My Dumbest NaNoWriMo Idea of All Time

I wasn't going to do National Novel Writing Month this year. I had too much work. I had to study. I couldn't think of a good idea. The Dialectics Society kept doing stuff that sounded more fun than trying to come up with a decent plot. I was not going to let myself do NaNo this year. I lasted about four days.

If you haven't heard of National Novel Writing Month, it's more like International Novel Writing Month now. I think it started in America. Basically, you try to write either a 50,000 word novel, a more than 50,000 word novel, or 50,000 words of a novel in the 30 days that make up November. I started on the 4th this year...

On the afternoon of the 4th, I sat down to do some work for my English Lit seminar the next day. This week I was set my favourite English Lit seminar task so far. I was asked to rewrite the first prologue in 'Romeo and Juliet' as Shakespeare's great great great etc granddaughter would have written it.

Well, I took the fact that the theatre was a popular mode of entertainment in all sects of society at that time and ran with it. So here I present what sparked my NaNo idea this year, the cheesy teenage dystopian fiction parody of 'Romeo and Juliet':

(Note: The society I describe somehow manages to be an ultra-authoritarian system attempting to simulate libertarianism (???) )

"When you’re fourteen, they Assign you. The moment the clock ticks over to midnight, your Chip lights up and you Activate. If it flashes red, you’re a Capulet. If it flashes blue, you’re a Montague. Nobody is scared, or surprised. Nobody can remember Before. You’re taught from birth that competition is healthy. You’re taught to solve any problem by splitting into two teams – one red, one blue – and see who can solve it fastest. By fourteen, you understand markets like you understand your siblings. So you know that this is the way it has to be. This is the best way. You’re excited to hear that beep and rush to the mirror to see whether the back of your neck is lit up blue or red.

You leave your house that morning. You leave behind family, friends, and well … those who are more than friends. Inter-team romances never last. Everyone knows that. You’d have to be monumentally dumb to even contemplate it. Well, that’s what my friends say. I prefer to think of myself as brave."

Below is a link to the first chapter. It's in a real-time collaborative word processor and it's not my only copy, so feel free to make any suggestions as they occur to you. Just use a different colour to the rest of the text so I can see it!

http://biscuitsbatchavoy.writerfeedpad.com/72

(Yes, the short post this week is because NaNo is greedy about time.This post was going to be about feminism before NaNo happened.)

EDIT: Since I wrote this I have caught up on four days worth of missed NaNo time. I am exhausted and slept until 3pm today. Even right now though, I recommend NaNoWriMo to absolutely anyone interested in writing. It is so, so worth it. Trust me. This is my fourth year in a row putting myself through it.