The return of the weekly plot help thread!

[alison-sky.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know you've all been waiting in eager anticipation for this thread to start up, and now you don't have to wait any longer!

So, for the new kids in the community, here's the basic gist:

This post goes up once a week. In here, you can ask for help on your plots. Each week I start a new post. You can keep asking for help each week, but try to ask for something new each time.

Also, if you want to get help, you also have to give it. Which means that you take time when you can to go through the help "requests" and see if there if anything that jumps out at you that you want to toss a suggestion at.

One of the beauties this community has is the willingness to help each other along in our 50k goal. And here is the place to do it.

And of course, that said, here's the BOO part.

With the thread means that these types of posts are no longer allowed to be individual posts in the community. So if you see one go up, feel free to leave them a comment and point them to the current week's help thread and the rules. I'll catch up with them eventually, but that kind of help (which alot of people are already doing for intro posts) is really appreciated!

So that's it. Feel free to start getting plot brainstorming down before NaNo, and help one another out. :)

Comments

[swingsister-t.livejournal.com]

Long story, short - kid who can communicate with animals in a village in a world circa 1800's England. I need great and creative ways animals can cause havoc for humans without it being blatantly obvious that the animals are sentient. My creativity is running a little thin.

[jtptan.livejournal.com]

Well... you can probably stretch it a fair bit as far as 'blatantly obvious' goes. If a squirrel divebombs out of a tree at me and just happens to land in my previously perfectly coiffed hair I'm not going to automatically assume it's out to get me.

If several hundred birds cover the town square, making anybody walking through it have to wade through them to get anywhere, people are probably going to think "gee that's weird, did somebody leave buckets of worms all over or something?"

My point is that happens and what people perceive are different things. Everybody's got a filter they see the world through and our brains tend to perceive the world as we "know" it to be, because if we constantly questioned all of our assumptions all of the time we wouldn't be able to do anything ever.

Also: The kid can communicate with these animals - and these animals are sentient. Are all animals in this world sentient but we just don't understand them and they go about their own lives... or is it just the ones he talks to?

[reticent-lass.livejournal.com]

At night, they unwrap cheese and take dairy out of wealthier folks' iceboxes to have them develop rinds/spoil overnight. Also, they deliberately moisten bread with dew at night to make it go moldy, and put bits of rotten fruit next to meat in order to make them go maggoty in record time. Weird how everything keeps going rotten so fast, but not necessarily 'animal sabotage'.

Chickens escape their coops and hide their eggs in rather cleverer places than they should, so folks end up scratching their heads and wondering why they aren't laying. Cats and dogs promise to leave bunnies that wander into the garden alone. Owls start haunting people's houses for the express purpose of freaking them out.

[ripter.livejournal.com]

I think you could do some really cool stuff with this. If you have things that seem a little strange to the readers but the people in the story don't think much of it, then you can show later that the animals are sentient.

Like the comment about food rotting quickly, The people in the story have been dealing with it, so they wouldn't think much about it (just annoying) and the average reader would think that's a little odd. Then later in the story when it turns our to be part of the animal conspiracy, the reader is like "Oh wow!"

Other things that come to my mind would be things like, farmers can't grow veggies in specific locations (moles or something eat them. Maybe the growable land is shrinking?) Roads wear down really quickly. Never leave your wagon uncovered or it'll be covered in bird poop. People think a child has been sneaking into homes and stealing small shinny things. The well keeps drying up.

I guess if I had an idea of why the animals would want to annoy humans I could give more ideas.

[shimmertofade.livejournal.com]

The way my plot is outlined in my mind (very roughly) is basically three stages: 1)Girl is viewed as being successful at everything she does, apple of parents' eye, etc. 2) Found to have a mental disorder and looked down upon as if she had made a mistake, even though she should obviously not be faulted for it at all.

There obviously needs to be some kind of resolution for stage 3- but I'm terrified of cliche and desperately want to avoid a "See?! You were all wrong all along!" moment as my conclusion. Thoughts?

[andersenmom.livejournal.com]

Make it part of a study? Where she's investigating how people with mental disorders are looked on (down on?) or something?

Totally reaching, I know. Sorry.

[creativelywrite.livejournal.com]

This is a good idea. Perhaps the character could be a journalist of sorts and she begins to "investigate" support groups, doctors, and other individuals who suffer the same ailment. Through that process she gains better understanding of herself.

This may fall into the cliche area though.

If you wanted to go a darker route you could (after having done all this research) have her have a breakdown and retreat into her own mind where she takes all that she has learned and "cures" herself.

[foxtrot-sierra.livejournal.com]

You could shift the focus of the story from the girl to her parents. Then your 3 acts could be 1) Parents adore their perfect, only daughter, for whom they've sacrificed everything, while ignoring telltale signs of mental problems, 2) Parents discover only daughter has mental problem and feel that their life, their goals, and everything they've worked toward has gone up in flames, and 3) Parents come to terms with their daughter the way she is.

Or you could have ONE parent come to terms with daughter the way she is, while the other strikes out on his/her own to find something else meaningful OR the other strikes out on his/her own because s/he's become a nihilist.

[shimmertofade.livejournal.com]

I like this. In my brainstorm freewrites I've tentatively established that her father is, for (negatively connotated) reasons unknown, out of the picture...if he were to, say, reappear, only to find that the daughter he has heard so much about has sunk into this negatively percieved disease....

Does this sound too cliche, though?

[foxtrot-sierra.livejournal.com]

Sounds interesting. Fuckup dad could return hoping for hero daughter, only to find that daughter is a fuckup, too, and he could eventually realize that he likes her better this way.

[shimmertofade.livejournal.com]

Thank you. SO much.

That's nearly perfect.
She can stay screwed up but find someone to relate to- so she's not stuck in the "no one understands me! My life is a lie!" crisis, but still doesn't save everyone's soul either.

Awesome.

[ripter.livejournal.com]

I like the other suggestions given here.
My thought was maybe, after having a hard time coping with the real world. her metal disorder causes her to save her parents life. Or (depending on the disorder) she overcomes it and saves their lives. Thus she really is their saviour, and she learned to work with her problem.

[syntheticjesso.livejournal.com]

I need a sub-plot!

My basic premise is that Excalibur was never lost, but recast into an armillary and used to do... something?... that caused the dark ages. Then is was destroyed and the pieces were (for some reason) scattered across the US and now my MC is going to find them. Along the way she meets Serena, who helps her find them and takes her to a smith who can put the pieces back together. Serena is a turncoat, however, and steal the armillary to give it so a Bad Guy who wants to do the same Bad Thing that caused the Dark Ages, for Some Reason. I still have some details to work out.

However, I want a subplot to help fill out my wordcount, because I'm scared I won't make 50k because of my plotting. It's been a problem for me before. What kind of subplot can I work into this?

Also, if anyone has any hints for the unknown elements in my plot, I'm open to ideas!

[10cents.livejournal.com]

Is this going to be strictly realistic, or are you throwing in dashes of fantasy and other supernatural elements? I have some ideas that involve not-so-realistic aspects, but fewer that involve only the real world (hey, I'm a fantasy/sci-fi writer, what do you expect?).

That said...
Sub-plots are usually my way to explore something that I like the idea of, but doesn't have enough merit to stand on its own. Are there any random characters, minor scenarios, or themes that you've wanted to try playing around with (in ANY story, not just necessarily when thinking about this one), but haven't found a good way to use them? Themes I find particularly useful for this sort of thing, as it can generate multiple sub-plots per theme. Maybe, for example, you could run ribbons through your novel that address paranoia, or loyalty, or the idea of progress versus comfort, etc.

Random thought: maybe there's a person/group that, for whatever reasons, feels that the item SHOULDN'T be put back together, regardless of who's in charge of it, and therefor they want to try to stop this.

Second random thought: if the MC isn't 100% committed to personally doing this task, what ELSE does she want to be doing instead? Could you possibly write in a sub-plot that involves conflicting senses of duty versus personal goals? Could she possibly want to make a side-stop somewhere?

Dunno if this is going to be even remotely helpful, but there it is. I like your story idea, by the way!

[syntheticjesso.livejournal.com]

Dashes of fantasy. The armillary is magical, it was broken and sent away by magic, but most of the world doesn't have magic. Magic is rare, but it does exist!

[thewonderelf.livejournal.com]

How did they get the pieces to America? Ships weren't really suited for cross-Atlantic travel in the middle ages, and people certainly weren't equipped to traverse an entire continent they didn't even really know about. If you have the spreading of the pieces happen in the 1500s as opposed to medieval times it's more believable, but I still find it a bit of stretch.

I like the overall idea though!

[twistdfateangel.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, we have proven that the Vikings and possibly the Irish made it to Canada and might have headed south from there, so that's a possibility. Maybe a Norse raider stole it, hung on to it as a good luck charm and made it to Canada. Then when he died, someone stole it from his corpse and one thing led to another with it.

[syntheticjesso.livejournal.com]

Magic! Merlin or someone recognized it was the cause of Problems, and broke it apart and sent it "over the ocean" with magic. Or something like that. I've not got the details banged out, but that's the gist. It was sent to America because the magician knew that there was this huge expanse of lands unknown to the people of the time, so it would be well hidden until it was forgotten.

[technicolornina.livejournal.com]

First of all, I would recommend "the world," not "the US." Forgive me for saying so, but just being in the US seems both arrogant ("YAY AMERICANS WE HAVE ALL THE COOL STUFF!") and unrealistic, given the time period - as others have said about traveling. Further, if your MC has to travel to other countries to find the pieces, YAY HIGHER WORD COUNT (more exciting, too).

As for a subplot, perhaps something a la Da Vinci Code, where it turns out she, or Serena, or the Bad Guy, or all three, are descendants of Arthur? I would find an MC/Bad Guy moment of revelation quite amusing and possibly dramatic, as well. "WHAT THE HELL WE'RE RELATED? BUT I HAVE TO KILL YOU . . . WE CAN'T BE . . . WE ARE."

[syntheticjesso.livejournal.com]

Well, it was sent away via magic, and the magician who did it only knew there was a land on the other side of the world that then-Europeans didn't know about. Basically, it ends up in North America because it's far away. And my MC is walking/hiking the Rockies to find all the pieces, because she more or less happens across them at first. Maybe I could have one end up somewhere far away, though, because travel would eat up a lot of words. I like that idea, thanks!

Hmmm... related, eh? I will definitely have to think about that. Maybe my MC and the Bad Guy are related. Hmmmmm...

(Thanks for the ideas!)

[technicolornina.livejournal.com]

Eh . . . hmm. Okay, this is just speaking from personal preference, but there are a LOT of problems with your hypothetical magician. We'll start here:

1) Until Columbus in 1492, people thought the world was flat.

2) People thought Europe was the only land there was until Marco Polo (1200's), and then they knew only about Asia. In fact, one reason Marco Polo traveled over land when water would have been faster was [see #1].

3) Where, exactly, did your magician come by this knowledge? Seeing an empty land in a seeing stone doesn't mean he knows its location, and even being a magician would not tell him that the earth is round.

4) Even granted that he *did* somehow know the world was round, and also that America existed, is he really such a moron that he automatically assumes there are no people in this land who would be able to put Excalibur back together and wield it? Pretty stupid magician, to not think of something like that.


If you want to suspend disbelief, I'd go with something like he knows the world is round, but doesn't know about America, and so he drops it on the other side of the world believing it will go into the sea and be swallowed by a sea serpent or something. The premise as it stands is kind of thin, and suspension-of-disbelief in the real world is a much trickier thing than suspension-of-disbelief in, say, Middle Earth.

I'd think through your basic premise and tweak it before you worry about anything else. I mean, the idea is pretty cool, I just think you need to rethink how you're doing it.

quibbles

[misslucyjane]

1) Educated people believed the world was round long before 1492. As far back as the ancient Greeks scholars tried to estimate the circumference of the Earth.

2) Even the lowliest serf knew about Jerusalem and Israel, even if they didn't know where it was in relation to their village.

4) If the OP is using Merlin as the magician, tradition has it he lived backwards and thus knew the future, because he'd been there.

OP, this entry at Wikipedia should give you a good overview of how the ancients viewed the world and you can extrapolate what you need from that.

Re: quibbles

[technicolornina.livejournal.com]

1) . . . my ancient history teacher sucked, then. Still, though - knowing the world was round doesn't mean you'd know its exact geography.

2) Point. Still and again - doesn't mean they know about this mysterious land around the world.

4) . . . I . . . have never heard this, but I guess that doesn't mean anything, does it? (The way I've always had it is that Merlin could see the future, but that didn't mean he knew everything.)

Re: quibbles

[misslucyjane]

Heh--people don't even know the Earth's exact geography now.

Re: quibbles

[technicolornina.livejournal.com]

Well, you know. They didn't know nearly as much as we do now. I mean, which island was it that wasn't discovered until, like, 1890-something?

Incidentally, your icon = awesome.

Re: quibbles

[misslucyjane]

With any kind of knowledge, though, it's a matter of interest and opportunity. People don't know geography now unless they care to know it, and medieval serfs didn't even know how to sign their names, let alone how many leagues it was to Rome.

That I do not know, but I'm not surprised there were still discoveries to be made at that point. I don't think everywhere has been explored fully yet.

Thanks :). It's by senditover and there's one for every state and a few countries as well.

[tauriosiris.livejournal.com]

hmm maybe they were scattered on the continent now known as North America, but one was then moved from there afterwards (maybe a crucial part) and was in say Australia. Could be a subplot in how/why it was moved, and getting it. Then it wont all be contained within the US and you can get some variety, while padding your wordcount with a little more backstory & extra travelling & escapades involving kangaroos. Maybe it went with the across later with Botany Bay or something :) Or maybe it was moved for fear of it being found when the Mayflower came over.

[foxtrot-sierra.livejournal.com]

Who cares how the sword got across the ocean. It's magic. I would say limit yourself to the US if you've never been out of the US. Hell, limit yourself to your city if you haven't spent a lot of time out of it. Otherwise you'll be stumbling over how public transportation works if you're from a city with big interstates, or you'll be stumbling over how big interstates work if you're from a city of public transportation. The only reason to visit faraway and exotic real world locations is to give the reader a "feel" for them. If you haven't been there, you won't be able to give them a "feel" at all. But you WILL give the reader a feel for places YOU actually know and have been to.

Compress the story down to a single sleepless day to keep it exciting. I'm picturing a daylong life-or-death treasurehunt all through my metropolitan area and I think it would be pretty exciting.

The plot is the hero's journey: his goal and his internal flaw, coupled with the negative force, that keeps him from getting his goal. The turncoat girl can be the subplot. Give her a sympathetic reason for being a turncoat and sprinkle it throughout the story in dialogue, flashbacks, & monologues, so that when she reveals that she's a turncoat it's a surprise, but not out of leftfield. It's almost like she's pre-emptively apologizing for betraying the hero.

A hackneyed example makes my point. She and the hero visit someplace and she says "my grandpa and I visited here once." Later, while they're bored on a bus or something, she says "You remember my grandpa? Well, he's really sick right now." Later, she says "Do you remember my sick grandpa? Well, the worst of it is we got into this really bad argument before he got sick, and he might not know that I love him." Then when she betrays the hero, she says "I'm sorry, but I'm not letting my grandfather die thinking that I hate him!" Then when the hero convinces her to come back to his side, she lets go of whatever it was the would save her grandpa. Later, she catches up with her grandpa and apologizes, and he says he always knew she loved him, and he dies happy, and her arc ends.

Oh, and the Dark Ages were just an invention of the Renaissance to make themselves look better. That's why there was slavery in Ancient Rome and in Enlightenment Europe but not in-between.

[twistdfateangel.livejournal.com]

My plot seems fine but it feels rushed, especially towards the end. Basically, the MC is a seamstress working a dead end job, when agents of a foreign court recruit her to work as the Empress' personal tailor (long story that will have to wait for another novel). At the end of her journey, she gets to Court with only a week to work on the dress. This whole time someone's been trying to slow her down and thwart her attempts at gathering the materials, up to and including murdering the people commissioned to make and provide the materials.

My big worry is that a week isn't enough time for her to plausibly figure out who is plotting against her at court. I was hoping that she can see through them while they stall her further at court. Is it plausible or do I have to fudge time even more?

[lilacfield.livejournal.com]

Maybe she can look for help in trying to figure out who the culprit it? Someone she completely trusts would be great. Of course, it's up to whether or not this person is actually a double agent who seems willing to help out the seamstress when they actually have an agenda of their own. Hope this helps.

[twistdfateangel.livejournal.com]

Good point, I had been trying to find a place for that sort of angle! Thanks!

[tauriosiris.livejournal.com]

This may be long, apologies.

So here's my plot: FMC is generally happy with her life as a singleton, since the break up of her last relationship. It wasn't serious anyway for either of them, so when The Ex moved away (without telling her he was going) she wasn't exactly beat up about it. She's busy preparing for her Sister's upcoming wedding when she starts getting love letters through the post, addressed to her but according to the post office & public records, the sender has been dead for over 40 years.

She starts dreaming about living in 1942 as a Land Girl and about meeting and falling in love with this mystery man, a farmer & Home Guard soldier. Events she dreams about start appearing in the letters. She starts to research him & his life, trying to figure out how this could be happening. She meets The New Guy (a historian, handsome of course, privately educated, not as rough and ready as The Ex), while researching, and starts flirting, goes on two dates etc, all very early days, but there could be something there. At this point, her boss who's been away on a business trip comes back and introduces her new boyfriend to our FMC - you guessed it, The Ex.

I want there to be some conflict as to who she wants more, The New Guy or The Ex. Seeing him again makes them both realise it could have been more. She also realises how angry she is that he left. He confesses that he was in love with her but terrified (of Something) so ran away. But now he won't make a move while he's with The Boss (he never expected to see her again), he's not that sort of guy.

In the end (... somehow, haven't decided yet) she's going to trace the guys family and find out exactly how Mr 1942 died (illness, not war related) and they find his diary, with mentions of her. And shock, a photo of them together. She gets one last letter, this time with vague mentions of her future life. I want this letter to help her chose which guy she wants, and I haven't decided between her choosing The New Guy, The Ex... or neither of them. I'm thinking she'll go for The Ex (Mr 1942 helping her realise that True Love is worth it or something). Trying not to be all cliched though, so they'll be no falling into bed with him.

Here's where you come in ("Finally!" I hear you cry). I can't figure out a) what job I'm going to give FMC and The Ex and b) why The Ex left. I want to steer clear of the cliched (fashion, journalism etc, that's so Chick Lit). They'll be a subplot about The Sister's wedding being canceled for some reason (The Groom runs off or something, which gives her even more reason to doubt True Love) so maybe she can be the wedding planner idl. I also need a reason for why The Ex left. Why was he scared? Maybe he's been divorce previously... got in too deep this time and ran away from it. Did he get another job elsewhere? I don't want to make him out to be a bad guy, we don't want to hate him when he leaves her.

Basically I need a brainstorming sesh!

[foxtrot-sierra.livejournal.com]

At the risk of annoying everyone else in this thread, YOUR plot sounds the most promising. Why? Because it's a BUNCH OF NEW STUFF happening, each thing leading to the next. Most everyone else so far has implied that the bulk of their novel will be a single activity repeated over and over again. It doesn't matter if someone finds 3 pieces of Excalibur or 3000; it doesn't matter if the seamstress is attacked once on her crosscountry journey or a thousand times; no new dramatic information is being introduced in either case.

Why did The Ex run away? Stick with what you know. He left because he's always wanted to be a professional writer / artist / filmmaker but he's never had the guts to try. Then along comes The Opportunity -- he goes to LA to peddle his screenplay, he goes to New York to be near the agents and the scene -- and he has to seize it. But a year later he's broke, disillusioned, and come back to the middleclass life. He tried his hardest but his stuff wasn't good enough.

By that same token the woman's job could be the blandest, most mundane, cubicle-drone thing you can think of. In fact, you could just have her work in "an office," without it ever being clear what they produce. She could waste time on the internet, roam around with a folder under her arm pretending to do work, call IT to fix stuff, check her email 25 times a day, debate where to go for lunch, avoid the creepy guy, have superiors always nagging her for "that report that's due," etc. A bland existence in need of excitement could throw those spots of color -- wedding, Mr. 1942, The Ex's literary ambitions, the dashing New Guy -- into sharper relief.

[tauriosiris.livejournal.com]

Thankyou for the compliment, but I'm not sure I'd agree. I think I just posted my plot with more annoying detail than everyone else lol Writing (ironically) isn't what I know (I'm just a dabbler) so not sure whether I'll use that, but I do know about mundane office work! You pretty much described my day (except we actually are the IT department lol). It sounds right though, giving her something pretty boring that she wants to escape from. I think she should be happy in her work though, so content to stay in that job. Perhaps it's not glamorous but if there's pretty reasonable pay and she's not really looking for much more. I don't want her to seem like she's waiting for The Ex to make her life complete or "better" in some way, you know?

[technicolornina.livejournal.com]

Okay, this is kind of a minor plot point, but it's an important one.

Basically, I have these two characters who, according to their religion (Egyptian polytheism), require bodies to enter the afterlife, and they have three months to obtain said bodies (since they're already dead and are back on earth because they managed to bribe the gods, yatta yatta yatta). The story has a lot of twists and turns and interlocking plots, so that's not the only thing going on, but basically, eventually Kaiba (another character) is going to suggest that they just commit suicide. This works because 1) it provides dead bodies and 2) suicide was not against the Egyptian religion.

My problem is, even though Kaiba's grown and matured since we last saw him (yes, it's a fanfiction for Yu-Gi-Oh), he's still got this kind of sadistic streak. Granted, he's worried enough because his wife is both pregnant and suffering from a weird form of amnesia (also, she has a history of miscarriages), and then there are other things going on that would probably distract him a fair deal (learning the truth about his identity among those), but not so much that in two months (the amount of time I'd like to cover) it never occurs to him to make a crack about Atem and Mahaado killing themselves.

So, what wrenches can I throw into his highly-logical clockwork to keep him from thinking of it? For those not in fandom, he's kind of a baby genius, so saying "brain lapse" just does not cut it where Kaiba's concerned. We already have his wife, another friend who's dying, Kaiba being confronted with being the reincarnation of an Egyptian priest/pharaoh, and the general trivialities of his day (like being a CEO). How else can I rattle his cage without him ending up in a lunatic asylum?

[reticent-lass.livejournal.com]

Clarify the body situation, please? I'm a little confused. Are they disemodied, or possessing other people, or what? Because they are very different scenarios but I think they can be worked with. (I have seen Yu-Gi-Oh, but I don't know who these other people involved are.)

[technicolornina.livejournal.com]

They've literally been granted new bodies by the gods, because neither of them have existing bodies of their own.

[reticent-lass.livejournal.com]

Okay. Does Kaiba have any particular reason he'd like to mess with them? Say, conveniently telling them the (to him) obvious way out, simply because he likes to watch them squirm? Maybe he's got a grudge against one of them for, I don't know, mocking his Very Serious Coattails or something. Or they made his wife cry. Or they socked Mokuba upside the head for getting kidnapped again.

Alternately, there's the whole running-the-company schtick we so rarely see him do. The board's trying to vote him out of the presidency for spending all his time on children's card games and bailing out Mokuba, or maybe he donates too much of the profits to Puppy Torture Research or some other favorite scientific endeavor. (Charity's pushing it, unless he's secretly funding an orphanage on the side.)

So all of his free time NOT devoted to caring for his ailing wife is spent proving the board that yes, dammit, Kaiba is not a liability to KaibaCorp, and so he's constantly traveling around proving his worth to investors. Some time ago my dad pulled this for nearly two solid years, and lemme tell you, people get SHOCKINGLY scatterbrained about anything non-essential to their immediate happiness when they're swapping time zones every other week. Thus, he thinks about it briefly, decides he's a grownup and so are they and they can figure it out on their own damn time, and continues running around doing corporate things. While he does think of that solution, he's running in and out of town so much that he sort of loses track of time and eventually comes to the subconscious conclusion that he must have told them already, right? Really smart people also tend to assume everyone can think on their level anyway, so he's all 'they CAN'T have not seen this solution, it's just SO FLIPPING OBVIOUS.'

[technicolornina.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Not really. It's nine years post-series. Although Atem has made his wife cry, several times in fact, because he's married to Anzu. (Yes, there's a fair amount of backstory there, why do you ask? >.<) And not only is Mokuba 23 in this story, he's living in America as a KaibaCorp liasion. I'll probably bring him in for something, but getting kidnapped isn't it ^_~

The company's already going to be a huge issue, because he has to balance the company with Anzu's apparent madness (she believes she's 17 and in love with Atem instead of 26 and pregnant with Kaiba's child). But the whole this-is-so-obvious thing . . . that might work. And then at some point when they're all "we've tried everything! It can't be done!" he can be all " . . . you're some pretty lousy suicides, then." Or something.

That totally works, thanks ^_^

Sci-Fi story... in need of help

[ms-king.livejournal.com]

Okay, so… probably the most messed up plot help ever. As in the “I need a plot” type of plot help. (I have subplot and all that good stuff...)

I’m writing sci-fi and I have my character (which, for me, is the thing I need more than plot to get started). Some notes:

- MC: UUC warship Captain Jesh Fort Strait
- UUC: Like the EU, optional “vote in” government where you get protection, bonuses, trade, etc… but for planets
- Job: Jesh patrols Burnside territory, there’s a rebel planet there that makes a little bit of trouble, not enough to make UUC pay attention
- Little rebel planet has ships and attack Jesh et. al. while in hyperspace, they get knocked off course into supernova/black hole
- ♥ about Jesh: After the “black hole experience,” Jesh can speak to God. (Well, he thinks it’s God at least… his DNA has been fundamentally altered and he’s actually, to a small extent, precognitive. But his abilities don’t expand much farther than his direct self.)

I know this has to do with time. Originally I had Jesh appearing in the future by 103 years, in which UUC is almost in full blown war with ‘little rebel Burnside’ planet that has recruited other planets to “fight the man” and gain “freedom” (war propaganda). I like this idea, but I have no clue what the actual plot would be. I know Jesh would have to return to the UUC eventually. I was thinking:

(a1) Pilots now use a “neural net” to link with their ships. They can’t control them completely, but they that alert them to go to deck. I was thinking rebels could make a virus to disable the network and take down main UUC planet (?) in the process. Jesh doesn't have it, and would save the day. -- But, this is far too epic/super hero-ish and overdone.

(a2) Jesh was transporting good(s) or knowledge when they were all "boom" and "black hole'd" and somehow it's still important this far in the future and he has to get it to UUC - but what I have no clue.

So, I was thinking (b) Jesh goes back in time and tries to stop all of this stuff before it starts to become a problem.

And then I was thinking (c) In which both of the above take place. The black hole messes with him really fucked up badly and he’s switching between past and future, but never manages to get back to the present to directly save his crew and his ship.

Umm….

Any advice?
P.S. – Sorry for the uber long comment….

Re: Sci-Fi story... in need of help

[fiveredsnakes.livejournal.com]

So, even though the entire ship was knocked into the blackhole, he's the only one who escapes? How about having at least one other crew member survive? Then you can explore how they related to each other during the process.

Now, I don't know how much you know about black holes, but I suggest you do some research, because your time travel idea links directly into some of the relativistic effects of black holes - where time appears to run differently for different observers. So Jesh and his crew might experience an hour of fighting the gravitational forces in the black hole, but, to an outside observer, 100+ years might have passed.

I like the idea that he was transporting something small and insignificant that will make all the difference in the war effort - but are you really sure that these 'rebels' are the ones in the wrong here? I mean, don't get me wrong, but a cliche us-versus-them, rebels-are-bad fic is, IMO, far more cliched and tired than a superhero epic could ever be. I think the war needs to be really morally ambiguous, then Jesh can question which side he wants to help.

Just my opinion - I hope it helps!

Re: Sci-Fi story... in need of help

[ms-king.livejournal.com]

First, thanks for the reply. :D

So, even though the entire ship was knocked into the blackhole, he's the only one who escapes? ... -- Actually, everybody who went through (half the ship... probably anywhere from 400 - 800-ish people, appear later in the future (or, I'm playing with past as well), but most of these people appear in open space. You're not guaranteed to land anywhere safe after all. So a majority of these people die instantly, float around, are never found (and maybe a few of them are, maybe it's assumed they're "left over" from the accident. So there will be old crew members around. Very few of them, probably who appeared before Jesh (maybe I'll through in one that appears after he does), and they're the lucky ones who randomly appeared on ships passing. Jesh appeared in an old rescue pod/life capsule whose resident is already dead - and not-so-freakishly gets picked up by a passing ship.

Now, I don't know how much you know about black holes, ... - You're right, I don't know much and I'm going to be doing a lot of reading for this month. But to me, getting my character and plot, is more important than getting ever detail of my black hole correct. I know it's an important aspect of the book, but then again, it's NaNo, and I can go back and fix things - but I was my word count in November (which isn't going to include massive pages of scientific explanation of what happened in the black hole...) :D

I like the idea that he was transporting something small and insignificant that will make all the difference in the war effort - but are you really sure that these 'rebels' are the ones in the wrong here? - The only reason I was saying these people are bad, for the moment, is because I'm thinking they actually are. They're more of "we're pissed of anarchists who want to see the whole of humanity go up in flames and burn in hell where they're suppose to be," than they are "this government is wrong, and we need to do something to fix it." I've also been playing with the idea of having the Burnside problem planet population be what's left over of a former UUC protected planet in which something happened, UUC didn't help, survivors had to relocate, and now they're pissed - which would add you're moral ambiguity. Not sure exactly, but I do think I want UUC to be the good guys, so I'm leaning less toward moral ambiguity (this is because I seem to write "BAD GOVERNMENT" and "moral ambiguous" stories all the time, so this would actually be something really different for me).

Wow, sorry that was so long. ...What do you think?

[jfran2258.livejournal.com]

Icon Love. I like the muppets also.

[andersenmom.livejournal.com]

now THAT is an amazing icon. Right there.