasn't, and he couldn't get her because she was dead, so he had to take her daughter.