My project for course: Introduction to Commercial Fiction Writing

My novel started as a long story. I never thought it will be longer than 10 000 words.
The original idea was a series of dystopian situations in a chain. The solution to a problem in a dystopian society creates another dystopian world and hence another story. This story was one of the links in that chain of events. The more I was thinking about it, the more the idea started to get more intricate. Before I knew it I had 12000 words and I was just scratching the surface.

Apart from my day job as a translator, I am also a singer in choirs, I play improv, I am a stage manager for a theatre company, I write stand-up, I write short stories, I do the copy and marketing for a big theatre company, and I am a single mother of three. Writing a novel was not on my list of things to do. Nope. It just happened. Also, it meant solving problems and pieces of the puzzle, writing a storyline without plotholes.
One of the main problems was the point of view, the character that was going to be my protagonist and whose point of view I wanted to portray. The moment I decided to focus on the mother, the woman, almost every piece of the puzzle fell into its place. It made more sense. Also, it made my life easier since she is the one that looks more like a version of me.

That was a game changer, suddenly the story unfolded, and instead of a thread, I suddenly had a plot, layered, with flesh and bones. It felt real. My character was becoming more round by the minute and the story was making sense.

The timeline of the story also started to be bigger. I realised that if I wanted to use Marta’s point of view, there were many aspects of her background that I had to explain. It turned into becoming of age narrative. It also meant that I had to write a romantic subplot explaining how Marta met her future husband and how that was the first time she challenged her parents.
My novel is dystopian with a strong female protagonist. And in the middle of that, there is going to be a romantic subplot. There is going to be a « meet the cutie » moment, and there is going to be a « the cutie meets your parents, and parents are not happy with your cutie, because he represents everything your parents are against ». At the end of the second act (meet cutie, meet the parents), I plan to use some of the elements I have seen in this course.
I am now in the process of writing a detailed synopsis, it’s now 4000 words. I realize that writing it now will save me time and energy afterwards. I had a general outline, but having a clear line to follow helps my fractal brain concentrate on the part of the story I am writing without worrying about the rest.

I post here the introduction of my dystopian world. The story then follows Marta, from the day she is inoculated with the infertility serum. The original is in Spanish.

People have been struggling for generations to keep resources available for everyone without destroying the planet. As the human population kept on growing, scarcity, poverty and famine spread through all three continents. It also meant social turmoil and economic instability. Back then, they decided that the main problem was overpopulation, and they thought of different ways of tackling it until they came up with what they thought was a solution.
Almost 90 years ago, in the year 1971, a global decision was made, a decision politicians took with the blessing of the press, public opinion and social media. With very little resistance and a great deal of acceptance, all women and girls older than 13 were given a serum that changed their DNA and made them almost infertile. And from that point on, every generation of females will be administered the serum. The logistics were easy to implement: when girls were vaccinated for rubella, the serum was added to the mix. The name of the serum was Alfa, the first letter of the Greek alphabet. The idea behind it was one of Hope, with capital letters, the big chance of rebooting Earth, its resources and mankind. The beginning of a new era.
The serum was applied globally. No country was left outside that decision, no matter how poor they were. Luckily the serum didn't need special conditions to keep it, so it could be easily transported to the remotest corners on Earth. A global organisation of scientist and politicians, called SGO (Serum global organisation) provided and monitored the whole procedure. The process took time to be perfected since it also implied having a world census, a way of counting for every soul in the planet.
The effect of the serum was noticeable in a few years. Most women could only conceive once. Others couldn't and no assistance was offered if they wanted to be mothers. Fertility clinics closed their doors. Any help in that respect was considered illegal. In 2001, 30 years after the first inoculation of the serum, the experiment was considered a success. The human population had decreased enormously. The prognosis of the planet was positive, there were enough resources for everyone and there was a sense of prosperity and economic wellbeing all around the world. Nevertheless, the toll was high, there were psychological, social and emotional consequences. Depression and loneliness. People were paying fortunes to adopt children. Children were a luxury only available to a few, the happy few. It was a lottery where lots of people didn't have the winning numbers.
It was then, in 2001, when things were getting brighter that the people started asking whether other options could be available and whether to stop the inoculations. It started as a small movement on the fringe of society where the rebels sat to protest against everything. Little by little, it gained momentum. It was then that some scientists and technocrats took over the role of divulging and informing the public. By then, the SGO had grown to be a mega organization, with even more power than some countries. We had to wait just a little bit longer. We had to wait another 30 years. One of the most notorious of technocrats that later developed a prosperous career in government was Mr.Hansel Morris. He famously injected the serum to his one and only daughter, Martha, in 2001. She was then 13. The video showing him during the procedure and how willingly his daughter accepted went viral. It was the civic way of helping the world. He set an example, the world followed.
How little did Dr. Morris knew of the consequences of his actions 18 years later.