This has been an odd novel for me. I started it as my November Novel Writing Month project (where you attempt to write a novel in a month). It had a bit of a 1984 feel to it, and I found myself avoiding going that direction because I really wasn't trying to copy Orwell, even though Orwell is a great master from which to copy. The story takes place in a futuristic society where everyone lives within the three metal concept envisioned in Plato's Republic. The main character is a bronze who wishes his life could have been more. It was during a rewrite of the first 40 pages that I realized that I wanted to do something different with this that I hadn't planned when I started. The main character became Plato (or at least took that name), which then opened up all sorts of possibilities with the story. I then started writing it with the perspective that this book would be the story that Plato was trying to write back then, back when he was originally living within his myth of the metals and wishing for something better in life. I wanted to make it real and turn Plato into someone who would have been longing for something different, but stuck in the parameters society has set for him. Plato, in this story, was a doctor who was learning genetic manipulation, and he has discovered that the metals didn't always have to be the controlling mechanism that they are today.

 

The story slowly has evolved to where Plato is the impetus to the destruction of the metal society, to where he will eventually write The Republic as his requiem for the civilization that he destroys by ending the metal life, effectively turning it into the myth that we know of it today.

 

There is still a lot of work left to do on this novel, so even though these are the basic ideas of it, it may not turn out as I've written here. That's the beauty of novel writing; they rarely ever do.