I'm struggling with the plot of my book. Here it is: Everything was fine with AC growing up until his mother died. Then, his father became an alcoholic, and eventually ended up abusing the poor boy. AC (Alex is is real name, but nobody ever, ever calls him Alex because his father calls him that), is pulled out of the home by a concerned social worker. Alex is placed in different foster homes until one "Forever Home" is takes him. The mother & father are trying to adopt him. Worried that this might be a trap, and worried about the impending doom of their eldest, Andrew, Alex runs away into the nearby woods, where he gets injured and spends the next several days lost in the woods. Here's what I'm struggling with. - Is it realistic for a fifteen-year-old to survive in the woods? - Would a fifteen-year-old really connect with a twelve-year-old younger sister - enough to tell her details that nobody else would know? If A.C.'s father got out of prison the first night, and there was blood in AC's room, would the police assume kidnapping or would they assume AC ran away? Thank you all sooooo much!
Don't ask those questions. Make us believers, through the writing. Is it credible that a teenaged wizard in training, somewhat mediocre as a student, would defeat a much older wizard whom the most powerful wizards of the time were helpless against? There are Boy Scouts younger than fifteen who have survived in the wilderness, even under extreme conditions. Brothers and sister can be like fire and gasoline, until someone from the outside tries to come between them. Then watch out! Good police collect facts and keep an open mind. They explore all the possible scenarios. But not all police are good. It's your story. Make it work.
So, should I have the police question all the senarios, or should I simply have them assume he was kidnapped? (and thank you for your feedback --)
I think that police as much as possible try not to assume anything, but look at facts and explore all possibilities, even the unlikely ones. Well, ideal cops with enough time on their hands, anyway. If you don't want them to explore alternatives, you could limit the police's resources, give them too many other cases to work on, or internal conflicts on the station, or...whatever you can come up with.
Police are characters, too. Don't treat them as a homogeneous cadre of robots, acting with a hivemind. The lead investigator will determine the course of the investigation, for the most part, although a member of the investigative team with a sharp mind may also affect how it proceeds
True, I never thought about it that way before. And in responce to the post below me I completly agree. Thank you, you have given me feedback to my story. I can now begin.
I completely agree with all of those points! When you have no one you could trust except your younger sister, you are going to confide in her. It's not like she's 3 or something. It's not weird AT ALL.
