So heres the idea; The novel takes place in 1970's China, right as Mao's tyrant rule comes to an end. The main character, Li, is 12 and living in Beijing with her parents. Her dad is a politician, trying to fill the power vacuum that a dead leader leaves. The dad is forced to flee their home and bring the family with him. However, the dad is murdered at the train station, but Li escapes, leaving her on the run with her mentally ill mother. They realize they cannot go back to Beijing, because to the people who murdered her dad will be waiting for her. They go Kunming in hope of running into the mother's parents, but the mom has a hallucination on the train, causing Li to get thrown off and framed as a killer. This leaves Li stranded in a bamboo forest between Kunming and Chongqing, near whats known as the Shunan Forest today. She tries to follow the train tracks back to the city, but gets lost. When nearly all hope is lost, she stumbles upon a civilization. The book then switches into first person, narrated by the leader of this civilization (10-20 people), who enjoys watching Li grow and bond with the rest of the group. This part of the plot I am pretty solid on/happy with. If you are interested, you can read it (link deleted by mod) However, after this part, I am not totally sure where to go. My general idea was for Li to grow up with the group, until the year 2002. A mutation in their livestock causes the SARS disease, everybody but Li gets sick. The herbal medicine that they've relied on up till now isn't working. Li realizes she has to go back into the city to save her village. She arrives in Kunming not knowing what to expect from modern technology, but while exploring, spreads the virus to the people around her. I haven't worked the next part out yet, but the book ends with Li returning to save her village, but at some cost. I need to find a place to add an antagonist/complication/plot twist of some sort. Everything I start to brainstorm seems dry. Im struggling to find motives for antagonists, since it would most likely come from someone already living in the village. Suggestions for what should happen next, after Li goes into the city, would be really helpful. Or things to spice the book up in general. Thanks!
The great antagonist is the disease. If someone in Kunming realizes that illness follows Li like the Asian version of Typhoid Mary, that someone might set out to imprison her or put an end to her before she can return and save her village. I assume the disease is also prevalent in the land of technology, or they wouldn't have treatment for it.
Maybe her father was murdered by someone that comes from the civilization that she stumbles upon later.
I have to ask a couple of hard questions: How did Li get lost when following a railroad track? That's not rocket science -- even a 12-year old can follow a railroad track without getting lost. Why do you refer to the place where she found herself as a "civilization"? To me, that implies a civilization that is different from Chinese civilization. But Chinese civilization is thousands of years older than Western civilization, and China is a fairly populous country. It's highly unlikely that a pocket of some alien civilization could exist anywhere in China without being known to the outside world. Do you have an explanation why/how Li can be immune to the virus that's killing her adopted village yet be a carrier of it? I am of the opinion that if you can't adequately explain that to yourself, you can't adequately explain it in the book. And that explanation might affect what she hopes to accomplish when she leaves the village and goes back to the city to seek help. Doing some quick math, Mao Zedong died in 1976, so if Li was 12 when he died, in 2002 she would be 38 years old -- an adult, not a child. What level of education did she have, and what did she hope or expect to find in the way of help in the city?
Why would a specific reason would be necessary to explain Li's condition? It is common for diseases to be transmitted by people who aren't themselves ill, including viral diseases like the common cold and covid.
1. Li was following the tracks for almost a day, but the exhaustion and fatigue get to her. She tries chasing a wild animal in hopes of food, but trips and blacks out. She wakes up in a hut and sees the people standing over her ready to save her. She has no real reason to refuse their help, especially when they treat her well and she has nothing else to go back to. 4. Her education was never really solid, because her parents kept moving her around. However, the novel describes her as sharp and a quick learner. Her main education comes from the people she meets in the forest, who teach her everything she needs to know to survive. She hoped that modern medicine could save them, and that could only be found in the city. 2. It is highly unlike China in 1976 , but not ancient. Think late Qing dynasty. The people pose as descendants of the last Chinese emperor, Puyi, and were driven into the mountains fleeing persecution. Since Li is only 12, and without a strong education because of her tumultuous parents, she believes them. I want to antagonize this "civilization", by later revealing they were another group entirely (a major plot twist), but I can't think of a motive. Why would a group want to kidnap a child for 30 years? To answer your concern about the civilization's secrecy ; nature lies as a border. A large percentage of China's population is rural, so nobody has a reason to be suspicious of it being anything other than a rural community. And it is, to the naked eye. I'm looking for an idea on the hidden, true identity of this group, but I can't seem to find one. 3. Li could have been asymptomatic, and have been transmitting the disease unknowingly. Or if I wanted to complicate things, I could come up with some elaborate story about how the disease was a bioweapon created by Li's father, and she was exposed to it at a young age, making her immune to it. Li's father was killed because of his work, but the disease ended up in the hands of his enemies. Maybee.... The people that killed Li's father are the same people that find Li in the woods. When someone accidentally releases the bioweapon, everyone in the village but Li gets sick. Li goes to the city to get help for the people she thought of as her family. When the doctors arrive at the village, they get sick too, being surrounded by the highly contagious virus. The virus spreads from one rural village to another, eventually reaching suburban and urban areas, where it spreads like wildfire. The novel ends with scientists naming the disease "SARS", almost like an origin story for the disease, whose origins are still not quite known of to this day. I know its a far fetched idea, but all I need to tie it together is a solid motive for the group. If you have any other suggestions, please let me know!! Im open to everything. Thanks!
