Germinations Of The Idea For A Commonwealth America Book

Of all the people I know, John the Nihilist has been the most helpful in my writing endeavors. I don't mean trying to develop characters (because he certainly is one) but in trying to help me come up with a story idea for the next NANOWRIMO (only a little over two months away now). velvetvenus is always making snide comments about actually working on a book (for example when my cable went out, he said, "why don't you use that time to write your novel?") but John the Nihilist planted the seed of a plot.

Being the conservative that he is, he's always bashing Europe saying, "the last thing the United States wants to do is adopt anything that they do over there," in terms of anything.

Well, the thought that's planted itself in my mind follows those lines. But, instead of a story about what would happen if Americans were still European.

The central premise would be this: what if the United States colonies had lost the Revolutionary War?

It would take place in an alternate history modern United States but one that's a member of the Commonwealth. Certain other historical occurrences that were inevitable due to factors not involving the United States or England such as WWI would still have occurred.

Others would have occurred with entirely different participants. If, for example, the United States had not broken free, slavery would have been outlawed in the entirety of the United States when it was outlawed in all English colonies. The Civil War may still have happened but with the reason being the agricultural south revolting due to economic reasons as the north began to industrialize.

Or it may not have happened. More likely, the French colonies of the middle United States would have ended up at war with the English colonies of the coast as the two sides continued to battle for supremacy. Though since the Revolutionary War still happened, and probably dragged on longer, England would have still been damaged economically so who knows what the results of this would have been? France would have been less likely to have the revolution without seeing the United States' model for a citizen's democracy (though the free thinkers would have still been around).

Perhaps I'll have Napoleon having migrated to Michigan and becoming a leader in the French colonies of North America. Either way those will still exist in the book and behave a lot like the few French influenced areas still around in the Caribbean.

Any way I look at it, I think that I'll limit the scope of the United States as we know it to the northeast and southeast.

Now I just have to think of characters and what they'll be doing in this alternative reality and I'll be all set.

The last thing I want to do is write a bad science fiction movie that's all bells and whistles and nothing else.

I had planned on writing the book around Anglophiles living in the United States regardless. But in this alternate reality they would be the ruling elites. So, maybe I'll have a group of people who are looking for the United States (or, I guess it will be called something else) forming an underground movement to come up with a truly unique American identity and their struggle.

At least I've got two months to come up with something that's at least palatable. Or just junk the whole idea and write another Cusack-lit novel. ;)