So in my WIP series, unsurprisingly, there is some amount of relationship drama I intend to include, and as someone who is not especially confident with writing this particular kind of material, I would appreciate some imput. It's an urban fantasy series, so naturally the supernatural parts of the story affect the main characters lives in a number of ways. It's easy to come up with generic plot lines about one person in a relationship being 'aware' and keeping secrets from the other and how that adds tension to the relationship. But I want to explore more interesting and specific ways that the supernatural could affect people's relationships, and as the title suggests, not in particularly good ways. There are two notable plotlines in this vein that I intend to occur somewhat early on as my #1 main character, Sarah, adjusts to everything in typical hidden world story fashion. The first is Sarah’s relationship with her current boyfriend as of the start of the series. For Sarah, her recent success in securing this as a serious relationship is a major point of her self confidence, a sign that she has overcome her issues with mental health and her general difficulties with socialising. Her boyfriend, John, was initially concerned by Sarah's issues, especially given his former best friend's insistence that she is trouble, but is now convinced that she is on top of things after falling out with his friend over the subject. But it's a doomed relationship by design, as Sarah gets too deep into supernatural affairs and has difficulty dealing with the way the supernatural directy affects her own already troubled state of mind. So despite Sarah's best efforts, including asking a supernatural world official for permission to tell John everything (her request is bluntly denied), they breakup. John is an important character at first, though he is never a focus, and dissapears from the story not long after their relationship ends. But I don't want it to be a throw away affair, and I don't want John to be seen as a throw away character. It may even be best if John seems likely to remain an important character before this start really going downhill. There's no point doing this as a consequences plot line if it doesn't feel like much of a consequence, if it feels like a hollow relationship. But at the same time, I don’t want to spend too much time on the relationship as there's more important things going on and other main characters beside Sarah. And I also don't want to portray it as some kind of perfect relationship, in fact I intend one the reasons for Sarah’s attachment to be simply because of her difficulty with acheiving any serious relationship, and as such she feels almost as if this is her only chance. How should I approach this kind of plotline? The second plotline is much less substantial of a romance, but deals with more long term character dynamics. As a result, I am more confident in the relevant character portrayals, but I question where I should really do this plot line at all. So this relationship is between Sarah and another one of my MCs, Jade. Jade is friends with Sarah already at the start of the series, but is generally not particularly open or sociable, so plays second fiddle to Sarah’s closest friend, Emily, who has also known her longer. But as the story progresses, Jade, who already has major history with the supernatural, becomes closer to Sarah as she tries to help Sarah deal with her introduction to it. It is Jade’s particular history with the supernatural that is the cause of her detachment, so as Sarah is introduced to it, Jade gradually becomes more comfortable with Sarah. Jade’s introduction to the supernatural was much worse than Sarah's, as she was pulled out of her old life by a group of very morally questionable people who also have a supernaturally created mental hold over her- in particular, a 'noble' from a vampire noble house. The noble, Vitaly, is especially interested in Jade because he believes, after observing her and reading her mind, that she could be partner for him. Vitally sired Jade, and the initial thrall after being turned draws Jade to join as a loyal member of the House. Vitaly’s continued influence seduced Jade into a relationship with him, but eventually she broke out of the thrall, and after breaking down in a crisis of identity, she left the house in disgust for her own immoral actions. Despite the fact that she was under his influence, Jade’s attraction to Vitaly was not entirely false, and this left Jade, who was previous unsure of her sexuality, now deeply confused about it, which in addition to her general state of self hatred, leaves her rather repressed. But now that she has grown more comfortable with Sarah, her repressed sexuality emerges, and she realises that she is attracted to Sarah and even starting to fall in love with her. But unfortunately, though Jade has now become Sarah's closest friend, she doesn't feel the same way. I like the way this plot line deals with a different kind of consequence of the supernatural as in this case it doesn't simply cause tension in some relationship and doesn't just deal with secrets and second lives. But I worry that it may be a little too dramatic, namely given that it's been several years since Jade was turned and she was already 24 EDIT-so just now figuring things out seems questionable-EDIT, but then again, it is part of Jade’s big trauma so maybe the extremity is appropriate. Also of concern is whether this plot line feels too much like a gimick to make Sarah and Jade best buds dynamic more interesting, but I mostly think I can probably carry it off.
So, if I understand correctly, you're more so looking for a way to make Sarah and John's relationship seem like a failed one in an organic way? If that's the case, then I'd say you're on the right track. You've already outlined that you don't plan on them being the perfect couple, whish is good. One thing to steer clear of is having them fight too much. I'm assuming, potentially wrongly, that they end things at least somewhat amicably? Just getting that from the context. Anyways, one way in which you could do this is having Sarah get pulled into supernatural affairs often when John wants to be with her. This would give John the idea that she doesn't want to spend time with him, which would cause tension in their relationship. Then, on an important day, maybe John's birthday or the like, have Sarah get pulled into a particularly devastating supernatural occurrence, which leaves her emotionally shut down for a while. John would obviously not know why she's doing this, and would assume that she doesn't want to be with him, and initiate the breakup. To avoid John being a throwaway character, you could have him be somewhat of an eye-opening experience for Sarah, indicating that she wouldn't ever be able to make a relationship with someone who doesn't know about the supernatural world work. You could even have her occasionally reference him, indicating that she does miss him, but that she understands that it couldn't have ever worked. Just some thoughts. Feel free to ignore them if they're not what you're going for in your story.
Yes pretty much They do. At first it's mostly one sided with Sarah not being ready to give up but she recognises the difficulty for John. Later John reconciles with his friend, but they actually feel a little guilty now for pressuring John about it and John considers at one point whether he is being judgemental of Sarah, but by this point she has accepted it. This kind of thing will be a part of it, but it's a very common and simple way that these sort of hidden world stories portray the affect of it all on relationships in my experience, so I don't want to just focus on that. As I mentioned, another major element of it is the way that Sarah's supernatural identity influences her mind, and plays up her existing issues. This makes her behaviour difficult, and to compound things she seeks help from Jade about it (because of her experience with such things), not John. I don't think I want the message to be quite so strong there, but that is kind of the idea, as well as that Sarah’s personality and life are changing. How people's identity changes over time is something I intend to be a common theme among my characters, especially Sarah, Jade and another character we meet later called Lilian. He does stick around for a while and interact with her a few times after while we deal with the aftermath, and I'll probably have her mention him here and there after that. This was some useful feedback. It's good to hear you think I've got the right idea so far. I'd like to hear your thoughts on the Sarah-Jade plotline I outlined as well.
The Sarah-Jade plotline is a bit more complicated. Coming out of an abusive relationship (not sure if Vitaly physically abused her, but there's some definite emotional abuse there) would be rough. This could manifest itself in Jade questioning her affection for Sarah and generally being terrified of her feelings. She starts to wonder if she's actually attracted to her or if it's just her mind trying to move onto something else to protect her ego. The abused often hold feelings for their abuser, as you stated with Jade. This can make things difficult and would complicate Jade's feelings. She'd start to believe that maybe Vitaly was the one for her, even though he did what he did to her. Abuse warps the mind in these ways, so it wouldn't be too far-fetched for her to even try to go back to him at some point. That could be a good way for Sarah and Jade to bond closer, as Sarah catches up to her and talks her out of it in an emotional monologue. Jade cries, Sarah cries, the reader cries, and we're all drowning in our tears. Jade may even feel that, without some sort of relationship, she's useless. Many abused people feel this way, questioning their self-worth. Because Sarah doesn't reciprocate her feelings, Jade may start to fall into a depression, and withdraw from Sarah completely for a bit to try to mend her broken heart. Sarah, obviously, wouldn't know why this is, and would see it as Jade no longer wanting the friendship, which could create an interesting tension. Of course, at some climax in the story, either one could shatter this tension and save the other in one way or another, mending their friendship.
Vitaly genuinely cares for Jade and is actually very good to her, except of course for the fact that he ignores that she is being made to feel this way, and encourages her to be ruthless and appreciate violence. I don't think I want to go there. Jade does take some time to realise her attraction, but she's generally quite fond of Sarah so it isn't too hard for her to admit it to herself. It has been a good while since she left the house and she's had help dealing with it. However, she does have an interaction of this nature with one of those people that helped her, not long after leaving- the leader of a group of vampire runaways called Xavier. But Xavier is later killed by none other than Vitaly when the later comes after Jade, which really doesn't help. Heh heh heh Stay tuned Jade will have no shortage of questioning her self worth, but I intend for it to go more in the direction of isolating herself, and trying to replicate her old life. The current plan is that Jade does a terrible job of hiding her feelings as soon as she realises she has them, so is very quickly upfront about it. Sarah is at this time still dealing with the aftermath from John and is still not over it, which is awkward, but it helps her be sympathetic. I also think Jade is too invested in Sarah to get depressed about it. Sarah is the first real, healthy anchor for Jade’s humanity she's had in a while- a replacement for Xavier. Jade sees in Sarah, essentially, a better off version of herself. Helping Sarah to succeed gives her more confidence in herself. But I intend to have Sarah and Jade fight earlier on just before Sarah has her big reveal. Sarah is then experiencing the symptoms of her emerging supernatural side and it’s making her panic. Jade realises what is happening, and wants to help, but knows she has to wait for it to progress before she will be allowed to tell and before Sarah will actually believe her, and is also afraid of revealing her own condition. Jade tries to subtlety help, but Sarah senses that she knows something and starts to deflect her confusion onto Jade, becoming increasingly paranoid. This culminates in Sarah confronting Jade after finding a container of blood in her bag, and Jade decides to finally tell her.
Consider my interests piqued. If you need a beta reader once everything is fleshed out, let me know. I'd be honored.
I'm afraid I didn't read everything and only skimmed your first dilemma (only just sat down after being out and about all day, so kinda tired sorry). From what I did skim, you seem worried that John disappears after the end of the relationship and that it doesn't really affect the main plot? Then my question is: What's the purpose of John? Is his existence solely to be Sarah's love interest? And if you're unhappy with the answer (currently I shall assume your answer to that question is: Yes), then how can you change it and make John more integral to the main plot? How is Sarah affected by the failed relationship and how does that impact on her decisions related to the main plot? Also, if their relationship ends near the end of the novel, you could safely say it's the end of a subplot and there may be no need for John to return - it is ok if he exists only as a love interest. I'd say it's more important that whatever happens to the relationship, it impacts on Sarah in a significant enough way that she will then be driven to do certain other things that do affect the main plot. John himself doesn't have to.
I need to do a little more posting on the workshop I think before I'm allowed to post there. And my computer is currently broken so that makes writing difficult. Doing these posts on my phone is annoying enough. But I would be glad to see what you think about everything.
My concern is in execution. John is essentially there to be Sarah’s love interest. But I don't want that to mean he is just a meat puppet that the audience doesn't really care about. I am trying to work out the balance with giving the character depth without taking up too much of the story for a secondary character. That is for the most part the idea. I do want to deal with the aftermath between the two of them but it is really about Sarah’s character development. The existence and nature of the breakup between Sarah and John is also relevant to the Sarah-Jade plotline I outline in the second section of the OP, as well as future character interactions.
Hard to comment on execution without reading the book. If there's an especially problematic scene, you could use the Workshop. In my experience, if you give your character enough, um, character, it should be fine. I've had beta readers tell me they really wanna see X character again or know what happened to Y character, or that Z was their favourite - and these XYZs literally may have had 1 or 2 cameos max I can't tell you what the heck I did because I don't know, but I tend to give these characters a scene or two and they have clear personality. However, I'd say considering how much the relationship's meant to impact on Sarah and other plotlines within the book, are you sure John isn't more important than you think? I like to make romances quite integral to my stories as I love writing romances, so I'm not sure I can help. In my book, what ended up happening was my secondary character came to the fore as the book progressed, to the point where she had her own POV scenes. My beta tells me she's in fact his favourite character lol. She's still a secondary character, but she has a role in the main plot besides being my MC's potential love interest (it's a love triangle) You could look into Hunger Games maybe. Gale doesn't take up much of the books at all, and plays a visible if minor role in the revolution, and Katniss's choice in the end between Gale and Peeta very much reflected the journey she's been through and the change it's had on her character. So perhaps John could do something similar - give him one or two important things he could achieve that's related to the main plot, so the reader remembers him and can see his significance/role in the book.
If you haven't seen them, I've done a few posts on this series already. https://www.writingforums.org/threads/writing-vampire-characters-things-to-avoid-and-what-to-include.157479/ (Featuring discussion of Jade) https://www.writingforums.org/threads/portraying-mental-illness-with-supernatural-origins.157866/ (Featuring discussion of Sarah)
Oh I will. He is relatively important earlier on but given he goes away and he's only really important to Sarah’s story (Jade is friends with John, but otherwise doesn't have anything to do with him and the other main characters don't know him), he's not really important overall- it's about Sarah. Romance is something I intend to spend a good deal of time on. After we get the Sarah-John and Sarah-Jade plotlines, we move on to see Jade in a new plotline with a new character called Alicia and we see Sarah mull over her options with some of the other characters and it will go somewhere. I just don't want the Sarah-John plot to be a particularly big one. It won't be the biggest relationship plot and if it's too big it would get in the way of the others. Well John's nature as a 'normal' character in an urban fantasy story does prevent from him getting particularly involved in the central plotline but Sarah will spend a good deal of time dealing with her social life earlier on and John is a huge part of that. I have a moment I hope is memorable when John reconciles with his friend who he fell out with over the friend's dislike of Sarah. The friend actually feels guilty now that it might be his fault for breaking them up, which leads to John considering getting back together with Sarah, but he sees that Sarah is moving on with her life and feels proud for her. This moment is one of the very last for his character, so I have tried to make it a memorable sendoff.
I'll leave the Jade thing alone, as I'm really not into supernatural fiction or all the complications with a supernaturally-affected relationship. But the John subplot interests me. You say he's included as a love interest (mainly to illustrate how difficult it is for Sarah to sustain a relationship, for various reasons?) However, I wonder if maybe you could kill two birds with one stone. Rather than including him in the plot and then dropping him—unless you can give him something meaningful to do later on—could John just be part of Sarah's backstory? In other words, do we need to watch the process of their relationship coming into being, existing and then failing? I presume you're not starting the story with Sarah's birth, so she'll already be a young adult when the story begins. I imagine you're not going to depict all of the things that happened to her before the start of the story either. For example, are we going to witness her mental health problems as they occur, or are we going to meet her after they have been dealt with? They are a shadow that haunts her, but not something we need to participate in when they were at their worst? Perhaps John could be another issue we hear about later, but don't actually witness? John could be an old boyfriend—an instance in her past where she couldn't make things work—but we don't really have to watch it happen, do we? Or do we? Just think about where your story should actually start. Making a few changes here might make your story a lot easier to write.
You mentioned that Jade and John are friends, so I think it may be interesting if, after Jade starts to develop feelings for Sarah, she goes to John to talk about it. John, having won Sarah's affections at one point, would be a good resource for Jade to utilize when trying to woo Sarah, regardless of whether or not it works. This would give John another cameo in the story, as well as make him a confidant for Jade in the future with regards to her feelings for Sarah.
More so to illustrate how her life is changing. They will already be in a relationship at the start. We jump in halfway through. I don't think this is something you just deal with. But yes, as of the start of the series Sarah is doing very well with it. Except her whole supernatural thing causes it to flare up again. The breakup with John is largely to do with Sarah’s emergent supernatural thing and how it affects her life. That all happens after the story starts, so the breakup with John must happen after the story starts. The story starts just before Sarah’s supernatural thing starts. The plan is her mother died a week before, providing an emotional trigger that helps activate the whole thing, while also providing somewhat of a convenient explanation for why Sarah starts getting worse.
Ah, right. I wasn't sure if the John thing was part of the ongoing story, or just something that happened to Sarah earlier while the real story was about her relationship with Jade. Fair enough. From what you've said, it sounds as if the relationship between herself and John was not all that intense. By that I mean she was happy to be with John because it meant she could actually sustain a relationship, but she wasn't truly in love with him. This does happen in real life. People often enter into relationships because they want to be in a relationship, not because they are truly in love with the other person. They talk themselves into believing they are in love—they aren't deliberately using the other person—but it's actually a matter of 'love the one you're with.' If Sarah is not gutted by John's absence, after they break up, but feels angry about having supernatural interference in her relationships, that's something you can really work with. If you keep John around and if he still has feelings for Sarah, that might complicate the plot more than you'd like it to. Unless you have real plans for him in the rest of the story, I'd just let him go. Most people break up and don't continue to sustain contact with their ex. That's quite normal. She can maybe think about him now and again and wonder how he's doing. She might even want to find out how he's doing. She might even feel a bit guilty about not fighting hard to keep him. But you don't need to find a role for him that keeps him front and centre in the story, I reckon.
Sarah and Jade’s general relationship is more important than Sarah and John's, and not just because John goes away. But Sarah and Jade’s specific romantic/sexual relationship is a relatively brief and one sided affair so it's not really important other than the fact that it has broader significance and effects in dealing with a more important character dynamic. To some extent yes. Sarah does genuinely care for John, and while they never get too far in, it is a serious breakup. John will only stay for a brief while and during that time he shows up less than before. He does consider whether the breakup was a mistake but it never goes anywhere. I might speed up that plot line a little though, but it does occur around the time of some major events. Part of the reason John sticks around is they are connected by a relatively strong social circle. The current plan is she consciously tries quite hard to keep him but her time is occupied by supernatural affairs she has already committed herself too. As a result, it makes more sense for her too feel guilty about getting involved with such things which also helped cause the breakup. He won't be. From the beginning, all the character dynamics in that social circle are about Sarah and Jade. John is undoubtedly never more than a second tier character.
Well, I hope everybody here on this thread has given you some useful ideas to kick around. The questions we asked you don't need answered on the thread. Instead, they are all questions you can mull over as you build your story, and decide what's important to portray and what isn't. Stuff like that. The story sounds interesting, in that Sarah is confronted with a problem she can't really 'solve' but must learn to deal with. The supernatural thing isn't something she can reject, apparently. So learning to live with it and create positive outcomes within the restriction is what Sarah's story will probably be about. Good luck!
Yes I appreciate just hearing people's impresssions, every suggestion is worth considering. Oh yeah, that's an accurate description of half the series. It's all about finding where the balance lies between accepting what you can't change and defining your own identity.
The relationship and breakup with John is there, if I understood your words correctly, "to illustrate how her life is changing." Throwing out an idea, could she break up with him to protect him from the supernatural? Maybe she's not in love, at least not yet. She just wants a normal life without the supernatural or mental health issues, but she can't resist being pulled into them. He doesn't have to be a character who is very developed, just a symbol of what she left behind. As she continues with her new life, she can be reminded of him here and there.
That is a large part of it. If she where to tell John everything, it could result in him being executed as she fails to obtain permission to do so. And he could otherwise still end up being in mortal danger. She is very much getting there is my current thinking. Sarah doesn't exactly run away from it. She ends up going put of her way to help. But also to be fair, she isn't simply drawn into the supernatural, she is inexorably a part of it because she is herself a supernatural being. I don't want to flash past John too quickly though, as I feel if I do the readers won't care very much about it. I want the readers to get attached to his character so that they don't just see him as expendable and unsurprising to see go, but that at least some actually want it to work it out and think it might. As a consequences plot point, I don't want the breakup to be unimportant and expected. Otherwise it would be pretty cheap, and there wouldn't be a lot of reason to do it.
