Write something about your plot, and the rest of us help you work it out

Discussion in 'Plot Development' started by GrottyStatute74, Nov 15, 2016.

  1. tristan.n

    tristan.n Active Member

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    Is she conflicted about her decision to free herself from the old traditions? Does she have any help along the way? If not, why hasn't everyone left the old traditions? Is there something about her that makes it easier for her to escape them than it would everyone else? Does she help others free themselves of the old traditions, or does she use her own freedom to completely detach herself and let things unfold on their own? Does the entity opposing the movement (I assume there is one) target her as an important part of the movement, or does it take measures against everyone involved equally?
     
  2. Caveriver

    Caveriver Active Member

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    Why is the necessary, and what exactly is she leaving?

    Such as?

    I guess this completely depends on the structure of your world, and the political rules within it. Also, you will need an inciting event, possibly separate from the one that brought her to the decision to leave home- she will need a clear, true motivation to start her on her journey.

    I would say your very first task would be to decide what your MC stands for (in reaction to the conflicts of the story). Then create some characters who truly believe the opposite, and give them motivations to feel so. Then you might have a clearer idea of where your story is going, and what choices your MC will need to make to get her there.
     
  3. Toomanypens

    Toomanypens Member

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    Ok,
    She hates where she is (in school), she avoids everyone and doesn't feel like she belongs, she feels this way because it all seems false to her. The mounting pressure of having to become a true part of society is burdening her with the question of "who will I be?" and "what will I do in life". The environment itself is silent to her concerns which gives her a great sense of agony and uncertainty about not only her future but that of her generation who are blindly going through the motions.

    At first she is terrified of how she feels, and the act of accepting her true feelings about life causes her to be pushed to an emotional limit and while at this limit she LEAVES because it is the only thing she can think of that will force her to act, rather than sit in fear.

    The movement comes later in her life (this is a fictional biography) once she discovers that her life story gives her the power to make a difference.
    She is not directly opposed initially except by forms of threat (political climates of fear), and the way she overcomes this is by her inner strength leading by example and showing others how to walk through that terror (without violence).

    Its about courage in life, leading to courage in action, leading to this astounding woman. (I focus a lot on who she is and what makes her so incredible)

    Hmm, she is leaving her brother and father, her brother is sort of in support of her, her father is not, cuz he is afraid for her all the time and just wants her to be a safe little princess. She has to break out of that mentally cuz she isn't just some delicate flower, and safety in a system like that isn't earned or real, it is an illusion (I could make that how her mother/brother left, or was intituitionalised).

    Old traditions are go to university, then "get a job". She doesn't believe this is actually TRUE or how the world works so foresees it falling apart.

    As for conflicts?
    I was thinking she has a mentor she likes who turns out to believe opposite things than her, and in the second act she has to stand up to and defeat him in a war of words, even though initially she feels she owes him something.


    So I guess the plot might be
    act 1 - leaving "safety"
    act 2 - overcoming a mentor
    act 3 - overcoming a tyrant

    Hmmm... There is already one man (a mysterious stranger) who she runs into over the course of her life that helps her.
    Maybe the mentor could be an opposite guy, even a love interest? Who helps build her up, but has hidden agendas, that are on the opposite side of things.

    That might REALLY work out nicely.
     
  4. Mikmaxs

    Mikmaxs Senior Member

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    Okay, so my setting is a Fantasy Western of sorts, taking place a little less then a decade after a major, worldchanging war that pretty much redrew the maps. What technology there is is magic based, and ranges in complexity and use, but is approximately as developed as technology in the late 1800s. (For example, 'Electric' lighting is available and there are record players, radios and vacuums are still a ways off.)

    What I'm struggling with is how to handle the 'Police' in this situation. My current handwave explanation is that the controlling government body (Which as of the big war now controls the entire civilized world, though the entire civilized world is only about as big as North America so it's not as impressive as it sounds,) simply hasn't worked out a full set of laws and regulations for its branches of government yet, and as such many parts of the country and still being held under vague martial law - There are peacekeepers and laws, but it's mostly a wild west as long as everyone pays their taxes and doesn't start any rebellions. There's no universally accepted judicial system, and local methods of handling law enforcement can vary wildly.
    This raises a bunch of problems, though, and since 'Why doesn't she just let law enforcement handle everything?' is a pretty big question, I really want a good, solid answer for why the police and law enforcement agencies in a good chunk of the country would be incapable of helping, without just making them blatantly corrupt or terrible at their jobs.
     
  5. Sam Woodbury

    Sam Woodbury Member

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    The description sounds like a fantasy world but it could be equally applied to a country like the United States if some major episode disrupted the system of government, infrastructure, or economy. I would imagine that a society with recently redrawn borders following a destructive war would have a lot of growing pains even if one dominant power managed to take over the entire continent. Probably an example could be Iraq or Afghanistan in the last decade or so after the US invasion. Major cities might be controlled by the dominant power but rural areas could be harder to police, especially if lines of communication (railroads I suppose given the Steampunk level of technology) were heavily disrupted or even destroyed. It would be very believable to have vast tracts of a war torn country to be a no mans land even if they were nominally controlled by the new government.
     
  6. Mikmaxs

    Mikmaxs Senior Member

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    Okay, that doesn't exactly solve my problem, but it contains ideas I really like. I'm having my characters travel (A lot, like for most of the book,) and having some WWI-esque completely devastated landscapes would be a really great way to mix it up. Thank you!
     
  7. Songshie

    Songshie New Member

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    The main character is the daughter of an intergalactic king. Her father is dying of an incurable disease and in order to inherit the empire, she must find Earth, which has been lost for thousands of years. On the way, she joins up with Saev, a gladiator with connections to a shadowy corporation. Earth is hidden by a dark zone, a strange area in which no stars are visible and time cannot be kept. Strange non humanoid beings control the milky way and I don't really know why they forced humans to leave Earth and why they take people without a trace.

    Sorry if this seems jumbled. I'm having a hard time condensing this.
     
  8. tonguetied

    tonguetied Contributor Contributor

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    What I like about your concept is that for me it conjures up the idea that what we call dark matter and dark energy might contain other life forms that consider us to be dark matter/dark energy. That seems pretty original to me but I am not well read. Anyway if the non humanoid creatures are capturing or simply killing humans it might be for some weapon research, like a matter-antimatter collision since we are the dark matter to them, etc. Not sure if that helps in any way but I like the "dark zone" concept.
     
  9. Solar

    Solar Banned Contributor

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    Cabbage White munching the green.
     
  10. OJB

    OJB A Mean Old Man Contributor

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    There are fives points you need to have figured out before you start plotting.

    Lead: A woman (kinda weak.) Pick one well-thought-out adjective to describe your MC.

    Objective: "An attempt to be accountable for her own life." This is a spiritual goal. What physical goal does she need to accomplish to make this happen?

    Conflict: What stands in her way of accomplishing this goal?

    Knockout: What would victory look like for your character? What would defeat look like for your character?

    Situation: This is where you describe the world of your MC at the start of the story.

    Once you have these five points figured out your story will start taking shape; at that point, you can start brain storming plot points "events" that moves your character closer to her goal.
     
  11. Songshie

    Songshie New Member

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    Good points there.
     
  12. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    Kinda hit a speed bump myself.

    Quick and dirty of the sitch.
    The Empress shows up at a political building that is also the target of the MCs, in a war. The Empress wants to resolve
    the conflict diplomatically, while Marckus and those in his command simply want to dissolve the faction the old fashion
    way. The Empress dispenses an Ambassador with a small 6 man guard contingency, but the problem is that the Uldivarion
    Ambassador does not speak Terran. So despite being a high value target of the Confederation, Marckus decides to accompany
    the Uldivarion Commander Kionnxia to translate for both parties. Also along for the misadventure is Corlixia and Lieutenant
    Semmrz in war-frames, and Major Graxis.
    They get into the fortification around the political arena, and are surrounded by 300 Confederation ground troops, a regimen of
    all four classes of Armor war-frames including a dozen assault class. They pass by the enemy at stand down, and rudely interrupt
    the politicians inside the lavish political building. Negotiations break down, and the Empress comes to join in the talks accompanied
    by 6 Empyreal Elite Guards, 2 Heavy Armor, and 2 Assault class into the fortification. She kills the speaker of the lot with a knife
    thrown into his throat, and basically says to hell with the idiotic politicians. Marckus gets to kill Commander Riley as he promised
    he would, and then convinces the Empress not to carve the lot up with her swords.
    He and Graxis head back outside where they begin taking small arms fire, so they take cover behind heavy stone columns at the
    front of the building. A small battle takes place resulting in a tactical retreat being out manned and out gunned. Markus sees that
    friendly armor is in retreat, and tells Graxis to get the Empress out and pull back. So he stays behind covering the Major's retreat
    to get the Empress and crew. Column hopping Markus finds the fallen Lieutenant's war-frame, and finds him injured inside. Exchanging
    suppression fire with the many men on the enemy side using the war-frame as cover. A cowardly Grey female Confederation soldier offers
    to give medical aid to felled Uldivarion. Marckus is out of options and pinned down so he tells her to do what she can or she is as good as
    dead, as well as telling Semmrz to 'play dead', until a recovery team can get in.
    Marckus burns through the last half of his final magazine, and then is forced to surrender. He does so grudgingly, and is taken into custody
    by the enemy.

    So does this make sense, that he would stay behind to save his own men even though it results in his capture?
     
  13. Raven484

    Raven484 Contributor Contributor

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    Beings I am familiar with your story, I can say that it makes perfect sense to have Marcus captured for several reasons:
    1) If you made it where Graxis is captured, it would have been way too predictable. Anyone familiar to the story would know he would be first to sacrifice himself. So you gain a slight twist there.
    2) In your first novel, Marcus is a true badass, but his motivation for his actions was vengeance. Allowing him to be captured shows the reader that Marcus isn't just some nut commando. His true courage comes out. He is just a small part in a big picture. I imagine that before he was frozen by the Confederation, he was a man of courage than of vengeance. Great example of growing your character.
    3) Marcus needs his ass kicked a little more than what you have written before. He seemed almost invincible before, now he is more human.
     
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  14. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    He almost dies on Mars after taking a through and through in a lung.
    But I hear ya, he does kinda come off as a bit invulnerable.
    Bit too stubborn for his own good. :p
    You might be right in he needs a good smackdown.
    Thanks @Raven484
     
  15. Commandante Lemming

    Commandante Lemming Contributor Contributor

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    Saw this thread pop up and I'm hitting a minor plot iceberg so I figured I'd throw in an entry.

    I'm somewhere between a half and two thirds of the way through a alternate reality Sci-Fi novella. So far:

    Our intrepid protagonist, a 19 year old college student in an alternate reality, has determined that she and her family are actually interdimensional refugees from our reality (namely the Syrian Civil War) - they got trafficked out by a smuggling ring using tech that I don't really have time to explain. This has all played out through interactions with her older cousin, who is 28, a sommelier, and the only relative she has living in the big city. These two women have never really gotten along but are now being forced together by the fact that the trafficking ring that brought them there in the first place is now extorting them to recruit people to traffic back the other way - and they've been using the basement of the cousin's tasting room as a base of operations. I threw a curveball last chapter and revealed that the older cousin is also the former lesbian lover of one of the traffickers (with all the messed up power/consent dynamics that creates), and that she has cut a deal to re-start the affair on the condition that little cousin gets permanently left alone. Little cousin finds out, gets mad, and deicides to pretend to "join" the ring as a recruiter - which works because she's also been slowly putting together how and why the portal works.

    Where I'm stuck is how to properly take this down the emotional path it needs to go for the two cousins to basically be crying it out by the end, and for little cousin to reach her inevitable rash conclusion - which is "I have to blow up the portal" (noting that blowing up the portal stops the smuggling ring but also prevents future refugees from escaping - and I want the morally questionable nature of that decision to come through at the end).

    Any thoughts on how I dig this hole a few steps deeper in my "late middle" and then dig my way out of it?
     
  16. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    @Commandante Lemming Do they have a close family member/friend, that could be used in an inter-dimensional kidnapping, as a result
    of their actions revolving around the smugglers and the portal? Not sure what would be a big enough and horrible enough reason to cause
    the younger cousin to decide to blow up the portal. Though it sounds like it needs to be emotionally tragic enough of a plot to get them to
    break down and decide that the only way to set things right for themselves, even though the consequences affect the other potential refugees
    between dimensions as a result of their selfish decisions in saving a relative/friend from the other dimension.
    Or you could have them get into a fight that leaves them torn on what to do in the final moments, leaving the elder
    cousin stranded in the other dimension as the portal goes up.

    That is a tough one to figure out sir. :)
     
  17. Commandante Lemming

    Commandante Lemming Contributor Contributor

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    Well I'm thinking maybe entrapment rather than kidnapping - and elder cousin herself is probably the victim of opportunity. She's already in a pretty messed up place - and she's in the weird position of being the older/wiser/mentor character but also more geared toward appeasement because she knows what's on the other side (she was five when the family came over, little cousin was in utero), and despite being the elder she's still pretty young. Little Cousin is a lot more rebellious and, stupidly, pretty curious about her origins on the other side. The ending is going to be her unilaterally deciding to enter the portal and blow it on her way through, trapping herself on the other side (actually portal is the wrong word - it's a device that alters matter to allow quantum multiverse-hopping). So I want to eventually end with older cousin going about her business, feeling defeated, and then she's just going to hear a massive explosion - the results being that the machine, the traffickers, and little cousin are all gone. So, I guess what I need to do is figure out how to dig both of them into the extortion ring in such a way that they both feel trapped but safe - which of course will get older cousin's seal of approval and push little cousin into kamikaze mode.
     
    Last edited: Dec 20, 2016
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  18. Alex R. Encomienda

    Alex R. Encomienda Contributor Contributor

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    A gypsy whore ventures on a quest to find her mother in Spain(who she believes abandoned her) and gets involved in Santeria.

    The principalities she communicates with make her run around in circles so she believes her mother was a Catholic nun who was raped but then she speaks to another man (vermin man) of traviesos who tells her she is in a coma and none of her quests are real because the devil put her in a coma.

    She then seeks a way to find what is really going on in her life and who her mother (Magdalena) is; if she even exists.
     
  19. Toomanypens

    Toomanypens Member

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    Well, shes a heroine that doesn't follow the usual tropes, where "omg shes so pretty and an assassin" :p
    Shes more like benjamin franklin, and her early life is based off of his. Shes self taught, utterly brilliant, and rises up in life by finding herself.

    The objective of self improvement is about not feeling crazy and worthless, the idea is that she eventually has a destiny, and all that work wasn't for nothing. (similar to how benjamin franklin was there to help americas revolution)

    Conflict, is about the sheer danger of making enemies, I mean, anyone who truly stands up and stands out is taking on a lot of personal risk.

    Knockout, well victory is humble for her, sad but sweet. Failure is longing and distant, in distress.

    Situation, originally its just normal drama type life, but it evolves when the climate of events in the world change, and her country is overtaken, and she helps free it.


    The aim here is to discover what a female founding father could be, so women can be like, wow, I can do it maybe.
     

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