In my current story the main characters best friend tries to convince him to join him on his quest but will not tell the main character why. The problem I am having is the two are supposed to fight and the friend is thus the villain. The only real way I can see to fix this is to just have my main character blindly follow him unto a point where the friend does something he objects too. This however creates more problems than it solves. For one the main character is not supposed to know his friend can use magic and if he travels with him up to the point where the conflict is then his magic abilities have to be blown wide open causing even more plot issues. The only other way to solve this that I can think of is for the friend to only reveal a portion of what he is doing. But I can't see how this could lead to the fight I need to happen. Especially since the quest his friend is on is actually the quest everyone realizes is the correct one in the first place. I am really not sure how to solve the this plot conflict that doesn't cause an even more severe plot hole in the first place. So if anyone has a good suggestion I am willing to listen.
While not have the guy completely lie to his friends place. 'Mate, we need to go on this quest to ABC to stop someone from hurting my girlfriend.' 'Let's go.' Then along the way the friend finds out more about it and that it isn't about getting his girlfriend. But the friend is planning on kidnapping a girl for some reason. I know that isn't your actual storyline. But if the one trying to get his friend on the quest has magical abilities surely he could lie to his friend and be convincing at it, or make that part of his abilities.
Due to the nature of magic in my story I cannot use magic in that way with my character. If I allow the main character to follow his friend based on a lie then I run the issue of the lie being justifiable in the end of the story to everyone. I suppose I could end up tinkering with the plot to some extent to conceal his magic till a later point but the problem I have with that is his friend cannot escape like I intended him too unless I have him severely injure the main character. The only issue I have with that is that it does not prevent te rest of the party from running after him. The only way I can see this working is to split the entire party up and leave just those two characters together in the middle of a battle that the friend started...Which by the way is a major part of the story. If I take this route then I must find a way for the friend to cause an attack on a city without being anywhere near his army. I suppose some standing order could allow for this though. But the real question is why would he have lied to the main character in the first place. I just don't see how building a plot around a lie is a good idea when that lie must be justified in the end. The only thing I am seeing and makes any sense is to delay the reveal till later. Yet I must find a reason that doesn't bring up more questions and holes.
What if the villain spends the whole time convincing the MC that a certain person is his enemy? After he fights this "supposed" enemy, who didn't really want to fight, then the villain makes his move while the MC in confused.
You almost have my plot line down but it is backwards. The friend is not the villain at all but is the acting villain for book one of my series. In reality he is fighting the true enemy that only he is aware of. The whole time the main character is fighting the wrong person which is why the motivation for the friend cannot be deceptive in a malicious way or the friend cannot come back in the next book as an ally.
So if the friend is fighting the true villain, how is he not the ally? Why won't the friend tell your MC why they have to go together? And if everyone knows it's the right quest, then why does your MC need any convincing to go with the friend? How about the MC needs something from the friend, and the friend uses that to his advantage and takes the MC along in that way? As for covering up the fact that the friend can use magic, that one's a bit tougher. I'm struggling with a similar thing (2 friends have hidden identities that my MC doesn't know about, but they're travelling together) - at one point, I just conveniently took my MC outside for a walk so the 2 friends can have a conversation that the MC would've treated as highly suspicious.
To overly simplify the situation if he walked up and said hey pal I want to kill your father and maybe your entire race would he really be inclined to believe let alone follow the suggestion. I highly doubt anyone would if the suggestion was made. The other problem is it does not become clear that the friend is right until the end of book one. Thus making everone believe he is in the wrong up until that point in the climax of the book. So this would be why everyone doesn't realize why it is the right path to take. Oh yes I did find a solution to the issue anyways. How I worked it out was thanks to another friend and the exact plot is still in the works. But basically the two travel together to a town on seperate missions and eventually the truth is revealed to my main character what his friend wants to do. Now the reasons for his actions get the two into a fight and the only way his friend can save his life is to use his magic which catches the main character off guard. Thus achieving everything I wanted in the story but through different means than I had intended.
It sounds like you did what I have a bad habit of doing --- creating a plot before you have characters and then making them act accordingly in order to make your plot work. i.e. moving chess pieces around on a board vs having the chess pieces make choices. It sounds to me like you need to flesh out your characters more so that they will tell you exactly what needs to happen and why they wouldn't say anything. If you've got a strong enough character they will make the decision for you. Just do what I do when this happens. Smack yourself in the face and tell yourself "NO!" and then work on your characters more until you realize what should happen.
The sad part is I had the characters long before the plot. I just made the mistake of over thinking what the character and plot needed. I am very bad at over thinking something and usually it takes someone to whump me up side the head to realize I am doing it at all. After I realized I did it the plot moved ahead to where I needed it. I also made the mistake of saying that this had to happen this way when in fact it was the largest mistake I could possibly make,
