What Should Happen Next? Hello. Before I ask my question, I'd just like to give a little background on my story. It's set in futuristic America. A strange and fatal disease has been spreading throughout the Southern half of the country, where rising sea levels have hit the hardest(the disease is spread by mosquitoes, and mosquitoes love the water). Because of this, a new campaign was launched that encouraged anyone able to do so to have as many children as possible. The desired outcome being the survival of the human race while scientists looked for a cure. Most people accept this, but a small group of people oppose it, saying that this will actually hurt the human race in the long run. Now, in one city, a member of the aforementioned group is in a position of power, and he wants to show the citizens what will happen firsthand by secretly kidnapping girls from other cities and impregnating them(whether they're willing or not), then giving their babies to orphanages to eventually overfill them. One girl, who also opposes the campaign, manages to escape(she and the other girls are kept in a heavily guarded building attached to the man's house), and wants to expose the man because he is giving the other members of the group a bad name, in her opinion. She eventually runs into a struggling reporter and then tells her story to him. He puts it in the newspaper, and soon, everyone reads his article and becomes suspicious of the man who kidnapped the girl. Of course, this does not sit well with this man and he sets out to find her and the reporter. Now, here's where I got stuck. I did want the man to find them and change the story somehow(I was going to have the reporter's sister give the man the story out of spite; the reporter is a bit of a workaholic and has been ignoring her lately), but I haven't been able to figure out what happens next. Should he throw them in jail? Kill them(or attempt to kill them)? Or maybe he goes about solving this issue in a completely different manner? What conflict should come of this? The man is a bold, yet secretive man, and is good at keeping his secret from the public. He used to be a soldier, and is very intelligent. I hope that helps a little.
A government official who kidnaps and rapes girls for a political agenda? If such a news story were actually printed today, the official would be lucky to survive the mob of angry citizens coming to his home, let alone the federal investigation that would be soon to follow. I would suggest thinking about other forces that would react to the reporter's story. Build conflict on another front as well as between the main characters.
Thank you! Your idea makes a lot of sense, and it also freed me from that snag I was in. However, it leads me to another question: would it be realistic, then, for members of the opposition group to then be angry at the reporter and his newspaper? Because I was going to have someone assassinate the official after the article was published. Then some sort of civil war would erupt from that, the contenders being the opposition(who would probably be tired of being silenced all the time) and the people who, well, oppose the opposition. I think that sounds like a reasonable turn of events. What about you?
Sure. I mean, it comes down to how much power your characters (and their organizations) have and their volition to use it. There are countless real-world cases of journalists being kidnapped, tortured and then killed by government officials. Tiny, brutal conflicts can pop up for a variety of reasons, as we're seeing in the Middle East. When those in power are threatened, they will usually respond to maintain their power. If it comes to some sort of physical conflict, I would suggest that you justify how a minority political group can stand up against the majority of the country - bigger guns, clever alliances or legal acrobatics? The outcome itself isn't as important as how you justify it in your story.
Not realistic to me, no. I'd think that he'd lose all the support of his party and lose every last drop of his power. His plan to "show" the world that he's right sounds to me like the plan of an obviously, unarguably, and deeply insane man. His supporters should run from him in droves. ChickenFreak
I'm sorry, but the premise sounds far-fetched to me. The politician wants to put a damper on breeding by breeding so much that people will see how bad it is? If that makes sense to him, why not just vote *for* the breeding campaigns and let people see the results? Even if the plan makes sense to the politician, there must be simpler and safer ways to flood the orphanages, like bribing people to have children, or selling defective contraceptives, or providing places for teenagers to meet without adult supervision. If the sexual enslavement is the important part of the story, why not just make the politician into a mentally disturbed pervert who tries to rationalise his actions with politics, much like a sect leader? This is similar to how many real-life sect leaders seem to work, like David Koresh of Waco fame, or the recently convicted Warren Jeffs.
I agree with Islander. It would make a lot more sense if this guy is raping women to fill the orphanages IN ORDER TO destroy the small minority group who opposes trying to make as many babies as possible. So the guy should actually come from the majority group that is FOR the system of making babies, rather than the minority group that is against. And the guy should lose almost all his power and support - but you could rally a small minority group around him who actually think he was right for doing what he did. And this group could form a different underground group altogether who will now go out and hunt down the girl and the reporter. Someone who is insane enough to kidnap and permanently imprison and rape dozens and dozens of innocent women and then take their babies away - I'd say he would also be insane enough to murder. He'd see anyone trying to sabotage him as an enemy of the human race (after all, he thinks he's saving it so anyone who oppose him must want to destroy man) and as such, would be reason enough to murder such opposition for the sake of mankind. (Famous and cliched logic, I know, but kinda works when you're talking about a fanatic) If you wanna venture into Nazism - you could even have the man start thinking of reasons why the girl and reporter would be so foolish as to ruin the only way to save mankind. And then they could actually start trying to breed a certain type of human - perhaps find humans who seem immune to the disease or at least seem to have stronger defenses against it, and attempt to kidnap them to breed a stronger human race.
Thinking it over some more, I've concluded that there are issues with this plot that I can't stop myself from commenting on. The main issue is the scale: You can't overload the childcare infrastructure of a nation that's _focused_ on childcare infrastructure, with a small number of children. He'll need to create thousands, quite probably millions, of children. And every single one of those children is being born in a building on his property. That will require a combined hospital and prison large enough for, at a minimum, thousands of women, that somehow no one notices. And they're all being born to kidnapped women - thousands of women missing. And they're all going to have to be turned over to orphanages - thousands of children with no background, no explanation, nothing. That's a few too many to drop off on the doorstep in a basket in the classic manner. And the doctors and nurses and custodial workers and food service workers and laundry workers and many other workers whose job it is to take care of those thousands of women, will all have to be sold on this incredibly illegal scheme, to the point that they don't even hint that it's happening. If his plan were one that could be accomplished with two or three children, this could be possible. But this country would delightedly _embrace_ an extra two or three children. Or two or three dozen. Or two or three hundred. Quite likely, two or three thousand. He simply can't produce enough children to fulfill his goal. Heck, if the other party is sufficiently lacking in morals, I could see _them_ doing what he's doing, except openly and with government funds, if the population isn't rushing quickly enough to breed children. Men get drafted to fight, women get drafted to give birth; after four years in the army or two kids, you're discharged from the system to do what you like. Also, the girl's desire to expose the man "...because he is giving the other members of the group a bad name, in her opinion..." is a pretty low-key reason to object to the behavior of a mass kidnapper and rapist and almost certainly murderer. If you were kidnapped and imprisoned, and your health severely endangered, and your child kidnapped never to be seen again, by someone who happened to be a member of the same political party as you, would your primary concern really be how that person's actions _reflected on the party_? Or would you want the scum who kidnapped you arrested, no matter what party he's in? I realize that I've already said that this man is insane. An insane man might well think that creating three or four orphans a year will be enough to change the mind of the majority of the population of the country. But surely those around him would realize that his plan has absolutely no chance of working, and refuse to risk a lifetimen in jail or possible execution? ChickenFreak
Wow. Well, first I want to thank everyone for their input. I honestly didn't think about some of the things you all suggested, and I'm very grateful. I've been really thinking about what you all said, and I've been trying to work out the plot, but nothing's been coming to me at all, and what does usually turns out worse than what I started with. I'm sorry if I seem completely hopeless right now, but I'm more of a character driven person--characters come easier to me than the twists and turns of a plot. On that note, does this plot have potential, and could I actually have something if I work on it a little harder? Or should I just start over and write a different story? Either way, is anyone willing to help me one-on-one? I think I'd make more progress that way.
A story concept means nothing. I can tell you now, it has all been done before. What matters is how you write it, the characterization, the flow, the imagery, all of it. There's no benefit in asking what other people think of the concept! They'll either say,"Sounds great," or, "it sounds like a ripoff of..." If the idea stirs you, write it. Then ask people what they think of the final story. After they tell you what they don't like about it, revise it, usually several times, until you're happy with it or until you throw up your hands and say the hell with it. Please read What is Plot Creation and Development? You have a lot of writing ahead of you. As you work through it, ideas will come to you.
