I know there could be lots of grammar error. This is just briefly. A brief SL that I'm still brainstorming. Do correct me if I'm wrong. Once this character setting has been corrected, I will do more research thoroughly and brainstorm more. I hope its not too cliche. Please get back to me. One of the toughest challenge of being a writer is that "I kept thinking that I have to be careful what I say to not be offensive" Title: "A point of no return" Synopsis: "my life my punishment" 1) Plot Opening: There's this girl use to work but she didn't get the money. She's from Ohio. When she's in Indonesia, she gets 5 million idrp per month and its funny how she can do whatever she wants and her parents work in the oil business. Point no 1: She learns how to be independent Point no 3: She learns that she has to stick to the culture, wherever she goes End: She's a cheerful giver going through her own storm 2) Character - Main Character Name: Shania Richards Age: 18 Nationality: African-American Socioeconomic level as a child: Her parents are half African and half American. She was raised in Ohio. Came from poor roots even if her parents work at oil business but her parents only paid her for Elementary school, she's a pretty lonely child too with no siblings and had to work instead of going into middle - high school. She struggles to get a job in Ohio. Every job has a disadvantage. Shockingly, even working at an oil business got her parents aren't that successful enough which got them bankrupt. That's how its Shania chance to help her family. One of those days, she was sent to a child labour. Socioeconomic level as an adult: At the same time she's struggling to find a better life, she's mature enough to get herself out of the child labor. As she grew older, she decided to move out of Ohio and travel around the world to find the perfect job without a fulfilled education. She didn't travel around the world with the airplane cause she has no money too, though her parents did give her some affordable prices for vehicles. When it's time for her to walk around the country, she gets to explore. She even joined one of the buskers. She's also a girl with many natural talents. Unexpectedly, one of the tourists from South East Asia, offers her an agent. She has no confidence to accept it, they kept exchanging choices till the tourist helped her out and became her boyfriend. Hometown: Ohio Current Residence: Pomeroy, Ohio Occupation: She successfully gets to work in an oil business like her parent but isn't in the same field and her family moved to Indonesia. Talents/Skills: Can do everything due to trying everything. Salary: 5 million idrp per month Birth order: January 15 1995 Grandparents (describe relationship): Deceased. Relationship skills: In a relationship Conflict: Everyone in Indonesia hated her thinks she's weird now that she's a third culture girl. Everywhere she goes, she's being split at/discriminated. Climax: It could also be not all people from African - American, is a drug dealer at some countries too. Even in South East Asian there could also be a drug dealer, when they came to Indonesia, people like to assume that she's a drug dealer just because she's an African - American… This brings to another relationship level, as her boyfriend, he helped her to stop this silly shenanigans. The good thing is that she couldn't just throw away her boyfriend like that but helped to stop his addictions and stop from being a drug dealer successfully. From there, not only she has been thinking that she's useless, she realizes that she could save peoples' lives. Setting: All around the world.
Hmm. Just off the top of my head here. I say you've got an interesting character and situation, but there isn't really a story. Yet. Your character has problems fitting into a new culture and solves them, with the help of a lucky encounter with a tourist who becomes her boyfriend? That's not exactly riveting stuff, is it? I think you need to come up with a real challenge for this girl. She maybe loses all her money, and in order to survive gets sucked into the underworld and finds she can't escape—or maybe her 'boyfriend' turns out to have underworld connections himself, and if he chooses to break with them, this will put himself AND his girlfriend in huge danger. It's how they get out of the dangerous situation that makes the story. Just one way things could go. However, the usual rule for storytelling is make things as difficult for your character as you possibly can. Pile on the problems, and the bigger the better. Just having them easily solve every problem that comes their way then waltz happily off into the sunset 'learning' things doesn't make for much of a read. However 'true' that outcome may actually be in real life.
when you say "underworld" do you mean they're in a world of criminal or what kind? I love your idea though, thanks!
What exactly do you mean by this? If you mean that she has many talents, or often manages to work things out on her own you should be careful not to write a Mary Sue-like character. If she is too perfect/good at many things people will think it gets annoying, so make sure she has some flaws too. Try to leave unrelevant information out of it if you ask people for points you can improve, it will only be confusing. Keep it somewhere for yourself though, because it can turn out to be useful later in the story and if it's not useful... well, at least you knew it then. Good luck.
@teeekilicious18 it's very interesting...because, in my opinion, a) if there is no use for a detail about your character, said detail is useless ; b) character's relations with his seniors should have some value. The fact you "choose" to even "fill in" this category means either that a) you have something to say about her grandparents, or b) you don't know what to say about any other category This is NOT the definition of an "Afro-American". And there is "child labour" in Ohio? I don't get this...
But if it's a woman, you can't make her too flawed because that's MISOGYNISTIC and, and, and everyone will be like "sigh, why is it always a woman who has, like, flaws?!" Sorry, that was my pre-CW forum anxiety speaking. I think it's cool you have Indonesia as one of the settings. You don't see that too often in literature written in English. Out of curiosity, why Indonesia? Your ideas can lead to a good story, but I recommend you do research about things like addiction, as well as the settings to make them authentic.
Ah, that's the thing about writing female characters, I suppose; the bigger audience will see her as either too perfect or too flawed, she either depends on someone too much or is too independent, she is too strong or too weak, too smart or too dumb etc.
