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(don’t worry about the steps/days/assignments/etc. I’ve been developing this over the past week through YWC)
Step 2.
A) One of my favorite books is Dust by Kara Swanson, a fantasy young adult novel that is a retelling of Peter Pan. One specific reason I enjoy it is because of the unique spin on a favorite story!
B) Another good book I like is Unbirthday by (I think) Liz Braswell. While the concept is kind of confusing, I like the spin on the world of Wonderland! The world development is wonderful.
C) I have an idea for a retelling of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Instead, however, I would make it a unique spin on my favorite story growing up (like Kara Swanson’s Dust) and I would build the world of Wonderland in a way that advances my plot (like Liz Braswell’s Unbirthday). I also want a strong backstory as to why the Queen of Hearts is the way she is. I want Alice to be in there, and I want the White Rabbit. I want a character who is hurting like Claire, and I want a character who has a negative arc yet could potentially be redeemed. The main character is clever, yet she gets angry easily. Maybe the MC has a friend who dies and that breaks her?
Also, she’s afraid to be Queen because of her father. Maybe that influences her spiral?
Other queens are strong, Queen of Spades is the worst (maybe, I just thought of the game of hearts here)
D) Seventeen-year-old Rose is the daughter of Robespierre, the villain behind the Reign of Terror after the French Revolution. She has watched him behead all the royals and nobles, and it scares her a little. Her mother is a Knitting Woman, cheering when the axe falls. But Rose has no love of this; after all, it is gruesome.
One day, Rose falls through a rabbit hole and finds a strange new world where nothing is as it seems. Through a strange twist, she becomes a queen of this world, the Queen of Hearts. She becomes good friends with the Grey Rabbit, sister to the White Rabbit.
But there are three other teenage queens, the Queen of Clubs, the Queen of Diamonds, and the Queen of Spades. They all vie for control, and the Queen of Spades kills Rose’s best friend. Rose decides enough is enough, and her life changes forever. She turns into her father. Can she ever be redeemed?
Day 2 Exercise.
One important desire Rose has is to be safe, to be protected, to have a friend.
One important moral weakness Rose has is that she gets angry easily, and that changes how she behaves in a severely negative way.
One important fear Rose has is that she will become her father, Robespierre (she eventually does become him, essentially).
One personality trait Rose has that is similar to someone I know is that she is sort of snarky (like me!)
One admirable trait Rose has is that she’s clever.
Rose’s backstory: Rose is the daughter of Robespierre, the villain behind the Reign of Terror after the French Revolution. Her mother is a Knitting Woman, cheering when the axe falls. Rose hates the knowledge that her parents are literal villains. She longs for a different life, a life where people actually love her for who she is rather than hate her for who her parents are. Nobody likes her; they dart away quickly when she walks by. Will her life ever change?Day 3 Exercise
Rose’s virtue is that she is clever, and her vice is that she angers easily.
In the real world, anger can lead to drastic consequences, especially if the anger gets the better of you. you can go to jail or pay lots of money or something. In the Wonderland world, where nothing is as it seems, it seems as if anger is a good thing because it leads to power.
pursuing this virtue can lead to good things, as you can succeed more easily at things. She was clever, so she became a queen. In the real word, she was clever, so she could escape her father when he’s angry or her mother’s frenzied knitting.
cleverness leads to success, while anger leads to consequencss.
rose will be clever and succeed in beating the other queens at their own games, but her anger at her father and the other queens will make her seek revenge—revenge that is not against those people; rather, revenge against the unsuspecting Wonderland citizens.
Day 4 Assignment
Rose is trying to go against her upbringing, the terrible example her parents set for her. She is trying to protect her friend, the Gray Rabbit, and fails, because of the other queens—who all want her throne.
Her unique advantage is that she is clever and can outwit people easily.
What is at stake is her morality. Will she become a beheading tyrant?
These stakes are important to the reader because they understand her terrible upbringing, and they want her to succeed.
These stakes are personal to Rose because she will become (to quote Alice) “a bad, pompous, bad-tempered old tyrant”. If she becomes that, she make never be able to be redeemed. (I have an idea as to how she will be redeemed, and it will be through watching Alice explore Wonderland with the childlike innocence Rose once felt)
Assignment 5
(If you haven’t been keeping up, check out my profile to see the first four posts)
Obstacle 1: Rose struggles with being loved. People run away when she approaches, not because she is powerful or someone to be feared, but because of who her parents are. (Solved—she falls down the rabbit hole and enters Wonderland, leaving her previous life behind.)
Obstacle 2: She plays a game of chess (got idea from Through the Looking Glass). She wins. She becomes queen. (Not sure how I’m going to work this, but she becomes queen after playing against someone. Again, not sure who.)
Obstacle 3: The other queens are jealous of the queen joining them, Rose. They seek to hurt her, to break her, so that they can have the power back. The Queen of Spades kill the Gray Rabbit. (Not sure how this is going to come about. But it will make Rose so angry that she seeks revenge and somehow gets rid of the other queens).
Obstacle 4: Alice enters Wonderland, and Rose is angry. She sees the innocence she once has, and she tries to ruin Alice because she herself has been ruined. (It is solved when she chases Alice back into the real world.)
Day 6
Rose doesn’t know that the game of chess she plays will make her queen, setting into place the terrible down spiral she takes to becoming the Queen of Hearts.
Readers expect my genre (young adult fantasy) to be a unique world, complex characters, strong concept, and enthralling storyline. But they expect my character to be unredeemable. After all, she is the queen of hearts!
I plan on subverting that final one. Rose is redeemable; Alice redeems her at the end by showing her what innocence looks like and leading her out of the chaos of Wonderland back into the light of the real world.
Day 7
1. Seventeen-year-old Rose is the daughter of Robespierre, the villain behind the Reign of Terror after the French Revolution. She has watched him behead all the royals and nobles, and it scares her a little. Her mother is a Knitting Woman, cheering when the axe falls. But Rose has no love of this; after all, it is gruesome.
One day, Rose falls through a rabbit hole and finds a strange new world where nothing is as it seems. Through a strange twist where she goes from pawn to queen in a matter of eight squares, she becomes a queen of this world, the Queen of Hearts. She becomes good friends with the Grey Rabbit, sister to the White Rabbit.
But there are three other teenage queens, the Queen of Clubs, the Queen of Diamonds, and the Queen of Spades. They all vie for control because they are jealous that their power was diminished when Rose appeared, and the Queen of Spades kills the Gray Rabbit. Rose decides enough is enough, and her life changes forever. She turns into her father, a beheading tyrant. Can she ever be redeemed?
2. Rose must escape her father because if she does not, she will forever be known as a murderer’s daughter, but what she doesn’t know is that she has learned far more from her father than she has ever believed.I love that idea!! I really like fairytale twists. 😄
Write what should not be forgotten. — Isabel Allende
Oh my goodnesss!!! I love Dust 😆 although I never did get the sequel to that book . . .
Your story sounds really cool!! 😉
"Be careful, for writing books is endless, and much study wears you out." Eccl. 12:12
*me just now seeing this*
Oooh it looks so cool!! The characters are really well thought out! I’d definitely read this. 🙂
Follow your heart, but take your brain with you.
@crocheter12 I love this idea! I would totally read this!
Lukas&Livia
#Lalbert
Sef&Chase
#HOTTOLINE
LEFSE FOREVER!!!!!! <333
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