Hey everyone, my story is a milieu story. Before the events of the book, the world has changed drastically, and habitants are trying to survive in this new environment. During the course of the book, the world's changes are getting increasingly big, but at the same time - the world the habitants knew, suddenly expands (in a scope of, when America was found). What I have outlined so far; > main plot; the world and its changes > sub plot; the human society struggles to cope with these changes > trivial plot; the human society doesnt need to change, but due to self-centric goals of their leaders, this is what they pursue and do This outline was written by me almost three months ago, and now I am feeling - is my sub and trivial plot conflicting one another? Or am I just getting I dont know, cloudy with my own judgement? Could this be a problem as story progresses?
I don't think your 'plots' contradict themselves at all. They are just stages on the way from novel start to novel finish. Set down how you want to portray the world at the start, and how it should look like at the end. Once you have that, set down the stages it goes through during. There might just well be a period where the world doesn't change, but then new people are born and changes begin. Or maybe it's the other way round and first there were changes and then there were no changes. Depends on what theme you want to express. Mind, I don't know what a milieu story is. I imagine something like 'Earth Abides' (George R. Stewart). Every plot, regardless of genre, could go through stages that at first glance contradict each other. It's the job of the writer to make these changes coherent and show the reader the evolution from one plot point to the next. If the writer is skilled, the reader will follow the reasoning and won't question the changes because they seem inevitable, only to be then left scratching his head and asking himself 'How the heck did it go from this to that? And why do I agree?'
Hello, friend. While I understand your desire to connect things, in my opinion, don't worry too much about that for now. Just write the story you want to tell, and you come back to your story then yes began your adventure about it. But can also happen while you wrote that idea doesn't work, or possibly the ideas work, but you need to develop something else. Is just about you write and realising stuff that at first sight you can't. Your ideas don't contradict it can lead with something new or exciting which you didn't discover yet. You are in your first draft (I believe?) so don't bother, for now, write, write and write. I hope this helps. Keep on good work and have fun.
I don't think I have any (good) answers, but some thoughts. - You could handle world and humanity as characters with some kind of conflicting character arches. - Society is always in change. In crisis it's in fast change while leaning in conservative, close relationship principles. - It's good if your trivial plot and main plot are in conflict. It's not as easy to write as if they are "friends" but you can get it deeper and more interesting.
I think you have a classic case of 'over-thinking' because to me it looks like those sub-plots are totally predictable and normal. Changes on the planet do affect everything living on it and often there is a chain reaction. Generalists tend to survive catastrophic change; rats are generalists. They can eat just about anything and being small they don't require much. Specialists like meat eaters and herbivores tend to suffer. But some of the changes maybe good in the end.
You wrote your outline three months ago. Have you written any of the story in that time? I don't think there's anything wrong with what you have, but sometimes things we think might be problems are best worked out in the actual writing.
