Plot point 'pinions please!

I am attempting my first novel. I am maybe midway through the first chapter. It is something nobody who knows me would ever think I would write, but it is coming surprisingly easily. I so want to talk about it here, but when you risk putting your ideas out in the world you risk someone else taking them and running with them. Hmmm. On the flip side, I really want to know if the basis for the book, the main idea of it, is interesting enough - if it would make random people want to read my book. I just don't know. Not to mention that I'm only midway through the first chapter, so I'M not entirely sure what my book is about. Lol.



I will tell you a very vague little bit, and you all tell me what you think, ok?



I guess the best way to describe it would be to say that it is about a man who is a vigilante serial killer (and he really does focus on a certain kind of earth-scum, though I haven't fully decided on his motivations yet). Does that make any sense? It's not going to be a shootkillmaimdestroy action novel, but darker and hopefully more though-provoking. I am kind of living vicariously through my main character, and I really want my readers to side with him, and root for him, and think of HIM (or 'them', he may have allies) as the good guy even though he's sort of a bad guy. Now that I've reduced it down to that, it kind of sounds like a boatload of other books out there. Just remember it's the details that will make it unique. ;) I don't think the focus of the book will be primarily what he does, either, but more the other characters' thoughts and actions regarding what he's done. The police, the media, general society, and the judicial system. The novel will be propelled by the idea that being bad for good reasons is still being bad - but can the impetus ever be good enough that people want to overlook the bad - or do most people seperate the motivation from the action and judge accordingly? Basically, all killers have their own motivations. But what if inherently good, normal, law-abiding people agree with it? If someone good does something bad to a bad person, what does that make them? Is a vigilante really ever any more, any better than a villian?

I don't know how else to explain it, I've probably just muddled it all up and left you all scratching your heads. At the very least, it is interesting to me, and I am enjoying writing it. Not that that will help pay the bills at all.


My main character's name is John. Discuss!