I don't have much of a plot. I'd rather say I have no plot except for the fact that there is evidence of a beginning of an outline in my writing notebook. I only hope that once I start writing, there will be Lovecraftian overtones. Yeah, I said that the previous two years too but they turned out to be something quite different.
This year, I'm going to try to avoid setting any scenes in a college or a library--both places that I spend an inordinate amount of time in--since descriptions of those are easy and a cop-out. However, I'm not ruling out laboratories even though I spend even more time in a lab than a lecture hall or the stacks. I will also try not to use moldering old mansions which happen to be fantastic settings for conventional mysteries and horror stories but also rather cliche. The old mansion trick will be reserved for emergencies--just as other writers use the ol' ninja trick to jumpstart their writing.
Like the previous two years, I will have two main characters, one female, one male. The female character will be lot more emotionally fragile--but at this point, she also looks a lot more interesting psychologically. The male character is not going to be as macho as the previous main male characters. He's going to be a bit mentally unstable--to what degree, I haven't decided yet.
I'm also in the midst of world building. The most pressing question is: should I have magic in this world? Or should it be something occult? Both? Neither? Should I use animal companions/familiars/sidekicks? So far, I've only concentrated on world building, literally, from the foundation up. That is, everything is going to take place in one city. I might post the city plan if I ever find the time to redraw it.
