I always seem to have trouble figuring out what exactly my plot and conflicts are. Originally, my main antagonist was a faerie. Her backstory was that she was once a fae queen but during a war with humans and witches a long time ago, the faerie realm was closed off and all the fae in the human world were trapped and were slowly losing power. She found a way to reopen the faerie realm but it would require the sacrifice of millions of people. As a powerful faerie, she has the ability to enthrall people so she has various thralls who pose threats to the heroes. My main heroine, a werewolf, was somehow going to be pitted against her. But for the life of me I can't figure out she gets involved in the first place. So my question is, how do you figure out your antagonists' goals and keep the hero guessing. This is specifically for a series. I really, really, really want to make this story a series but I'm having trouble with pacing out how to do it. On the one hand, you don't want to hold off your main villain, but you don't want to introduce them too soon either. So how do you tie your hero and villain together? What makes your hero pose a threat to the villain? If you are writing a series, how do you and should you pace it out so there is a rising conflict in each that leads up to the epic battle in the end?
Well, millions of lives sacrificed sounds like good reason to me. Esp. if your MC has friends and family who could likely be part of that million. I know what you mean, though, because you're then faced with the question of how your MC gets to be the hero rather than someone else -- i.e. you want her to be thrust in to the role in some way without resorting to Mary Sue "chosen one" prophecies. What if your MC was part fey? It could be just a tiny drop of blood -- like 99 percent werewolf/human, 1 percent fey from one ancestor who slipped into the family tree hundreds of years ago. This could give her the right to join the fey world and/or the duty to help obtain it, even though she doesn't want to. It's like the "Nightlife" series by Robyn Thurman - a character is part demonlike elf/alien and part human. He aligns with the humans, grew up in their world, and has a full-human brother, but the other species is hell bent on dragging him to their realm. This, of course, ruins his life. Likewise, what if your MC isn't the special one, but she has a close connection who is? Then that person dies or otherwise becomes incapable, and your MC is the only one left to step up to the plate. It's either her or nothing.
