Ok so I've been brainstorming for a while on my werewolf military novel and I can't seem to put the time lines, MC's together. At first I was thinking, focus on the main MC's which would be the fraternal twins male and female separated at birth. They are the important MC's but my other MC's are just as important. I'm building a family tree and I was thinking of doing this all in chronological order. First would be about a young British or American hero soldier with an elite troop team along side the allies in WWII. The hero and his team infiltrate a camp guarded with Nazis. A young female Polish prisoner escapes and follows the hero and his troops, unknowingly she's become a werewolf and they discover her powers, which she helps join them and fight. When it's over and they've won, the hero soldier and werewolf girl are supposed to meet and start the family tree. I just can't figure out what to do next. Should they go their separate ways after the war as covert mission operatives and then meet on a spy mission in the 60's and then have their son or should they meet again in the 50's and have the son? Should they fall in love and have a son right after the second world war before becoming secret agent spies? Their son is supposed to have a son of his own in the 70's or 80's maybe with a female Russian spy and then THAT son is supposed to have the boy and girl fraternal twins in the 00's with a woman from Nepal/India/Tibet or something, which will be the main MC's being the latest carriers of the werewolf powers. Does anyone have any advice that can help me? Thanks again.
It sounds to me like you have a perfect grasp of your characters at the high level and you understand your opening act (infiltrating the camp). Next, you need to build a conflict with rising stakes. Some disaster should happen after they liberate the camp. It will steer them onward to a greater disaster at the halfway point of the book (some villain was contaminated by the girl? They thought he was simply human . . . just an example). For them to even survive this, they must completely change their approach to the fight. Then they are thwarted again at the 3/4 mark and all seems lost. Maybe one MC (with a child helping?) must save their kidnapped partner at the end. Perhaps the kid dies in the fight. Or maybe the husband/wife does . . . hmm . . . Something like that. What I'm saying is let the conflict shape your characters. Then you'll know who to follow. You'll still be able to look at the family through the years, but the reader needs a grand conflict (this one sounds like it really needs an antagonist) building to some finale. So think in terms of conflicts/reversals/disasters. The disasters must destroy what the characters want most so that they absolutely must fight on. The plot shapes the characters while the characters shape the plot. You're working from broad brush strokes in planning and then later adding the nuance of the necessary scenes. The other possibility is that you're actually planning a trilogy and need to end the book with the camp liberated. Then you can switch around in later books to the other characters. That's pretty ambitious though . . .
I planned on having an antagonist, I was thinking of a Nazi leader soldier and maybe he becomes a supposed werewolf? Or he uses an ancient occult book to gain power. But then I'd want to have an antagonist during the cold war and one for the distant future for when the fraternal twins are born. Another antagonist I have in mind would be some ancient ruler of some sort. How old would a top squad of WWII soldiers be? Would 18 and 19 be too young for the soldier and werewolf girl? I thought about a trilogy, where one focuses on the WWII, the other Cold War and the last would be modern or distant future but this might be difficult if I want to go further and expand the series with the two main fraternal twins.
Wait a sec... I've read your storyline before... weeks, possible months, ago. Yet you only have three posts. So either you're an old member with a new account (banned much?) or you just had the least original idea ever. Just... an observation.
I had an old account months ago based on the same topic but since I haven't been on for months and forgot the password and I'd switched old emails, I wanted just a little more feedback on this.
https://www.writingforums.org/threads/please-need-help-with-my-werewolf-war-story.156677/ Here this was my old post I dug up and found on the site. Seems like your right as it's not the most original idea and i didn't get much responses in the end which most likely means it's a flawed concept. Maybe I should just quit this
