I know how I want my story to begin, but I'm having trouble logically connecting the things that need to happen. Can anyone help? The story begins with the main character, Daniel, living with someone who claims to be his cousin. His "cousin" insists that Daniel has some kind of medical problem that keeps him separated from other people, though he still allows Daniel to go to school (more on that below). There's one girl in Daniel's class who always seems to be watching him, but never actually speaks to him, and that the "cousin" repeatedly warns Daniel to stay away from. Long story short, Daniel is a wendigo, a monster that people turn into after committing cannibalism. The "cousin" has been repressing the monster side of him, keeping him human. The girl is a skinwalker who works at Skinwalker Ranch, a sort of nature reserve for monsters and cryptids. She wants to take Daniel there, but Cousin thinks they'll just throw Daniel in a cage to rot since wendigos are notoriously violent. Cousin is trying to find a way to rehabilitate Daniel. If he can't turn him 100% human again, he at least wants to find a way for Daniel to live a somewhat normal life. Then something happens that sparks Daniel's transformation into a full wendigo, and also reveals his location to the villain who turned him into a wendigo in the first place. Sorry, that turned out way too long, haha. One idea I have is that Cousin has convinced Daniel that he has a really low immune system and has to wear a hazmat suit when he leaves the house. The suit keeps the villain from being able to sense Daniel, but the school bullies tear a piece of it off. Somehow that also starts off Daniel's transformation. So, help me figure this out. If the suit keeps Villain from finding Daniel, then what's keeping Daniel human? Why does having the suit ripped start the transformation? Should I ditch the suit altogether and think of another way to go about this? Any and all suggestions welcome!
Reading this, I wonder whether it might make more sense for Daniel to be a werewolf than a wendigo. Because besides from the mention of cannibalism (which werewolves can also do) most of the story beats sound more like werewolf things. Getting turned by another, notoriously violent, and uncontrollable transformations. Wendigos do get turned, but do so by being possessed by a wendigo spirit and consuming human flesh. They are violent but more so they are just insatiably ravenous. They also waste away leading to being extremely emaciated even if they gorge themselves on human flesh. That's just my take away from this blurb though, and based on the sorts of expectations I'd bring, as a potential reader, to a story about a wendigo. One key one being that while werewolves are prevalent enough in fiction to fit in any sort of genre, if I were to read a wendigo story I'd expect it to be strongly horror. What with its themes of cannibalism and body horror. With that out of the way, one way I could see the hazmat suit working is if the breathing apparatus actually supplies Daniel with a constant dose of vaporous drugs that keep his hunger in check. It could also be that the villain detects other wendigos by that hunger, so if Daniel isn't feeling the hunger he isn't sending the sort of signal that the villain could detect. Or the villain can only detect fully transformed wendigo and Daniel has yet to consume humans so he isn't a full wendigo. Once he does so, the villain can start to detect him. Hope this was helpful.
The suit may cause the sensory impressions to be one-sided and preventing him from blending in with people. Don't want every scene to focus on how people stares at him. He could be partially immune after minor exposure from a minor scratch until he's exposed to enough retro-virus to overwhelm his anti-bodies with a bite. The RNA segment of the retro-virus is written into his DNA and disables the production of anti-bodies. The tricky part is to decide which cells to use as virus factories and which ones to remain operational with the new genes. It might have to be a two-step disease where the second step of the transformation contains the a cure for the first virus while remaining contagious to others. Alternatively, the virus could use a bacteria without CAS-9 defenses as a trojan horse into the body, but this transformation would take a long time by lacking exponential growth from exploding cells.
The villain didn't "turn" him so to speak. He "rescued" Daniel after an avalanche he and his parents were hiking in, and prepared him a hot meal--surprise surprise, guess what (rather, WHO) he's eating? But I like the idea of him inhaling a drug that reduces his appetite. I already planned on forcing him into a vegan diet, as even the smallest taste of meat might awaken his wendigo side, but your idea would help him not constantly have the munchies too, haha. Thanks!
Maybe you should skip the hazmat thing and have the bullies sneak meat into his food. If the guy has to wear a hazmat suit, I don't see him being able to go to normal school. Seems like him being "homeschooled" is more likely in that case. But your plot sounds amazing, by the by.
On a semi related note, how does this sound for the villain's motivation? He is obsessed with creating life, which has driven him to perform grotesque experiments on living things in an attempt to make new species. Some of it is magical, some of it is scientific, and many of his creations are just two or more creatures that he's seen together to see if they would survive. He who creates the dominant form of life on earth is a god, he claims, and becoming God is his biggest ambition. His ultimate goal is to find a monster called Ubbo-Sathla (you Lovecraft fans might recognize that name) which is the mother of all life on earth and is constantly creating new life forms simply by existence. The villain wants to bond with it, thus gaining the power to create life and shape it as he pleases. In the meantime, he is fascinated by anything that has to do with shapeshifting since he sees it as a form of rapid evolution. If he can learn to control it, it would be a big step toward creating new life forms.
In Larry Correia's Monster Hunter International series, one of the characters is a werewolf that uses wolfsbane or wolvesbane to dull his senses so they don't overwhelm him and to hide his scent from other werewolves that might challenge him. Maybe there's a herb or a piece of jewelry like a necklace with an amber encased charm that helps him control his appetite.
While, there's nothing inherently wrong with that goal for a villain, it seems unrelated to the motivations of the other characters. It likely is just personal preference on my part, but I like it when character goals are comparable. So since the skinwalker's goal is to create a nature reserve for cryptids, and the cousin's goal is to keep Daniel human, it would make the most sense for the villain to have a goal related to the interplay between humans and cryptids. Either a Voldemort/Magneto-esque goal of, cryptids are superior than humans and should dominate them, or that cryptids are dangerous monsters that must be hunted to extinction. It depends on whether the villain is human or a cryptid. Again, there's nothing wrong with your motivation and it lends itself well to creating conflict. But since you asked for opinions, I gave mine.
I've got part of an idea that since cryptids are so rare, they're a "newer" species. And somehow the villain can use that fact to track Ubbo-Sathla...somehow. Like, they're fresh from the womb and so the trail is hotter. I dunno, I'm still in the early development stages for this, haha.
Okay, I've been thinking. I could go with the original wendigo plan, with the change that Cousin has put a magical bracer on his arm that keeps Daniel in human form. It gets cracked, which slowly starts changing him into wendigo form. Or, I could make him a werewolf. Cousin is actually his Cousin in this version, who reluctantly agrees to take care of Daniel over the summer. He also works as a sort of lookout for Skinwalker Ranch, letting them know when new cryptids show up and sometimes helping to capture them. Daniel accidentally gets caught in the crossfire, gets bitten, and becomes a werewolf. Then Girl has to rush him to Skinwalker Ranch to turn make him a skinwalker too, or else the werewolf will completely overtake him and he'll be nothing but a bloodthirsty monster. It'd be easier to explain his shapeshifting, but everybody uses werewolves and I wanted to try something original.
I like the cannibalism idea, but so far his craving for human meat is nowhere to be found? Rather than the accidental tearing of the suit, I like the idea of Daniel betraying what he has become by unconsciously finding himself doing something weird (not tasting, but something else--cannot think of something right now) and that perhaps makes him realize as well that he has become different. Hope this makes sense! On a side note, I really like the story.
I would honestly prefer that you go with a wendigo. I don't know what that is and I want to learn. Werewolves are overplayed. Also, if you need a beta reader, message me, because I'm interested.
