Alright, it may sound good or be a terrible idea. It’s my own version of James Bond Good guy sneaks into North Korea to obtain secret documents from a heavily guarded government building. A female guard spots the guy doing this, and alerts officials. They both end up in jail because she did not shoot him on sight. While they’re both locked up, they slowly put their differences aside (they don’t like each other at first - she says hateful things to him) and begin planning an escape. She finds a way to get a key and gets them both out. After escape, the entire prison facility is alerted of their escape. The main character and the female officer have now teamed up. They get into a get-away vehicle and start driving off as fast as possible. The Bond character is in the back seat trying to protect them, while she is driving away. They end up crashing the car and run off. Guards with dogs storm the area looking for them. They manage to hide near a creek and the guards miss them. The sun goes down, and they have to build a shelter and start a small fire for the night. They make it to the next morning and continue their trek to the South Korean border. Along the way, they’re spotted again and have to find a way to navigate to the border without being shot. To condense it and not tell the whole story, they make it past the border very narrowly. They deliver the documents to the South Korean officials, and their work is finished. The Bond character and the officer begin to develop a more romantic relationship. They go back to either Utah to a log cabin or back to Wales to a cottage. They stay together and their relationship gets better and better. That’s as far as I’ve gotten now.
I don't know a lot about action books so I'm not the best to judge the general appeal of a story, but I did pick out on one part of your story that might make you run into pretty harsh criticism down the line. I think that now is the best time to change it because, while my complaint is character-oriented, it's very interwoven in how the plot itself is constructed. I do know that the bond series has been criticized a lot for how it treated its female characters as props for the male hero to seduce. I think that he was meant to come across as misogynistic and playboy in the books and that when those were adapted to films they smoothened that out into "spies just have all the women fall into their arms." I'm paraphrasing a lot. In the end, the series is excused a lot for its portrayal of women because it was considered a product of its time. You seem to have picked that up as well. The thing is, you are writing in 2019 and people will be a lot less forgiving. I'm not saying a bunch of rabid feminists will jump out of the bushes to attack you. I think that the type of reaction you are likely to get is closer to my first gut response: I read it and my first thought was "oh gosh, one of those again." I'm not mad or think that your plot idea is unredeemable, quite the contrary. It's just that the female character's actions makes no sense to me and, since it doesn't, I must assume that she's not a real character and more a prop to be used as an ultimate eyecandy/cardboard romantic interest for the male hero. It's hard to pinpoint details when your idea is so vague but she is acting as if she has no emotional attachment whatsoever to her country or any family or friend that would make her bat an eye at leaving it with some enemy guy she met in prison. With how the regime works, her entire family also gets sent to prison if she does, so I don't even want to imagine what will happen if she walks out of there and hands over secret documents to the enemy. And why was she locked in with the enemy in the first place? They jail her for not killing the intruder but... don't kill the intruder themselves? All that to say that I have a hard time believing the story right from the start because of that character. Which is too bad, because having her as a partner/plant from the start would solve a few of those problems. Although, I do want to suggest you look into common mistakes that result in poor portrayal of female characters. Maybe looking up feminist criticism of James Bonds movies might help? I'm not saying you must necessarily adhere to their ideas but I think that they offer another perspective.
The intent or message of the story is no more important than that of Lost. The mistake between the author's work and movie production is they are one-off. The hero and co-MC are living the last-day-of your-life experience. If the action is focused and well-paced, the interaction between characters is more important than the relationship. A story of this type is typically one of unusual circumstances rather than a believable day-to-day theme. Suspend belief early, keep it short, and you have a nice romp there.
Of course, great writing can excuse anything. Even I, that don't generally like action-packed books, I can get behind one if it's well written. But this is not a product in its final form so I am not entitled to comment on that. When I look at this blurb, while being unable to comment on the appeal of it as a whole, I can see that there is a flaw - or, if it's not a flaw, as you seem to argue, it's a needless difficulty that can be easily remedied. If a character's motivations make no sense given the context of the setting (of which, I must admit, I don't know much more than what I have already said) then it is hard to build a relationship with that character, both from the point of view of the readers and the view of the characters. Of course, the character can be there for "viewing purposes only", there is nothing objectively wrong with that but, considering her prominent role in the story, that's a lot of wasted potential. In my opinion, a motivationless character is very hard to write as anything but a one-dimensional character - being without motivation happens to be the definition of being one-dimensional. Having this character as a plant in the first place fixes a lot of those problems very quickly. They lock her up for not killing him when they don't kill him themselves? They discovered that she betrayed them. Or, better yet, she has motivations to break him out and betray "her country" for "him" (or at least what he stands for, as they wouldn't have such a deep relationship this early in the story.) And, because they are on the same side, they share a set of values that can make for a good starting point for a relationship. As for my advice on reading feminist criticism of the movies, it was from the perspective that, to my knowledge, that is the current of literal criticism that has the most to say with the James Bond movie to my knowledge. As OP say that they are drawing inspiration from those movies/books, I can only assume that they might be interested in what people say might be their shortcomings, that they might at least be aware of them (even if they don't agree with them). But I am aware that this comes from someone that believes that books should be taken in the context of their time and the works that come before them. If someone believes that storytelling works should be considered separately from their context, I cannot force them to change that belief, nor can I decide what goes in their books. But it's still easier to write a character if said character makes sense from the get-go.
This is interesting input. I will say this, I did not come up with the idea I have here until literally minutes before getting on here and typing it. I was coming up with ideas and developments as I typed. I had no intentions of writing anything until I wrote this on here. This whole thing was instantaneous. So the story idea is very raw and I’m trying to come up with new story ideas. Obviously this one did not make sense in some ways (I am in no way disappointed, like I said I came up with it within 10 minutes). I’ll think about what you said, and I’ll probably end up making a completely new storyline anyway. Something more original and with more imagination and creativity. The two characters will remain the same, but the storyline will change. To what I don’t know yet. As always, I am open to and appreciate new ideas all the time.
It will be serious. I plan on making the story a reality by actually writing it. As noted in my previous post above, I do plan on changing the storyline to be more original. It’s not my place to copy James Bond, John Wick, etc I need to come up with my own story. I will keep the two main characters, but I want a different setting, maybe a new plot, etc.
Sure. I make suggestions, and you tell me how stupid they are, and then an idea will pop into your head from nowhere. ISYN Let's try it. You said something about losing the Bond thing? Is it still Korea? Do you want to start with protag or antag? Like, what makes them the 'x'-agonist they are, or how much of an 'x'-agonist they are?
Ha yes I appreciate suggestions. Yeah I want to drop the Bond idea. Though I would still like action, I just want it to be original though. I will definitely start by looking at the protagonist. Also, I’ve thought about which world this will take place in. I already have an elaborate story and a world of its own that combines my own creation with others (Star Wars, Skyrim, real-life Earth, and others). It’s called the “Neutral World” (as well as the Neutral Universe). It has some of everything. But that is far too vast and complex to explain in this post. But I’m open to this new story taking place in a world that’s not congruent with real life. And yes, I want to keep the same characters. The main character plus the female NK officer.
Any story is only as good as its execution. I've seen great stories with much less of a premise, and horrible stories with a promising story outline. One thing I'd avoid is too much of a happy ending. The swooning heroine becoming enamored of the dashing spy is somewhat dated, and the best I would hope for is they both survive and go their separate ways after everything, with some good memories mixed in with the horrors. They both have their missions, even though her job is blown, and both jobs require a degree of ruthlessness and focus that isn't particularly conducive to close relationships. But that's my take on the genre, and your story is just that - yours.
Raise the stakes by portraying NK Gulag accurately. Which means 4 star intense torture and the ladies family no doubt is imprisoned in a labor camp as part of the punishment for pissing off 'Dear Leader'. Cause sending a spy to an ordinary forced labor camp, will just not have the right tone, that a full on Gulag style camp would make better use of trying to figure out everything the spy knows/doing in their countries political offices. Also they might send the lady to the same Gulag under suspicion of aiding the spy. Even though in reality she would probably be executed in some over the top manner, such as death by flak barrage or something. Good luck and have fun.
It doesn't appeal to me but that doesn't mean it wont appeal to anyone else. The synopsis just feels very this happens, then this happens - it's missing a key element. Stakes. Wants and character emotion - for me anyway. It's a good idea though, just not up my alley.
You are setting yourself up for a lot of perhaps unnecessary comparing your character to James Bond. Because as soon as you said "my own version of James Bond" it immediately makes people compare Your Bond with the Real Bond. Every action the character will take will be compared by that standard. Your main goal will need to be making it clear this is a completely different character and not just a poor man's attempt at James Bond. But, if you decide to delve into it, hit me up as a Beta Reader if you're interested!
