1. The_Joker

    The_Joker Banned

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    How can I get my protagonist and deuteragonist in the same room, so to speak?

    Discussion in 'Plot Development' started by The_Joker, Nov 16, 2019.

    So this is something of a sequel to this thread. While expanding my outline I came to the conclusion that my inciting incident was too weak to carry the rest of the outline (which I'll say I'm mostly quite pleased with).

    I'll start from the top. Tens of thousands of before my setting's present, extra-dimensional beings latter dubbed the Primordials conducted genetic experiments on humanity. Roughly 1% of the population were injected in the bloodstream with symbiotes from their home dimension. These symbiotes grant these mutants with energy unavailable in our home dimension, leading to a variety of elemental superpowers. The Primordials left suddenly and apparently for no reason, but not before leaving behind some handiwork in Antarctica. Many millennia pass, with the Primordials fading into myths and obscure conspiracy theories.

    The Primordial's Antarctic leftovers are finally discovered by the CIA in the late 1990s. They bring a prodigal physician, Rebecca Napier, to examine the remains of a Primordial corpse. Rebecca, a photokinetic mutant, grew up impoverished and resentful of mainstream baseline society. With the CIA's backing, she founds Project STYX, dedicated to finding various uses for the newly-discovered symbiotes.

    STYX's main base of operations is Rebecca's home city of Blackburn, where they prey off the vast vagrant population for human experimentation. Around the turn of the millennium, Rebecca decides to clone herself to observe the development of a mutant in real time, and to ensure she has an heir. The attempt actually produces twins, Jessica and Martha. Both are subject to experimentation during their childhoods, but Martha quickly becomes the favorite due to having a more identical phenotype.

    Blackburn is also home to the Minutemen, a group of volunteer crimefighters (read: superheroes) led by Kurt Scholz, aka Shortcircuit. Kurt puts the pieces together with the help of his ally Detective Jefferson Bishop and tracks missing homeless to STYX's main base of operations. Horrified by what he sees, Kurt proceeds to start destroying the base, but not before he and Rebecca fight, which ends in a mutual-kill. The CIA cuts off STYX's funding after this disaster.

    Jessica and Martha, who were 16 at the time and not present, go their separate ways. Jessica takes the opportunity to flee while Martha is taken under the wings of senior STYX members. Jessica spends a few years as a street urchin before cleaning up her act and pursuing the path of a bounty hunter. Shortly before the start of the story, Martha creates a symbiote-derived recreation drug to get funding for a reborn Project STYX and starts sending it to distributors. Kurt's son, Friedrich, took up the Shortcircuit mantle a few years prior and began digging into his father's death with Jeff's help.

    If you've read through that, I'd greatly appreciate your thoughts. I need a reason for Jessica and Fritz to cross paths and work together to take Martha down. If it were up to Jessica, she'd cover her eyes and pretend STYX didn't exist. The call needs to drag her kicking and screaming to adventure. I have toyed with two ideas but they're pretty contrived and weak.

    1. Jessica gets a bounty for one of STYX's distributors and brings him in. In the process, she Learns Too Muchâ„¢ and a STYX assassin makes an attempt on her life. Realizing she's now deep in it and won't be off the hook unlike Martha is taken out, she travels to Blackburn to investigate, where she inevitably crosses paths with Fritz. Problem is, it's almost putting her neck more at risk than just fleeing to Canada or some such.

    2. Martha takes a softer approach in this version and decides to kill two birds with one stone. To ensure Jessica remains quiet, she decides to make her an accomplice and pay her to either kill or unmask Shortcircuit II. Jessica tracks him down but her conscience forces her to help him instead. Problem with this one is, it kinda wastes time when he wouldn't need much convincing to go after Martha, yet wouldn't trust Jessica on principle.

    Any comments would be great!
     
  2. The_Joker

    The_Joker Banned

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    As an addendum to the first possibility, perhaps they end up targeting the same guy early on, and their scrum causes him to get away. Jessica could then piece together his identity and essentially blackmail him into cleaning the mess up. Not sure how to avoid a massive coincidence though...
     
  3. IHaveNoName

    IHaveNoName Senior Member Community Volunteer

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    Possibility 3. Someone who has knowledge of STYX but can't deal with the problem him/herself for whatever reason (insider, too weak, not enough resources) lays down a trail of breadcrumbs to lead Jessica to uncover the truth. The key here is to make Jessica (and possibly the reader) think she's doing all this on her own, but she's really being led around by the nose (at least at first; it would strain credulity to have her manipulated the entire time). Get her juuust far enough to gain momentum - maybe around the halfway point - and then she starts putting the pieces together herself.
     
  4. The_Joker

    The_Joker Banned

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    Jeff is probably the best answer for that. He's considered a crackpot for palling around with a vigilante anyways, so dirty cops on STYX's payroll would easily shut down any attempt to investigate STYX legitimately. Jeff would also have an interest in getting his them to work together. But he's not about to give Fritz's identity away. Maybe he overplays his hand and Jessica figures it out?
     

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