The December Project

Looking through pictures on the internet, I found this picture and thought of Achlys...
Then I found out this was the crazy girl from The Following...
Okay?

So, in the middle of November, I got this idea for a story. It just sort of hit me WHAM! out of no where one day at work. Granted, I've had this idea on and off for years, but this time it was immediate. In fact it wanted to be written now, but I was in the middle of NaNoWriMo and I promised myself I would stick to one story for at least a month. So I wrote the idea down and went back to writing The Appalachian Method like a good little girl. 

However, the idea persisted. It would not be dismissed! I needed to tell it NOW. 

I said to the story, "You wait your turn, jimbo!"

The rest of my brain thought that such a turn of phrase was weird and out of character for me, so they all backed off including the story even though I continued to imagine it the whole time I wrote The Appalachian Method.

Then November was over.

YAY!!! I could start the new story!

But I had a house to clean.

Then I injured my back.

Well, while my back was healing and moving hurt,I worked on this story a bit trying out the 30 day method detailed in the previous post in a nice notebook with a nice, new printer that I bought from Walmart.

Here's the plot sketch (from Day 3):

PLOT SKETCH: The December Project 

Story Goal:

When Samantha Delany was seventeen years old, her life was stolen from her by her teacher, lover, and ultimately betrayer, Eli Morgan (El). As Achlys, she now strives to kill Eli, hopefully before he ever met her so that some part of her can live on in "innocence", destroying any of Eli's goals, plans or dreams in the process to get her ultimate revenge.
Romance Thread (Optional):

There is a potential romance that could blossom between Achlys and Azrael if the characters allowed themselves to move forward instead of constantly reliving past wrongs in a futile hope for revenge one day. There's also a romance between Samantha Delany and Eli Morgan. He genuinely loves her, but immortality is more important to him ultimately.
Subplot Threads:

1.        El is looking for a form of perfect immortality at any cost. He's willing to even use possibly the only person he can and does love by possessing her body and giving birth to a perfect vessel for himself... if she won't willingly help him and sacrifice her life.

2.       Achlys must adapt to her new status as a revenant who must "eat" the lives of others to survive.

3.       Azrael must learn to conquer his centuries-long depression and genuinely move on with his eternity so that he can show Achlys how to do the same.

4.       Achlys must learn everything she can about Eli Morgan, or as she will discover, the monster known as El.

5.       Nemo wishes to stop El and others like him from attaining immortality at any cost, and she's willing to use anyone to do it.

6.       Achlys must accept that the person she was... wasn't good or innocent and El saved her from possibly doing a monstrous thing that would have ended in her own death and the death of others.

7.       Achlys's right arm is not hers. It came from someone who made a powerful self-sacrifice out of pure love for another being. It's that love and acceptance that may save Achlys in the end from El's plans.
Plot Tension:

Plot tension continues as Achlys is unable to move on as a revenant, obsessing over killing Eli Morgan even as she discovers he is a body-hopping immortal by the name of El with his own plans for Achlys's future. Additional plot tension comes from people pushing Achlys to complete their desires regardless of her own desires.
Romantic/Sexual Tension:

Achlys is a kind of a dark reflection of what Azrael is and thus they share a lot in common. They also live together in close quarters and are the ugliest people the other has ever met, including themselves. There is some room for romantic tension in their living arrangements.El searches for Samantha, the person he wishes to give birth to his perfect body, the only woman he can ever love even as Achlys prepares for her final confrontation with the man who seduced her and violated her. Despite the betrayal and the hurt, the feelings she held for him are still there, something that disgusts her even as her own continued existence disgusts her. However, there's always that possibility that one life with her could've been enough for them both.
Release:

Nemo finally agrees to send Achlys to confront El and take her revenge on him. Achlys knows his location and how to find him, she only needs to tell Nemo she's ready and she can finally get the revenge she has been planning for seven years.
Downtime:

Achlys prepares to confront El and asks Azrael to help her. He refuses and tries to talk her out of it.
Black Moment:

Achlys is finally confronting El, but Nemo has taken her to the wrong time and she and El have already met. Worse, her plans and hopes for El have made her vulnerable to El's machinations. Can Achlys free herself and kill El even if she can't get the complete revenge she wants and feels she deserves?
Resolution:

Achlys defeats El by draining him of all his energy and taking him into herself without allowing him to possess her. He will live forever, in a way, but as part of Achlys rather than as a body born of Sam Delany who died seven years prior in Achlys's timeline. Achlys reunites with Azrael and he invites her to work for his firm... without killing people. She accepts.

I'm a bit farther a long and some of this has to be changed, but now you have an idea of what I'm talking about when I refer to the December Project.