1. mg357

    mg357 Active Member

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    Looking for opinions on a story plot.

    Discussion in 'Plot Development' started by mg357, Mar 26, 2017.

    I am looking for opinions on a short story plot that i have come up with this plot is based on an old movie.


    In 1978 their was a movie called Coming Home it started John Voight who portrayed a disabled Military veteran, and Jane Fonda who portrayed a hospital volunteer and is married to an Officer In the United States Marine Corps and is sent overseas.


    When they met in the veterans hospital where John Voight's character is a patient they have an affair.

    Anyway my story is partially based on this film a single young woman in her late 20s or early 30s, who volunteers part time at a veteran's hospital, and one day when she arrives for her shift.

    The main nurse at the hospital tells her about a new patient that had arrived a few days earlier, so the young woman reads the file on the patient, and as she reads it the young lady realizes that the patient, is her long lost brother.

    Who she has not seen or heard from in many years because their was a fight between the father and the son and the son left vowing never to return.

    So she goes to his room and they reunite and they resume the incestuous affair that they had begun years earlier.

    But one day as she is leaving his room the hospitals main nurse catches her but she does not turn them in to the cops because incest is illegal.

    Instead the nurse tells the story about her own long term incestuous affair with her own brother which has gone on for years and years.


    Later on the two characters in my story decide to leave town and quietly build a life together fair away and she may end up pregnant with their love child or children, i have not decided yet.
     
  2. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    That's going to strike the reader as a very convenient coincidence (as in lazy plotting) ... also presumably a lot has happened in both their lives since the brother left, but they just pick up their affair... yeah, um, right
     
  3. CoyoteKing

    CoyoteKing Good Boi Contributor

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    I only really see one plot point to comment on, and that's the nurse who catches them.

    So... it sounds like the plot goes like this. The couple is back together, and it's going fine. They get caught, but -- because the head nurse who catches them is sympathetic towards them -- she lets them go. They live happily ever after in secret.

    When you write it that way, it comes across as being more sympathetic towards the incestual couple. Is that what you're going for?

    Imagine if, instead, you removed the part where the head nurse is having her own affair, and she's just a regular nurse. The head nurse catches them, but she's not sure whether to turn them in or not. She's torn about whether or not it's okay, but ultimately says nothing because she's not sure if it's her place to judge. The couple goes away and lives happily ever after. If you changed it to this, it would come across as more ambiguous/questioning than outright sympathetic. The story becomes "is this okay?" instead of "this is okay."

    Anyway, I'm not pushing you either way, I'm just pointing it out. It really depends on what direction you're going for.
     
  4. muckzulo

    muckzulo Member

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    lol I, for one, don't really have a problem with "coincidence" since many romance novels and contemporary novels thrive off "coincidence", especially in the tv realm of "drama television" lol.

    The husband is having an affair with the nanny and all of a sudden the wife walks in and catches them and storms out but not before blurting out that the nanny was his long lost sister and she wanted to keep it a secret because of his dark past with his sister and was hoping by making her the nanny they would amend they relationship unwillingly before finding out they're relatives. Lmaoo

    People love that stuff!... That's why soap operas last for over 50 years. They may not have the best writing but ppl love the drama.
     
  5. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    yeah in soap operas - particularly stuff like 'the young and the restless' and other such tripe , not in a well written book , which i assume the OP aspires to
     
  6. muckzulo

    muckzulo Member

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    "Well written book" is a subjective opinion lol.. what one thinks is well written another may not think so.

    To me the Alex cross Crime series isn't well written but yet it sells millions and millions of people seem to think otherwise.
     
  7. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    Indeed - but that's something of a strawman , as you've agreed yourself that soap operas are often not the best written.

    Whatever - I'm not getting into a long and tiresome debate about it, the crit is there for the OP, if he chooses to ignore the potential for some readers thinking that the coincidence is overly convenient, that's his call
     
  8. Laurin Kelly

    Laurin Kelly Contributor Contributor

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    It may differ in other parts of the world, but in the U.S. at least soap operas are all but dead. There are only four remaining, and I believe their ratings are extremely low. Once the baby boomers die off I'm fairly certain they will go the way of the dinosaur quickly.

    Personally I would find it hard to believe that two nurses working in the same hospital at the same time would have each had a long-term, consensual incestuous relationships a brother in their past. Not to mention the second nurse being comfortable sharing her story with the first nurse. I'd say I'd be rolling my eyes, but it's extremely unlikely I'd pick up a romance novel with brother/sister incest as the main story. I'm not one to kink-shame, for me it's a very squicky genre and not something I'd give a try.
     
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  9. mg357

    mg357 Active Member

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    CoyoteKing: Yes that is exactly what i am going for.
     
  10. muckzulo

    muckzulo Member

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    Well i don't watch daytime soap operas since im unable to...but there are and were plenty of primetime shows that have/had plenty of soap opera drama ..Empire, Scandal, greys anatomy, Desperate Housewives, Sex in the city, Gossip girl, one tree hill etc etc... But with sooo many primetime dramas that have soap opera tropes and drama filled reality shows, i can see why ppl are prob turning away from daytime soaps and going to primetime television.

    On a reality show, something thats suppose to be REAL, there is a married man who had an affair on his wife and the women he had the affair with is in a three way relationship with another women the married man also had an affair with years before the other girl and the two girls met without even knowing they both slept with the guy..... Ratings for this show is high and rather its believable or not millions are tuning in every week to watch what happens next. People love drama. "Coincidence" creates drama. Drama wouldnt survive if it wasnt for writers using the "Coincidence" trope.

    So in a FICTIONAL novel its not a far strech for two women working in the same hospital to both have a past of sleeping with their brother....and its also not a far strech for the women to confide in the other women who she can relate to since incest relationships is very taboo and uncommon.

    Its true that many may not be interested in reading a romance novel where the main leads are in a incest relationship.
     
  11. Apollypopping

    Apollypopping Member

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    I personally find it hard to believe that these two women in the same place at the same time would have had relationships with their brothers. Is the head nurse catching them out your main conflict/plot?
     
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  12. OJB

    OJB A Mean Old Man Contributor

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    I am going to be honest, you can write whatever type of story you want (including a long-lost bro and sis hook up). But you need to ask yourself, is anyone going to be willing to read this?
     
  13. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    Thanks for capitalizing that. I thought you might have been talking about a non-fictional novel for a second there.
     
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  14. mg357

    mg357 Active Member

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    Apolllypopping: The Main nurse's story is an important part of my story plot it is the story within the story.
     

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