Plot Twist: Choosing the Story!
It's time to pick which story you want to help me turn into a novel this year. Magic and gender mayhem, Assassins and espionage, or Crossing borders and boundaries. Voting closes in one week!
Are you ready to choose the novel we’re going to write together this year?!
If you’re new here, Plot Twist is a Choose Your Own Adventure-style interactive project where you get to help decide what the characters say and do next. Check out the introduction to Plot Twist: A Collaborative Novel for all the juicy details on how this works.*
You get to choose the book we write!
Today, I’m presenting you with three different story ideas, and you get to choose which one we’re going to develop together!
Free subscribers can vote in the poll and paid subscribers get to pitch their thoughts and convince others to join in their vote in the comments! Yes, you can even suggest plot ideas and changes!
My requirements are that every story will:
Center a queer main character and be full of people with diverse and intersectional identities and life experiences (without tokenizing).
Be set in and around my home of San Diego and have the characters spend time across the border in Tijuana (and I’ll take you along on tours for location scouting).
Have romance at its core and include hot, consensual, passionate, and kinky sex (you get to choose the spice level).
Lean into empathy and empowerment, and end on a high note that will make you feel hopeful (without gaslighting or emotional bypassing).
Include my four signature topics that I have in all of my fiction writing: food, family, fatness, fashion, and fried potato products.
The rest is up to you!
You’ll notice the names in the synopses are letters like X, Y, and Z. That’s because the paid subscribers to Plot Twist will get to help name the characters in the Group Chat!
Are you ready to choose the book we’ll write together this year?!
Here are your three options:
Choose wisely! Voting closes in one week!
Option 1: Magic and gender mayhem
Pitch
Practical Magic meets Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, this novel idea follows a group of queer and trans witches as they fight to keep conservative warlocks from infiltrating their coven and draining their power.
Synopsis
In the world of magic, X is Queen. The most rich and powerful witch in a line of rich and powerful witches, she reigns over the coven of Frontera – what humdrum (non-magical) governments call Southern California – with the strength, poise and confidence that was bred into her. If only she could have that same kind of certainty in her love life. Ever since disappearing on her fiancé over a decade ago, X has been quite literally cursed when it came to love, which would be fine with independent X except for one major issue: the wards that have protected the coven for a century will fall if X doesn’t produce an heir.
More precisely, X needs to give birth to a female child who could one day reign as Queen. Like the dutiful daughter she is, X’s sister, Y, produced two girls, and for nine years, the royal family breathed easy knowing they had their heir and a spare. Until a mysterious blood cancer tragically killed Z, and A transitioned to a boy, making him ineligible to rule the coven. With Y unable to have more children, Diana finds herself forced to have a baby or leave the whole coven defenseless against the ever-present threat of the Witch Hunters, a group of right-wing warlocks pushing for political power.
What I love about this option
Honestly, this is the one I’m most excited about because of the potential for collaboration and creativity because of the witches angle. I think it could be really fun to have us come up with the magical world together. What powers does X have? What powers do the villains have? What are the magical rules and how do the characters break them?
This book idea is full of LGBTQ+ characters and immigrant stories, and I think it could be cathartic to fight back against oppression from conservative groups in a magical world where we can embrace our own existing power, invent new ones, and determine the ending we all want and deserve. With the concept of a witch’s power and identity being tied to her womb, I think it could also be a really great way to explore gender and reproductive rights.
Option 2: Assassins and espionage
Pitch
Grosse Pointe Blank meets The Spy Who Dumped Me with the dark humor of Killing Eve (but less gruesome). X just wants to fuck and fight, but when her latest love interest drags her into a complex web of international espionage aimed at combating global injustices, X is forced to stand for something, or be taken out herself.
Synopsis
X has just met the woman of her dreams. Y is witty, smart, and fiercely feminine. Their storybook meet cute is the stuff of romantic comedies, complete with a spilled coffee and ending with dancing under the stars. She’s perfect, everything X has been seeking her whole life. There’s just one problem: X has to kill her.
It’s been a long time since Y went out dancing. With running the struggling book store and fighting to save her block of historical Barrio Logan from strip mall developers, romance has been the last thing on her mind. But when the dapper dressed butch offered to take her out as an apology for spilling coffee on her new shoes, Y couldn’t resist. She knew it was risky, going home with a practical stranger on the first date, but maybe a bit of danger is exactly what Y needs right now in her life.
What I love about this option
I’ve been working on a novel about a group of queer assassins fronting as a book club since 2005. It was my very first book idea and it has had multiple ideations and versions since. None have stuck. I feel like maybe it’s been waiting for your help?
I think it could be cathartic to fictionally fight people right now, it’s a good use of the anger I’m feeling! I have also always loved the quirkiness of movies like Spy, The Spy Who Dumped Me and Gross Pointe Blank and think it could be fun to write dark humor together.
Option 3: Crossing borders and boundaries
Pitch
Sweet Home Alabama meets Silver Linings Playbook. Tragedy drags queer Diana from her liberal life in San Francisco to her conservative farming hometown, forcing her to face her painful past, reckon with the person she has become, and wonder if love is enough to live for.
Synopsis
How do you heal in the place you’ve been running from your whole life?
On the day of her younger brother’s death, X promised she would never take life for granted again. Two years later, she finds it hard to keep that promise as she sits broke and alone on the floor of what soon will no longer be her condo. Out of options, she grabs a bottle of pills, hoping for sleep eternal, when her sister calls with news: X’s best friend from high school has overdosed and died.
Packing up her life in liberal San Francisco, X heads to her conservative farming hometown on the Mexican border and finds herself right back in the dynamics, drama, and insecurities of high school. Avoiding her socialite mother and ex-prom queen sister, X spends her time in the arms of Y, her best friend’s little sister and a local cop who doesn’t appreciate X’s social media posts calling to defund the police. As her life falls further apart, bringing her sister’s marriage with it, X is forced to stop running and finally face her bloody past.
What I love about this option
This is actually the pitch for the movie they’re making in my novel Because Fat Girl! I was working on this concept when the idea for BFG came to me and I wrote that instead. It would be fun to fully develop this story together.
Set in a border town, I think the politics around queerness, immigration, and the divide in America right now could be really intriguing to explore, especially if we get people from both small towns and cities to give input on this book. What would it feel like to represent everyone here with empathy but also show the real effects of the new administration’s policies on people?
It’s time to vote!
Which one will it be?!
I came up with the ideas, now you get to decide which one of these stories we write together this year. Use the poll below to cast your vote.
The poll closes in a week, so make your choice now!
What did you vote for?! I can’t see who voted for what, so tell me in the comments! And I’d love to know why.
Invite your friends to join in the fun!
Adventures are so much more fun with friends, so share this post to get your friends to join in Plot Twist and vote on their favorite story idea.
I’ve also got a buy-one-give-one discount going on right now to encourage you to join Plot Twist from the start. Click below to grab that.
Thank you for being along for the ride.
I can’t wait to see how this adventure unfolds!
Lauren
P.S. Want to be the first to know which story we picked and get all the fresh updates as I write it? Join the Group Chat!
*PLEASE READ THE FINE PRINT BEFORE YOU COMMENT OR VOTE:
By participating in Plot Twist: A Collective Novel, you’re agreeing to give your input on a book that will be written by Lauren Marie Fleming. The final book will be available in ebook and print with Lauren Marie Fleming listed as the sole author and copyright owner. This project will be mentioned in the acknowledgments and anyone who comments on at least three posts will be listed as a collaborator. No compensation or copyright is granted for collaborators from any book sales or derivatives.