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[SleepingReverie]

Doctor Humdrum

1) a business meeting between two people on a cafe;
2) clients;
3) sales and stuff;
4) professional-looking discourse; complete with business suits, calculators and papers; and
5) literally a bunch of stuff about "business"

I'm actually a senior in college for business management. What specifically do you want to know? Etiquette? Business jargon? Finances?

Are you able to say what this business meeting is about? I might be able to help you more if you can tell me the industry your character is in.

[MysteriaBunnie]

Hello! Usually I'm a lurker over in the Art Freebies forum, so I'm new here. 3nodding Just to let you know I haven't focused on the characters or tiny details of the setting yet either, I've just been working specifically on the plot. So I'm just gonna call the characters by the names I thought of so far of them - but nothing is all the way official yet.

Okay, here's the plot then:


Alright, so the setting is sometime in the distant future (no set year). A terrorist from another country that is not specified has set off a nuclear bomb, in the midst of what was becoming another World War. Scientists in America and the other partnering countries, of course, planned for something like this to happen by building rocketships - by then they had the technology to build bigger and better ones, and ones that could travel further - and flew everyone who hadn't died (basically people from smaller, littler countries had been completely wiped out, from the nuclear fumes. Bigger cities with larger populations didn't have as much deaths, but still, a lot of people died.) out to a planet that they had been studying for years - one that was almost exactly like ours. Water, air, plantlife, bacteria - etc. The spaceships landed, and the people made the planet their new home (this wasn't decided all at once, however - it took quite a few months, almost a year, for them to finally decide that this was their only option, unless they wanted to live on a spaceship their whole lives.). At first everything was fine. People started to build houses (using materials they had gathered) and plant crops. They started to make a home there.

But once it was time for the countries and such to start picking out territory is when it all started going bad. People started fighting, the Presidents and Political leaders started arguing over who would get which and how much land, and fights and wars started to break out. And while all of this was happening, a virus that also started to break out throughout the New World - a mutated peice of bacteria that spread.


Ten years later, the chaos is still going on, and this is where the actual story begins. During the time where the humans were on the spaceships and flying to Earth-2 (Haven't found a better name for it yet), two girls - one only three years old, the other five - have been orphaned after their parents died back on Earth from the nuclear fumes. Fortunetly they were not the only ones to become orphans during this time, and was soon put in a group of kids who's parents had just died. When things finally started getting started on Earth-2, all of the orphan kids were brought up and raised by a few volunteers under the roof of what later became an orphanage. The sisters are soon seperated in the Foster homes, and never see each other until ten years later, when the real plot begins.


During the ten years, the youngest sister - who is only thirteen at the moment - has been traveling from home to home, and has been staying in a little beach town (that I have not given a name to yet.) for the past year. While out in the marketplace killing some time, she runs into an older girl, who knocks over her stuff (cliché, I know. I'll think of something better later). Suddenly the police are there, and it turns out the girl is actually a thief who's been traveling from small town to small town. The older girl, in a panic, grabs the younger one (by the way, I'm sorry I keep calling them 'older girl' and 'younger girl'; I have no set names for them yet ^^" wink and puts a gun to her head, threatening to shoot if they don't leave her alone. They back off, if only for a second, and the older girl makes her escape - taking the younger one with her as hostage and an excuse not to shoot her down. To do this, she handcuffs her and the younger girl together.


The older girl tells the younger one that she has been looking for her boyfriend, who is the leader of the gang that the older one is part of, who she got seperated from after an ambush of their group in which two of the members got arrested in the rest of them ran away in different directions.


Aaaaand that's where I'm stuck. What should happen after that? I was thinking having the boyfriend be affected by the virus, and after discovering that, discover some secret or whatever that the goverment is trying to hide? I honestly have no idea, and I've been wracking my brain for the past two weeks about it and it's driving me crazy. I'm sorry this is such a long post, and I'm sorry for the such complex plot. >.>


There's other minor deatails that I didn't mention, by the way - on the ships, they brought along another autopilot ship that carried things like materials for houses, and four animals of the same species (two female, two male) so that they could repopulate. Because of this, I decided to name all of the ships 'The Ark', after the Noah's Ark story, lol. smile But yeah, minor details like that haven't been mentioned, so if you have any questions about that kind of thing feel free to ask!


My God, this post is so HUUUUUGE

[Doctor Humdrum]

SleepingReverie

Doctor Humdrum

That seems to be the problem. Trust me, I'm oblivious to business stuff like these and anything of its sort. Would you like to suggest something? Sorry if it sounds like I'm making you construct the story yourself, I'm just a fourteen-year old (and also an Asian, which only adds to my worries of not being able to throw out proper things American). Don't worry, the story won't focus much on the job, I just need to show the readers about how he was an exceptional crackerjack in his field.

Here's the story so far:

The smell of croissant would be the least thing I would expect in a Friday morning. It's not like it's a no garden-variety in France-- I just deem black coffee and a copy of Libération more suitable for six-o'-clock's. I pattered across the stale feel of the old wooden floors which made my tiptoes sound like tramps.

"Good morning!" my wife called from outside the window. With a Moulin Rouge leaflet on her left hand and a L'anglais au Français book on the right, you'd think she's merely another American tourist asking for directions.

"It's bonjour," I blurted. "A true French citizen never says 'good morning'."

"Oh yes, of course," she said, scanning her booklet from page to page. "Define bonjour. Hello. Good morning. Pleased to meet you--"

"'Pleased to meet you' is not a translation of bonjour," I laughed. "It's 'je suis tres heureux de faire votre connaissance',"

It was a typical fall in October. The croissant wasn't salty enough, which only added to the list of the hitches I needed to face for the next twenty-four hours. Of course, I hate it when my croissants turn terribly bland. Just as I would hate life without any diversion-- which points out to my wife.

I met Daphne in Germany, back when everything was still earthbound. I never knew something could turn up this swell and change my life; I have never seen myself gravitating towards anything so replete with so much joy. She's literally into everything-- which is probably why she has demanded into changing nationalities from Irish to French. A bit of a run-of-the-hill, but I could tell she's improving.

"Your phone is ringing," my wife said. I got caught off with how the day broke off crisp and goldenrod, I didn't notice Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor playing in the background. Or was I too busy contemplating about the bread?

"It's not ringing," I complained as I reached my phone from my coat pocket. "It's producing music! It's Beethoven, for heaven's sake."

"No, sweetheart," my wife said. "It's Rachmaninoff."

"Whatever," I said as I pressed my mouth against my phone. "Bonjour, Clyde Montagne speaking."

Dead silence thundered. I squinted at my wife indecently. "Jacques," I mouthed.

I could clearly hear my boss's indignant smirk over the speaker. "Having a good time in Paris, I see?" Richard Jacques, whom I expected to be preeminent and all-knowing, asked all of a sudden.

"I live in Paris, sir," I said abruptly. "My wife and I recently moved. You ought to know that, sir. I left you a bunch of e-mails."

"E-mails," he laughed. "This is not 1970."

"There weren't any e-mails until 1971, sir."

"Oh, shut it!" he exclaimed, clearing his throat afterwards. "I called for business plans. I thought you'd like to confer."

I paused. "Over the phone, sir?"

"I expect more from a scholar like you, Clyde," he replied. "Do you think it would be professional if we were to discourse business matters over the phone?"

"No, sir. Not at all."

"Good," he confirmed. "I hope you're not too busy with newly-wed matters, no?"

"Not at all," I said. "Are you in Vincennes, sir?"

"Mountrouge," he cleared. "How does 4 p.m. tomorrow sound? Le Café Tournon?"

"Of course, sir. I'll be seeing you."

"Great," he said. "Congratulations to you and Meredith, by the way."

With a forceful croup he hung up, leaving me with a "thank you" and a "my wife's name is Daphne, not Meredith" unsaid.

Daphne stood by the door, waiting for my countenance for assent to appear. "Well? You'll be leaving tomorrow, I expect."

I took a deep breath, and with a satisfied grin, threw myself on the dingy sheets on the couch. "I'm sure you'd want to leave the house tomorrow, too."

Her tousled expression asked for clarification.

"You know what this space needs?" I said as I shed off the taupe paint on the wall.

"Everything."

[SleepingReverie]

Doctor Humdrum

That seems to be the problem. Trust me, I'm oblivious to business stuff like these and anything of its sort. Would you like to suggest something? Sorry if it sounds like I'm making you construct the story yourself, I'm just a fourteen-year old (and also an Asian, which only adds to my worries of not being able to throw out proper things American). Don't worry, the story won't focus much on the job, I just need to show the readers about how he was an exceptional crackerjack in his field.

For a fourteen year-old, you have quite exceptional writing skills!

Okay, career suggestions for your character...hmm.

Well, several jobs come to mind. If he is a businessman for this company, then he could be:

• Accountant--the "bookkeeper" of the bunch. In simple terms, accountants record all of the money that a business has, and give reports on how the business is doing. This involves A LOT of terminology and knowledge of what money is put where.
  
  
• Information Systems Administrator--A friend of mine was in this major, but I sadly can't tell you much about it.
  
  
• Manager--There are several kinds of managers. Store Managers, Operations managers, and Human Resource managers are just a few titles. Each of them have their own terms and skills, but they all manage something in the end.
  
  
• Finance Analyst--Similar to accountants, though their priority tends to focus more on the business's stock.
  
  
• Marketing--The ones responsible for promoting, designing, and distributing the company's product or service. There's more than just making commercials.

On the flip side, he could also have a few careers that don't really pertain to the business side of things, such as engineering or communications.

What you might have to be careful about is that if this a meeting between two companies, then negotiations are going to be tricky.

And, if he is a family man, then jobs that require more than 40 hours will be tough. Those kind of jobs in particular could be some management and marketing. Particularly any jobs with high-stress deadlines are going to have overtime. Heck, video-game companies are killers when it comes to overworking.

I hope that's helped you at least a little bit. I'll be gone for the weekend, but if you want to know anything else, don't hesitate to ask!

[MysteriaBunnie]

MysteriaBunnie

Hello! Usually I'm a lurker over in the Art Freebies forum, so I'm new here. 3nodding Just to let you know I haven't focused on the characters or tiny details of the setting yet either, I've just been working specifically on the plot. So I'm just gonna call the characters by the names I thought of so far of them - but nothing is all the way official yet.

Okay, here's the plot then:


Alright, so the setting is sometime in the distant future (no set year). A terrorist from another country that is not specified has set off a nuclear bomb, in the midst of what was becoming another World War. Scientists in America and the other partnering countries, of course, planned for something like this to happen by building rocketships - by then they had the technology to build bigger and better ones, and ones that could travel further - and flew everyone who hadn't died (basically people from smaller, littler countries had been completely wiped out, from the nuclear fumes. Bigger cities with larger populations didn't have as much deaths, but still, a lot of people died.) out to a planet that they had been studying for years - one that was almost exactly like ours. Water, air, plantlife, bacteria - etc. The spaceships landed, and the people made the planet their new home (this wasn't decided all at once, however - it took quite a few months, almost a year, for them to finally decide that this was their only option, unless they wanted to live on a spaceship their whole lives.). At first everything was fine. People started to build houses (using materials they had gathered) and plant crops. They started to make a home there.

But once it was time for the countries and such to start picking out territory is when it all started going bad. People started fighting, the Presidents and Political leaders started arguing over who would get which and how much land, and fights and wars started to break out. And while all of this was happening, a virus that also started to break out throughout the New World - a mutated peice of bacteria that spread.


Ten years later, the chaos is still going on, and this is where the actual story begins. During the time where the humans were on the spaceships and flying to Earth-2 (Haven't found a better name for it yet), two girls - one only three years old, the other five - have been orphaned after their parents died back on Earth from the nuclear fumes. Fortunetly they were not the only ones to become orphans during this time, and was soon put in a group of kids who's parents had just died. When things finally started getting started on Earth-2, all of the orphan kids were brought up and raised by a few volunteers under the roof of what later became an orphanage. The sisters are soon seperated in the Foster homes, and never see each other until ten years later, when the real plot begins.


During the ten years, the youngest sister - who is only thirteen at the moment - has been traveling from home to home, and has been staying in a little beach town (that I have not given a name to yet.) for the past year. While out in the marketplace killing some time, she runs into an older girl, who knocks over her stuff (cliché, I know. I'll think of something better later). Suddenly the police are there, and it turns out the girl is actually a thief who's been traveling from small town to small town. The older girl, in a panic, grabs the younger one (by the way, I'm sorry I keep calling them 'older girl' and 'younger girl'; I have no set names for them yet ^^" wink and puts a gun to her head, threatening to shoot if they don't leave her alone. They back off, if only for a second, and the older girl makes her escape - taking the younger one with her as hostage and an excuse not to shoot her down. To do this, she handcuffs her and the younger girl together.


The older girl tells the younger one that she has been looking for her boyfriend, who is the leader of the gang that the older one is part of, who she got seperated from after an ambush of their group in which two of the members got arrested in the rest of them ran away in different directions.


Aaaaand that's where I'm stuck. What should happen after that? I was thinking having the boyfriend be affected by the virus, and after discovering that, discover some secret or whatever that the goverment is trying to hide? I honestly have no idea, and I've been wracking my brain for the past two weeks about it and it's driving me crazy. I'm sorry this is such a long post, and I'm sorry for the such complex plot. >.>


There's other minor deatails that I didn't mention, by the way - on the ships, they brought along another autopilot ship that carried things like materials for houses, and four animals of the same species (two female, two male) so that they could repopulate. Because of this, I decided to name all of the ships 'The Ark', after the Noah's Ark story, lol. smile But yeah, minor details like that haven't been mentioned, so if you have any questions about that kind of thing feel free to ask!


My God, this post is so HUUUUUGE

No help? emotion_kirakira

[Othello Phion]

I've sorta run into a road block in my story that I've been planning out for awhile now. I try to start with the motivations/reasoning behind every action so that everything makes more sense when things are revealed to the reader down the road. In my story, an elf is supposed to have a secret love affair with the sun god but I haven't figured out how they are going to meet. It's a little more complex than it sounds. This sun god has done a lot of terrible things and is even known for not showing mercy. He even starts a war over another god that he wanted the attention of, causing a lot of lives to perish (a few of these people were actually close to this elf). The elf doesn't know any of this though. I guess you could say my dilemma is the fact that elf is supposed to be worshiping Mother Earth and I don't know of any qualities to attach to the elf to make the sun god want to stay with her or even be attracted to her in the first place. During that time in the story, the sun god doesn't care about anyone else than himself. I need to figure out what his motivation is to stay with her is. Any ideas?

[I_Write_Ivre]

Othello Phion

I've sorta run into a road block in my story that I've been planning out for awhile now. I try to start with the motivations/reasoning behind every action so that everything makes more sense when things are revealed to the reader down the road. In my story, an elf is supposed to have a secret love affair with the sun god but I haven't figured out how they are going to meet. It's a little more complex than it sounds. This sun god has done a lot of terrible things and is even known for not showing mercy. He even starts a war over another god that he wanted the attention of, causing a lot of lives to perish (a few of these people were actually close to this elf). The elf doesn't know any of this though. I guess you could say my dilemma is the fact that elf is supposed to be worshiping Mother Earth and I don't know of any qualities to attach to the elf to make the sun god want to stay with her or even be attracted to her in the first place. During that time in the story, the sun god doesn't care about anyone else than himself. I need to figure out what his motivation is to stay with her is. Any ideas?

Perhaps the elf is polite but also doesn't see any reason to think of the sun god as important, given his actions. She's sweet and intelligent enough to be someone to enjoy the company of, but a challenge in that she refuses to worship him.

They could meet by accident, him bathing in a pond or something and she stumbles across him.

[Othello Phion]

I_Write_Ivre

Othello Phion

I've sorta run into a road block in my story that I've been planning out for awhile now. I try to start with the motivations/reasoning behind every action so that everything makes more sense when things are revealed to the reader down the road. In my story, an elf is supposed to have a secret love affair with the sun god but I haven't figured out how they are going to meet. It's a little more complex than it sounds. This sun god has done a lot of terrible things and is even known for not showing mercy. He even starts a war over another god that he wanted the attention of, causing a lot of lives to perish (a few of these people were actually close to this elf). The elf doesn't know any of this though. I guess you could say my dilemma is the fact that elf is supposed to be worshiping Mother Earth and I don't know of any qualities to attach to the elf to make the sun god want to stay with her or even be attracted to her in the first place. During that time in the story, the sun god doesn't care about anyone else than himself. I need to figure out what his motivation is to stay with her is. Any ideas?

Perhaps the elf is polite but also doesn't see any reason to think of the sun god as important, given his actions. She's sweet and intelligent enough to be someone to enjoy the company of, but a challenge in that she refuses to worship him.

They could meet by accident, him bathing in a pond or something and she stumbles across him.

That's actually a really good idea! I never really thought about either of those. I'm definitely keeping it in mind!

[Brodie Asturias]

I'm sort of toying with a story idea and I need a bit of help finalising some of the details. It's about a former black ops/deep cover operative who's been semi-retired for 3-5 years and living back in America. He's still quite young, and athletically able, but was removed from active service, possibly due to an injury but I have not quite decided why yet.

Now, however, he has dropped off the grid, but his superiors want to recall him to active service, so they track him down. When they find him, they disocover he's a heroin addict living mostly rough in NYC. His psych evaluations suggested that this sort of behaviour would have been improbable but he has his reasons -- when his handler tries to bring him back in, he reveals that he has stage 4 glioma. That is, an inoperable and otherwise rather untreatable brain tumour, and he has only a few short weeks left to live. He had decided that if he was going to die, he might as well go out having fun, and that when the symptoms got too bad, he had planned to just OD on the streets, rather than linger semi-conscious and in pain in a hospice bed somewhere for weeks on end.

His superiors recall him anyway to confirm the diagnosis, because they actually need him for a mission -- he was the best they had, once. Diagnosis is confirmed. He's going to die. From there they:

a. Send him overseas. In Germany they apparently have excellent surgeons. Complete tumour removal would be impossible though. He'd have to be closely monitored for the rest of his life, and the tumour would probably grow back within months. However, it could have him operational for the length of time needed to carry out his mission. Possible downside: brain damage caused by surgery and missing chunks of brain. That also leaves no room for sequels.
b. Experiemental fictional drugs could halt the progression of the tumour. Maybe even shrink it. Probably not destroy it altogether though. There could be a whole set of interesting side-effects that crop of while he's on his mission, too. That would be interesting.
c. They remove sections of his brain altogether and replace them with some sort of bionic nanorobots that can replicate brain function at a higher level than the brain ever could, enhancing his intelligence and reaction times exponentially.
d. They remove his brain altogether and replace it with a super advanced AI/computer based on his original personality not dissimilar to Cortana from Halo. I am disinclined to use this final option, but it did occur to me, so I thought I'd better include it anyway.
e. Something else that I haven't thought of but that would be totally awesome.

Additionally, I'm having trouble working out just which part of the American government that he works for.

a. A branch of the CIA.
b. A branch of the military
c. A branch of law enforcement. This would be highly improbable, actually.
d. Something else, a branch of something entirely fictional, like the MIB.
e. Something I haven't even thought of. Are there other counter-intelligence or intelligence agencies in the US?

Finally, I'm having trouble sorting out an antagonist. There has to be one. But is it just one man? Or is it an organisation? A terrorist cell? A whole country? A dictator? An assassin who needs to be assassinated in turn? A corrupt businessman, who is running a criminal ring on the side? There are so many things to choose from. A baddy with a nuke. Actually, that last one is a bit cliche. I won't go there. So are terrorists with biological weapons. I won't go there, either. So what does that leave me with?

[DarknessofHeavenandDreams]

Brodie Asturias

a. Send him overseas. In Germany they apparently have excellent surgeons. Complete tumour removal would be impossible though. He'd have to be closely monitored for the rest of his life, and the tumour would probably grow back within months. However, it could have him operational for the length of time needed to carry out his mission. Possible downside: brain damage caused by surgery and missing chunks of brain. That also leaves no room for sequels.
b. Experiemental fictional drugs could halt the progression of the tumour. Maybe even shrink it. Probably not destroy it altogether though. There could be a whole set of interesting side-effects that crop of while he's on his mission, too. That would be interesting.
c. They remove sections of his brain altogether and replace them with some sort of bionic nanorobots that can replicate brain function at a higher level than the brain ever could, enhancing his intelligence and reaction times exponentially.
d. They remove his brain altogether and replace it with a super advanced AI/computer based on his original personality not dissimilar to Cortana from Halo. I am disinclined to use this final option, but it did occur to me, so I thought I'd better include it anyway.
e. Something else that I haven't thought of but that would be totally awesome.

What would he choose?

Brodie Asturias

a. A branch of the CIA.
b. A branch of the military
c. A branch of law enforcement. This would be highly improbable, actually.
d. Something else, a branch of something entirely fictional, like the MIB.
e. Something I haven't even thought of. Are there other counter-intelligence or intelligence agencies in the US?

Here's the CIA website. See if anything looks good to exaggerate on. If not, I'd say the military or some tiny group connected to both the military and DOJ.

[jackdriscoll94]

Hey everyone, a little off topic but check out this new prject
http://www.gofundme.com/2ythn8
thanks,
Jack

[Tamakis Girl]

Hi! i just wanted to say that i just stumbled upon this and as a person who does like to write quite a bit, this is a really great place! i will definitely have to keep my eye on this and post if i ever need help! heart

[Osidiano]

Brodie Asturias

I would say that making up a super secret organization might be a good bet, as CIA/FBI groups are used pretty often. I also think that using an existing organization, like the Army or CIA, would make it tough for the audience to suspend their disbelief, because regardless of how awesome he USED to be, this guy is now addicted to hardcore drugs and doesn't really have any reason to agree to do this mission/stay loyal once he gets treatment for his brain tumor (or does he? Someone cashing in a favor when they recall him? Is he a SuperPatriot? Or does his boss just play favorites with him, the way M is with Bond in Skyfall or the way Captain Pike is with Captain Kirk in the new Star Trek?). Not to mention the fact that, especially in the case of the Army, there is no such thing as an irreplaceable agent, unless they need him due to some personal connection that he and he alone has (to the group/syndicate/antagonist/whatever).