Need Help With NaNoWriMo Plot: Circus From Hell . . . Got any ideas for me?

Okay, I started a new thread on NaNoWriMo asking for help with my plot. Here’s a copy of that post:

I think I’ve decided more or less on my plot’s basic base line, which is: a “circus from hell” comes to town, abducts local girl, who by the time she’s rescued has fallen in love with one of the freak-acts and decides to marry him instead of going back with her rescuers. WOW! My entire plot in a single sentence! YAY! (That does not happen very often.)

Here’s the stuff I need help on if anyone has any ideas they want to bounce around:

I’m not sure if these guys are dead (zombies, vampires, ghosts etc.) or alive ( deal with the devil immortals, gypsies trapped in time, a band of extra freaky thugs, etc.) or if they are even human (alien invaders, wizards, faeries, trolls, etc.). What do you think? If you met up with this circus, what type of “creatures” would they be? Human? Not human? Dead? Alive? Alive but immortal?

I haven’t decided yet, if these guys are really actually FROM HELL and are like demons or lost souls or if they are just really creepy dudes who bill themselves as “From Hell” just to shock the crowd. Any thoughts on which way I should go here?

In all likelihood the ringmaster/band leader will be a violent tyrant and most of the acts his prisoners, in the side show against their will and kept locked in cages like animals, when not on stage. It’s very possible that he has killed several of them in the past and threatens to kill them as well if they don’t obey him, thus how he’s able to keep them obedient to him.

The genre is steampunk-Gothic-horror-Stockholm romance, that’ll probably get very dark and bloody/gory, since that’s just the way I write. Setting will be late 1800’s-1920’s -ish probably 1870’s there abouts.

The circus will be very Victorian side show/freak show type – more “freak of nature” people and less animal menagerie. It’ll probably have a great ape of some sort (a gorilla or orangutan?) and maybe a big cat or two, but basically not many animal acts. It’ll be mostly Barnum type acts: Siamese twins, midgets, giants, bearded lady, alligator man – that type of stuff. Okay, here’s the thing, I’m not sure what type of characters I want in the circus.

So I was wondering if you could do this: pretend you are going to this circus yourself, what would be the one thing you would most want to see? A guy with two heads? The Figi Mermaid? What? Since this’ll be a fantasy you can go ahead and be as creative as you want here, doesn’t have to actually be something that really happened. However, if you could recommend some REAL acts (and possibly links to sites about them???) that you wish you could have seen for yourself, that’d be really, really, really helpful to me. Again, the freakier the better – I’m looking for some really out-there stuff that would shock, stun, or terrify the audience when they saw it face to face.

Also, do you know are there any books like this already written – maybe something I could read to see what’s already been done, both to get ideas from and to avoid redoing the same thing?

Thanks for your help guys!

I’m leaning towards them being ghosts – maybe they died in a train crash in the 1800’s and now they haunt the same town 100 years later or something like that.

I started trying to figure this out in August and it took me until last week to get THAT much decided! I’ve only got 40 days left to come up with characters and a story-line/motive to go with the basic plot/idea that I’ve got. I’m hoping the new DARES Thread (after the Oct reboot) will help me flesh out the rest. I usually have really good luck fleshing out my plots using the DARES Thread and I’ve already worn out the 3 from 08 so I’m waiting for the new one.

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Also – I’m going to try a repeat of last year (writing 5 novels simultaneously) only 5 novels was way to nerve racking, so I’m going to just stick with 2 novels this year.

That said, my second novel plot idea is to retell the NT Bible story of the Immaculate Conception as a science fiction, alien abduction story, told from the PoV of the 13 year old Mary Mother of Christ (did you know she was only 13 years old when Jesus was born?!?!) – her frustrations at trying to tell adults what happened, but having to deal with them ignoring her story and making it seem like something “sacred” by covering up what really happened and telling people it was God that took her. Than when the alien hybrid Jesus is born and starts doing “miracles” people REALLY start to believe he IS the son of God, and everything gets out of control, not because either Mary or Jesus claimed he was God’s son, but because the town’s folk said he was.

WOW! And my bishop is mad enough at me for my NaNo 08 – what’ll he say when he finds out about THIS one!?!?!

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