For those of you who know what story I've been working on, this is probably going to sound quite redundant, but I'm going to briefly explain the storyline in the story I'm writing before I go on for everyone else. It's a fantasy/science fiction setting where half of the continent is living the fast, luxurious life in countries where technology is at its best and poverty is rare. One of these countries, which I have named Cordel, elected a new leader years ago, and over the years he has subtly become a dictator by scaring them, saying that all of the other countries hate Cordel and are planning to invade it and destroy it. He promised to protect them and preserve their carefree lifestyles as long as they let him have control, and because they're panicked, they agree and then just bury their heads in the sand about everything going on outside of Cordel. Other countries, however, had no problem with Cordel, until this new leader started invading them. He has taken over several surrounding cities in other countries and now he is moving closer to a poorer country, which is called Shasta. This is where the story starts. The story isn't really about Cordel or its dictator, but instead it's about a girl who was born in Cordel and then she was adopted by a family who lived in Shasta. She was used as a test subject for certain drugs and procedures, but since she was so uncooperative and stubborn, the testing facility decided to forcibly repress her memories of the facility and give her up for "adoption." She was given to a family who lived on a farm because the scientists thought that if she was raised in the city, her surroundings might trigger her memories and everyone would find out what was going on in the facility. The people of Cordel would want the place to be shut down, and they would find out that it was a government-funded place, and that would make them see their dictator in quite a different light. The main story is about the girl's struggles to defend her country (once she's older) and finding out about her past, while Cordel's army struggles with invading her country while trying to keep away from her so as not to trigger those memories. So anyway, to get to my problem, I had an idea for a saga (though I'm not even done with this first story yet) but I'm wondering if I should just include it in this story. The second story was going to be about Cordel and how everyone seemed to be turning away from the dictator's injustice, and it would be told from the viewpoint of a woman who refuses to ignore what's going on. Ironically, the dictator forced her to live with him in hopes that she will be under guard 24/7 and won't get the chance to try to reason with the people, or that she'll give up altogether. She ends up helping the main character of the first story indirectly. I sort of think combining the two stories is a better route to go just because I won't have to worry about info-dumping as much and the stories can mesh quite well. At the same time, I'm concerned about having too much going on in the plot. I've got politics, two love stories, a deepening friendship, internal struggles with at least three of the main characters, and then all the action. lol Is this too much, or do you guys think I could pull it off? If something was too vague or you have any questions to clarify something, feel free to ask. (It's all clear in my head but maybe I might have missed something!) P.S. Sorry guys, I know this is long and tedious!
Give it a try. It the easier way to see if you can pull it off or not. I think you will reach a decision fast once you try it out. Perhaps already in the planning stages. Otherwise you could just cut out the text and save the written material for later.
I'm rewriting the plot and characters right now, so hopefully I can set the two notebooks together and decide that way... I'll have to add things here and there and cut things out, but that actually works out nicely because I was kind of rambling in the first one! lol
It also might be easier to re-separate the plots if they don't mesh than to try to force them together after they're more developed.
I guess my question would be: is there some connection between the girl and the woman? Or are they completely separate stories? Experiment and see where it takes you.
The only connection between the girl and woman is that they both want the same thing and they need each other to accomplish their goal. (It's not going to end up being her long-lost mother or anything like that.)
