I'm stuck. I can't make up my mind about *the* major aspect of one of my fan fiction plots, probably because it delves into the supernatural and those can be tricky to conceive of. Here's some background: Skyrim (a video game) fanfiction Dragonborn - a man with blood and soul of a dragon - has children His firstborn is called the Dragon Child and is hailed by dragons as "the spirit mother of dragonkind" and even her parents are hailed, so it's a big deal. She will find out soon what that actually means, how the Dragon Child is created, what part the gods had to play She hears a voice in her head since childhood that calls her his wife She's 16 years old and in love with her best friend Her parents knew vaguely about her destiny but kept it from her Her parents would want the best for her (ie, make her happy) She just got called to meet with the "powers that be" and will find out what her destiny is and why she has heard a voice her whole life So where I'm stuck is I can't decide what to have her destiny actually BE. There are so many options, ranging from horribly selfish to just plain boring. As for what the Dragon Child is.... The Dragonborn was a dragon slayer and killed MANY dragons and absorbed their souls, effectively erasing their very being from existence. Therefore the God of Life and Death (a real character from the game) is angry at the imbalance. This god's father, the first god, and the first dragon, Lord of Dragons really, God of Time as well, is going to be the god incarnate's spirit and the voice that the Dragon Child hears, while his son, the God of Balance (life and death) is going to be the physical aspect of the god incarnate. Think "holy trilogy" situation, here. It fits into the game lore because some people think of the God of Time and the God of Balance as the same being, but since mythologies tend to get confused over time, no one is really sure anymore (this is coming from the game lore itself). The Dragon Child occurred because her mother was meant to have twins, but saved the life of a friend while pregnant thereby sacrificing something. The twins merged and became a chimera (fused cells), but the child is normal and healthy and everything. Basically the lore of the people (which I made up this time) says that chimera children are meant to be strong "because they have two souls", and this will be backed up by what the "powers that be" tell the family. The Dragon Child is about 100 times more rare than the Dragonborn, her father, so you can imagine it's a big deal for the gods/dragonkind for there to be one now. Some possible plot lines I've come up with are: She is destined to marry a god incarnate and have his children and those children will be demi-gods, their souls later being reborn into dragons, but also those children will be raised as monks in a way, taught "The Way" (a particular creed from this game's story), being reborn as dragons with lots of knowledge, etc (hard to follow me on this one, I'm sure!) She is to be imbued with the power to physically turn into a dragon and, well, dragon sex. She is transported to another plane of existence which will lend itself better to the "spirit mother" thing She basically says "nope" and runs away, but the gods figure out a way to have the god incarnate impregnate her anyway. Similar to how Hercules was conceived, Zeus took on the form of Hercules's mother's husband. MEAN but when are gods not mean and selfish? lol In any case, I'm really just undecided. Do I be cruel, weird, or boring? sigh. I'll appreciate ANY advice you have, even if it's simply "none of the above".
If your story has a point, if it's going somewhere, that should answer your question. What is the story you want to tell? Here's an interesting girl, her life is all supernatural, weird stuff happens, the story ends. Might make a fun RPG, those are not my thing so I probably shouldn't be answering anyway. But I'm looking for the conflict, what the story is about, and if you knew that, I believe you'd have your answer.
Haven't had an opportunity to play Skyrim yet but have played Oblivion and Morrowind. If the Dragon Child is your MC, then I would suggest following the path with the most conflict and see where it leads. A destiny that is all sweetness and light would be very boring. Good luck.
To me it seems that you only have a character idea rather than a story idea. You know you want to write about this character and want this character to do something, but you know neither what you want her to do nor what you want to write. Try thinking which path seems to suit your character more and explore it.
The fourth (if slightly altered as in she fights back) offers the biggest potential for conflict (there maybe an item that can be used to defeat the gods or she could bargain with the daedra or I don't know what) and you could end it either with them impregnating her (boring and overdone by the greeks (gods are all powerful and resisting is useless and the inevitablity of fate yadda, yadda, yadda)) or you could have her defeat them but at a cost (like the death fo her loved one or her parents) and in the end she could realize that it wasn't worth it but that is just my two cents. You don't need to listen any of us. If you like my idea then put in Sheogorath for comic relief and please directme to the finished product (when it will be finished of course)
Oh good, thanks for your replies! I was worried I'd get zip. Really, you're dead on Ginger. This is a Part 3 to a story I've already written the first two parts for and developed the MC for Part 3 for (as you all have guessed). The BAD part is that I'd originally thought of only having two parts, and that the second part would just be longer, and would cover some of the above that I've listed. Then I realized I could really develop Part 3 to a full length novella/novel story. The bad thing about that is much of the plot is underdeveloped. I had some SUB-plot goals lined up and taken care of, but.... The strange thing is for this Part 3, some plot lines and even the damn TITLE came to be out of the blue after hours/days of deliberation, trying to be too creative....
I'm leaning more toward MC is a symbolic wife, and a teacher rather than a physical mother. There are a whole bunch of reasons why this would work, and even lend itself to work with some of the sub-plots I've developed.
What on earth are you doing developing "part 3" if you haven't even got enough plot? Develop your plot first, then you'll know if your story spans long enough for it to have 3 parts. Don't create parts just for fun and end up filling your story with pointless padding. However, from what I've read of your original post, you've got one heck of an interesting premise Sounds like it could be a really awesome story.
It's developed... it's just this one damn aspect of it isn't. Actually, correction, it WAS developed, but I don't like that original idea anymore. That's the problem. But it can definitely (and will) span three parts. There's no padding, no no. What the end-game is, and I'll try to make this simple for non-Skyrim-players, that there used to be a line of kings that were descended from a Dragonborn (like the MC's father), and the gods want that to happen again. Long story short, there will be an opening soon, and a kind of "game of thrones"-esque battle (NOT the Civil War which is the in-game series of battles) will ensue. (Though, not sure how much of a real battle it will be yet, let's say, competition.) There are a lot of "but, but wait"s going on in my mind about what I want to do with the damn main plot to get from point A (what I've developed thus far and I like it and it's not going to change) to Z, the line of kings reestablished descending from this MC. I'm sure it will come to me eventually. Too much real life getting in the way of thinking about it, maybe. I guess I'm annoyed because up until now the story practically wrote itself. Stupid supernatural stuff screwing up my flow.
After doing a lot more research with the lore of the game (I think part of my problem was that I did some research, but not enough, or rather that I forgot about some details), I've come up with a plan. Going to hash it out, see how I feel about it.
