Weekly Plot Help - Week of November 3rd

[alison-sky.livejournal.com]

Got a problem in your NaNo? Who doesn't?! But we've got a way to help!

Post here with your plot problems, and all through the week members of the community will scan through and see if they can help.

AKA - The best way to procrastinate is to help others!

So post your problem. Then take a moment to look at everyone else's and see if you can help them.

People helping people. That's what makes this community great :)

So have at it!

Comments

[caitak.livejournal.com]

My character was kidnapped by a serial killer two and a half months before my story begins (he let her go because he only kills people who have done something he deems 'bad' and then sets up their deaths to look like a suicide/mugging gone wrong to 'punish' them, in his mind she had done nothing wrong), at the end of the story she will come face to face with the guy when he kills her mother-in-law (who is also his biological mother who abandoned him, thus making him into the man he became.

Through the story my MC keeps finding deaths which may actually by murders carried out by the killer. My problem, she knows the killer's name but there isn't enough evidence to convict him of the murders. But she knows who he is. Why can't they just go pick him up if they know his name? I'm wanting him to crop up throughout the story without getting caught until the end. Any suggestions?

Also, what could the killer do to crop up in the story? I'm wanting the MC to be worried about telling people that she thinks she's seeing him in case they think she's being paranoid. So far I've got the idea of seeing him in a crowded supermarket, on public transport, when she's out investigating another case.

They're in Scotland if that makes any difference. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[jynxgirl.livejournal.com]

Why can't they just go pick him up if they know his name? Probable cause. They need more than a name to go on, and much as victim statements are helpful, their memories aren't always the best, so the police need a lot more to go on than a name. Especially in our forensic centered criminal system. :)

The killer could start semi-stalking your victim. Some places don't yet have stalking laws, so the MC wouldn't be able to file any complaints.

[jynxgirl.livejournal.com]

My MC is a homicide detective who just got the file of a defenestration. It will eventually be linked to three other murders, culminating in one more murder and the attempted murder of her partner...
BUT....

I have NO idea what to put in the middle...

[agaitis-byrjun.livejournal.com]

Perhaps a subplot related to the main character (or her partner) that could serve as more or less character development? If you really can't think of anything that serves the main plotline, then you can always fall back on something that is just character-driven.

Would a vegan swallow?

[faedreamer.livejournal.com]

I'm writing homoerotic romance and one of my characters is vegan. I don't know any vegans and haven't found any info online regarding whether being vegan would affect whether or not he would swallow when giving a blowjob.

Vegans don't consume or use animals or animal byproducts at all, that much I know. We're animals and cum is a byproduct, so does that mean no swallowing for my MC?

Re: Would a vegan swallow?

[claudia6913.livejournal.com]

Personally, I would assume not swallowing would have more to do with personal pereferences and the overall taste before I'd assume it was because they were vegan.

However, I don't think it would quite an issue. Unless, of course, the person is attempting to become pregnant, and thus the fluids would likely be seen as a waste.

That being said, I'm not a Vegan, or even a vegetarian... Hopefully someone who is will be able to help better.

[aberrantcliche.livejournal.com]

A part of my novel will take place in the future. There is a group of people who is convinced that they are the last generation of human beings, that the human race would be better of extinct, that everyone born after a certain year is "not meant to be" and all that. My MC is obviously one of the many who were born after that particular year.

The MC has a low self-image, she thinks she screws up at everything she does. One day her brother-in-law gets killed whilst fighting one person of the sect described above and the MC wants to prove others and herself that she is in fact not entirely useless by travelling back in time to save the life of her brother-in-law. Only then she is unintentionally responsible for her brother-in-law's death and realises that she can't change the past. MC feels miserable and is ashamed of herself and travels further back in time to live in a complete different time period so she can avoid everyone she once knew.

So where I need help:
A few years after the event, MC's nephew is all grown up and is sent out to bring his aunt back to her original time. I need a good reason why she would be needed back but I don't want that reason to be 'because her family and friends miss her so'. I'd preferably want it to have a connection with the sect listed above. I want her to be seen as useful and I want to give her the opportunity to make her feel more confident about herself.

[elialys.livejournal.com]

Uhm...Maybe she leaves documents/informations in the time she's living in, which are somehow found by her nephew or the sect in their time period? Maybe she's in the past, and manage to find 'a way' to prevent the sect to be created or something (maybe not her but future generations), so they sent him to her to try to stop her?

[loki-scribe.livejournal.com]

I need a reason two demons might be in O'Hare on Christmas Eve. They deal with suicides (one of them is a Fallen Angel, the other used to be human and committed it), and while they wind up gunning for my MC, I know they didn't show up looking for him.

This is what I get for letting my NaNo be hijacked by another group. . . .

Thanks in advance.
Cheers!

[imaginepageant.livejournal.com]

Because O'Hare is the portal to hell.

No, really. Worst airport I've ever been in.

[elialys.livejournal.com]

Okay guys, I think I need some serious brainstorming, but the thing is, my brain fried at some point this weekend XD

Here's what I call my plot: I started the story at what I'll say is the "present time". Morgane, my MFC, is in a bad relationship with a nasty jerk. In the prologue, she's contacted by both her twin sister who asks for her help (while they hadn't been talking for years), and her former boss in the FBI (or something) about an old cold case not so cold anymore (and of course, she's secretly in love with that man). Later in the story, I want to write a whole mystery part about that case, a serial killer killing only twin sisters.

But for now, I'm back in the "past". I started writing my MFC's childhood just after the prologue. I've already kill their Mom in a car accident, and now, I'm gonna write how awful their Dad get after that, because he somehow thinks it's their fault. He starts drinking, and abusing them, physically first, and possibly sexually later (he's mostly awful toward the other twin). Later, for a reason I have yet to find, around their teenage years, the Dad is put to jail or whatever, and the girls are separated. And they willingly stop to see/talk to each other. After that, I think I'll go back to the 'present'.

So, my 'problem' is: As far as writing their sucky childhood help understand why my MFC is who she is, and why she was not in touch with her twin for years, I'm not completely happy about that. I wish there was something else connecting Past and Present, maybe even something that would be related to the case later on. But I just have no clue :( :( :(

Any suggestion that could help my muse?

[imaginepageant.livejournal.com]

Well, let's say only the sister was being abused. She finally tells some authority figure about it, which gets Daddy sent to jail, and which splits the sisters up. Your MFC is in denial that Daddy ever laid a hand on her sister; he was the only family they had left, and he was what kept the two of them together. She blames her sister for ruining everything, and thus stops talking to her.

[aislingthebard.livejournal.com]

OK. You just came in to your house, in the middle of the night, having had a liaison in your garden shed with your "lover", a spirit of flame who makes you feel incredible sexually in ways your husband of a year never has been able to do. You have a new baby with said husband, and you love him, but you just don't "click" the way your daemon lover does. So you've been putting a mild sleeping pill in hubby's dinner and sneaking out to pleasure yourself when he's asleep. And this particular morning, you slip back into the covers, as you usually do, and go to sleep. When you wake up in the morning, the room is filled with the police and your doctor and your husband in tears, and your baby shrieking, and in about an hour of observing all this chaos and trying to get one of the men in the room to stop being all male and busy and actually TELL you wtf is going on, you slowly have it dawn on you that YOU are the problem. You're being ignored because you're invisible. Your body is lying in the bed, and you're, apparently, dead. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU DO NEXT? Help?

[elialys.livejournal.com]

Freak out? Try to go back inside your body? Try to speak to your husband and/or anybody else around 'cause you're in denial? Try to find out what happen, go ask your daemon lover?

[imaginepageant.livejournal.com]

ATTENTION ANYONE WHO'S EVER GONE TO UNIVERSITY.

I haven't, so I need your help. One of my MCs is a university professor (biology, to be exact, although that's flexible), and I want to have some little in-school scenes to throw in. So, can someone tell me what a usual late-October day at university would be like?

Also, does anyone know what work-related things professors do in between classes? Do they grade papers? Do they plan the next lecture? Anything?

[amorvincitnos.livejournal.com]

In between classes, my professors generally hole up in their offices and run their office hours, which means they grade tests and papers, meet with students when/if they come by (for help with papers, coursework, or general advice), and work on whatever research/junk they might be involved in. If this professor is a main character, you might want to give some thought to what his interests are in that respect (for example: I'm in English and Classics, and one of my professors might be sitting in their office looking over Shakespearean plays to write a book on the role of crossdressing in comedies).

As for an average day at university...um? Campus is full of people, outside smoking or walking between classes, often with their coffee; students flush out of classrooms in torrents at certain times when courses get out...really depends on what kind of details you need, I guess.

[taystwin-14.livejournal.com]

Anyone know of any movies that came out around New Years of 2000 or Christmas and earlier of 1999?
If not allowed, please delete. Thanks.

[everypoembreaks.livejournal.com]

If you scroll down to the bottom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_in_film), there's a list of all notable movies of '99 and in what month the came out.

[trenchcoatedson.livejournal.com]

Okay, so, I'm writing a story about a man who is from the Ozarks (Oliver). When he was younger (pre-18) his brother (Michael) was murdered. His brother is two years younger than him.

As an adult (19), Oliver begins receiving letters that his brother is still alive (although not directly from his brother- a mysterious source, who may or may not be his brother.) They also say that his brother is currently living on the island of Mykonos, so Oliver goes off to find him.

The problem I'm having here is HOW would his brother pull that off? I imagine him to still be quite young... maybe 13? 12? I can see how he could run away and disappear. I don't see his family questioning that, so they wouldn't be looking for him. But then how would he manage to survive on his own- being under 18 and all? How could he get a job? Wouldn't someone get suspicious as to him and call child services? Or am I really naive and it's much easier than I think for a kid to run away, and if no one's looking for them and believes they're gone, then it's not hard for them to survive until they reach 18?

Bawwww help. ):

[situationgirl.livejournal.com]

So, IMHO, I think you're right about how hard it is for kids to run away. However, your MC's brother was murdered, right? Obviously somebody (the murderer, or supposed murderer, or the people who framed someone else for the murder) needed the younger brother for something, and they needed him unconditionally, without limits. Whoever did the deed has been taking care of the brother since then. It sounds to me like you've got a hidden conspiracy.

So what kind of conspiracy do you have? Is it a cult set on bringing about the apocalypse? Is it a secret school for spies? Is it a new-age commune where everyone eats boiled buckwheat for breakfast?

Go forth and conspire.

Penelope who?

[situationgirl.livejournal.com]

Hiya everybody. I posted this on last week's plot help thread as the very last entry -- I don't think anyone saw it.

My MC is named Penelope, and I wanted to incorporate some elements of the Grimm Brothers' fairytale about a Penelope, but I have only a vague memory about her being devoted to a lover that she could only talk to through a small hole in a stone wall. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

I've done some internet searches and all I can come up with is Penelope the wife of Odysseus, Penelope the Christina Ricci movie (which is probably the closest, but I want the original), and the Penelopiad which is a Margaret Atwood retelling of the Odyssey. These are not what I want.

Does anybody know where to look? Does anybody have a compendium of Grimm's fairytales they're willing to peruse for me? I used to have one, but it's about 1100 miles away now.

Any help is wonderfully appreciated.

Re: Penelope who?

[fiveredsnakes.livejournal.com]

Are you sure you're not thinking of the tale of Pyramis and Thisbe? They are lovers who can only talk through a wall. It turns up in Midsummer's Night Dream, but it may have been incorporated into a Grimm faiy tale too. Otherwise, I have no idea, sorry. I assume you've done the obvious stuff like check the wikipedia article on Grimm's fairy tales? It's pretty comprehensive

[jediknightmuse.livejournal.com]

Only one thing this time. Hopefully much simpler than the last few things I've asked about. >.> Still fantasy in a medieval setting.

I need a good, creative, original way for my main character to meet Griffin, the ex-thief. It's coming up in this (the second) chapter, and I haven't been able to think of any good ways for them to meet. Ack, it's actually coming up in the next scene, technically. >.> Any ideas on how they could meet would be greatly appreciated.

Basically, they have to meet and she has to want/maybe even need to talk to him long enough to have him tell her about the wizard's hideout and the society that he's apart of and get her to go with him. I suppose he could somehow convince him to follow her and really only hint at where they're going at first...but I'm not sure how to have them meet and get to that point. >.>

[imaginepageant.livejournal.com]

He falls off the wagon and tries to steal something from her and she's all sympathetic to his downtrodden station in life and offers him a loaf of bread and conversation?

Help! People from Greece!

[trenchcoatedson.livejournal.com]

Not sure if this really belongs here, but...

So in my novel, as I already said in an above comment, my MC begins receiving letters from someone who claims his brother is still alive (that the MC thought was dead).

I'm thinking of either having the person sending the letters be from Greece or Mykonos.

The question is...

HOW DO ADDRESSES WORK THERE?

I looked up the Greek postal system and I'm still not really getting it.

Could any writers from Greece help me out? If you were to send a letter to the United States or to another country, how would you write your address? What's a typical street address? IS IT WRITTEN IN ENGLISH OR GREEK? (You don't have to give me your address or anything, I just need some sort of template to go by!) And what about Mykonos? From what I can tell, it seems to be part of the same postal system... ?

Confused! D:

Also, just so this isn't so general, any experiences as to Mykonos itself would be appreciated, including how the government and airport systems work and every thing. :P

Re: Help! People from Greece!

[imaginepageant.livejournal.com]

I'm not from Greece, but at work I deal with files of people who live all around the world. I'll have a look at one tomorrow and let you know what the address is like, if no one else has replied before then. :)

[rimn.livejournal.com]

My story is set many years into the future (undefined atm), and is based in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The city has been forgotten and is now uninhabited, and a few research-types come back to write on its current state, and to discover why the city was abandoned so long ago.

Here's my problem: Why is it a ghost town? I wanted it to be semi-original - original enough that it is a mystery. For those of you unfamiliar with Brisbane, perhaps its wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisbane) will prove useful.

Sorry it's a difficult one, but thanks for ANY advice.

[colbyucb.livejournal.com]

Something that instantly came to mind was a plague of some sort, uninfected people left, the city got walled off/routes of travel were diverted around it (these would help account for later "forgetting" of the city), and eventually those that stayed died. You could have a similar scenario with a research/science/military test gone awry, something that kills a great deal of people in one fell swoop and the rest are sworn to silence by the government of the time and relocated. I'm not sure where those rank on the originality meter though, and sorry they both involve a lot of deaths...

BLACKBERRIES

[imaginepageant.livejournal.com]

Do Blackberry batteries work the same way as regular cell phone batteries? Do they die if they aren't recharged? Are they recharged with a docking station or a plug? If a Blackberry is dead will it still log missed calls?

Also, are Blackberries ever referred to as cell phones?

Re: BLACKBERRIES

[random-acts.livejournal.com]

Yes, Blackberries need to be charged like regular cell phones. Mine (I have a Blackberry Pearl) dies if it's been on constantly for about two-three days, depending on how much I've used it. It is recharged by way of a plug attached to the mains rather than a docking station. I'm afraid I don't know the answer to your missed calls point and my Blackberry is always referred to as a Blackberry, never as a cell phone. Other people may think otherwise.

Hope that helps!

[stephsicola.livejournal.com]

So I'm writing a sort of post-apocalyptic story about what the world is like when the oil runs out, assuming that it does. My story has three threads: a history book current with my universe, which takes place a generation or two after there is no oil, the MC who lives in that time, and her ancestor's diary, written only a few years from our future. I have a really clear timeline of how things went down, a clear idea of what the universe is like: sort of like the Village, but everywhere, lots of eighteenth century influence. The ancestor I know what I want to write about. But I can't figure out what my main character, Sarah, wants to be doing, or what the conflict is going to be. I've put in a potential love interest, but I don't really want it to be a romance novel as such.

I know this is a really general question, but I could use some ideas for a conflict.

[situationgirl.livejournal.com]

Well, think about the things that we would lose without oil. Obviously, gasoline and with that automobiles, but also plastics, and anything petroleum based, like in medical supplies. How does this affect how your characters access other natural resources? What if there were some sort of breakthrough in technology that would help your characters improve their lives, but would end up having detrimental/apocalyptic consequences? Maybe a parallel event happened in the ancestor's diary, and therefore your MC knows it would turn out bad and has to try to stop this technological advance from taking place?

Just a thought, and if you want it, it's yours. Good luck!

It has happened...not like I wasn't expecting it to

[taystwin-14.livejournal.com]

This is not good, people. Not good at all.
Do any of ya'll know how, after you've written a story for so long, you get that feeling that nothing seems to work anymore and you run out of things to happen, or you get stuck on one scene in your story and you can't move on until you finish it? Or maybe you just lose inspiration.
That has happened to me.
:(
Basically, I've just lost the HUZZAH! I felt for my NaNo earlier. And I don't know how to get it back. I don't like what I'm writing.
Any suggestions?

Re: It has happened...not like I wasn't expecting it to

[imaginepageant.livejournal.com]

I get stuck on scenes a lot, and in the past its caused me to stop writing for long periods, until I had some sort of breakthrough or found the inspiration I needed. But that won't do this month, so I'm determined to just set aside scenes I get stuck on, and move ahead. I had to do that with my prologue on Saturday, or else I never would've kept going! I went back to it later that day and finished it. It felt liberating to just say, "Screw you, Prologue! I'll come back to write you when you want to be written! I'm gonna hang out with Chapter One until then." It's like taking back the power. Try it!

[angelkitten13.livejournal.com]

Um, what do you do when all characters seem interested in is arguing? Every time I start to get them to start talking, one of them starts sneering at the other one. Help!

[stubby-appears.livejournal.com]

I need stereotypes about different countries/races. IE. All Asians are ninjas or computer geeks, all Australians are crocodile hunters, etc. Pleease help? Something humourous.

[pincita-lopez.livejournal.com]

All the Spaniards are bullfighters. And/or flamenco dancers.

[taylor-writes.livejournal.com]

So my MC's husband has ceased to exist in her world. She just wakes up one morning to discover he's gone and nobody but her remembers him. I know how this happened: The Vampire prince (she's a Vampire too) has assassins that "delete" the person they kill. I even know why: The prince thought her marrying a wereleopard (ie someone outside her own species) abominable.

Question: How would she figure this out? I want something suspenseful/exciting/intriguing/etc.

Bonus question: Should he really be dead? Would you rather read a book where the disappeared soul-mate was alive or dead?

[ink-kee.livejournal.com]

The protagonist has recently left the gang that the antagonist is the leader of. The gang is kind of important... but I got nothing. They don't sell drugs because the antag. is too "good" for that and I don't really want them to kill people; I thought of weapon trafficking, but that seems kind of lame. They're all in high school, if that helps.

Also, the gang needs a name. D:

[jedi-bria.livejournal.com]

What about vandalism? Or perhaps skinheads? Followers of a ratical political movement possibly baised on ethnicity? Or chavs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chav). I don't know if you want something bigger than that or not.

[jedi-bria.livejournal.com]

I've got a problem with my plot moving too fast. See I've got a high fantasy world I've bastardized and given a steam revolution to and created a dystopian society. My characters need to learn / know the history from the time when it was still a high fantasy realm. Some things they already know, some things they are aware of and regard as myth and other things they need to learn.

This means there's a lot of exposition and I've been moving the plot really fast. I need to give my characters hints and foreshadow certain things for them. I'm finding myself going from one instance right to another then to a piece of exposition. Not only is this making the plot move so fast, but my character relationships are suffering for it.

My question is this; should I keep going with the liniar plot and make an effort to slow it down a bit if possible? Or do I go back and fill the beginning, adding in some scenes that will pad my word count and slow the story down a bit? Problem is I don't exactly know what I should put there. Would this be too much like editing?

[kitsu.livejournal.com]

Where are the guards? Are they armed? What does she have? Is she skilled at escaping places?

[lyttlebyrd.livejournal.com]

help! my MC works for a non-profit that helps homeless teens. What's a good name for the non-profit? I'm completely at a loss!

[slash-dotdash.livejournal.com]

My novel revolves around a town, and I'm basically telling people's life stories and how they entangle with each other... there's a so-called serial killer family, a couple of teenagers, etc...

ANYWAY. That town is supposed to be, like... closed, you know? As in razor wire everywhere, impossible to get out, people are fed by the government, blah blah blah. A bit like a non-haunted Silent Hill, only with around 20 people?

NOW... I need a good reason to "close" the town. I've searched a bit, and the only potentially good idea I found was... a coal fire. But of course, it's been used for Silent Hill and a thousand other stories, so I wouldn't want to use that.

ALSO, there are plenty of reasons to close a town. But which of them would allow me to keep the people inside? Am I making any sense?

*thinksthinksthinks*