Hi everyone! I'm new here, but have been writing for a long time. I'm looking forward to getting involved with the roleplaying here. I'm actually in the process to start the daunting task of editing my first draft. It's set in a fantasy kingdom and about two rival factions and their struggle for the throne, due to court intrigue and disagreement about the line of succession. Before I start, I'm trying to work out any potential plot holes, and would love your feedback. I would also greatly appreciate any suggestions you can provide on tweaking this story to base it a bit more on realworld medival history, like the Wars of the Roses, etc. Here's the skeletal plot so far... 1. The old queen was a known user of dark magic. She was a curious woman, and delved deeper into the Shadow Lands; a parallel world where magic originated, trying to discover the primordial magic. 2. There was an incident where the Shadow Lands began to spread into physical plane. 3. The old queen was sealed inside the Shadow Lands. 4. The incident was covered up; The old queen's dark magic use was kept a royal secret, and a peasant girl was given the crown and taught magic to keep stability in the realm. 5. 100 years later, the old queen's daughter kept her youth with primordial dark magic her mother taught her. She was trying to bring her mother back from Shadow Lands, but created the Corruption (a hostile enchanted wasteland) as a side effect. 6. The old princess taught Eleanor (a neighbouring queen) how to manipulate the Corruption. 7. Eleanor used her knowledge to conduct court intrigue in an attempt improve life for her people. She performed ancient rituals to influence the wasteland's spread toward neighbouring kingdoms. She denied involvement, but declared she knew how to drive it back. She offered to share the knowledge in return for more lands, and a marriage of state with her son. 8. It was discovered that Eleanor was involved and she was taken prisoner. Her armies freed her and she took refuge. She was killed in the Corruption by the new queen, bringing her plots to an end. 9. The old princess recovered her mother from the Corruption in a deep slumber. 10. 7 years later, the old queen is discovered living in the kingdom and arrested. The royal house imprisons her to await trial for endangering the kingdom and essentially abdicating the throne. 11. The old queen reveals to the new princess (our main protagonist) what happened to her, and that she never had a younger sister to succeed her to the throne, despite what the history books say. The new princess begins to wonder whether her line is legitimate. Thanks for your help. I hope we can generate good dialogue and story potential with this.
So the main character is the daughter of the peasant girl given the crown, right? It's not clear to me what this story is actually going to be about. These plot points seem like backstory and introduction, but where's the complication? What does the main character actually do throughout the story? What motivates the main character? What are the secondary main characters she'll interact with? Who are the antagonists? What is the nature of the conflict in the story? What philosophical questions are touched upon during the course of events?
Hey. Sorry for the late reply. I've been without internet for the last few days. The incident was covered up. The common folk were told that Margaret abdicated. Her baby daughter, Diana, was spirited away in secret and disinherited. A baby peasant girl was renamed Nixa and was given the crown in secret and taught magic to keep stability in the realm (but perhaps it should be a distant relative?). Nixa was never told about her true lineage, and it was kept secret from her descendants. The story will be about 2 rival branches of the royal family and their struggle for the throne. The main character (Amelia, the current princess) will be struggling initially with trying to create better class equality in the kingdom and dissuade centuries of prejudice. However, she soon finds her family's position unstable when the competition for the throne emerges. The MC's motivation will shift from bridging the class divide to simply trying to keep stability. The secondary characters I haven't given much thought to yet. Right now I'm trying to work out the motivations and goals of the protagonists (the current princess and queen), and the motivations and goals for the antagonists (the old princess and queen), so I can figure out their conflicts and character arcs. I haven't given much thought to philosophy, but the themes I'm considering are prejudice and deception.
But that doesn't explain why a peasant, it just explains why not-the-heir. Why was every royal, noble, professional, etc., person passed over in favor of a peasant?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but do you want the queen to be of peasant heritage (or at least distant nobility) because you want your MC's heritage to be part of her motivation for fighting against the class divide? I'm asking because @ChickenFreak brings up a good point. Bloodline has historically been a very important factor in deciding succession, and political clout right behind that. Even spouses of recently departed kings and queens are not typically considered candidates for succession because of that very reason: they aren't descended from the "royal bloodline," they were just married to someone who was. Because of this, it might be easier to come up with a (believable according to historical precedence) reason for someone of royal blood to have a strong connection with the peasantry than for a peasant to have been brought into royalty. That said, I'm sure if you really want Nixa to come from peasantry, you can make it work. Even if the details aren't ever really addressed, it doesn't sound like it would be the kind of thing that would turn a good story sour.
Correct me if i'm wrong but everything up until maybe 10 and 11 sounds like the backstory to your actual story because if your MC is the new princess (The peasant girl?) then you focus on her story which, it sounds like, really comes into play when she meets the old queen. But, having the old queen tell the new princess everything that happened is a lot of exposition. Also it sounds like you really only have two MC's: The old queen, and the new princess. The old queen's daughter and Eleanor just seem like characters to move the plot rather than actual functioning characters. Why did the old queen's daughter go from trying to get her mother back to suddenly teaching this queen how to use the Corruption? Whats their relationship? Also if Dark magic is supposed to be kept a secret why would the old princess teach it to the neighboring queen? (I'm assuming the Corruption is the product of dark magic?) Where does the old princess go after she saves her mom? Is that her only purpose in the story? Why is Eleanor important to the plot? How did the old princess feel about her manipulating what she taught Eleanor? Why did the old princess not step in? Wait who's the new queen? The peasant girl? How was she killed in the corruption if she's taking refuge? Why is her story valuable because it seems like the story follows the old queen, her daughter, and then the new princess. Eleanor's plot seems thrown in there. This sounds like your actual present story. The rest just seems like your world's history as it pertains to the throne.
Thanks for the replies. I wish I could edit my original post to add names and make things a little clearer but I can't. But it's good to discuss my plot holes with you all so I can readjust. You both bring up good points, which is why I'm starting to lean away from the idea of it being a peasant girl, and more toward it being the old queen's (Margaret's) cousin (since she had no sister or child). But I do like your ideas of the MC (Amelia) having a strong connection to the peasantry. Perhaps her father was a soldier, and her mother (Lilith) married him despite having no allies at court who wanted the marriage to go ahead. The old princess (Diana) saved her mother (Margaret). She has no relation to Eleanor, but knows that her kingdom lost a war to the new queen's (Lilith) family a long time ago, and would have the resources to do something about it. Diana told Eleanor she wanted nothing in return, but could offer no support aside from teaching her about the Corruption, and what she did with that information was up to her. I too am beginning to question the old princess's (Diana's) role in the story. I originally planned for her to be the one who teaches Eleanor how to manipulate the Corruption, kicking off the events. And to also have a role in the coming civil war, with her mother wanting to place her on the throne. But perhaps it would be better to keep things streamlined with simply the old queen (Margaret) coming to reclaim the throne as she never officially abdicated. However, in that case, I'd need a reason as to how Eleanor learned what she did about dark magic and the Corruption. Any suggestions? Eleanor's story is going to serve as a first arc, mostly unrelated. It's more of a standalone arc, but will have a small link in what Diana taught Eleanor. Also, the Corruption being released from time stasis is what will set the dark queen Margaret free in the first place. Eleanor's story is the one that I have a (very rough) draft done for. I'm trying to plan things out to make it connected to the coming stories, before I start editing it for real. As far as Diana was concerned, it was a way for her to create chaos for the royal family in a time when she had no support for herself. The new queen (Lilith) is descended from the peasant girl (either as her daughter or onward).
One proposed reason the old queen may give the title to a peasant is that, possibly, she was good friends with the child's mother when she was young, possibly even into young adulthood, in secret of course. I will be abbreviating old queen as OQ and peasant mother as PM for the remainder of this post! This could also present an interesting scene where the OQ goes to the PM and begs PM to allow her to take the child for exactly the purpose that she does. This could also add an interesting dynamic to our protagonist when she finds out, as she attempts to piece together who her mother was. Just some thoughts.
Would it have been possible for Eleanor to have assisted in Margaret getting free, so Margaret returned the favor by teaching Eleanor to control the corruption? If there needs to be some time between Eleanor learning to manipulate the corruption and Margaret taking a more active role in the story, you could always make it so Margaret needed to recover after being set free before she can take an active role.
Thanks for your replies! A good suggestion, but an issue I see is that if the OQ begs the PM for the child, then why would she challenge the PM's line for the crown when she returns, considering it was her who put them on the throne in the first place? I like this suggestion, but a couple of things that would need to be considered are: How would Eleanor free Margaret if she knows nothing about the Corruption before Margaret teaches her? Eleanor and Margaret are queens of different kingdoms that were at war some time ago. In fact, Eleanor's mother was killed in the previous war. So why would they want to help each other?
Hmm, I think I missed the part of the two kingdoms being at war before, but that might actually work to the idea's favor. If Margaret has it out for the current rulers of her kingdom, then Eleanor and Margaret might work together for the purpose of defeating a common foe. This assumes that Margaret was not involved in the war you mentioned, of course. Otherwise, yeah I can see how this would be an issue. As for how Eleanor would free Margaret, I don't know. I assume that dark magic, in general, is at least something some people other than Margaret would be aware of. Even if Eleanor didn't know about the corruption, could she have stumbled upon it while researching dark magic on her own? Even if she didn't understand it, would it be possible for her to have still done enough to free Margaret, even by accident?
Good points! Margaret was not involved in that war, she had already been frozen in time before it happened. Magic is quite prevalent. Dark magic less so, but it is still around. But the main challenge I find is the coincidence of two queens researching dark magic and the Corruption. But perhaps a different spin could be put on it to make it work: rather than a time stasis spell, the royal family cast a time distortion spell on the Corruption (I have a soft magic system, but a hard magic rule could be that time cannot be truly stopped, etc). The Corruption would be slowed down immensely in relation to the outside world, and so Margaret's actions inside the Corruption would take decades outside relatively (kind of like time distortion near a black hole). This would probably need huge amounts of magic power to keep up over the years. The Corruption would still be spreading, but at a much slower rate due to the spell. But it is slowly creeping into Eleanor's lands. She could be getting her mages working tirelessly on trying to destroy it, but accidentally dispel the time distortion and free Margaret in the process.
That sounds good to me, but I have a minor question about this: If that's the case, wouldn't a time stasis spell also require huge amounts of power to maintain? I mean, either way, a field is being maintained in a larger world where time is flowing normally. On the flip side, if a stasis field can be made permanent (so as not to require huge amounts of power), why can't a "slow" field? I know it doesn't sound like it would be an issue either way, but I'm just curious. Intuitively, stopping time just seems like it would be more difficult to do than slowing it down.
Thanks man, I'm so glad that it leaves you satisfied! Thanks for that suggestion in the first place. I still need to do a lot of brainstorming on other potential plot holes, but I think I'm starting to get there. As for your question, any sort of spell, whether it be time stasis or time distortion, etc, would need huge amounts of magic power to maintain over the years. I'm just looking to start asking some "what if...?", "what is expected?" and "what is unexpected?" questions for further plot hole filling, but don't have much experience in it. Do you have any advice in this regard?
Everyone has their own approach to this, but for me I find the main questions I ask for plot hole filling are "how could...?" and "why would...?" To me, "what if...?" is just a way to answer these other questions (at least as far as filling in plot holes is concerned; it's also great at spicing up the story). How could event A lead to event B further down the line? This is my biggest question. Once I have an answer, I think about how much sense that answer makes. For example: "how likely is it that my MC would survive a fifty foot fall?", "would it be possible to clear the world of corruption if it's spreading x feet a day?", "how much energy would it actually take to blow up the Earth?" (spoilers, way heckin a lot). If the answers don't make sense, I don't usually start back at square one. I tweak the idea. For example, I needed to block a river in a valley in my WIP, but I realized that the water would quickly pile up behind a makeshift dam and start flowing again. My solution? Change the geography to put a fork in the river just upstream of where it needed to be blocked. The characters could cause a rockslide at the fork and the river would be diverted indefinitely (or at least until a big rain or something happened), so problem solved. I say only toss out an idea if it really looks like it isn't going anywhere (or, unless you get a better one while you're working out the kinks, of course). "Why would...?" is part of the "does this make sense...?" question, except I find it's usually more like making the plot make sense. I say this because this question helps a lot in developing character backstory and giving your characters the motivations to do what you want them to. As for "what is expected?" and "what is unexpected?", I'm not sure what you mean. Are you saying you're trying to find a balance between plot twists and predictability, or are you asking "how much coincidence is too much?" If the former, then all I can say is it's up to you to decide where the balance is at. I'd personally lean towards more plot twists because you can always make them fewer by giving the reader more information, but it's hard to make a predictable story become unpredictable. If you're asking about coincidence, then, again, it's up to you, but I personally don't like anything majorly improbable occurring in a story outside of kicking off the story to begin with. A few jokers in the mix might be okay, but I always find such things tend to derail the story more than provide a twist. It goes along with the saying "the only difference between reality and fiction is that fiction needs to be credible." I don't know if any of that helps, but hopefully it does.
