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  1. MisterOz_GatorLover

    MisterOz_GatorLover New Member

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    What are ways that the male and female protagonists can meet?

    Discussion in 'Plot Development' started by MisterOz_GatorLover, Mar 14, 2011.

    I know this is a broad question but can you help me out. The male protagonist is a football player while the female protagonist is a college student who loves to perform. They can't meet at the same school. So what would you suggest? Give me anything.
     
  2. Arathald

    Arathald New Member

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    What does the female perform? Drama? Music? If she has a show, the male could attend it, and, assuming he's outgoing enough, become enamored with her and talk to her afterwards. If you don't want them to meet romantically, do they have any mutual friends who can serve as a catalyst for them to bump into each other (she's over at the friend's house, he stops by to drop of a book he borrowed, or something similar that sounds a bit less contrived). If you have a few more specifics as to what constraints you want to have on the meeting, as well as a few more details about the characters, we might be able to suggest something more appropriate to their situation.
     
  3. KP Williams

    KP Williams Active Member

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    That's... seriously broad to the uppermost extreme. I've spent the past year working out how my two main characters meet, test writing dozens of possible scenarios and running through well over a hundred others in my head--yes, I've been counting. There are a million ways your characters can meet, and one thing I've learned over the past year is that nobody can possibly know the best way to handle it better than the author. Simply because no one knows or ever will know your story as well as you.

    The only advice I can give is this. Look at your characters' interests and responsibilities. Where might both of their interests or responsibilities take them? Where might they both be found at the same time? What draws them to each other? If you have that, you have your guideline, and the options narrow considerably.

    This is another question no one can really answer for you. Trust me, I have more than a year of experience to back that up.
     
  4. Ion

    Ion New Member

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    You could have the both of them working at the same store.
     
  5. KillianRussell

    KillianRussell New Member

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    in a crack house ...at work ...the waiting room of auto repair shop..mutual freinds ...a book club...a fender bender allows them to exchange numbers...the both played the harp bump into each other shopping sheet music....on a tv game show..at a star trek convention...they pass thru starbucks at same time every morning of the work week...at a bar on bourbon street....he comes to repair her home ...they are on public transportation when it wrecks ..they knew each other marginally back at bedrock high..at a yard sale where the get into a bidding war of a velvet elvis painting....they meet at a buck tooth catholic singles dance...dude is hit jaywalking by a armenian taxi driver outside her work she comes to his rescue ...camping in line to get justin bieber concert tickets....he a closet cross dresser admires her wardrobe on the subway....at an AA meeting....she is selling her x bf's guitar on craigslist .....both members of a jury spend time sequestered together....at karaoke they discover a mutual love for the rock band journey .... in the park walking dogs she admonishes him for not using a pooper scooper ...one of them was a tutor at the college's math lab...she the local expert on the rehabilation of retro sci fi laser shifter type weapons
     
  6. Peerie Pict

    Peerie Pict Contributor Contributor

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    What place would be the best venue to bring out the themes of your story?
     
  7. w176

    w176 Contributor Contributor

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    Community service.

    Having them both have committed some minor crime gives you both a chance to show off some character weakness. Or character strength or ideology. And it creates a bit tense situation, tinted with shame and anger perhaps, when they meat. An awkward meeting with some tension is always more interesting then a easy going meeting.

    It might also create future tensions with friends and family having and hard time accepting someone who the character got to know during community serice, or have a hard time respecting the crime they were charged with.
     
  8. Ellipse

    Ellipse Contributor Contributor

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    Meeting at a coffee shop or bar is the oldest cliche in the book, but it works. :)
     
  9. HorusEye

    HorusEye Contributor Contributor

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    He's drunk driving, running red lights, hits a woman at a pedestrian crossing and sends her flying, then he flees the scene.

    As he wakes up the next day he's feeling a bit guilty, so he sneaks into the hospital to drop off a bouquet of flowers to the comatozed woman. There he meets the girl who's the woman's daughter. He has to come up with a really fat lie about why he's there with a bunch of flowers, since the girl has never seen him before. He paints such a rosy and vivid story that she falls mad in love with him right away.

    Problems arise later when the mother wakes up from coma and the lie falls apart...
     
  10. Yoshiko

    Yoshiko Contributor Contributor

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    Where do you meet people? Use your own experience.

    I'm a social person and talk to anyone. Some "normal" ones are:

    • concert
    • mutual friend
    • at the local library/club/pool/cinema
    • sitting next to them on a busy train/bus
    • waiting rooms (I was once asked out by a guy while he had his head over a bucket. So romantic, that. :rolleyes: But he did get the date.)
    • shopping with a friend of the opposite sex and being dragged into an appropriate store (I've a friend who walks around flirting whenever we take him into jewellery/clothing stores)
     
  11. MisterOz_GatorLover

    MisterOz_GatorLover New Member

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    Thanks for the suggestions. Do you think those are improvement over my initial suggestion: having them meet at a party where the female lead can't enter (since she can't pay) but the male lead gives her the cash and convinces the bouncer to let her enter.
     
  12. Taylee91

    Taylee91 Carpe Diem Contributor

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    They both me at a good diner? They meet each other at a movie theater? The two of them have the same friend? The two of them go to a friend's pool party and meet each other there?
     
  13. Gingerbiscuit

    Gingerbiscuit New Member

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    He gets dragged to her concert by an incompatible lady friend. While there his heart is stolen by this wonderful woman performing on stage.

    Or you could have them both recruited by a secret government agency and have them sent undercover to take down Simon Cowell. Your story
     
  14. NateSean

    NateSean Senior Member

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    Probably my favorite plot device for two characters of the opposite gender meeting someone has been that they were both assassins hired to kill one another.
     
  15. MisterOz_GatorLover

    MisterOz_GatorLover New Member

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    When I asked for suggestions, I think I was kind of too broad and should've given the background to the characters. Anyway, one thing I've been thinking of is the female lead waiting in a food line to order something but is behind a customer who keeps changing his order. The male lead--Billy--stops this customer and makes him leave because not only is he bothering the other customers but he is also hassling the employee.

    But I'd like them to meet at a party. That's the main goal.
     
  16. Unit7

    Unit7 Contributor Contributor

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    Then you know... why not have them meet at a party?
     
  17. Trish

    Trish Damned if I do and damned if I don't Contributor

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    LOL! That's an awesome idea :)

    So if you know you want them to meet at a party, what's the question now?
     
  18. MisterOz_GatorLover

    MisterOz_GatorLover New Member

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    There are several ways they could meet at a party. I don't like it to be boring but I don't want it to be incredible cliche either. It just ain't coming to me.

    Plus, hundreds of people go to parties so what is an intriguing way that two random people meet?
     
  19. Gingerbiscuit

    Gingerbiscuit New Member

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    Meeting at a party IS a cliche. You'd have to do something pretty dramatic to make it otherwise. Maybe just as the party is in full swing they could fill the swimming pool with cement, during which time they communicate a shared love for quick drying cement that brings them closer together.

    My point is, the party is the cliche. If you want to avoid cliches, avoid the party because whatever you do at the party, whether they both accidentally catch fire or join together to fight off marauding ninjas, they still met...at a party.
     
  20. Trilby

    Trilby Contributor Contributor

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    Bridesmaid and usher at a wedding
    Pop concert
    Wine bar - pub -restaurant
    Car boot sale
    Charity ball
    Bus/train station
    On holiday
    Swimming baths

    They could meet almost anywhere
     
  21. cybrxkhan

    cybrxkhan New Member

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    This is a very good suggestion. Hinting at possible themes and conflicts in your story early on would be a very nice thing to do. Generally, but not always, it's important to try to introduce the themes and especially the conflicts in the story as soon as you can in order to propel the story forward.

    Perhaps also consider, as someone said previously, certain aspects of their personalities, and how these factor into their meeting.

    Ultimately, I think, is for you to make the meeting something unique to the story and your characters. Gingerbiscuit said that meeting at a party is cliche, which is true, but I think it is possible for you to make such a meeting unique to the story and the characters, even if it might be more difficult to do so. Still, if you find that you can't get out of the cliche, it's probably better to just make them meet in a more unusual situation, and, again, one that is unique to their personalities and/or interests, and/or one that is unique to the story's themes and/or conflicts.
     

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