Recently rewatched The Maze Runner (very good movies), and read about a movie called Sweetheart (about a stranded girl fighting off a sea monster). So I decided to come up with a book idea, and bounce it off you guys. The main character wakes up on the shore of a strange, tropical beach, staring into a pitch-black sky with a single huge red sun. He wanders around briefly, before being discovered by a few other people and taken to their village. Everyone there’s a guy, ranging between about 16-19 years old, and with an elaborate tattoo-like marking somewhere on their body. They live in a sort of metal ‘fortress’ that apparently grew from the ground, and the group survives by fishing and farming. But, every month or so an aquatic, predatory animal arrives. If not fed, it kills and brutally eats a person before returning to the water. The main character turns out to be able to somehow reason with it, and as a result people begin to fight over him and his power. Thoughts?
Sounds like a good story idea. You've got a protagonist, certainly a challenging environment, and a problem that needs solving. Go for it. Success will come when you begin to add details to this story. Who is the protagonist? What is his personality like? How does he fit in with these others? Is he aware of how he 'got here' or is there a mystery to solve, maybe as a subplot? What does he want? Does he want to go home? Does he know where home is? Does he remember his past at all? Play around with these kinds of ideas, and get the story 'straight' in your own head. Figure out what this situation is actually all about. I've been reading a lot of Jack Vance lately, whose stories often deal with similar kinds of situations. However, his humanoid characters mostly travel from different planets—in star clusters that we don't know about at all, just now—and often his characters end up in these kinds of unpleasant situations because of the failure of a flying craft of some kind, that force-lands in some dangerous place, filled with creatures and societies the character is not familiar with. And he has to feel his way. Hint: If you find yourself in a Jack Vance environment, do NOT, under any circumstances, EVER enter any body of water. Brackish, swampy, rivers, lakes, oceans. Just don't. You will be devoured. By something. Immediately. If you have to venture forth ON a body of water, make damn sure you've got a very good boat.
And in some situations you may find yourself agreeing with Chief Brody of Jaws: "We're gonna need a bigger boat..."
This sounds like an interesting idea, but as noted above, there are definitely some details to flush out. I usually write a 5-6k word plot summary before I plan my chapters, but I know that doesn't work for everyone. It helps me answer all the questions about what is going on, what is going to happen, what the characters' motivations are, how they got into the problem to begin with, etc. Something to think about.
Another way to begin is to write up a premise, sort of the theme of the story condensed into a single pithy sentence to keep yourself on track. Example, from a story I was working on recently: Others, if approached respectfully, can become allies, but if approached with fear or aggression can destroy you. As you move forward you keep this theme in mind and let it shape the elements of the story. You also can keep adjusting or totally changing the premise as the story starts to coalesce around it.
Interesting idea. The only thing I'd possibly tweak is the idea that the mc can reason with it - - for me whenever the mc can do something nobody else can do (he or she is the one) it narrows the plot possibilities and temptations. I'd maybe consider that he found a way to do something that could either manipulate or soften the beast and it's information that he could trade, give up, or have taken/stolen from him - as that would lead to a lot of story possibilities about trust and betrayal. Maybe have people at first mistakenly believe he's the one with the power and then slowly understand it's something anyone can do.
