Basically, I'm writing a SciFi/Western YA novel at the moment where the main character gets transported from Earth to the middle of the desert on the world where he spends most of the book, before he eventually comes back to Earth via a doorway between worlds beneath the mountain called The Infinite Gate. I've got the majority of the plot of the book mapped out but I just need to get him from Point A. to Point B without using the Gate itself (of which the other side on Earth is buried beneath Stonehenge, thus the reason behind Stonehenge's creation), as well as establish his life and a few main characters on Earth ideally very on that will later return to feature further down the line. Basically, I've come up with something where the 'mystical powers' etc behind the creation of the Infinite Gate plucks people at random from Earth once every several years and plunges them to another world, thus that would take my MC (Cullen, 16) from Earth to the alien world which I'm currently calling Dragonfall. However, the situation that Cullen is in before he gets transported to Earth is currently up for grabs depending on what direction I want to take my character and I'm kind of stuck with my choices as I'm attempting to come up with some interesting scenarios that will make the reader care about the character, who lives in London. So I've come up with a few ideas so far: Cullen's in the wrong place at the wrong time and ends up getting chased by police officers who think he murdered someone when he stumbled across a dead body, and gets zapped when he is hiding. Could replace police officers/body with random street thugs looking to rob him. Cullen's on the bus on the outskirts of London going over a River when it crashes on his way to school, and he manages to help save his friends but the bus goes off the edge of a bridge before he can get off. Cullen goes with his older foster sister, Renee, to a local nightclub but is too young to get inside so ends up trying to sneak in, walks through a door and ends up in the desert. Cullen is on a school trip somewhere/visiting with family, gets separated, zapped. However, I've been unable to settle on one and would love some help in coming to a decision. The main characters that I'd like to introduce are Cullen's foster sister, Renee, and his friend/future love interest, Harper, so if you can think of any interesting ideas that are better than the ones that I've used here (setting is contemporary modern day London), or help me decide which idea to use, that'd be great. Also, apologies if this is in the wrong forum, I haven't used this site in a while. Any help would be awesome.
Is Cullen living with foster parents? Is he a minor? I assume that his foster sister is an adult now? My first thought: Cullen is about to lose his foster home--maybe there's a major medical issue with one of his foster parents, maybe they hit financial hard times and have to give up their home and have no appropriate place for him to live any more, maybe they're just flakes. Cullen doesn't want to go back into the system so he's trying to persuade Renee to take him in, and Renee is telling him she can't/won't/ the system won't allow it, whatever. Cullen storms off and vanishes. His sister now thinks he's run away and is frantically trying to find him all the while he's gone. Edited to add: And she can pull Harper into the effort to find him.
I like the idea that some sort of traumatic event causes Cullen to get zapped. The bus falls into the river, Cullen falls from some height or into a hole; perhaps the zapping is instigated by a sudden occurrence in Cullen's existence or by the old standbys of lightning/storm damage, tidal pool or other natural phenomenon.
I'm a huge advocate of having external events reflect a person's internal state. What is Cullen's developmental arc? If you can do something that relates to it, I think it'd be twice as impactful. l For instance, if Cullen is having some sort of existential crisis and has a moment where he wishes could just disappear and then, ZAP! Or maybe he has a tendency to run from his problems and the ZAP is another opportunity to escape. These are just some ideas since I don't know what his character arc is, but good luck!
Thanks for the ideas, they're much appreciated. -Cullen is a minor - 16 and his foster sister Renee is 21, and yeah, an adult. -His development arc takes him from a loner who lacks courage, because of the past trauma with his real parents and growing up not knowing them, thus feeling an outsider, and often doesn't work as a team. He ends up embracing teamwork by the end (the climax of the book is the defence of the Infinite Gate from an army with a group of friends ala The Magnificent Seven), as well as overcoming his past trauma.
