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.

[random-acts.livejournal.com]

Ooh, are you a fellow Scot?

In terms of whether he committed the murders in the story, even if they know his name, if there's no concrete evidence that he has committed any crime, I don't think that they would be able to charge him. They might take him in for questioning but I think under Scottish law (http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1995/Ukpga_19950046_en_1.htm) you can only hold someone for 6 hours unless you arrest him and presumably they can't arrest him unless they have appropriate evidence.

And to flip it slightly, what if the fact she knows his name and keeps linking him to murders without real evidence leads to him making accusations of harassment against her? And so the police can't keep going to pick him up in case he sues? Being accused of harassing him would make her even more paranoid as well!

[random-acts.livejournal.com]

In addition to the suggestion above, is there the possibility of slotting in another smaller stand-alone case, say with your MC acting as mentor to the rookie detective who's working on that case? The rookie could keep coming to her for advice and perhaps is rather dim so missing obvious things? It could turn out to be an accidental death that looked like homocide at first (or perhaps I've just been watching too much CSI).

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.

Re: Would a vegan swallow?

[imaginepageant.livejournal.com]

I've heard differing opinions on this from vegans. Some have said they wouldn't even date a meat-eater. I've heard others say they won't swallow not because semen is in itself an animal product, but because the animal products the man has consumed would "taint" the semen. And some just don't care either way.

I stopped eating meat over three years ago. I had been vegan for one of those years (then got greedy and wanted donuts and cheese pizza... I am a horrible, horrible person). And I personally have never had an issue with my partner eating meat, or consuming his... byproducts. However, I do not like kissing him after he's been eating steak. Ick.

Also, while I don't mind being in a relationship with someone who eats meat, and I don't need my partner to have the same values I do, I could not be with a person if he disrespected my beliefs (in fact, this is one of the many issues that led to my breakup with my ex). How your meat-eating character treats your vegan character based on his beliefs and values is something to think about.

Another thing to consider is that one's diet affects the way their semen tastes. It's said that vegetarian and vegan diets make it taste sweeter, especially if they eat a lot of fruit. Eating a lot of red meat makes it taste more sour and bitter. Unfortunately, I've never been with a vegetarian or vegan myself so I can't offer any personal experience with this. However, I can say that all of my meat-eating boyfriends didn't exactly taste like candy. ;)

[sugar-shrapnel.livejournal.com]

Throw in a restraining order and she couldn't seek him out and everyone would treat her as crazy when she said he kept accidentally turning up in her local coffee house, on her street etc. Good for building tension.

[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.

[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!

[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?

[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?

[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?

[imaginepageant.livejournal.com]

Because O'Hare is the portal to hell.

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

[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.

[imaginepageant.livejournal.com]

Maybe the sect realizes she's actually the saviour of humankind and the future generations must be bred by her?

[aislingthebard.livejournal.com]

All of the above...the trying to speak to people, the trying to go into her body, were what she did to actually find out she was dead. Her discovery of this fact is the end of Ch. 2. If you were reading this book (you can in my novel excerpt, at least the part that leads to this point) what is the thing you would want to see open Ch. 3?

[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.

[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.

[trenchcoatedson.livejournal.com]

My dad is a professor. Mostly between classes they:

1. grade papers
2. plan their next lecture
3. Sit around and talk to each other

My dad would sometimes take his papers home to grade. He did more of #3 than anything, haha. As for planning lectures, he'd really only do that if it was a subject he needed to brush up on and make notes of. For things he knew very well, he usually didn't plan out huge lecture notes. That can vary from professor to professor, of course. The college my dad works at isn't a huge research oriented school, so it also depends on where your university professor is working. Is he at a school that pushes research or not? These are things to consider. If he is, he'd also be working on current research projects- planning them out and executing them, writing up papers with the results, trying to get his research published. How much research he'd have to do and how much time he'd spend on it would also depend on how much the school would push him to do research.

(And I just realised you never said your MC was a female or male, so replace the pronouns for whatever you want there.)

There's also, as someone mentioned, office hours- which generally is any time the professor does not have class, although I've seen some professors not have class and not make all their time their office hours. Office hours will vary from semester to semester. Generally it's polite for a professor to leave his door open during office hours. Professors will shut their door usually to indicate they don't want to be bothered, although you are really allowed to bother them anyway if it's their office hours, cause it's their job and that's part of it. During office hours they do every thing else listed above, and then advise students- either they help them with their class schedules (as students are set an "advisor"- a professor, usually in their same major. This can differ from college to college- for instance, in my hometown, every student had an advisor. When I transferred to a bigger college, you only get a set advisor when you reach your Junior year) or they will answer questions from students regarding their classes.

As to what students ask about, well, I can tell you that usually professors hate it when students ask them things like "Did we do anything in class?" or "Can I look at your notes/have a copy of your notes/etc.?" Professors vary, however. It's up to you to decide how your character is.

As for a usual late-October day, define "late". Most professors get off at 3 or so unless they have a night class. Some stay way after work times, maybe to finish grading papers or lectures. It depends also on the placement of your college and how big it is- what a late day would be like. For example, at the college in my hometown, which was very small, most people would be on campus before noon, and the place would be deserted the later it got. But at the college I currently attend, which is much bigger, there are still a good amount of students around past noon, even until 3:30 or so. And as for what students do... well, it varies! Talk, smoke (if the campus allows smoking, mine doesn't), eat at one of the on-campus restaurants (the bigger the campus is, the more likely it'll have these), hang out in their dorms, study, etc.

Hopefully that helps. If you need any elaboration just ask.

[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. ):