Is this a good book plot? I have been meaning to write a story and this is what I have come up with for an idea. Basically, the typical island plot comes into play where a girl is a boat crash survivor and ends up on an island. She finds a boy there and they have the time of their lives. After making an SOS thing, the girl gets saved but the boy has to stay at the island, his home. And after she leaves, turns out that she left her dairy and the boy reads it and learns that she loved him. Something pangs the boy and he realizes that he deeply loves her back. He builds a boat and tries to find the girl. Typical island-crash-boat-survivor-sos-girl-and-romance..... what do you think? I KNOW IT'S PRETTY CLICHE. oh well. that's all i got. Please help me develop-- FIRST STORY thats not for school ;o
You could always make it into a comedy. Once the girl leaves, he takes his pet monkey and makes a wig for it and dresses it up to look like the girl. The girl returns a few months later to once again try to get the boy to leave with her, only to find he has lost his mind and has fallen in love with the chimp he calls by her name and has dressed up as her. When she confronts him face to face, he shuns her and stays with the chimp instead, as she leaves the island this time with her diary and stunned by what has happened.
It's a plot. What makes the story good is how you write it. In a story like that, what's really important are the characters. Develop them well, and make people root for them and care about them. Many years ago, (I'm going to show my age here, but I always remember this moment for its absurdity), I saw a movie with a character called Pee Wee Herman. (Some of you may not even know who he is.) Anyway, he was a kind of man/child character played by a man named Paul Reubens. He had a television show and made a movie. My Dad asked me what the plot of the movie was that I was going to see. I had to laugh when I told him, "Well, the plot is that someone steals this guy's bicycle and he has to get it back." Doesn't sound like a particularly intriguing plot in and of itself. But people went to the movie for all the characters and interactions involved in the film -- not because it was so compelling in and of itself to see if a stolen bicycle is recovered. My point is -- its about more than plot. MUCH more. Almost any plot will work if you write it well enough.
LOL that's pretty cuteeee, so i have updated my plot: Leaving off from my original plot where the girl had just left and the boy reads her diary and realizes that they love each other, the girl goes back and finds out that the boy has gone kinda crazy, but has not been totally far-out mentally destroyed. She takes him back and blaah blahh whatever. I'll figure it out later.. By the way, the boy does not leave with her when she gets rescued because of past memories of his father teaching him to survive and stuff and it's too painful. I don't know, whatever. Plus, by the way, this island is uncharted so who cares about the tiny little details.. it's just the romance I'm all about ;3 I also need an idea for their age and unique characteristics.. but I think the girl should by rich kid who gets lost on cruise. Anything else? Names.. Thanks for the tips.. but what the heck.. I'm still craving for more!
It's probably too old for you to have seen, but you should watch the movie "The Blue Lagoon," so that you try not to sound like you are borrowing anything from it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Lagoon_%281980_film%29 You can read the plot there.
If that's the case, I'd be very careful about incorporating Lewdog's suggestion about making it a comedy. If it's not your vision of the story, it's not going to come out right. This is for you, as the author to decide. It's not just part of the work, but part of the fun.
There are all kinds of romantic comedies out there. The idea I incorporated would be like a backwards version of "Something About Mary." Yes, I feel things like character names and characteristics are important for the author to come up with for themselves. When you are finished, nothing is going to make you feel more proud than giving birth, so to speak, to not the novel as a whole, but the characters you brought to life. They almost become your children in a literalistic kind of way.
A story concept means nothing. What matters is how you write it: the characterization, the flow, the imagery, all of it. There's absolutely no benefit in asking what other people think of the concept! They'll either say,"Sounds great," or, "it sounds like a ripoff of..." If the idea stirs you, write it. Then ask people what they think of the final story. After they tell you what they don't like about it, revise it, usually several times, until you're happy with it or until you throw up your hands and say the hell with it. Please read What is Plot Creation and Development?
Don't listen to Cognito, he ripped off this useful information from his 8th grade English teacher Mr. Jessop.
Just to clarify, Lewdog -- I'm not saying I think it's a bad idea. I have no opinion on whether it would be good or bad. I'm only saying that it's your idea, not the OP's. So if the idea doesn't truly resonate with the OP, it wouldn't be a good plan to go down that road. The comment about really being more into the romance part of it made me think that it might not be the case that the suggestion is in line with what the OP had in mind. Had he said -- OMG - that's ingenious! I've already got ideas now to go that way! Then I'd say it would be great for him to explore. But since he seemed to just kind of incorporate it into the already existing story, it concerned me that he might be accepting all suggestions, regardless of whether they comport with his vision of the story. That's what's dangerous.
I think you're blowing off the reason why the boy stays on the island rather easily. To me that seems like a fairly important detail that you need to plan for because something like that is going to resonate through the character the entire time. It shouldn't just pop up. Also, why the boy is there in the first place. I do enjoy a good deserted island plotline, though not a huge fan of too much romance in my books(That's one of the reasons Verne's The Mysterious Island was so great). Though that shouldn't mean anything to you since it just means I'm not in your target demographic.
It's definitely a little cliched, but not all bad. Maybe have something big happen like a squid attack to help them find their feeling for each other this is honestly my first stab at a romance story, my comfort zone is Horror,Sci-fi,Suspense/Thriller,Comedy stories
