I have had these characters and this story in my head for a long time, but I can't think of a way to create some actual plot. I was mainly inspired by the game Pirates of the Burning Sea and of course, Pirates of the Caribbean. I've always been very into pirate stories, history, clothing, music, traditions, and the like. I love many other aesthetics and periods of history as well, so this story is a rather self indulgent mish-mash of all that taking place in a vaguely futuristic time. (Some examples: their ships are made of wood and they use gas lamps, but the cabins are outfitted with hi def stereos; the virgin islands are dominated by bootleggers and vaudeville is making a comeback; grunge-era punks are back on the rise in Jamaica.) It takes place mainly in Central America. While some Latin American countries are mentioned, the only one they visit is Mexico, and only briefly; a good deal of the action occurs on various Caribbean islands. The main character is Ingrid Liston, the sly, morally dubious young captain of the infamous ship, the Aventura. She is the daughter of a Spanish rouge and a former Aztec slave and was raised on the ship. Her parents were killed when she was young and she has been raised by her mother's cousin Anamaria. The ship is made up mostly of women and people who don't fit into the gender binary, as well as a slew of sexual orientations, but I want the story to focus more on their adventures. I want Ingrid to go on a fascinating adventure, like Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. It's a fun little tale about cursed gold- I mean, how much more pirate-y can you get? There are a few other big characters floating around my head that I want to incorporate somehow. (You may skip the next couple paragraphs if you want; they aren't completely integral.) Marid Delmar has a complicated and difficult history with Ingrid. They thought they were in love, but events transpired (which will be explored later) that caused them to hate each other. Even so, they have this strange sort of mutual understanding, a very intimate and complex camaraderie that even they cannot really explain. Angelique is the descendant of Yoruban slaves. Her grandparents were stolen from Nigeria and brought to Haiti to work on a sugar plantation (one of the background plot elements is that the slave trade is secretly being re-instituted extralegally). Their daughter was born into slavery, and she married the leader of a Haitian vigilante group working to eradicate the plantations. They escaped to St. Thomas and had Angelique, as well as her seven younger siblings. They were killed later by Dutch police, and Angelique had to raise her siblings herself. The other character doesn't have a name or a backstory yet, but she's kind of similar to Marid and is one of Ingrid's more troublesome exes. She met Ingrid when she was going through a rebellious phase, so their relationship started off as more of a way to anger Anamaria (who can, she admits, be a bit controlling sometimes). Basically: I definitely want to work in some action with the bootleggers and punks, possibly the gangsters, and maybe even a Depression-era circus. I'm having trouble thinking of a creative adventure story line that could bring all of these together without being too cliche. Any ideas?
Girl/ Woman (Angelique, Marid, Ingrid etc) meets boy / man that turns out to be the descendant of a pirate/aztec god. Their love is forbidden, she (the woman) races to save him from a curse/doom/other pirates and has to sacrifice something/her alliance/her creed/herself/her honor/ in order to do so. In the last moment when all seems lost, she succeeds, or better yet, she fails and he continues her adventure instead.
That would be very helpful, except I forgot to mention that most of my characters are asexual aromantic. I'd rather not focus on romance anyway. Thank you for your suggestion though!
oh. lol. that changes everything! substitute "their love is forbidden" with " someone has to save the world" or another from imminent death. or plague. or it can be very simple. one's motivation can be money/a treasure, so the chase of that never grows old
