forum [royaltea & a concerning lack of plot — plot help please :”D]

Started November 30, 2018 by @pallas-athena

tune

man, “royaltea & a concerning lack of plot” almost sounds like a legitimate book title if you change “royaltea” for a real name.

anyways, hello! in december 2017, i had a vague inkling of a story that eventually began to expand over the months — however, i’ve decided in recent (well, not that recent, i’ve been reworking things for a little over a month now) that i really dislike the plotline my story follows. it was originally about superheroes; i didn’t like the idea anymore, so i threw it out.

the problem is that a good deal of things in my story were built on that superhero theme, and now without it, i’ve got a gaping hole (several, actually, lmao) in my story that i don’t know how to fix, along with some plot points that i like but can’t connect. below i’ve written a bullet-point list of everything i do have so far; i’d love it if you could read it, and give me feedback and ideas (e.g. is it too cliche or overused?), or, if you don’t want, scroll past everything and just tell me how i should go about getting a new plot, or how you made up yours.

without further ado, here comes a huge block of text.

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• the main villain in my story is called black cat, which is one of the main concepts kept from my old superhero plot. the whole deal with the black cat thing is that it’s sort of like a curse; it latches onto certain people (hosts) and twists their ideals to turn them into a villain. what i have currently is that the black cat curse is a sort of semi-sentient being, and houses itself in an unremovable bracelet (if you’re the host, that is). through that connection with its host’s body, it slowly sort of takes over the body of its host.
• i regret to say have literally no idea why the curse thingy is doing this/causing evil. help is appreciated lmao
• also, already, i realize that this sounds cliche (“magical disease hurrdURRR”) but i promise it gets (marginally) better.
• the rough timeline i made starts off in 1928, which is when mira is born. she’s just a side character, but she’s important to the plot, because she’s sort of like the Wise Mentor trope; my entire crew of main characters are teenagers (15 years old), so they wouldn’t be able to get very far without some help. adult supervision is important y’all
• in 1963, mira is given conditional immortality by the ancients (which is a really vague concept that i’ve barely worked at, but they’re like…an assembly of magical people based off of the chinese zodiac animals), to counter a timeline mix up. it turns out that a previous black cat (anastasia, the timekeeper) used her time powers to shift mira’s birth date back 60 years from its original date (1988) to ensure that mira would be most likely dead by the time the thirteen were ready to start their journey (she would be 90 in 2018), therefore not allowing the thirteen to meet up and therefore stopping black cat (in general, not just anastasia) from being defeated.
• mira’s immortality is conditional because the ancients only need her alive to function as a chain link between the thirteen and really not anything more, so they made it so that her immortality will expire once black cat is defeated. basically, mira will die once she completes what she needs to do.
• mira is informed that the thirteen she needs won’t be born for another 40 years, so she continues life like normal for now, and takes up a job in the science field. she was 40 at the time of her given immortality, so her appearance is paralyzed in that state and does not change.
• in 1970, catarina is born in china, and in 1980, bianca is born in america.
• catarina is a very talented woman; she enjoys fashion design in particular, so in 1995, she begins to build up her own fashion brand called CATARINA (all caps included). despite being fairly young for having such an established career (she’s 25), catarina and her designs rise to fame quickly.
• in mid 1999, catarina contracts the black cat curse, and is aware of her own slow deterioration of sanity; wanting to spare her family the pain, she leaves her company in the hands of her sister and runs to america, where she lives in a lonely manor, intentionally isolating herself.
• in late 1999, bianca starts an internship at a science company (haven’t figured this out yet). mira is serving the same company, and they become friends.
• in 2000, catarina fully transforms. despite mira’s literal whole goal being to dispel the black cat curse, mira isn’t aware of catarina’s existence due to the fact that catarina is so depressed over her current state that she doesn’t even commit any evils. during a storm, the electricity in catarina’s manor cuts out, and since her appearance is twisted by the curse, she can’t exactly go out and get it fixed. she resorts to lighting candles and fires for light; she becomes a pyromaniac in the process.
• in 2003, the main thirteen are born. one of them is everest, who is bianca’s son.
• in 2005, bianca and mira both quickly rise in the ranks of their company, to the point that they start prestigious schools under their name; B.K. Academy and MIRA Institute respectively. bianca is basically a celebrity now.
• in 2007, the black cat curse finally gets to catarina’s head a little bit and she finally commits a evil. catarina knows that there are thirteen people meant to bring her/black cat in general down; believing a boy named adrien to be one of them, she sets his house on fire during the night in hopes of killing him (because all thirteen need to be alive for the whole thing to work), but instead his parents perish in the fire and adrien survives. adrien is sent off to the orphanage.
• also i have no idea how catarina had descriptions of the thirteen and was able to figure out that adrien was one of them. literally no idea.
• in 2008, catarina gives up, and, not wanting to live such an isolated life anymore while being continually harassed by this weird bracelet-curse-cat-thing, she kills herself. the black cat curse being is angry that one of its hosts decided to bail out on it, and subsequently transforms catarina into a ghost to force her to wandering her own manor in loneliness. catarina, as a ghost, locks herself in the wardrobe of her bedroom, trying to fall asleep (because, you know, you can’t feel sadness if you’re literally unconscious) and alleviate some of her suffering.
• i don’t know how the black cat curse managed to transform catarina into a ghost. there’s a reason why i needed plot help asfhfjdkd
• in 2015, mira is told by the ancient that in 3 years’ time, a new threat (a.k.a, another black cat) will rise, and that this black cat will finally be the last host before the curse dies out completely if mira does her job right. mira, like bianca, has become something of a celebrity because of all her scientific achievements, and therefore can’t really do her job; she decides to fake her own death and start anew. bianca, having been close with mira, is devastated.
• in 2016, octavia’s family moves into catarina’s old manor, unaware of the identity of the past resident. there’s a voice in the wardrobe in octavia’s bedroom that mumbles sometimes, and occasionally things catch fire, but octavia’s family is so used to odd supernatural occurrences that they don’t think anything of it.
• in 2017, bianca contracts the black cat curse. desperate to not be taken, she has her arm (with the bracelet on it) amputated at the elbow and replaced with a robotic arm, therefore cutting off the curse’s connection to her body. the curse is delayed for a few days, being confused (this has never happened before), and then simply settles itself on bianca’s other arm (although bianca’s amputation did delay the curse for about a month).
• in early 2018, bianca fully transforms and disappears from her laboratory. her company, having no explanation for her sudden disappearance, credits it to an experiment gone wrong; everest, bianca’s son, doesn’t believe the company’s word, and begins his search for his mother’s true whereabouts.
• in late 2018, the story begins.

i actually have another plot point, but it’s a little long, so i didn’t include it in this post. if you’d like to check it out, here it is:

anyways!

my backstory for the whole story appears to be somewhat well planned, but it’s really no better than the rest of my story — or, rather, lack of a story, because right after the story sets into present-day and actually starts, i have literally no idea where to go from there. i don’t even have a plot for the main story (or, what i have is very, very vague), and my backstory needs plenty of patching up too (e.g. black cat, the greatest menace, remains unexplained in many aspects — how much power does each BC have, why is the BC curse even doing this, what is the final goal for the curse, how did it turn catarina into a ghost, etc). i’d really love if you could give me feedback and ideas for how to patch these plotholes up and also especially with the main plot in general, because for the backstory, i at least have some semblance of an idea; the main plot is completely blank.

aside from general plot help, here are some other questions:

• also, quick note: adrien, octavia, everest, or cecilia (if you read the document) are not my main character, but they are part of the thirteen and they are side characters. my main character is phoebe, and admittedly she doesn’t have a lot going on for her right now. just wanted to clear that up, since the timeline descriptions might cause people to infer that everest is the MC.
• anyways, onto the actual questions!
• is my plot cliche? what parts seem overused or badly done (or is the entire thing badly done)? why are they done badly, and how can i fix it?
• (if you read the document) while the chosen one thing turns out to be fake, i will play it off like it’s real during the beginning of the book. i don’t like chosen one tropes that much myself, which is why i thought subverting it in my book would be clever, but i’m afraid it might ward off or bother potential readers, even if it is all a lie in the end. what do you think?
• also, is the faux chosen one thing also overdone?
• (if you read the document) does anastasia sound cliche/badly constructed? i’m still thinking of a reason why she is so obsessed with immortality; i’ve considered “fear of death” as a possibility, since you hardly see that in villains. it would be hard to play off, though.
• (if you read the document) i have not patched up all of the plotholes surrounding mira’s immortality transfer, or how she was able to transfer a thing like immortality in the first place. logically, if mira’s immortality is conditional, then the same terms should apply to anastasia too, meaning that she will begin to die once the thirteen complete their journey. however, that’s very unappealing to a woman who legitimately wants to live forever, and ana would literally be better off continually injecting herself with essence rather than bargaining for mira’s immortality. i need a reason why mira’s terms don’t apply to anastasia.
• HELP WITH THE ANCIENTS P L E A S E :”D
• is this story too “edgy”? i personally don’t think it is, because while it certainly doesn’t sound like too happy of a story from my timeline description, it’s a lot more lighthearted in my head, with lots of good old Friendship Moments and that sort of cute garbage. i like happy stories with sad undertones/overarching plots; they’re a better sucker punch than stories that are completely dark with every character being a murderous psychopath in some way.
• also!! before anyone says this — yes, thirteen characters is an awful lot to have for a main cast, even if 12 of them are side characters, but i promise there is a somewhat reasonable reason behind why there’s thirteen characters.
• anything else you can think of!! i’m desperate at this point :”D

thanks!!

edit: edited this to fix something really minor — in the timeline i somehow put 2005 before 2003, and it was bothering me, so i fixed up! :”D

oh my GOD. i’m a complete idiot. I FORGOT THERE WAS A PLOT FACTORY SECTION SPECIFICALLY FOR PLOT ISSUES ASDHFFKFKDJD MY BAD. i’m still going to keep this topic here anyhow because i don’t think that the plot factory discussion section is getting much traffic?? but anyhow i’m sorry lmao

This is a great concept, and it sounds like you have more of a plot than you think you do. It might seem really tedious and fruitless for a while, but don't be discouraged by a lack of progress! Big projects take a long time and a lot of mental energy. I'm going to try to address each bullet point as I go and I have requested access to the doc you linked if you would like me to view it.

• How does the bracelet attach itself? Does it move? Does it have a method or pattern for choosing hosts, and if so what is it??
• If it is a curse then it doesn't need a motivation, it was created to be evil. You should maybe come up with a backstory as to how and or why the curse was created to begin with
• It doesn't sound cliche, beyond the people being born in the same year (or on the same day or whatever it is) I've never heard anything like it before
• It seems like you're starting the timeline long before the actual first chapter of your story, which is what I would have suggested doing if you weren't, but that sets you up to possible make a big mistake later on. Please be careful not to do exposition dumps. If you tell large portion of the backstory at once, it slows down the flow of the story and the reader loses interest. Try to reveal as much of the history as you can through the actions and adventures of your major characters, so that you don't just end up using Mira to spit out all of your backstory.
• I really like the idea of the ancients and their basis in Chinese zodiac. Maybe establish how she contacts them like, are they in another dimension of plane of reality or are they hidden among humans? Also I think it would be cool if maybe you were subtle about their ties to the Chinese zodiac, like maybe instead of naming them after the tiger, dragon, rat, etc. you just give them the traits or base them off of the values of each specific zodiac
• Also the ancients kind of sound like assholes, please don't change that. Characters that work for the greater good with little regard for things like human attachments adds more depth to the story and creates conflicting feelings within the reader that will keep them engaged
• There weren't very many jobs for women in the science field in 1963, the U.S. was terribly, unabashedly sexist for quite some time, so maybe have her start her science career a little later or express a frustration at the lack of opportunity or something? I dunno, historical accuracy shouldn't be your top priority so don't adjust it if it won't fit
• Noticing a lot of complex female characters and thoroughly enjoying it
• Again the only notes i have here would be on historical accuracy, maybe look into China's economy and society in the time frame between Catarina's birth and rise to fame and fortune
• Keep in mind that social isolation would cause her sanity and mental state to deteriorate more quickly. Humans are social creatures and social isolation can cause severe and irreversible psychological damage

My brain is kind of in and out right now and I just took medication so I will address more of the points at a later dates. You are doing a great job, keep up the good work. Some tips I have as far as the writing process goes, try not to overcrowd your story, and if you do, purge some things and start over. If you add too much into too small of a space, you will get stuck and it will feel pointless (made this mistake so many times). Don't be afraid to make life difficult for your characters. I know you love them but if you let things get too domestic then you no longer have a story. The harder things are for them, the more interesting and in depth the story can get. This includes letting them lose. Like bad. I'm talking like, they lose everything they've been working so hard for and have to completely rebuild and rethink everything type stuff if that's what it takes. The good guys don't always win in real life so who says they should in stories. Don't be afraid to bullshit, life bullshits stuff all the time its just the natural order of the universe, that's why we have Australia and narwhals. And most importantly, don't forget to enjoy yourself. Having fun with the story you're writing is what makes all of the blood sweat and tears worth it. I'll be sure to give more suggestions and check up soon but I don't know how long that will take me. If you do want more feedback from me before I've gotten a chance to add anything feel free to contact me at [email protected]. Till then, good luck!

hey, thanks for responding to my post, and sorry for this 3 day late reply :”D !! also, i didn’t realize that the link i out in my original post to my google doc was faulty, so i’ve added a new one above. scroll up and click it if you’re still interested in reading it!

• honestly, i don’t have any idea how the bracelet attaches itself, and i’m thinking that maybe it doesn’t manifest as a bracelet for every host, and instead changes forms (but probably it still maintains a jewelry/accessory related appearance). i don’t exactly think that the curse has a specific pattern for choosing hosts, but i do think that it’s inclined to choosing achieved people (e.g. bianca was a famous scientist, catarina owned a large fashion brand)
• the only thing i know right now is that the curse is latching itself onto all these hosts in order to have something to pit against the ancients/a corporeal form to complete its goal, but it’s not sure what sparked this hatred and i’m not sure what the curse’s ultimate goal is by getting rid of the ancients.
• i’m assuming that when you say “beyond the people being born in the same year” that you mean how the thirteen were all born in 2003. if not, please elaborate, because i don’t really know what you mean :”D
• yeah, i’ve been wary of falling into the exposition dump pitfall, especially considering that i do intend to overwrite/give unnecessary information. what i’m thinking is that i’ll initially introduce mira as the “wise and vague mentor” (the best comparison i could find for this is dumbledore, although she’s not that like him either, only somewhat similar) and then slowly unravel her to reveal a troubled and not-as-knowledgable-as-the-thirteen-thought (but still a good person!!) adult underneath. maybe i just haven’t been reading the right things, but i think it’s a refreshing change for a physically 40-looking adult to be riddled with angst and for the 15 year old female main character to be completely devoid of any tragic past. phoebe is living the good life
• if you like the ancients’ basis in the chinese zodiac, then i think you’ll be pleased to know that my main characters are also based off the zodiac (except they’re based off the western one, so it’s aries, taurus, gemini, etc, instead of rat, ox, etc). this symbolism thing isn’t mentioned explicitly in the book, but it is sort of hinted at and also the main characters’ names are based on their respective zodiac (it’s subtle enough that i don’t think anyone could tell, however — you can’t really get a specific zodiac out of the name phoebe montag). i’m planning to do the same for the ancients, but i might make their names a little more “alien”, considering they’re (sort of) like gods. i won’t just flat out name them “tiger”, “rabbit”, or “snake”, though!
• i’m thinking that they will mostly reside in a separate dimension (it’s gonna take me a LONG time to get that sorted out), but can also give themselves a human form. i don’t really know what their true form would look like, but like how angels sometimes look really weird (i forgot the name but there’s literally a type of angel that’s a flaming wheel), i don’t think they’d be very normal-looking/pretty in their true forms.
• the ancients are kind of assholes. i am going to make them inherently good and working for the right side, but like how they just flat-out will take away mira’s immortality when she’s done with her mission, i think they view this whole predicament akin to a game of chess (with mira being the queen piece on their board that they need to use against the curse) and don’t really feel a lot of empathy for mira’s side of the story. i doubt anybody would be very happy knowing they’ll just die after completing their job, and won’t even receive any recognition for their efforts, because the ancients are probably also stuck in that “you’re SUPPOSED to fight for the greater good, you don’t get rewarded for doing your JOB”
• the ancients know how important mira is, so undoubtedly they would’ve had their eye on her from the moment she was born, but i’m also considering taking it a step further, and make it so that one of the ancients went to earth in human-form to yank younger mira from her birth parents and then raised mira as their own/into thinking that the human-form ancient was their real parent.
• i’m thinking that either one of the ancients just descends down and sort of “kidnaps” younger to a lesser degree, like how sometimes kids are gently led away by strangers who offer them an ice cream or something, and then since she’s so young, she’ll grow believing that this human-form ancient is her real parent. my other option is that the ancients just killed her parents, which would’ve sent mira to the orphanage, where she could be picked up by a human-form ancient and consciously know that she’s adopted. i think the second one is the one i’ll go with, since that way it would be easier to explain the appearance differences between the ancient that raised mira and mira herself, since you know at some point younger mira would’ve asked why they don’t look similar or whatever.
• i think the killing parents thing is a little extreme, though. i don’t really want to give everyone an angsty past, not because i’m trying to be soft on my characters but because i find it really annoying when authors think that dead parents (x5) is the formula to a sad story and then every character’s parents are dead in some magical war or something. it’s just a little irritating :”D
• anyhow, i like the idea of the human-form ancient adopting mira because it makes sense for the ancients’ side: this person is Very Important to their final goal, so it’s an asset to them when one of their own is raising that important person, because now they essentially have full control over mira. it’s also nice for mira’s side, because you know that the human-form ancient couldn’t have stayed forever — at some point, they would’ve had to have left to travel back to their own dimension, and so probably they would’ve faked their death in the process in order to make mira think they were dead. mira would’ve spent the years afterwards lamenting the death of her sole caretaker, and then years later when she’s working with these clueless 15 year olds, she finds out that her entire childhood was literally fake (in a way).
• anyhow, tell me what you think!!
• thank you so much for reminding me!! my historical accuracy in this story is absolute GARBAGE, i’ll see if i can fix that somehow
• thank you! i’m glad you like bianca & mira & catarina
• yeah, you have a point. catarina’s really just doing herself more harm by trying to spare her family the pain of watching her go insane. the only reasoning i can provide for this is that catarina’s probably a little off her rocker/not being in her best state while the curse overtakes/has overtaken her, considering that she makes a lot of questionable decisions — setting someone’s house on fire (but i guess her title of the firestarter isn’t for nothing), and locking herself into a wardrobe right after becoming a ghost.

thanks for all your advice, and sorry for this small essay! also this is unedited (i was too lazy to read it over), so apologies for any typos/weirdly worded sentences

Ok so I'm gonna start off with the questions you asked in the original post and then address some of the points for your reply. Please bear with me…

• The story isn't cliche at all like I mentioned before. I know you asked me to explain what I meant so I'll do that in a minute but first to address the other questions.
• So I read through the doc and I like the sound of it but there are certain parts that I just need more context for because I can't really grasp what you are trying to say
  -How does a timekeeper change the geographical location of the original chosen ones?
  -I'm slightly confused about the faux chosen one time swap thing. So is that saying that in the unaltered timeline Cecilia would have been the grandmother of one of the chosen ones, but after Anastasia swapped them then Cecilia ended up being the granddaughter of said chosen one?
• Anastasia doesn't sound cliche, but if you really feel like she isn't unique or original enough you could always just develop her character further. Also, she doesn't really need a reason to be obsessed with immortality, most of the human race is and has been since the dawn of time. Just about everyone is afraid of death and a lot of people don't actually think about the consequences of immortality and so they seek it desperately.
• Well what you could do is broaden the power of Anastasia so that it can include the ability to make bargains like that. You could make it so that she has enough power to sustain immortality but not create an immortal, so once Mira gives away the immortality, Anastasia is able to sustain it on her own and therefore the Ancients aren't needed for her to keep her immortality
• It's not too edgy, I totally get it. The important details are almost never the fun ones.
• So 12 for the 12 western zodiacs… guess I'll be looking out for this story so when it gets published I can find out where the 13th comes from.

And now for the newer concerns…

• So as far as the whole people being born in the same year thing goes, I was talking about the thirteen, and them being your protagonists. The closest thing I could think of that would make this sound even remotely cliche is the show Sense 8 and stories with concepts similar to it, where a group of people born at exactly the same time are linked somehow and the story is focused around them and their connection. But your concept isn't really anything like those at all, so I wouldn't call it a cliche. Plus I'm assuming they were born during the different zodiac time frames, so it doesn't really even fit the whole "born at the same time" concept either.
• I like the idea of one of the ancients adopting Mira, but maybe instead of killing them just say they were poor and had to give her up, or she was abandoned or something.

a 6 day late reply! nice going, royaltea

ASDFJFDJDJ i’m so sorry about this nearly week late reply, i have my math midterms next week and i was a little caught up in studying for them — sorry!

• honestly, i legitimately hadn’t stopped to consider how anastasia could’ve changed the geographical location if she’s only able to chronologically move them around. thanks for that, i’ll get to work on patching up that plothole!
• yes, that’s exactly right! cecilia would’ve been the grandmother of the chosen one, but with anastasia’s inference, cecilia is now the granddaughter of the chosen one while the chosen one is the grandma.
• yeah, you’ve got a point there. immortality has been a huge thing in history, and humanity’s been chasing the secrets to it for a while, so i think i’ll go with “fear of death” as one of anastasia’s “reasons”, since it’ll also make for an interesting villain.
• oh my god!! that’s so clever — i’m definitely using it. i hadn’t considered that anastasia could have being able to maintain immortality/bargain for it as a power
• the 13th is actually sort of being debated on for me right now. the cast represents only 12 zodiacs, but it’s actually 13 characters because gemini (the twins) is represented as a pair of siblings (haha). however, i usually end up referring to the pair as a singular unit, so often i say that i have only 12 main characters. the hypothetical 13th is meant to be ophiuchus, the snake-bearer, but i’m not quite sure if i want to include him or not, so i say 13 main characters now, because it’s correct whether i include ophiuchus or not.
• yep! they were all born in the same year, but at different times.
• yeah, killing is a little extreme.

i’m well-aware that this response does not have a lot of content and therefore nothing to really respond to, so you don’t have to reply to this if you don’t want to. thanks for your time and help with my story!