Noumena - Overview of my novel

This novel was written within two months. I powered through it eagerly, wanting to know what happened next. I didn't plan, and I have paid for that by struggling through my second revision. It's easy to get into the zone of writing and forget to make notes of your plot lines.
For now I'm calling my novel Noumena. The Noumenal world is a second dimension from our current one. Inside this dimension there are spirits. There are only two types of spirits; negative and positive. Even though my novel is about a young adult named Sophie and is based around her character development, the novel context is fundamental to Sophie's experiences as she transitions from a human to an Esper (psychic being).
Novel One (My first ever novel)


Some of the ideas in my novel have been gathered from people like Immanuel Kant and Descartes. Sophie is a university student studying psychology and philosophy, and lives in Australia in a small town. She is twenty, and nearing her twenty-first birthday when she begins to have strange experiences. Most of her experiences are related to psychotic symptoms commonly associated with schizophrenia. She discovers secrets about the universe and realises she's not entirely human.
Noumena is in the second draft phase where I'm pulling the story together and smoothing out the bumps. At first it was sort of clunky, not to mention grammar and spelling issues. I'm half way through the second revision, once that's done I'll post a few snippets up here. For now here's an overview of the chapters.


This is a guideline to the novel only. It's 'descriptive' rather than 'gripping'. This is just an outline of the novel per five chapters.

Chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Introduces you to Sophie and her university friends (Will and Lara), at the end of the first chapter Sophie hears a voice in her head that gives her a warning about changes coming up. During this warning she faints, and she is awake in her unconscious mind hearing voices and seeing white lights. This is the start of her symptoms. As you learn more about her, the more symptoms intensify. She begins to experience synesthesia, telepathy, visions, infrared vision, hallucinations and delusions. Her symptoms begins to affect the people around her, including her mother (Agnes) and her father (Rodney). Sophie works in a small bookstore for her Aunty who Lara nicknames 'Mad Melinda' - in reality Melinda is very spiritual and alternative and is Sophie's closest confidant. Sophie discloses to Melinda some of her symptoms and Melinda warns her not to tell anyone. Sophie suspects Melinda knows of something to do with her symptoms, but after sensing Melinda's grief and guilt on the subject doesn't press her about it.

Chapters 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

After a couple of days of symptoms, one particular voice in her head begins to stand out against the others. She hears it as an evil voice that lies to her. Sophie begins to terrify those closest too her with fainting, yelling/screaming and with angry outbursts. After fainting for the third time Sophie finds herself in hospital restrained to a bed. She's in a psych ward that she cannot leave - it's guarded. Doctor Hofer is a Russian man who is Sophie's brain specialist. He takes her through various tests and tries her on several different medications. Sophie becomes very negative and sarcastic towards those around her. She threatens Doctor Hofer, slaps a nurse in the face - it's her experiences that prompted me to use first person narration for this book. She begins to dream about other worlds where she meets a man, this man has long blond hair and talks to her about her troubles and the universe. They discuss philosophy. In chapter ten she meets Oliver, another patient of the ward. Oliver is an Esper that has come to help Sophie in her transition from human to Esper, but he has a secret too.

Chapters 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

Oliver tells Sophie that she is destined to be an Esper and during the transition is at risk of losing her mind. All her symptoms are a symptom of transitioning to become an Esper, the voices in her mind are caused by positive and negative spirits. Oliver brings her into his noumenal world (a concept of his mind) in her dreams, he explains everything about the universe to her and she begins to realise that she's not crazy. Sophie realises the blonde man from her other dreams is a positive spirit, he's the one who initially warned her of her transition. Despite this, she encounters the negative spirits in the psych ward who're haunting patients and tries to help, but only gets in trouble. Oliver is constantly bailing her out of tricky situations and guiding her. Sophie learns that in order to develop her Esper abilities she must train her mind, she does this through meditation. Sophie's family visits her but doesn't understand, Sophie begins to shut them out of her life because she can't tell them the truth. Not even to Will who has been there for her and is her closest friend.

Chapters 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

Oliver affects Doctor Hofer and manipulates him to let them out to go downstairs to the cafeteria. Sophie continues to develop her meditation abilities. Oliver takes Sophie into the Noumenal dimension of the spirits through his conceptual world in his mind. They run into negative spirits who threaten Sophie, the negative spirits are trying to affect Sophie so she doesn't transition. They believe she'll upset the balance of the universe.
Sophie is allowed out for a two hour home visit and Oliver joins her and her friends at the pub. Things go well and the spirits stay away from Sophie when Oliver is around.
Back at the hospital the negative spirits affect the patients and they begin to attack Sophie, she disappears through the floor and ends up at her Aunts bookstore except she's in the Noumenal dimension.

Chapters 21, 22, 23, 24, 25,

Sophie gets back to the hospital immediately with Olivers help. The Doctors nickname her Houdini for getting outside and having no memory of it. Of course Sophie just pretends to have no memory. Oliver is perplexed at her turning into a spirit, Esper's can only travel through the Noumenal dimension with their minds, not their bodies. It's at this point Sophie and Oliver begin to suspect Sophie might be something different to an Esper, not to mention the negative spirits constantly accusing her of being an abomination.
Sophie begins to train her abilities in her dreams, through Oliver's conceptual world. Oliver teaches Sophie to build her own world in her mind. Melinda visits Sophie and as they're talking Sophie mentions Thale and Melinda leaves Sophie's room abruptly. Sophie ends up trapped in the Noumenal dimension trapped by the negative spirits. They torture and torment her until her mind is lost.

Chapters, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30

Sophie can't distinguish between what's real and what isn't and thinks reality is an illusion and illusions are reality. This way the negative spirits have convinced her to lose her mind. Oliver tries to help her but he can't. Sophie's conceptual world which was once beautiful becomes black and nightmarish in reflection of her current state of mind.

~~I'm not going to tell anymore about the ending....

Hope you like my plot. I'm planning three books - so a trilogy for Sophie's Esper adventures.