I'm currently writing a Avengers x oc polyamorous fic on wattpad, and trying to create a plan for the book. I have a plan from when she gets pregnant, but I would prefer to have a few more big plot points before then so really would love some help on ideas.
This is too compressed, like you're sending a telegram @ a dollar a word and you only had five dollars. What does Avengers x oc mean? Who gets pregnant? I'm assuming your protagonist, but could you give some idea who or what she is? We could help more if we didn't have to decode the question first from cryptic hints. By Avengers do you mean the Marvel team? I've been seeing this lately, two names with an X in between. Last I checked an X means times, but how do you multiply one person or a team by another person? It must mean something else, maybe versus? The abbreviation for that used to be vs, but I know the times they are a'changing. Us old folk just can't keep up with them anymore, we need some things explained the old fashioned way.
Hi - so sorry about that. Yes, I am talking about the Marvel group the Avengers. Basically all the avengers are in a relationship and its open so some of them date other people outside of the group. Nat starts dating the protagonist (Ella) who is 23, was abused by her father as a child (mother encouraged the abuse and siblings ignored her and didn't help in fear of their father abusing them) and a waitress/PA for Justin Hammer (Tony then offers her a job and she starts to work for him instead). The Avengers add her to the relationship of all of them after she has been dating Nat for about 3 months. Ella is the one who gets pregnant, yes, and I have a pretty solid plot for after that right now, but that may change in the future of course.
Thank you! Yes, it's making a lot more sense, but I don't know what PA means (aside from Pennsylvania, which I doubt is what you mean). I don't know anyone associated with the Avengers named Ella, is she your own creation? Oh wait, Personal Assistant, of course. You do like to abbreviate, don't you? Ok, this is much better now. Does she get pregnant by Justin, or does that matter? Or does she even know by who? Sorry, I know next to nothing about polyamorous relationships.
A couple of points that occurred to me that would help us to know (if you don't mind divulging them of course)—is she a superhero? How long is she with them before getting pregnant? I still feel like so much of the basic story premise is a complete blank, we'd be working in an almost total vaccuum of ideas. And I still have no idea what Avengers x oc means. Avengers versus somebody with the initials oc? Avengers times Orange County?
I am so sorry for being so confusing, it's just that everyone I talk to understands what I mean so I get so used to abbrieviating. No, she doesn't get pregnant by Justin and yes she is my own creation. The pregnancy doesn't really matter, but she has twins called heteropaternal superfecundation which is where there are two different fathers (pietro, who i have brought back to life, and thor). That then leads to them going to Asgard and a whole thing with getting married to Thor and everyone inheriting an Asgardian lifespan (5000 years or so). Then Wanda gets pregnant with twins, and Nat (who can get pregnant but can't carry to term) gets pregnant with one child, and Ella gets pregnant with triplets. Wanda and Ella both then have different fathers for each child but everything after the first pregnancy doesn't really matter. I am only looking for help right now on before the pregnancy, and polyamorous relationships are pretty much just relationships with more than two people
She is not a superhero, and she is with them for about a year before she gets pregnant. She is basically just that piece of normal in the Avengers lives which are full of nothing normal.
Whew! For a second I thought these were the names of the twins! Ok, this is coming together nicely now. I'm getting a much better picture of the story. Very interesting idea, a mortal woman (I assume) having the children of a god. Intriguing possibilities. Lol, and it sounds like pregnancies are going off like popcorn. Fun stuff. This isn't probably necessary for us to know, but I'm curious—when you say everyone inherits an Asgardian lifespan, do you mean the children, or all of the Avengers and associates? And yes, I know, I ask a lot of questions, don't I? The main one still remaining is, what does Avengers x oc mean? I added that to my previous post, but I think you were already responding when I did.
Okay so Riley (Thor and Ella's son) already has the Asgardian lifespan because he is half Asgardian, and Ella, Wanda, Pietro, Tony, Bucky, Steve, Nat, Bruce, Sam, and Clint all get the Asgardian lifespan from the wedding thing. Rebecca (Pietro and Ella's daughter) does not get the life span however later in the story (or what I have planned) there is something the Asgardian healers can do once she is old enough to make the decision herself to give her the life span, but she can't have the decision made my her parents. OC just means original character, so Ella.
I looked this up. It's apparently real, and very strange. Two babies at the same time by two different fathers. Wow, the mind boggles! I had no idea that was possible. Ok, as for an actual answer to your original question—I suppose you could essentially have standard Avengers action going on in the first part. Them fighting villains and the like. Thier day-to-day soap opera lives. There should be some kind of plot though, or it would just be dull. Some hook and some kind of inciting incident that kicks off the actual story right near the beginning. So you'd have to know what the main plot is, aside from all the pregnancies (unless they're the main point, which is quite likely in fan fiction). It's too bad Wreybies isn't still around, he was big into fanfic. I'm just thinking my way through this out loud here.
Yes, so I want her to kind of find her place in the whole relationship, but I'm trying to figure out what the plot is, it's really what I came on here to find out ideas for. What I have right now is that she met Nat when she was working in the coffee shop, and they date for around 3 months before Nat says, 'oh, i was thinking you would be great in the avengers relationship', so they all go to a bar to meet and when ella gets really overwhelmed, wanda comes and helps her and points out who everyone is and everything. Everyone in the relationship would probably have someone who they are just around the most and always want to be with and while she feels as if she is just the floater of the relationship (not really wanted particularly by anyone but rather just there for when people want someone as well as there special person if that makes sense), the person she is with the most is bucky, but tony and thor are a close second and third. After that I don't really have anything until she gets pregnant, which is when pretty much everyone but nat, wanda and pietro disappear and run off. The twins are born and everyone comes around at some point in the pregnancy, and then we have a time skip to when they are three. That is when Riley first gets his powers and Thor wants to bring him to Asgard to train. That is where the wedding thing happens and after that, everyone but Thor gets married to someone on earth. After they get married is when Wanda and Nat get pregnant, and Nat knows she cannot carry her baby to term and that Tony had really wanted a baby with Ella (his favourite in the relationship) so she asks if Ella could get pregnant again so she almost had someone to look after once her baby was gone. Ella gets pregnant and thinks it is only one until her first obgyn appointment, where she finds out it is triplets with all different fathers.
Are you using some kind of plotting device like three act structure? I don't really see a plot, but then I'm not big on stories about romance or relationship. That doesn't matter though, I can still think about plot etc. It doesn't matter much what the genre is. But what I'm not seeing is a buildup toward something—you know, rising action leading up to a climax. If you have those elements then you put something near the beginning to set the stage for it—the hook and inciting incident. If you don't use devices like this I won't try to twist your arm. But without them I'm a little lost as to how to structure a story. A structure like this helps you understand what's at stake, what the main character is trying to accomplish, what progress they're making or what is blocking them, and then there's a strong satisfaction when the end arrives. Something important has changed, something that we could see from the beginning needed to change. This is how I understand story to work, though I know not everyone does it this way. It's one of many ways to structure a plot. And many people just write seat-of-the-pants. I often do that, or use a very abbreviated plot just to roughly guide things. But even if I'm winging it I have some idea of what the endpoint is and how it kicks off to set things up. That gives your story a shape people can recognize. And if you're well aware of all of this I apologize.
The other major element of story that can give it some structure and direction is character arc. The MC (main character, which you probably know) begins the story with some flaw that's causing problems in their life. Things come to a head and they need to overcome their character flaw in order to bring things back to normal or to solve the problem. For this you'd want to think about what big plot element is causing the problem in Ella's life that she must overcome, and how it relates directly to her personal character flaw. For much of the story she's unable to rise above her own issues, but it gradually becomes clear she needs to. Then her lowest point arrives, it looks like she's going to fail utterly and disaster for everyone will be the result. But she manages to dig deep, realize some truth she needed all along but was resisting, and she overcomes her flaw and prevails. This works whatever kind of action is involved, be it car chases and explosions or love interests and devastating betrayals.
Of course there are other kinds of plots as well. What I outlined above is the standard hero's journey, with a positive character arc. Standard of course in superhero stories. Usually anyway. But there'a also a negative arc, where the protagonist becomes evil or completely self-centered. And there's also a flat character arc. This is in stories like James Bond or Sherlock Holmes, often in a series, where the character doesn't change, but instead changes the world around them. They solve crimes or medical mysteries (like Doctor House). In fact superhero stories tend to begin with a positive character arc for the origin story, and then from there it's a flat arc as they don't change anymore and go around saving people. Or a hero might at some point have a negative arc and become a villain or an anti-hero. Again, I apologize if you already know this. I'm just offering some possibilities for ways to think about the story.
Ok, here's a total shot in the dark for a plot you could use— At the beginning she feels something is missing in her life. She loves Nat's stories about the adventurous life with the Avengers, and wishes she could live something like that. Nat introduces her into the group and she begins to live that fantasy life. But maybe she begins to feel insufficient now because everyone has these great powers except her. Then maybe she starts to notice some problems in the group, that it lacks good solid leadership, or maybe that everyone bickers too much. They're not a good coherent group, and it's clear to her they need a strong leader. This sets it up so it almost looks like she's going to become their leader, but of course not. She's only human. But then she gets preggers, and in the end becomes the leader of her own little super-team of children. She finds great satisfaction in guiding them and teaching them, and even though she never got any powers herself, they do, and through teaching them she gets to in some way experience their growth into using those powers. So maybe the theme is about leadership, and maybe she isn't leading her own life very well at first. Just realized, it would make her arc similar to that of Sarah Conner in the Terminator. She began as a low-paid waitress in a cafe and ended up becoming 'The mother of the future', giving birth to and raising John Conner, the leader of the resistance, and she also had to become strong and tough, things she definitely wasn't at the beginning. So she realizes she actually does have it in her to be a leader, but that only happens after the children are born and at first she's totally overwhelmed with them. But the pressure forces her to rise up and do what needs to be done for them, forgetting about her own life for the time being. Then it's in motherhood she finds her power. The babies entering her life could be massively disorienting at first, and seems overwhelming and she feels she can't possibly handle it (her lowest point). But she gets some help from friends and lovers, and finds she can, but to do so she needs to think less about herself now and almost entirely about the chidren. I would definitely enjoy a story like that.
No need. It's gratifying enough that you like the idea so much. Maybe Nat gives her some great advice and help, even though incapable of having children herself. It comes from her experiences in her life, from being a spy and hero and a woman. She teaches her the absolute need to persevere and be unbelievably tough, far tougher than she ever knew she could be, because helpless people (her children) depend entirely on her being able to overcome her own petty problems and do what needs to be done. It's about self-sacrifice for the sake of those who need you, which is the core of being a hero, and a mother. And it makes every mother a superhero (assuming they live up to the demands of the task of course).
I'm not trying to offend you, so apologies in advance. Reading your plot summary in post #12 screams one thing at me - Mary Sue. Everybody seems to love Ella and want to be with her - she dates Nat, Tony wants to have her baby, but she's with Bucky and Thor, and Thor actually has her baby. Now, in the comic books, this happens a lot, but that's a function of their longevity. So just be careful. You have to execute Ella's character very well and give her a lot of depth if she's to not come across as a Mary Sue. Have you watched the Netflix Marvel series? Claire Temple appears in all of them, and part of her characterisation is how she struggles to be a "normal" around all these super-people. In The Boys, the same thing happens to Hughie, and he gives in to the temptation to have super-powers, taking a variant of compound X that makes him a supe. His personality changes, at least until he realises how much he's hurting Starlight, and the fact that compound X is melting his brain. What kind of dilemmas is your normal girl going to have around these super-powered people, when the likes of Thanos, Ultron and Loki are hovering around the corner? I mean, what's Loki going to do when he finds out she's the mother of Thor's child? And what happened to Jane?
Maybe at the beginning Ella is unwilling to sacrifice the easy comforts of her life and do difficult things, and it's her major flaw. And, in response to @Naomasa298 —having and eventually overcoming a character flaw goes a long way toward erasing Mary-Sue status. Mary Sues have no flaws and don't need to struggle. Of course there could still be many other Mary Sue tendencies, but at least it would be a good start. Also, sacrificing her own needs and desires to raise children would further erase Mary Sue-ness.
I feel like this is so perfect, especially since Ella's own mother didn't live up to the demands of the task (encouraging her child's abuser's actions)
Okay, so I never actually read the comics so I never knew about Mary Sue but thank you for letting me know about her. Ella's depth comes from the fact that she was abused as a young child and has had to provide for herself since she was around 15. In a lot of books, abuse victims come across as very standoffish and not trusting, which I agree is a completely valid reaction to their past. However, Ella is going to have a different response. Generally, if you are abused by your parents or anyone really, they tend to gaslight you and accuse you of things that you did not do, so I think I'm going to have her act as if she trusts everyone almost immediately, and tell them everything (or so they and the reader think) as she is an oversharer and feels as if people think she trusts them they won't hurt her if that makes sense. Thanos and Ultron have already happened (Tony, Nat and Pietro are all still alive as said in previous posts), but I prefer to have Loki as someone who was originally misunderstood and now generally trusts and loves Thor in his own way. I think that while Loki will love Riley (Ella and Thor's son), I'm going to have him create a special bond with Rebecca (Ella and Pietro's daughter) as he knows what it feels like to be the second child, and not the heir
Mary Sue isn't a comic book character: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue Again, I'm not trying to insult you, or your story ideas, but I'm trying to warn you not to fall into a common trap associated with fanfics.
Mary Sue is not a comic book character (though many comic book characters have been Mary Sues). Here's a writeup about what they are. Sniped by @Naomasa298
