This might be a little long so bear with me. In my WIP I have the beginning and ending planned out, but the middle portion is giving me major trouble and is hampering my progress. The plot more or less is: a village kid named Kumello finds a scroll in the river and is dragged into a conflict between the mortal world and realm of the Gods. 50 years ago a villain called the Dragon King attempted to kill all the Gods, absorb their power and become the one omnipotent God of the world. There were seven champions chosen by the Gods to protect the human world, but the Dragon King killed six of them. And was defeated by the seventh. Kumello's village is destroyed by monsters and his older brother is kidnapped because they think he has the scroll. Kumello convinces the remaining champion to train him so he can rescue his brother. Trouble is I can't make up my mind as to what is in the scroll. 1.) Reconnaissance about the enemy movement needed for the Empire 2.) A Map to the Earth bound gods who will give great wisdom and power to anyone who can complete their tasks 3.) The locations of the remaining students of the fallen champions who need to gather to stop the evil I can't make up my mind because I just see major holes in all three ideas that just make the whole thing fall apart. And if I do think of something all the remaining chapters just seem so episodic without much relevance to the main plot or the characters In 1, it's just too easy for the characters Kumello meets to just take the scroll and blow him off. And it takes a bunch of PIS (Plot Induced Stupidity) for anything to get done. Like why Kumello doesn't just sell the scroll or why Empire doesn't send out another scout for the information, etc. With 2 it just seems like it would make Kumello too powerful way too early and quickly. I mean its hard to screw up when you have divine wisdom and power on your side. And 3, just adds too many characters. I already have all my companion characters planned out and to add six more would just be too many characters for me to manage. Okay if your still with me after all that, any suggestions? Or am I just over thinking everything?
If the Dragon King was defeated by the seventh champion, who is in conflict with the gods currently? You mention "monsters" do the kidnapping is it them? Who are the monsters? are they working for anyone?
So is this Dragon King dead/imprisoned? If so then why not have the scroll be a way to either bring back the Dragon King(or allow its user to gain his strength and power) or if he is somehow imprisoned then it could be the way to find the Dragon King and free him. These monsters are either his former minions or think that if they can bring him back they would be rewarded when the Dragon King becomes the omnipotent God.
Yeah I forgot to mention that 50 years later the Dragon King comes back, but significantly weaker. And I actually thought about the scroll being a way for him to return to full power but it sounded too much like Lord of the Rings.
It could be any of the three choices you listed, Gammer, or any number of other things, but the difficulties involved might be circumvented if: 1) The scroll is incomplete. It only contains half the required information and is useless without the other half; or 2) The scroll is in code, or some kind of dead or obscure language that requires either a key of some kind to read, or perhaps the last surviving native speaker of that language. The idea is that the scroll is important, so much so that the plot can turn on what happens to it, but the scroll is not itself an easy answer. You need the scroll, but then you still need to do a lot of work.
If you can kill off your seventh champion, you could have it contain details of how he defeated the Dragon King in the first place.
That's what I was about to say. No harm in using this idea, but it sounds very generic. That being said, everything has been done before. The thing is to make what you're doing unique. You will have to flesh out the unique details otherwise it may end up being a generic story. I think I'd ask myself some deeper questions if I were to attempt such a familiar story. How does Kumello react to finding the scroll. Does he hide? Does he try to find the 'mark on the map' himself, out of curiousity? Does he show someone? If he tries to find it himself, what happens on his way? Does he get himself into the trouble with these ancient godly beings? Does he hide from them initially? Do they seek him out? There might be an old mortal protector who saw him with the scroll and mysteriously follows him and then confronts him about it. Does he remain an innocent bystander or is he some "prophetic human"? (which I must say I'm getting tired of that idea). I suppose some more obvious questions would be - Why is this scroll any different to the One Ring, or the scroll from this or that story? What will make these seemingly done-before plot elements new and fresh? My 2c.
