I have two ideas (well, more, but two reasonably feasible ideas) that I'm debating...
One...take Hildie, my hitwoman character from that novel that Lo, thou shalt never see the light of day, and use that as a springboard. There's even the possibility I could raid that manuscript for dialogue and scenes. Possible love interests could be:
- Nick (her super hot bisexual best friend/roomate with a heart of gold but no stomach for killing)
- Tiny (a quiet giant of a man who's not afraid of crushing a man's balls but isn't good at sharing his feelings)
- Alfie (the dude she's supposed to kill next, he's an asshole type with a chip on his shoulder)
- Sean (Alfie's older brother, much nicer guy, older brother type)
- As Yet Unnamed (if adding a female LI, a bartender she knows from her cover job)
- As Yet Unnamed (high school friend who doesn't know she now kills people for a living, IF I decide to do the childhood friend thing which I probably won't)
- As Yet Unnamed (policeman?)
Supporting characters would include Wiz (female hacker with secrets), Frankie (Francesca -- Nick's Nonna, leader of the family), and possibly a young junkie punk that sees her with some compromising evidence (Fat Lou's severed hand in her purse). I could even more or less keep the same structure that I've already got in the book, but with different outcomes depending on which route. It could work.
Pluses: Hildie would be a very strong MC and I've already got gobs of written words that I could pull from. Also would be nice to finally use her for something because I like her a lot.
Cons: It'd be a pretty involved story with the different branches so it wouldn't necessarily be much easier to use what I've already got as I'd really have to sort through thousands of words to find what's useful.
Of course, could start off with just Nick, Sean and Tiny to begin with and then add more later. It would be kind of hard to romance Alfie as he's such a jerk as he's currently written. Though throwing in a cop or some kind of law enforcement dude would be interesting too.
Two...a possibly simpler idea but one in which I would be starting from absolute zero -- have a 30-something writer as the MC. This idea came to me because games/shows/movies/whatever NEVER EVER get writers even halfway right. So have an MC that's perhaps been mid-list her entire career but her latest book is hitting the bestseller list. All of a sudden she's more in the spotlight. Possible love interests could be:
- Editor (of new book, some hotshot she's never worked with before)
- Famous Writer (perhaps publisher wants her to collaborate with someone--think like what Patterson does)
- Movie Producer (wants to option novel as a script)
- Primary Source/Interviewee (if she's decided to work on a non-fiction project next, so could be anyone interesting)
- Newbie Writer/Fan
- Publicist/PR Flack (she's getting an actual tour, so they'd be together a lot)
If I was really going to go all out, could add some stat raising kind of stuff (different skills: research, writing, public speaking, charm, etc.). Not sure I'd want to get into that, but might be interesting. May be fun to make her primarily a romance novelist, which gets no respect in general (even in many writerly circles), but her latest novel transcended that...that gives some potential friction between her and some of the LI's. I'd want her to be snarky but earnest. Perhaps a bit of a closet nerd but she'd have to have a backbone.
Not sure which idea would be more appealing to other people. Maybe neither one. And do I have time to do this? Maybe. It's very tempting. Of course, I'd have to find someone for the art or at least placeholders to start with and then see if it's worth pursuing and hiring someone. Each character would need at least 3 sprites, right? Normal, happy, sad and/or mad. Backgrounds. CGs. Urk. That's the part that really daunts me. But maybe I'll try something really simple to start with, just two LIs and see if I can even work in this kind of format. So...which one? Anyone? Bueller?
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