Please help my plot

I always thought of the climax as the point where the conflict, having escalated to the breaking point, actually breaks loose. I'd call the resolution the part where they decide to work together as a family to achieve their dreams.

What I don't know about the story yet is a) what the family's dreams are, b) what the conflicts are that threaten the dreams, and c) what each of the characters want that puts them into conflict. IOW, are the conflicts centered around the hormonal imbalance itself, or around the character's behavior as a result, or around everyone else's reaction to them, etc.

Jerry Cleaver, in his book Immediate Fiction, wrote that the end is in the beginning. Meaning, the conclusion of the story should include the answer to the problems presented at the beginning. I thought it was good advice.

Why does society object to them becoming a family?

How hard is it to carve out new territory? Is the land all taken, so that the problem is that in order to be an official clan they have to take/win/buy land from someone else?

How does Ravennin overcome his hyperterritoriality (aka over-dominance, which is easier to type) enough to get on with the other three?

Over-dominance sometimes occurs in male rats - the commonest cure is castration, but otherwise the problem peaks around puberty and generally fades out by late middle-age. It is sometimes true that over-dominant bucks can learn to get on with a small group of other males whom they are close to and have grown up with, and direct their aggressive energies outward to defend the group.

It is pretty-much unheard-of for an over-dominant buck to accept another adult male they haven't grown up with, but they will often accept youngsters. Often they still bully their companions even if they don't actively attack them: but I once had a super-aggressive buck called Thorn who was actually a very benign pack-boss, though he would attack anyone and anything outside his pack (except female rats of course). So it is *possible* for an over-dominant to bond with other males.

A wargame or meleé (moderate, controlled violence treated as a sport and generally stopping short at the occasional broken arm) sounds like a good way for them to win land. Maybe they could attempt to win a wargame/meleé by some sort of sneaky, non-violent strategy and be disqualified for sharp practice/not putting on enough of a violent show - and then go on to save the day by putting their plan into action in a *real* war.

Sneaky, cheating strategies could be for example a wargame where the opposing team has to hold a particular goal-object or location, and they lure them away from it in some cunning way while one of their number sneaks in behind. Or *they* have to guard a goal-object, and they make it look as if they have gone out scouting and left only one guard but in fact they are all hiding under home-made camouflage nets, and when the other team rush in they end up surrounded.

Actually, the invention of camouflage in a society where soldiers fight in bright clan colours would be a a good way to show the little group using their brains in a lateral, innovative way and being looked askance at for it.

Just my 3 cents:

How about some sort of natural disaster/calamity that rips their society apart, seperating many from their clans, killing many others (perhaps) and putting all in dire straits (still one of my favorite bands). Your charcters' skills might be utilized to save portions of the society; a current leader (maybe the father) might be struck down/injured, forcing someone to step up to the plate. Just a thought; maybe it's a little too Hollywood for ya.

Rob

I'm not sure if this is even pliable but you say Ravenna has territorial disorder (just making it simpler)........ok wouldn't that make it very hard for him to accept an outside and esp her small (male to boot) child as his own??????? Say there is a war...........which forces the whole family to depend on each other for their survival esp Ravenna would I would assume would be the most aggressive and in one of the battles he ends up killing the husband of this girl...........overcoming a great struggle in himself because she's from the otherside and a rival's woman he still feels obligated to protect and marry her (of course he falls in love with both her and the child) due to the fact they are abandoned during the battle and they will both die if he doesn't take them in....ta da internal vs external conflict........then resolved...of course at first even the family has pb excepting her and the boy in fact making her pregnant might work better since this was a personal rival he killed and he has to actually protect and work inside the family accepting them and finally becoming more of a part of his own family for this to work. Takes a village to raise a child type thinking.....in war you can't fight if their is no one helping take care of you woman and child.

You asked I complied you didn't say anything about the ideas having to be good (laughing).

:Cheer:I think Rob is on to something...one of the best ways to have a character overcome a "flaw" IMHO, is to have some outside force push him or her into it. If something (ie natural calamity, war, insurrection, etc) occurs that he has no control over, but pushes him into a situation where he has to act, you can write about the inner conflict as well as the outter. That way readers will not only see the change, but they will understand why, and how it came about.

Just my own penny...feel free to ask for change...

KP

Maybe the natural disaster wipes out a clan(s). By clan rules, the surviving clans can divy up what property remains, including any children to adopt into their own clan.

Maybe the 4 people learn how to become a family in part by weighing the pros/cons of what to choose from among the property. They can disagree on who or what would benefit them as a whole, and through this conflict bring out their strengths and weaknesses, while also proving Raveninn a leader in how he manages the debate and finally chooses on behalf of the clan. The choice can be an unpopular one among his own clan and peers alike, which will further test his ability to persevere as well as test the loyalty of his clan to support him, despite how much they disagree with his choice.

Perhaps what he chooses from all the wealth and promising children is the one child, who likeRaveninn, is shunned for some genetic reason. And emphasize that he didn't have last pick among the clans, but first, which makes his choice all the more shocking.

Acquiring this child and integrating it into the clan could solve the "have a child" problem. Adoption vs conception.

The climax could come when something quite unique to that child ultimately ensures the surival of his or all clans, perhaps the very genetic disorder that has the child shunned. And perhaps Raveninn never knew this child would one day save them all, but he learned to rely on his instincts, despite all the opposition, and his instincts prove right, making him the leader he knew he could be.

If they're all guys, how are they going to have an egg? This implies the society has quite advanced medical technology or magic.

The idea if gay dinosaurs isn't as way out as it might sound, btw. Homosexuality is known to occur in some species of bird - especially in bearded vultures, for some reason.

sunandshadow said:

I don't want to use adoption though. The point, psychologically, of ending a romance with a baby is to show that the pair of lovers who have chosen each other and struggled against lots of opposition to be together becoming unified genetically in the child, and perpetuating their family into the future through that child. So really there ought to be at least two eggs, one for Merru and Lieann, and one for Ravennin and Attranath; or I guess since it's a fantasy one egg for all 4 of them is possible. (Uh, did I mention they're bird-dinosaur-like aliens who lay eggs?)

But, I really like the idea that the thing society was prejudiced against turns out to be the thing which saves society. That's just the sort of thing that would make for a great climax. How might the characters' wierdness end up saving the day?

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Wierdness is relative. Maybe it's a skill he/she has. Perhaps the ability to dive beneath water, or something about the wings that would allow her/him to fly in the worst of storms when others can't...there are a lot of possibilities. Give this child something he/she can do or is not prone to vs the elements. It's hard for me to suggest more without fleshing out an entire plot.

And since you're talking dinosaur-like eggs.... why does the brining together of their genetic code in an egg(s) have to come at the end. Can't it come in the beginning. Maybe you should be concerned with the survival of the eggs (the "normal ones" vs the "handicapped" one). The Parents could go all out to protect the normal one, but only Raveninn fights for the "handicapped" one. Again, such a struggle could test all of their strengths and weaknesses. The hatching, which one will actually hatch, could be the ending. Or what appears when it does hatch. You have a lot of aspects to play with here.

Maybe there's one egg that requires the insertion of the 4 character's genetic code at various key points (i.e FOUR STAGES of development for the fetus). If one of the characters is not present due to other circumstances, it could endanger the egg. Give each character a special needlelike body part that infuses the genetic material through a port in the egg or something like that. Maybe the fact that Raveninn is already "flawed" genetically causes the debate and arguments over whether he should even contribue his genetic material as opposed to having a donor, or others could try to prevent Raveninn from returning home when it's his time to contribute because they know it's his turn and they don't want more genetically imperfect children in their society.

This wouldn't require special technology if you make it all natural biology to them. it just requires thinking through their biology, conception process, development process and birth process. Don't be constrained by our own biology and that of animals as we know it.

It's your world, if you treat something as everyday / normal process in your world, then the reader will accept the rules as "fact" for that world. Hope this helps.

I tried to read this all very fast, because there were many posts. Hopefully, this is not a duplicate.

As soon as you imply it's a disorder, rather than a genetic thing, (it sounds like a combination) the first step is his becoming aware he isn't what he wants to be. Once, you introduce that element, you can go anywhere you want. You can make a white man wish he was black, or a woman wish she were a man. You can have a boy wish he were a fish, or an eagle. The idea of people not being content with who and what they are is not new. But the key is showing the inner turmoil, of being something you don't want to be, yet, perhaps loving it, and being in a wrestling match with yourself.

In my mind, you have to have him come to a lightbulb experience, where he goes from thinking "What's wrong with everyone else," to "What's wrong with me,"

And to do that, you bring in his desires. "I want to be loved, I don't want to be confrontational." In a sense, you make him like everyone in the world with a personality disorder, who has an epiphany. "What's wrong with me?"

"I've got Confrontita blood in my veins, like a poison passed down through my father's loins. It's my nature to fight, but there is another side emerging...I had a dream where I wasn't my kind, and felt release from turmoil...I want to feel that way again."

But you don't want to leave him, in "futility" which is, "I can never change". To do that, perhaps you can have him discover ancient writings of someone like himself who went to a special place, metaphorical or otherwise, where they transformed.

"I've read in the books of Illumaform, that if I reach the light of...my anger will be gone, and my nature will change."

Throw in motive. "Unless I change, I will never have the one I love..."

Generally speaking, you are drawing upon real life, because some people have a deeply ingrained flaw. But, if I were writing something like this, here's the direction I'd go. I'd make it a life or death thing. He "NEEDS" this particular woman or his species and bloodline perishes. Perhaps, "He will perish" as well, if she refuses his seed, like a whacko salmon swimming upstream.

He has to have an immensely complex reason for risking his life to become a different person than he is.

sunandshadow said:

The moral of the novel is: Don't change your nature to suit the goals society's stereotyping assigns to you, because that will make you miserable. Instead disregard society and choose goals suited to your nature, because that's how you'll find happiness.

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That's OK provided the goals suited to your nature aren't world domination, rape, torture etc.. The world would have been a better place if e.g. Stalin or Hitler had changed their goals to conform with society!

Surely a more widely applicable moral - and one which seems to fit your story even better - is "Instead of blaming yourself for your perceived character-flaws, find a positive way of using them and turn them into virtues."

sunandshadow said:

Nateskate - Thank you for that nice clear analysis. That's actually the flipside of what I want to do. Instead of a lightbulb moment where he goes from thinking "What's wrong with everyone else?" to "What's wrong with me?", he starts out thinking "I must control my dangerous flaw." then has an epiphany where he realizes that he's not flawed, everyone else is wrong in their stereotyping of him. So instead of setting out to change, he sets out to prove to everyone that they're wrong by beating them at their own game, proving that he's not just unflawed but that trusting his instincts will lead him to greatness.

The moral of the novel is: Don't change your nature to suit the goals society's stereotyping assigns to you, because that will make you miserable. Instead disregard society and choose goals suited to your nature, because that's how you'll find happiness.

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Wow, that's an interesting approach. It just runs counter-intuitive to how my brain works. I really throw human nature into my stories, big time. I'd say all my characters, in the WIP are flawed. Some are likably flawed, others are arrogant and twisted.

In book one, which is laying the ground work for the series, people's flaws generally get the best of them. Giving in to their fears and anger pretty much brings the rest of their race and their world to the brink of extinction.

And the sad thing is, we (the reader) will stand at a crossroads with them. We understand what they felt, and why they made the choice, but being omniscient, we see what they fail to see.

So, when a daughter is embittered because she never took the time to talk to her father about an arranged marriage, we realize the gravity of being in her place, where all control is taken from her. But in this case, being at this time in history, this was a normal way of life, for kings to choose mates for their children. She is left taking a risk, "Trust my father," or "rebell against my father."

Her needling brother (Who hates his father) torments her, and purposely drives a wedge between them. It's an irony. She doesn't realize, the year before, she met a stranger and fell in love with this man. This is the very man her father chose. He was a prince, and perfect, the very person she wished in all the world to marry.

However, she picked up on her brother's bitterness, and errantly pressumed her father didn't care about her, and cheated her of her hope.

But here's the saddest part (of this section of the story), all she has to do is tell her father (who was always good to her) her fears and reservations. She has a chance for everything to work out. Instead of confronting her father with her fears, which he encourages, she emotionally withdraws, and pulls the old silent treatment, fuming inside, pretending outwardly that everything is okay. He can't read her mind, and weeps at night, mourning the loss of her love.

And because she can't let go of her anger toward her father, she does something terribly foolish. Her choice to stay bitter, which was entirely due to not giving her father the benefit of the doubt, winds up setting in motion a series of dominos, unleashing an overwhelming evil, and a day of sorrow that couldn't be undone.

She was the most beautiful woman in the world, and bitterness was the poison that consumed her. What makes it a tempting story for me, is that you realize she was a few choices from being "inwardly", the most beautiful person in the world. She's never portrayed as "evil". She just lacked insight, and things got way out of hand. And isn't that reality. People who don't intend to hurt others, hurt others? People who mean well, panic and do stupid things they later regret?

Book one is bittersweet. It has to lay the groundwork that our choices, more than the enemies malice, winds up having the greatest impact on our world.

Book two is warmer, and funnier. That's surprising, because in book two, half the characters are living these complex lies. They not only lied to others about their real identities, but some have lied to themselves. It just makes the journey, and the battle against the forces set on destroying the world, more complex. For awhile, as these revelations are made, you have this dilema, "Which is the greater danger, trusting this other person, who I've found has lied to me for years, or risk facing the monstrous task of trying to survive without them?"