Weekly Plot Help - Week of October 27th

[alison-sky.livejournal.com]

Wow, by Saturday NaNo will have begun and we will be heading into the craziness. Are you ready?

... come on, that was weak. ARE YOU READY?!

*grins* Ok, that was better.

Anyway, here's your plot help post for the week. Simple as always.


Add a comment with the help you need. Don't be shy. We're all writers here, and you never know, someone might give you a new plot bunny to add to your NaNo.

Reply to others and help them. You might be the one holding that bunny.


And just be awesome :)

Comments

[hireadd.livejournal.com]

1. Hmm, that could work! Thanks. :D

2. I'm trying to play a bit off of what the instruments already do/sound like, so the shamisen at its most powerful can cause tremors/earthquakes and the bass can eventually flatten people/pin them down and screw with their hearts, even stop them (basically based on how, if it's super loud- like in a live concert- the bass sort of replaces your heartbeat).

3. One of the two largest cities in the world. In this world, almost all of the technology and life is strictly controlled by the evil overlord, and gathered into large cities- so this one, Udile, is epicly massive and surrounded by a pretty much empty landscape for miles around. It's a big melting pot of cultures (somewhat loosely based on our world's cultures) in there, so anything goes.
Also, if it helps- one of the MCs is an ex-glorified slave escaped from the place he was being forced to work in and trying to gather comrades, and the other MC is a young woman from an oppressed country, daughter of a diplomat, who's managing to get an education at one of the city's universities only thanks to her heritage. She ultimately winds up joining with the first MC.

[teithiwr.livejournal.com]

How about some weird old artefact that no one's figured out the meaning of? The artefact could be a relic or whatever from the other world.

[elialys.livejournal.com]

That's a very sweet idea, thank you :) Even if it feels a little weird, because my host mom's mother was the one who passed away, and I didn't really know her :-/ But the grief all around still affects me (I don't know if I'm clear XD).

[teithiwr.livejournal.com]

Oh, and you could always have bits told from the grandmother's POV - like, your MC looks at an object or letter, and then there's a flashback-like section. Just a thought.

[kitsu.livejournal.com]

2. Maybe the violin could make things brittle and the vocals could make things explode?

3. So it's modern(ish) and urban? If the first MC doesn't have to lay low then maybe a place where students gather a lot like a library, bookstore or cafe?

[hireadd.livejournal.com]

2. Oooh, that sounds good! I want the musicians to fit into a group and work together, and that sounds like it'd work with what the others can do.

3. Yup. And I like that idea... I'm from close to Seattle, so I'm envisioning that as something like the Ave. by the UW, which would work really well.

Thanks again!

[loki-scribe.livejournal.com]

I'm . . . trying to figure out how I managed to miscommunicate that badly.

The monastic knight and the priest are the same person, my MMC. My FMC's profession is irrelevant to this part of the story, and only the MMC is staying to protect the temple. (The best explanation I can come up with for our world about the temples is that it is like a Knight Templar protecting a Greek Orthodox church--- it is a decidedly different take on what is essentially the same faith, and the Templar's original purpose was to protect pilgrims in Palestine, as is my MMC's order.)

Without going into ridiculous plot detail, the party is on what is essentially a investigative mission to the seat of one of the conflicting sects. The FMC agrees to continue without him on the condition that he will catch up after the temple is out of the line of fire. While I have several ways of building up a state of mind for her to let it go, what I lack is a trigger for her to realize why he feels he needs to stay and protect a group people sorely unprepared for a battle.

[kitsu.livejournal.com]

No problem! Good luck with your story!

[kitsu.livejournal.com]

I get it now. Hmm, that is an interesting problem. Your best bet would be for her to empathize with him somehow since something like that is hard to explain to someone. Maybe something similar but on a smaller scale happens or had happened to her and that makes her understand.
Good luck! Sorry I couldn't be of any more use.

[liadan-celt.livejournal.com]

Scurvy?
Big rocks? (As in the Symplegades (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symplegades) -- if there are sea monsters and enchanted maps, clashing rocks could be an issue.)

[captain-emily.livejournal.com]

The artifact idea would certainly work.

However, have you consider having the god himself bring her over? A handsome stranger shows up, turns on the charm, and offers to whisk her away. She agrees, thinking he means Paris or Bali...

Or maybe it's as simple as him saying "let's go get something to eat," and the next thing you know--she's at a medieval (or whatever your setting is) banquet.

Of course, this depends on several things. First of all, how much characterization did you intend for your gods to have? Were they just mythical figures, or are they getting starring or supporting roles?

Second, why does he want to bring her over in the first place? Is she the subject of a prophecy, or a powerful warrior/sorceress/etc., whose job it is to save the world? If so, because he tricked her, she's probably going to feel less than charitable towards him and not at all inclined to do as he wishes. Right there, you have a new source of conflict. (And, if you're story is inclined that way, perhaps even a potential romance.)

You know, I really like the idea of the 'meddling god' character. I may have to store it away for use in a future story.

[captain-emily.livejournal.com]

Why not have the minor villain get lucky and stumble upon the hero's camp? He then decides to capture the hero and turn him over to score brownie points with his boss. While there's a good chance that the hero might be able to easily take him out and move on, his innate sense of goodness makes him want to reason with the villain--to try to bring him into the light.

[captain-emily.livejournal.com]

What kind of story are you writing? If you're feeling depressed already, writing something dark and depressing probably won't help matters. Perhaps you could consider writing something light-hearted--comedy, romance, etc.

[hookavah.livejournal.com]

Though not at this part of the story, it will come soon. My 3 MC's join an 'Alliance', the leader is a laid back and takes threats in general as light as one could take it. Well, the leader is to venture out in the 'Main' downtown city, but rivaling alliances become extremely hostile that day towards the leader only, and as he alone ventures into the city, he sparks a multi-alliance skirmish. I'm looking for reasons as to why the leader and other alliances become hostile towards each other, any ideals?

[meretia]

I have a sort of soft science fiction thing I'm working on. It's set in an alternate modern America that figured out genetic engineering four or five generations before we did. The plot involves a geneticist who's holed himself up in rural Pennsylvania with some other genetically engineered folk and they're talking all kinds of apocalypse and New World Order for the "improved" people. They're probably behind some attempted biological attacks on cities along the East Coast. My main characters in this story are a relatively new field agent in the federal bureau that regulates genetic engineering (Kate), and a genetically engineered man (Daniel).

At the end of the first act, Daniel, who was pretty much threatened into helping them with an investigation, has been stalling and screwing around most of the time he was supposed to be helping. He knows what's at stake here but doesn't care. He's pretty sure that he's going to end up hurt or killed if the geneticist finds out he was cooperating with the feds. I think that he may even be playing both sides, deliberately trying to keep the Genetic Regulation Agency from digging out the compound in Pennsylvania.

Just at the end, he deliberately turned the attention of the GRA office he'd been working with to a false lead and then skedaddled. While they were paying attention to that, the crazy separatist geneticist and his hangers-on send a mail bomb that went off the way it was supposed to, and has caused a lot of trouble in whatever city that was (I haven't quite worked it out yet). A few days later, Daniel comes slinking back claiming that he's really sorry, he hadn't realized how serious this really was. To prove his sincerity, he comes bearing some information he was holding out on sharing with them earlier. He's a self-centered, underhanded thing. He was ready to book just from being asked to get involved in this.

Does something happening to people he doesn't know way far away from him sound like it would be enough to make him decide that getting this mess shut down is worth risking his life?

In the second act, Kate's team of investigators has gone out to Pennsylvania to help with the effort to root out the stragglers who escaped when the compound was raided and are hiding out in the woods someplace. They bring Daniel along with them. He was designed as something like a human computer--can store lots of data and calculate quickly, but human enough to fill in the gaps where artificial AI traditionally fails--and worked with Dr. Albrecht at one point. The government agencies who are already there are content to treat him like a piece of equipment instead of like a human informant like Kate's office had been doing. This leaves him in pretty rough shape. Kate is really bothered by this, but is it believable enough that she'd be willing to say "look, if you want to leave, I'll look the other way"?

And in the third act, Daniel has already decided from the cumulation of events that he's probably going to die, but he still has to see this through. Is that enough for him to turn down the offer to escape? He even, when told that whoever's planning the strategy here intends to offer him to Dr. Albrecht and see if that brings the fugitives out, volunteers to pretend that he's returning to the fold (oops, he forgot to tell him that he was briefly part of this organization in its early days). I have no idea what could make him willing to do that. There's a vague scene in my head where he's talking to an agent who lost family in that attack in Act I and Daniel feels guilty about that, but I don't think that would do it. What would believably motivate someone to do that suicidally dumb?

[iyanaari.livejournal.com]

I have a character who makes a living as a thief along with her twin brother. She has never known her father but she loves her mother, even if they don't agree on everything. Her mother lives alone in a small cottage-like home. I can not figure out why my character doesn't live with her mother, and why she chooses to steal instead. So far I'm linking it as she and her mother not seeing eye to eye on some issues as her mother is overly religious and my character is repelled by religion due to her absent father. Is that a strong enough reason or does it seem flimsy?

[i-speak-tongue.livejournal.com]

Hmmm.... I like that. That could work. Thank you!

Overused name or reference?

[agdhani.livejournal.com]

My story has three races. The youngest, and most prevelent race I have dubbed Teran (or possibly Teren, haven't decided on the spelling yet). The second race is Elyri. The third is an ancient race, possibly mythical (there are ruins and writing left from a previous race. No one can realistically claim to have seen them, so it is unknown if they still exist or not).

The Elyri have a name for this race, the phae k'kaira, which means something akin to 'those who came before'. At the moment, the Teren's simply call them the Others.

My question is, is calling them Other's too cliched and over used? Should I come up with another name for them? Any suggestions or thoughts or opinions? Maybe the fact that I'm questioning it means it is too common...or maybe it is just my own paranoia, lol!

Thanks in advance.

[incandescence.livejournal.com]

Well, the gods are starring/supporting characters, for sure. They're pretty central to the setting -- and the issues she's going to have after getting there.

As for bringing her over -- well. I was mostly just figuring on sheer boredom for the god, who decided to amuse himself. She's not going to have any special powers or prophecies, and she's going to be pretty pissed. :D I'm still not sure if there's going to be any romantic link between them, though. There's a few various "reasons" the god would have decided to amuse himself (perhaps to "help" a monk at his local shrine, who he feels needs some excitement in his life? Or to shake up a few snobby people in the local area who've forgotten his powers, and to see them fall all over themselves in shock? I don't know).

I love the idea of a meddling god. I want to play with them a lot. :D

[stringingwords.livejournal.com]

Ooh I like that! Also thought of mermaids and sirens and ghosts.

Can it be November now?

[alessandriana.livejournal.com]

For the first question, perhaps he lost someone in the attack as well? That might motivate him to return.

Otherwise, you're going to have to set up his character so that it is believable that he'd be willing to risk his life. Maybe have him be selfish and unwilling to risk his life only up until a point-- and then make the attack so terrible that even he can't condone letting these people go. He has a set of core morals (buried deep, perhaps) that won't let him sit there and do nothing about it.

Vampire Poll

[claudia6913.livejournal.com]

So, I'm curious, and being the curious sort, I've made a poll. Vampires have been written a lot, I know, but what's once more?

This poll is about what type of vampire you prefer reading about.

http://claudia6913.livejournal.com/17066.html

Re: Overused name or reference?

[claudia6913.livejournal.com]

Other's does have that mystical, magical, and spooky connotation to it when used like that. If the Teran(Teren - I prefer this spelling) feel a sort of fear to speak of them, then Other's would be a reasonable term. However, if they are flippant, or are too young to see the danger in mocking or not being careful when speaking about something that may not be as dead and gone as they thought - Other's would be cliched.

Make any sense?

[claudia6913.livejournal.com]

Perhaps she is torn between loving her mother and loving her twin brother? Did the brother start the theiving? If so, maybe she is staying away from her mother so that, should something happen, her mother wouldn't be in the middle of it all?

[ahavah]

I need accountability!