Right now my story is more of a character-based story than plot driven. I'd like to balance it out 50/50 if I can.
I'll give a quick rundown of the setting and characters.
It's set in a post apocalyptic world (way after though) where technology is banned. Only the Hunters (kind of like the police force) have guns and a World Government rules with absolute power.
The World Government is cheating the world into paying taxes that they use for themselves while they push the blame onto a group of people with powers that they've convinced the world are evil.
These people have powers that range from heightened ability to elemental powers. They've been used as the scapegoats of society for so long that everyone automatically assumes that they're evil and now the Hunters' jobs are to find them and kill them. They've been driven into hiding but now they plan on revolting.
The story is written in two perspectives: One of the new Hunter's - Leila, and one of a person in hiding with powers - Ryker.
Problems I'm having:
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The characters are a bit unbalanced. I have more Hunters than anyone else. It feels overpowered and underwhelming for the other group to even try to revolt.
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The idea of revolution is too universal (I think?). Since the story is mostly only based on one location, the idea of taking down an entire World Government is too unrealistic (but I want to keep it as a World Government so I can show other aspects of the world that will make the story morally grey).
Any Suggestions?
Maybe you could have characters sent to other areas of the world and develop some sort of communication they can use to contact each other?
And as long as you don’t make it 1 power guy to every 100 hunters, it could still bre realistic, right? That’s how every revolution is, historically: seemingly impossible odds overcome by courage and sacrifice
Before I try to help, what's the point of this story? Not meant to sound rude, I mean what kind of moral or lesson or something do you want to show/teach your readers? Maybe you don't need a revolution to do that, and I think that it would make your story less cliche. My story has a possible revolution, but I've started to go "eh…" with that idea…
@Masterkey I kind of see it as a realization or understanding of the other. When I'm writing it, I have the leader of the power people as a pacifist. It's supposed to sort of reflect on the whole millenial/baby boomer problem where the younger generation is totally questioning the logic of the older generation and finding a way to overcome the discrimination barrier. I'm just finding that I don't have enough drive plotwise that would push the characters to questioning this. I also have half a mind to try and make it come to a conclusion peacefully (because the Hunters would absolutely crush the other team in terms of power/weaponry) but it seems too unrealistic?
@TurtleOfFreedom That's a great idea! I think expanding the character's understanding of the world is really going to drive their understanding of each other better. But do you think it's still too central to just the few characters? Like they are the only ones that are willing to cooperate with each other while the rest of them are still hellbent on killing each other? Also, do you think that having them travelling around the world would drag out the story too long?
I think that if you do it right, and don’t spend too much energy exploring the finite details of each location, traveling the world would work out perfectly.
Also, to answer the first part of your question, no, I think it’s not too central to the few characters. I think that as long as you bring in contacts from different parts of the world, (not too many, maybe three or four,) it will expand the reader’s view and help them understand the full world that the main characters are dealing with.
Maybe you could do a thing where people start a group of people with powers and people without powers living in harmony, and then they have to try to get to the capital of the world to plead with the rulers to give the people with powers more rights? And you could make that super difficult because they have to travel to get there (now you add the traveling the world bit into this), and there are many places with dangerous checkpoints that could either imprison or kill those people with powers on sight. And so they have to figure out how to sneak through and/or defend themselves without killing anyone so that they can make their case more compelling to the rulers. Basically try to force someone in charge to sit down and just LISTEN. Maybe you could have an easier target, like a young prince or something who would be more open-minded and willing to hear them out and maybe even become friends with them, and the prospect of the young prince being more kind was the motivation for starting this suicide mission in the first place? And then I don't know what you'd want the climax and such to be, but there are many routes you could take from there.
@TurtleOfFreedom @Masterkey Thanks so much! I really like the ideas that you've both given me. I think I know what's going to happen from here on out.
Yay! Glad I could help. Happy writing!
Awesome! Good luck going forward
I think that if you made it so that the power people werent trying to take down the entire World Government at once, but just an essential part of it, it would make it more realistic if you were keeping it to a single location. That way you could play the domino effect, one big player falls, and it makes it easier for revolutions from different parts of your world to take down their branches. This way you could balance out characters by maybe focusing on a hunters point of view for the major fall, and then focus more on powered people in a different part of the world in a different scenario.
