NaNoWriMo 2016 Pre-Update #4

With two weeks before the writingpalooza of National Novel Writing Month begins, I came up with another idea, this one while laying in bed waiting to fall asleep. Weirdly, I managed to remember the idea and recorded it the next day.

I’ve been itching to do some kind of alternate dimension/parallel universe story but the ones I’ve mulled (or actually tried) have proven too ambitious for the fevered writing that NaNoWriMo demands. This new idea pares everything down considerably and in the end is basically a simple love story.

I’ve tentatively titled it One Slip and the story goes something like this:

A couple meet in their early 20s and spend the next 20+ years together, experiencing the usual ups and downs of any relationship, against the backdrop of the Vancouver gay community and the specter of AIDs.

One day as they stroll around the rugged terrain of a national park, one of the partners slips at the edge of a lookout over a spectacular waterfall. There is a safety barrier but it’s too low and he goes over, as his partner watches in horror. The body is never found.

As the surviving partner grapples with the loss of his spouse, he begins to experience odd phenomenon that seems related to his departed lover. Gradually he begins to wonder if they are messages “from beyond the grave.” Eventually he realizes that his partner is still alive and somehow trapped in another dimension, one that has a portal just below the falls. The other dimension is unstable and unfriendly and time is running out.

The story concludes with a return to the waterfall and a last ditch effort to pull the missing partner back into the world where he belongs–or risk having both end up in the other world where neither should be.

The ending could be radically different, as this is just idle thinking right now, and the details of the alternate dimension, sketchy as they are, may also change. But it’s still meatier than the subway story so it might gain some traction.

And I still have two weeks to think of a third and even more undoubtedly spectacular idea. Go, creativity! (please)

Leave a Comment