I'm pondering new projects to play with and my mind keeps coming back to playing with some variation of Dorian Gray. I've always been fascinated by the story and it seems like it could be extremely relevant given our society's obsession with beauty at all costs.

What do y'all think?

I say yes! I could never pull it off in a billion years, but that is one of many reasons you are a novelist and I am not.

I haven't read it, but I say go for it! It's one of those stories that hasn't been done to death, so strike!

Suppose you stayed beautiful by having an avatar age in cyberspace and then there's a cascading blackout....

Are you thinking YA, Barb?

I think it'll work best if you already have a character in mind to hang the story on.

Suppose you stayed beautiful by having an avatar age in cyberspace and then there's a cascading blackout....

I like it! Or the reverse, where you start showing some of the damage of your avatar, and you don't dare stop playing the game or you'll starve/die/etc. (that sounds damned familiar, it must have been done)

Are you thinking YA, Barb?

Dunno, Amy-- it certainly could lend itself to YA, however, if I really want to play up the hedonistic aspect of it, which is one of the things I adore about the original, I think I'd have to take it adult.

Like I said, I'm still in very early stages of playing with the idea-- just waiting for Adrienne to get back to me on the ghost story proposal & the 60s story (for which, I suspect, the news might not be good... just a feeling I have). I'd really, really like to sell an adult novel. Eventually. Someday.

It'll happen.

I really want to play up the hedonistic aspect of it, which is one of the things I adore about the original, I think I'd have to take it adult.

You could do a magical realism take on it, or horror.

I had a thought over lunch. The "Mirror" is not an Avatar, but a real twin. Rich beautiful twin who does not take care of himself narcistically obsessed with his own beauty. Poor beautiful twin who does take care of himself, obsessed with money. Starts with poor twin selling rich one a kidney, then for more money agreeing to skin grafts, donate muscle for muscle grafts. (horror medical science rather than real medical science with sociopathic multi-speciality Hollywood doctor ready to perform all the illegal surgery he is paid for. )

Poor twin gets uglier and uglier, can't hold on to the money so keeps needing more. Rich twin stays rich, or this starts eating into his fortune? Rich twin money depends on beauty? Not the one writing it, but another approach, with lots of room for hedonism.