A crime story

[Dragen]

Hello, I am writing a crime story and I'm looking for some advice, criticism and thoughts. The main character of the story is called John Nicholas Carlson. He wakes up in a tiny kitchen with a headache and has amnesia, and gradually develops schizophrenia and paranoia too. He has no idea where he is or why. I'm thinking of having some subplots and more main characters too. The story lacks a lot yet but I currently have 511 words. I think the reason why the main character wakes up in the kitchen is going to remain unsolved, but he will walk outside and find himself in the city Greenville (there are many cities called Greenville IRL) where there's a lot of crime and he has to deal with criminal people and work together with investigators to find out about his identity.

I am going to finish this story tomorrow.
Does anyone have any tips or advice?

[Kofra]

I don't know, but that name NICHOLAS CArlson remembers NICHOLAS CAge. It's a personal opinion. But I'll give you some tips:

1) Make a solid story : Make a organogram/fluxogram of the principal storyline.

2)Confuse the reader: With this thing up here ÃZ make sidestorys and alternative endings (just possibilities)

3) Never end : A good story never ends. Sometimes in the final act, you just need some words to make tons of possibilities. If you want to make a story based in the first one (or continue) that will make the things easier. Or just mindblow the reader.

Well, I think it's all. Are you thinking about making a book? it would be a curious story.

[Dragen]

At 11/28/12 08:01 PM, Kofra wrote: Well, I think it's all. Are you thinking about making a book? it would be a curious story.

Thanks! It's an assignment I'm writing, not a book. Trying to get a decent story with a crime theme to it.

[mhzinski]

This is not the first time someone has posted an idea for an amnesia story here. While you can go about it, I would strongly discourage it and suggest actually implementing characterization instead.

As I have said before:

Amnesia is a very difficult device to use because it looks 9 times out of 10 like the author doesn't know how to introduce the reader to the character and wants to reveal his character as the writing develops. This is easier to do in video games where the designer may want the player to impose themselves on the main character, but that is not the intent in writing a fully developed character. Being able to give the reader and idea of who they are dealing with and gradually reveal more of this established character shows much more developmental complexity and maturity in the writing process.

I would also hope that you do a ton on research on all of the mental diseases you are cramming into your main character. Retrograde amnesia is extremely uncommon and schizophrenics usually develop memory issues. Having a character who can't remember anything past or present seems to slaughter any context the story can create without the main character appearing to have unrealistic motivations. This is compounded by the fact that anyone with all of these mentally illnesses would obviously not be allowed to perform public service like being a police detective or anything of the like without receiving some sort of treatment or without at least a billion other people being more qualified to do what he does.

You can't start off with as huge a plot hole as you're setting yourself up for.

[Kofra]

read "pacient 67" it is a great reference.

[cruiser13]

Crime story, a social MMO that combines intense action and adventure into the empire building genre.

[Kofra]

At 12/14/12 03:30 AM, cruiser13 wrote: Crime story, a social MMO that combines intense action and adventure into the empire building genre.

I think that is not a problem.