Which has also meant that very often my brain turns slowly into mush coming up with new twists and turns and attempts to make the book good for you. Also: I get ideas and many of them are crazy, and I have to sort the crazy from the non-crazy. Also also: the idea of becoming a crazy cat lady is starting to look nice, except I have dogs instead of cats, but the principle is still the same.
So what does a writer do when her brain is turning to mush and there are too many twists in there?
She turns to Twitter.
Things got out of hand.
The good news is that by blowing off steam this way, I think I actually come up with the real twist that I'm going to try to use with the plot! And the other good news is that I had so much fun doing this that I thought, like any good party, lets just keep it going.
Have a crazy, funny plot twist or mash-up with another book/show/movie? Tweet it (@bethrevis or #newplot4SoE so I can find it) and/or post it here in the comments, and I'll enter you to win a signed copy of A MILLION SUNS! Enter as many times as you like (as long as you're coming up with new stuff, don't just spam this; it's supposed to be fun). Comments and tweets count. I'll either pick my favorite or--as is likely--there will be too many awesome ones and I can't pick, in which case I will just randomly pick one. Open internationally, we'll close this on Monday, unless I forget. Have I mentioned my brain = mush?
47 comments:
I never trust Twitter Search to deliver the goods properly, so repeated here for your amusement:
TWIST: #newplots4SoE Amy and Elder walk their horses along a beach. Seeing the Statue of Liberty she says,"You Maniacs! You blew it up!"
The original clip can be found here (warning, strong language):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muEnLlycOn4
Amy and Elder uncover yet another secret area aboard the Godspeed where they find a Kandrona filled pool of Yeerks. They learn everyone else is controlled by Yeerks, not Phydus, like they originally thought.
Amy steps foot onto Centauri earth to find a black cat named luna who tells her she is Sailor Centauri A and she has to save everyone from the megaverse. Oh, and Elder's tuxedo Mask for kicks....
I tweeted this before I knew there was a contest!
"TWIST: Godspeed crashes in a strange island in the Pacific full of shadow monsters and physics-defying properties."
Also, mad props to 2 comments up for ANIMORPHS reference!
Copying my tweet for this: TWIST: Centari-Earth gets hit by an EMP, genetically created humans blend in with the population
(Kudos to you if you can figure out the reference!)
TWIST: Amy and Elder rush to the engine room and find that a wild-haired woman is messing with the controls. When they ask what she's doing, she simply replies "Spoilers".
ADDITIONAL TWIST: The wild-haired woman refers to Amy as "Mom".
You would be my favorite author forever if you could manage a Serenity docking sequence :-D
TWIST: Amy and Elder discover a part of the ship they've never seen before, which turns out to house a STARGATE.
Amy wakes up and it's all been some crazy freezing-induced dream. the ship has reached the new planet, and as she's walking into the crowd of re-thawed people she sees someone who looks like Elder, but he disappears admist the throng of people. Amy spends the rest of her life wondering if it was real or not. She has three dozen cats all named "Elder" and instead of wearing clothes, the cats crawl over her naked body, covering her with their fur . . . okay. That may have gone a little far there. There's only two dozen cats.
Gabi: teddycavygal at yahoo dot com
I have no good plot twists...but I think it would be cool if Amy and Elder switched brains for a bit, you now, like Freaky Friday or something...
xoxo--
Shelley
TWIST: Amy and Elder somehow discover that the ship's been flying on the back of a giant turtle the entire time.
TWIST: Amy obtains a cell phone, and can make calls to the future. Or past.
ooh, OR
Amy gets a phone, and she keeps getting text from a mysterious M who is a killer (Pretty Little Liars!)
haha, all these suggestions are great! :)
They land on Centuri Earth without incident. Unfortunately, the microorganisms from Earth kills all plant and animal life on the planet. Maintaining typical human behavior, they largely ignore the death of the planet, and go on building their cities. And they live happily ever after. The End.
Your followup series can be a ghost story about the planet's native inhabitants haunting their inadvertent murderers. :D
So I haven't read AtU yet, (but I really will ASAP!) but here's my idea:
Amy and Elder discover a talking kangaroo on board. Talking kangaroo proceeds to kick them out of the ship. :P
OOOH- A Wall-E and Monsters VS Aliens and Zathura crossover! Amy and Elder discover a game board on board and they play it. Next thing they know, Eva arrives with Wall-E! And then monsters and aliens arrive then Amy grows into a giant. The twist ends with Amy and Elder adopting Wall-E. (Coz he's just adorable!!!) :D
TWIST: Centauri-Earth is actually the new MIDDLE Earth, and Amy and Elder discover at last where all of the elves and Frodo and Bilbo ended up.
Fun idea! I love what you came up with and I had two (so far). ^_^
TWIST: Centauri-Earth is actually Vulcan and when they arrive there's a strange drill coming from the sky... #newplotforSoE
TWIST: Centauri-Earth is actually alternate-dimension Earth & the girl with the sunset hair meets the girl on fire. #newplot4SoE
I'm liking this hashtag.
The Nav-Com's name is HAL.
TWIST: Amy and Elder land on Centauri-Earth safely. However, after a few weeks, people start disappearing. Amy and Elder seek to find the truth and discover a nearby coven of vampires is slowly killing the people. Amy and Elder also find that a golden-eyed coven of vampires are fighting to protect the humans. Amy is slightly taken by the one named Edward - pale skin and red hair much like hers - mmm. Poor Elder realizes he must now save his people AND prove to Amy that she should remain human and be with him.
TWIST: Amy & Elder land on Centuari-Earth to find it is actually The Citadel where they run into Commander Shepard at his "favorite store on The Citadel." They learn that Earth is about to be destroyed by the collectors and offer their assistance.
This twist brought to you by way too many hours of watching my husband play Mass Effect 1 & 2. I should go.
Godspeed arrives at Centauri-Earth, which happens to be full of sand and pyramids and is looking pretty familiar anyways. Everybody gets out, and stumble upon a mid-90s bunch of Sol-Earth US Air Force soldiers led by some Colonel Jack O'Neil. They learn all about the whole stargate-wormhole-thing and being disappointed with all that sand, the bad food and a raving mad Ra, they all jump back through the Stargate to 1990s earth. They're so flashed by all the forests and flowers and millions of other people that they all get drunk at the Cheyenne Mountain bar - and somebody can't just shut up and tells everything about Godspeed and the engine and such. The government decides to prevent all this from happening, and much later, Godspeed never launches.
Oups, there goes the space-time continuum. *panic*
But hey, what's that????
Suddenly, there's this old guy with crazy white hair and a boy and a dog arriving in a flying silver DeLorian, and the older one is all crazy about the past and the future ("Jesus, Doc!!!") They shove Amy and Elder into the car, the DeLorian accelerates to 88 mph...
...To be continued...
I must say that the Serenity/Firefly twist was by far my favorite. I can only imagine Jayne's reaction to the Godspeed...!
TWIST: Turns out Amy has mad mind control skillz and was controlling the whole ship in her sleep. With help from her ugly blue dog, Petula.
Twist: Amy and Elder find out that Centauri Earth doesn't exist and the whole mission was for some alternate and conniving plot to isolate all intelligent people on earth to create a new human race (kind of like Voldemort and his pure-blood wizard army).
*And there should definitely be a mention of Harry Potter somewhere (like all Eldests before Elder banned books with bad morals or unlikely ideas- Hogwarts- and Harry Potter is one. Amy and Elder strive to bring back all banned books:p
Twist: The whole time Amy was awake, she was actually having a super-vivid dream in her cryogenic state, all a result of the Phydus Eldest was pumping into her system.
Twist: Because all Eldests were cloned, their DNA got messed up over time, laving Elder (now Eldest) with a supremely short lifetime, invoking an emotion-riddled scene where Amy has to deal with the idea of living without Elder.
Twist: Rather than striving to find Centauri Earth, the whole Godspeed mission was to test human adaptations in uncomfortable situations (and what is more extreme than space?), as Earth is being slowly destroyed by crime and disease.
For more on similar ideas like this, watch Hank Green's Sci-Show on tardegrades (moss piglets)
Twist: (sorry for so many, but a chance to brainstorm ideas for Amy and Elder? Best experience ever)
Much like the black page in a million suns, Shades of Earth could end with the landing on Centauri Earth, with something similar to the black page, leaving the ending fairly open and up to the reader to infer. Not sure if that's ever been done before, so that would make a pretty awesome twist
New plot for shades of earth: beth revis beams herself aboard godspeed and roundhouse kicks those plot holes into shape, because she is just that epic.
or...
Beth revis hires chuck norris to do what she did in my first plot, because she's too busy mopping up brain mush.
Twist: Katniss turns up with seamus finneagan, and being the pyromaniacs they are, start setting fire to stuff.
Every male develops noise (ily patrick ness XD),so all the guys go mad and kill the women, before forming an army that takes centauri earth by force. Hey, wait....
Everyone is so clever :)
TWIST: Godspeed lands on Centauri Earth to find buildings and roads have already been built there. Except there is no signs of the life which built it all. All they find is piles and piles of books laying around. Amy finds a pair of broken spectacles.
Twist: Going through space at the rate Godspeed was going, the whole crew has entered a space-time continuum (for example going too close to a black hole and somehow being able to escape by going faster than the speed of light, therefore mastering time travel) where they enter some kind of alternate universe where Godspeed and all of its master evil plots didn't exist.
TWIST: Amy's parents wake up and kill everyone; like I always believed they would do (A)
Even though Amy don't seem to believe they would, I still think so :D
TWIST: There is a porcelain rabbit on Centauri Earth who is trying to find his way home. His name? Edward Tulane.
TWIST: Amy and Elder land on Centauri-Earth, only to realize that the "dangers" on the planet are little yellow Minions that want to capture the moon, which is actually Godspeed. LOL :)
Alyssa S.
lilleetleet@verizon.net
TWIST: Amy and Elder land on Centauri-Earth. To their surprise, there are already humans there! They are divided into five factions, one for a certain skill. But, one faction is controlled by an injection fluid, and is out to kill the other inhabitants of the planet...
Alyssa S.
lilleetleet@verizon.net
I know whatever you do Beth, it will be amazing. I have full confidence it will be your best work ever.
TWIST: That's a wrap! Amy and Elder are actually characters in a movie adaptation of Castle's latest novel.
@breila Ashes- Ilsa Bick?
Haha SOO many Doctor Who references!! Wish I was on twitter so I could see all the billy ideas :)
Twist: The planet Godspeed actually lands on is the same one that the survivors of the Vanguard landed on. Amy is relieved when Elder doesn't pick up their way of treating women. (Orphans of the Sky, Robert Heinlein)
TWIST: It's all a simulation to get Amy and Elder's brain patterns done by WICKED to find the cure for the flare.
TWIST: Amy and Elder land on Centari-Earth. It's so pretty. There are flowers everywhere, and the stars are visible. They decide to lie down in the field of beautiful yellow flowers...and never wake up. THE END.
:)
Alyssa S.
lilleetleet@verizon.net
TWIST: When Elder and Amy (and the rest of Godspeed, of course) land, they find a whole bunch of dead bodies and one of them is Harley. Unimaginably, all the people that were sent out to the stars ended up on Centauri-Earth...
that's my twist... :P
even though it technically defies the laws in science...
~Erica C.
TWIST: Centauri-Earth is already populated...but not by people. Some sort of alien/human kind of things. They speak, associate, and have the same feelings as humans, but they look totally different and have an extra of each body part (three legs, three arms, two noses, 3 eyes, 2 mouths...etc).
Erica C.
TWIST: Amy and Elder arrive on Centauri-Earth, having to defend themselves against creatures that are just like humans, only they age backwards... like in the short story The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Meanwhile, on Godspeed, the people who remained get mysterious communications from Sol-Earth, or so they think. No one on board knows how to tell if it's really Sol-Earth or some huge hoax, so they begin to lose their minds and their grip on reality (Godspeed reality, that is) and they start sacrificing people to the stars, while a rebel group attempts to flee Godspeed and land the ship on Centauri-Earth, using the original landing method, not completely destroyed by the bombs in AMS. Annnddd that's all I've got.
Beth, I finished AMS last night, and it was just as spellbinding and amazing as AtU. Seriously, you have an amazing writing style and I can't wait to see what else you have up your sleeve!!!
Really effective info, thanks so much for the post.
games online
Rich people from panem escape and have started the hunger games again on centauri earth. Amy and Elder are forced to compete in the games as Peeta and Katniss but Elder has the bow and Amy knows a lot about strategy, animals, and plants.
Hmmm maybe a Pitch Black/Chronicles of Riddick theme would work well. :)
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