My story is sci-fi. I've been brainstorming of a couple of plot twist or the 'hidden skeleton'. I'm trying to make both the protagonist and antagonist on a personal connection level. The MC wakes up in the future, and before that he has a older brother that was apparently killed early in the story. His older brother is an role model that he looks up to for guidance through out the story to get by. In the course of events he fights the bad guy who tries to stop his goals, and believes he killed his older brother. In the end; revealed the bad guy he fights the whole time is his actual older brother that used him for his sinister ambitious goals. Of course this rips apart the MC feeling betrayed by his own blood, but a person who once looked up to. Thing is what bothers me about this plot twist don't want it to be a knock off of starwars plot twist of vader being lukes father. I could have a other twist of a twist. Where MC actually had twin brothers, with one that was separated at birth, and MC didn't know about. One was good, and other well- evil. Would like your thoughts on this.
Familiar betrayal has been done thousands of times. No one is gonna compared it to Star Wars because of it.
I like this idea, and yes it's been done before. But that shouldn't stop you. Just try to make it as personal as possible (by making us know and care for your characters) and nobody's going to notice! It would help raise the personal stakes if : 1) the 'baddie' brother is a person your main character remembers very well from their shared childhood. It'll have more emotional impact to find a loved and respected older brother as an enemy later on. Much more so than if it's just an older brother who is a legend, but one whom the main character has never personally known. 2) if the 'baddie' actually has feelings and even love for his young brother, and isn't totally 'bad.' I can imagine these scenarios actually happen in real life, and certainly will have happened back in the day when older brothers automatically inherited everything and younger brothers were left to fend for themselves. I'm sure that brotherly bonds forged in childhood were probably broken quite badly in many instances. There are also many instances of brothers ending up on opposite sides of a conflict, both of them feeling they were in the 'right.' This is a very charged situation, and one which will automatically draw interest. I'd just be careful not to make the older brother a really unloveable, BAD character. Your main character will be much more conflicted if his brother has good in him as well.
The older brother being the antag all along sounds better than the good/evil twin. The twin thing is even more cliche, imo. I did think immediately of Star Wars. However, it's iconic because it's a good idea, so don't abandon it just because it's similar. It's on the way you write it and the way your characters are. I say write it and see what happens. Don't ditch the idea cus you're worried. It's an awesome idea.
