The Uncaged Flower [aka Misty's NaNoWriMo Project]

[mistytail]

aka what will be listed as "cause of death" at the end of the month

So, hi guys. I'm participating in National Novel Writing Month, which, for anyone who doesn't know, is a challenge put out by The Office of Letters and Light for novelists to write a 50,000 word novel in the 30 days of November. I did it in 2010 writing about armadillos. I have since scrapped that entire story because it was awful and bad and dumb.

I'm doing it again this year with sort of an actual plan in mind. The working title that is really awful is The Uncaged Flower, and it's a story that's meant to be akin to Warriors in age-appropriateness, around the 8-12 range. It follows a young feral cat named Daisy who is expelled from her colony for questioning the authority of the older male cats that run it. She's scooped up by a couple of well-meaning humans she comes across and ends up in an animal shelter. However, her arrival is at a pretty bad time, because the cat in charge, Beast, is suddenly having his authority threatened by an aggressive male, Box. The shelter cats are caught in the middle of their constant fights for dominance, and Daisy has to pick whose side she's on. Beast has lived with humans all his life, while Box was a former wild cat like her.

The problem is, I'm not sure how to make this plot particularly engaging for young readers. I feel that since it's about cats that are confined to one space, the setting will be too dull. While I actually personally know all the cats in the story, since they're heavily based on cats at the animal shelter I volunteer at, I'm still afraid that even a cast of varied and three-dimensional characters might not be enough to keep the reader's interest. Any advice on how to make this work?

Another problem I have is the colony even being a thing I have to write about. In all honesty, it's only there as a plot device right now, but I'm afraid that if I dive into it too much, it'll distract from the plotline. The story is written in a first-person format and the main character is a very young cat, which makes writing about it and explaining things to the reader even harder. Any tips? :/

[also lololol i'm already really behind on word count. i hate college.]