Hello so, I have this princess character whose family was slaughtered by her Uncle's army when she was 15. She only just escaped with a training knight (around the same age as her) who can shapeshift into an Elder Lynx (pretty much just a really big Lynx haha). Now she has been on the run hiding from authority for a few years now which is where the story takes place. Her driving goal is to get her revenge on her Uncle and restore how the governmental system used to be (pretty much finish her father's work). However she suffers from a kind of ptsd from her past. Her magic craft is healing. I am just having trouble keeping her plot line interesting and making it less "now they travel here, and now they travel there" kinda thing. I hope that sort of makes sense. Would appreciate any ideas or comments :))
well, is your story a quest story?
so, this princess needs her throne back from her sadistic uncle.
then she needs allies, contacts.
she needs to gather people for her cause.
big character growth potential, maybe she could slowly turn into a ruthless cunning princess that will do whatever it takes to see her uncle taken down.
Spies, killers, thugs, noblewoman/men, dirty nobles, etc. so she can devise this whole coup, meet and greet and travel. quest stories are fine.
what about this lynx knight in training guy? do shapeshifting lynxes have a large role in the story
So this is the same issue I come across a lot in my stories where they're either boring or short. First of all, one thing I'd do (particularly with PTSD) is make her an unreliable narrator of sorts, where she doesn't always know what's real and fake, and make sure to add a lot of distrust between her and the knight. The first step in a plot where the main conflict is external is to add internal conflict. If it's a romantic story between her and knight (which I would love because I'm trash for a good romance) then make her wake up screaming from a (k)nightmare and he has to comfort her. People who suffer from PTSD often have nightmares. And if it is a romantic story, make a lot of distrust from her to him.
The second thing I'd do is make sure it's not just skimming over any one place unless it's something along the lines of, "They had to stop on several towns before making their way to the destination." If she's posing as a common person, have her make friendships with the locals, make her and the knight take a job in the town to get money/shelter/food/whatever else. She's a healer, so make her the apprentice to a healer, and make her friends with that person's daughter. Or maybe she's a healer in secret, and she makes a friend that almost dies and she heals them then swears them to secrecy.
By having her make connections when she goes somewhere, you're making it harder for her to leave any one place. Internal conflicts are always the best when it's a "pick your poison" type situation (i.e. one "poison" is not avenging her family while the other is leaving her new friend because she has to go to another city). Or, alternatively, make it two good choices. Either she kills her uncle and truly avenges her father or doesn't kill him and gives a friend who she made along the way a favor because she happens to be his daughter or something.
This is really long and I know but when I look for help I always want a lot of feedback so I hope at least some of this is helpful. I don't specifically mind the idea of it being a story where she's heading from place to place but that's the most meaningful if it's hard to go to the next place.
(Also? Side note? If it is romantic then add a scene where the knight is teaching the princess how to use a bow and arrow and he stands behind her in a really cliche way because I would absolutely fall for that trope.)
@TheEntireWriter OML THANK YOU SO SO MUCH! This helps sooo much! And yeah I was gonna make it romantic between the knight and the princess, but it will be kind of unsaid and like it feels like it should happen but it never will. And they are so close because they have grown up together on the run, and the knight was ordered to protect her for life so it is this super close bond they have. But the princess has to marry into one of the families that is allied with her sadistic uncle, so she can't be with the knight. But also the family she has to marry into was involved with her family's murder, but she is under cover so they don't know it's her. She does all this to get close to her Uncle for the kill.
Also I was planning on the princess to kind of descend into evil, like she learns a new approach to healing where she absorbs the pain or wound from someone, but then along with that she can absorb the life force of someone. Her practice has a lot to do with energy fields and stuff.
With her PTSD she makes herself healing circles where she sits and goes into a meditation like state to calm her anxiety. But she also has a lot of nightmares and flashbacks to the night her family was murdered. Also I'm thinking when it comes to her nightmares, should I slowly reveal the events of the night little by little? Or should the nightmare reveal everything the reader needs to know about the night so that there is no confusion?
Also also! I love the idea of her having conflict between leaving the friends she has made and fulfilling her destiny. Thank you so much again!
PS. Great pun ;)
@mckapo Yeah it's pretty much a quest story. It is from the point of view of two characters and they both have quite complex story lines and motives but somehow in the end their stories intertwine. And yeah I was thinking she could run into like a weird alternative religious/magic group that trains her, but in the end she becomes corrupt from discovering this new kind of power. Also the knight is from the race known as Animus Shifters, who are given their "spirit animal" at birth. They are a super rare race though. The knight was taken into the princess's family as an orphan because his family's village was raided by the princess's uncle's army, because (and this is something that is hidden from public knowledge) they wanted to experiment on these Animus Shifters in order to create an "all-round shapeshifter" that they could use as a war spy.
What do you think is the best way for me to reveal the princess's traumatic past? Because I don't want to do too much of the cliche 'dream' thing…
Ooh do you reckon it'll be less cliche and more realistic if I make her PTSD dreams really vague and then maybe more of her past is revealed through dialogue? I'm just really wary of information dumps and would much rather a subtle approach of revealing things.
I love slow reveal stories and I think that doing that would be the best way to do it just from a reader's perspective. I think that dreams are a good thing to add if you're trying to portray PTSD but that may not be the best way to tell the story entirely. The way it sounds, you could make your story have like a short prologue where you tell some of the story (i.e. her father's perspective of the moment leading up to her uncle's betrayal) and then tell the rest through implications in flashbacks and dreams.
Keep in mind, though, that dreams aren't always literal and it may just be best to show that something traumatic happened through the dreams, introduce who it happened to, then maybe have the princess reveal the rest through dialogue. I don't think information dumps are a bad thing specifically but they just need to be handled properly. Maybe start it, then the princess and whoever she's talking to (I'm guessing the knight) are attacked and need to run. That way it's in parts and you can see the way whoever she's talking to handles the information then you can get into the deep stuff of what's happening later on.
Also, if you do a scene where the princess tells someone, don't just have unbroken dialogue. There are very few places where I've seen unbroken dialogue work. Add thoughts of whoever is currently narrating, add actions and body language of the person who's being told. This goes to the "show, don't tell" thing. Don't say that they were shocked, show that their eyes widened and their mouth gaped.
Hope this helped!
@TheEntireWriter Holy Moly this helps soooo much! I absolutely love the idea of my first chapter being from the Princess's Father's perspective! I've been spending ages trying to think of the best first chapter, but it has been so hard and each one I've written has just seemed a bit fluffy. I cannot thank you enough omg. And yeah I definitely think I will slowly reveal the Princess's perspective of the attack and I will make her dreams more vague (as dreams always are) but they will all add up to reveal something. Again, thank you so so much!!! You are amaaazing!
I would also add that someone with PTSD does not do well with loud sounds; so if the princess and knight are on the run or hiding then the sound of soldiers when send her into a panic. Think of soldiers who hear a car backfire or fireworks - they have flashbacks - which could be another way for you to introduce what happened to her before.
** It could be the same for the knight if his whole village was murdered
@Penstorm Yes! Thank you so much, that would definitely be a good way for me to slowly introduce fragments of the Princess's past
