BECOMING PERFECT: PLOT NOTES

This blog will be of absolutely no interest to most of you (hey, but that's most of my blogs anyway ;D) as it's being used as a place for me to work out what's going on inside my head re. latest story idea.

BECOMING PERFECT

In *insertcountrynamehere*, all people have 2 names: a Child Name and an Adult Name.
The Child Name is a name given to them at birth by their parents, e.g. Chance, Fate, etc. It is used from birth to age 18 and may still be used by family members/close friends after the Adult Name has been adopted.
The surname is formed by mother's Adult Name + -ken for a girl (e.g. Kindken, Hopeken) and father's Adult Name + -kin for a boy (e.g. Righteouskin, Bravekin).
So my main character's Child Name is Chance Hopeken (daughter of Hope Loveken and Brave Bravekin).

The Adult Name is a name given to them by The Trusted (evil dictator stalker government type thing which is considered to be perfect). The Trust monitor the person's progress and send out a List to each person on their 14th birthday of their 10 potential Adult Names. Adult Names are a characteristic or trait (e.g. Perfect, Hope, Optimist, Lonely). The recipiant's Adult Name will be one of the ten on their List, and they have from between their 14th birthday to their 18h birthday to aspire to gain the best Adult Name on their List (so, if Perfect was a potential name, you would aspire to become perfect to be given that name. Hence the title, Becoming Perfect).

In this country, there is only one way in our out and it is closely guarded by The Guards (the military). No flights go over the country, and nobody in the country is aware that anywhere else exists - they believe they are the only people in the entire universe.


Chance Hopeken is 14 and she's been having bad dreams for the past year or so about being taken away, but she's always brushed them off as nothing. She receives her List on her birthday which gives Perfect as a possible Adult Name. Chance, being the perfectionist she is, instantly aspires to be Perfect, which means that over the next 4 years she cannot do anything wrong. She was to become Perfect.

She has a big brother aged 20 called Benevolent Bravekin. There's a rumour that he has been invited to join The Trusted as their youngest ever member, but rumours are very quickly stopped by The Trusted (by people with big guns and sunglasses...). She also used to have an elder brother whose Child Name was Gamble, but he died (note - "died") before he could be given an Adult Name.

While aspiring to be Perfect, Chance is taken aside one day by someone claiming to be a member of the Police, though she clearly isn't. She also asks Chance if her name is Eliza Carter (note - this sounds absurd to Chance. All names are *a word* plus *parent'sname*-kin/ken, so neither name registers as a real name) or if she knows anyone of that name. The "Policewoman" also makes some reference to Eliza being taken away, which sends alarm bells ringing in Chance's head re. her weird dreams - she worries that she is going to be taken away.

Time passes. Chance continues having weird thoughts, and we find out more about her family - especially her big brother Gamble, even though her parents dislike talking about him and it obviously makes them uncomfortable. Her mum lets slip something that suggests his death wasn't an accident, and more hints are made about Benevolent maybe being introduced into The Trusted. Chance continues trying to become perfect.

Chance runs into more people who ask her strange questions if she knows anyone, and she meets the Policewoman twice more. The second time, the Policewoman asks her more about The Trusted and Chance is baffled by her accent - she has accidentally started talking in her normal American voice instead of the voice of this country. The third time, Chance is very suspicious but allows the Policewoman to tell her the story of Eliza - a girl who was born in the US and stolen from her parents to be part of a government-sponsored experiment in a foreign (currently hostile) nation, who were trying to create a perfect society and wanted to bring in an outside influence, the daughter of two doctors, to see how she developed in society. There is a hint that the Policewoman is more interested in this case than just professionally.

Around two years after the story starts, Chance is seized. Physically grabbed and bundled silently into a van, where she finds the Policewoman who explains everything to her - Chance is Eliza, and the Policewoman's name is Jenna. She is Eliza's big sister. While trying to absorb this, Chance/Eliza is brought to a Secret Headquarters which has somehow been concealed from The Trusted (don't ask me how, dunno yet). Jenna explains she is part of a top-secret operation by the CIA to try and bring down The Trusted, and the only way to do it is to infiltrate The Trusted somehow. Eliza then meets the native leader of the operation - Gamble, whom she thought died 5 years ago.

With Gamble, Jenna, and other people's help, Chance starts to question Benevolent more carefully and find out more about The Trusted and where the headquarters are. Then, she is asked by The Operation to follow Benevolent into the base, and she hesitates, weighing up her quest to become perfect versus the fact that The Trusted are evil twisted dictators, and after a bit of a dilemma decides to follow Benevolent.

Of course, Benevolent knew about it the whole time, and Chance gets kidnapped and taken before The Trusted, who reveal that they know everything that is going on and were just letting The Operation carry on it could be stopped. Chance is told she is going to be executed publically, which will bring shame to her family. Benevolent, realising this means The Trusted have tricked him and he wouldn't be able to become a member, frees Chance and tells her to run.

Benevolent is killed for his betrayal. Gamble and Jenna, outraged, lead a seize on The Trusted, creating enough of a distraction for Chance to sneak inside the base. Gamble and Jenna find they can't kill The Trusted; inside, Chance finds out that each member is actually a hologram and the whole country is a mass social experiment as run by the Americans.

Jenna and Gamble decide to leave for America to try and stop the secret organisation. They tell Chance to come, but she decides to stay in the country and try and sort out a new government. The first thign she does is get rid of the bizarre naming system, and starts by chosing her Adult Name herself in a speech to the country: she says she is a proud person, and is proud of all her faults, and so choses the name Imperfect.


It needs a bit of work and will no doubt get drastically edited, but that's the basis of it. Huzzah!