Want some input before returning to hell

Sure: who is he? What are his passions? What are his inner contradictions? Why should we care?

When you have this type of difficulty, you may benefit from sending snippets to a few autoher beta readers.

Crappy example incoming.

MC has more trouble than most fitting in. It's tricky when being able to read people's minds means he knows when they're lying, and they lie a lot. When the chance for a fresh start aboard a FTL internship comes along he grabs it with both hands.

He gets more than a fresh start when he meets Hybrid, beautiful, intoxicating and very, very alien. Also very, very forbidden. When MC discovers the looming attack of the Mega Space Turnips, he has a choice ...and this is where I get stuck. His choice is save the world or not. Not really a choice....a good meaty damned if you do damned if you don't choice here would be great. And might be a nice little teaser to end on. Maybe: He has to choose between his own race, the humans he can't trust, or the Hybrid's. Only one can survive.....

Okay, like I said crappy example from minimal info. But it seems that MC isn't making much in the way of hard choices (maybe he does, and I just don't see it in the info here)

Because I have no idea, I'm just posting another question.

How to the major sections 1 and 2 (and to a point 3, if the girlfriend is not in his team) matter, once the character becomes a war grunt? I mean, look at Starship Troopers (yeah, I'm to much a movie- and not enough a book-person), which has some parallels: In the end, all the threads come back together.

If in the great Climax, the character shoots the evil Alien Queen Ship from 2 Light seconds away, I don't want to have to ask myself: "Why did this character have to be a telepath now?" or "What did this long, dry part about the faster-then-light project contribute to this ending, again?"

I'll return to my earlier question: who is he, what are his passions, what are his inner conflicts and why should we care?

I don't get into the mind of these Ganeshans and their fraternization/hybrid laws?

For a civilization that direly needs new people, it seams strange to prohibit having children (even if it's only forbidden with unmodded humans). But they go even further and say, when hybrids do happen to be born, those are forced not to breed (not even have a relation) among each other? If they'd be forbidden to have children with pure Ganeshan that could go as a kind of "Keep the Gene pool clean" rule, that is not really scientifically advanced but something that is somewhat believable, still. If they were forbidden to have children with humans this could be, because they are meant not to spread their genetic improvements to someone whose loyalty might lie with someone who might at some point become an enemy of the Ganeshans.
But then, why are they covertly helping the humans with the FTL? Why don't they just give it out, if they want the humans to have it / if they traded it for space to rebuild their population? What exactly do they want (and who is "they" in that case? -> Political structure)?


And then there is this father person who sounds like he could have a serious case of being an elf - and the bad kind. What exactly did he do, to get so much offspring secretly, yet have them all reunite on the rebuilt carrier? Andwhy did he do that? Did he see all of it coming? Please don't say, he saw it all coming and worked out a huge masterplan to have all the pieces fall together like that, years after his death. That does not only sound impossible complicated, if I accepted, that he could pull this through, you would have a very hard time to convince me, there was no simpler way to prepare the combined forces of earth-humans and Ganeshan for the return of the evil aliens.

Maraxus, this is all situation and plot-hooks. No matter how clever and complicated the plot we have no great reason to care.

Who is this guy? Why should we care to see the story through his eyes? Why is his personality the best one for these situations, and why are these situations the worst possible things that could happen to him?

I'll give you a f'rinstance from a WIP:
All of the above is plottish stuff. We have a situation, a goal, opposition and the risk of disaster. But though there's plot we have no story. There's no character, no personality; just names and jobs. So let's add some bottom-story:

In the top story, Jarrad is trying to save the community; but in the bottom story he's trying to save himself. The top story is tactical: how do you turn the tables on a malign master? But the bottom story is moral: would you rather look the hero or be the hero?

The bottom story hints at Jarrad's ruling passion: he's constantly pushing himself with his disease, trying to regain his lost strength but letting people down because of it. It also tells us his inner conflict: he's not the man he used to be and can't accept that and others are paying the price.

For me this is the worst challenge for Jarrad because to date he has never sacrificed for heroism. He'd take physical risks, but not emotional risks, and picking up the pieces was always someone else's problem. I feel that Jarrad is the best character for this role because he'll be most tempted to throw in with the succubus. I hope that he'll be sympathetic because of his past heroism, his looks and current suffering, but also flawed because he's emotionally dependent.

What I'm looking for in your description is your main character's bottom story: the thing that defines him as a character regardless of where he is and what he's doing. I'm looking for a signature independent of plot that shows his inner contradictions, his passions and that makes him sympathetic. I believe a compelling main character plus the worst day of his life will sell your story.

Ah, now I see. Yes, good point, although I'm definitely not the one to notice that. I'm not so much into single persons anyway and would even more likely complain that in this story you are stuck with only a single main character instead of having multiple characters to get different views on the events, then to expect that the character simply gets deeper to be able to tie me up the whole book. (Hey, just a few days ago I wrote, that when it comes to point of view, my primary decision would be omniscient or 3rd limited, instead of 3rd limited or 1st person? ... )

Maraxus, I sympathise. I can spin out plot in moments, but agonise over characters for weeks.

Relating to your single character vs ensemble comment, a conflicted main character was just an example. We actually need passions and inner contradictions for all our major characters -- adversaries, sidekicks etc... Else they go flat as half-cooked soufflé. In the WIP I've had to go through a similar exercise for the succubus and Bryant, for instance, and for at least one of the murder victims.

The isolation (i.e. loneliness) looks like part of an inner conflict, but as it stands if he only found the right people it might be resolved, so you need something else to lock it into him. An inner conflict can never be resolved by doing something. It's resolved by changing who we are -- what we value, believe, how we perceive things.

In another story I have a character whom everyone thinks of as promiscuous and easy. Her problem is that she has low self-esteem so she acts promiscuous, and then feels guilt for that, which lowers her self-esteem. You can tell it's an inner conflict because she herself creates the problem. She can't resolve this by going somewhere else, or hanging with other people. She can only resolve it by changing how she thinks of herself, and that can only occur when something helps her see things differently. In this story, standing against a bully to defend a loved one lifts her self-esteem. She realises that she doesn't have to always be ageeable and so she loses her promiscuity too.

So, some questions to help lift the drama:

1. What is it inside Mark that's locking him into loneliness and a sense of isolation?
2. Why will this follow him wherever he goes and whatever he does?
3. How will this interfere with anything important he tries to achieve?
4. What must he sacrifice to resolve it?
5. How could he come to realise the nature of his problem?
6. Why is it impossible that he could ever make that sacrifice?

Hope that helps clarify a bit.

rmgil04 said:

Thanks.

Sounds like the key elements I should focus on include Mark's abilities (telepathy in particular) keeping him isolated most of his live. He finally learns the source of when he gets the internship and meets his partner Carine (trained for military service). He falls for her and when he learns she has to leave he volunteers to go with her. His "genetic memories" and telepathy reinforce the importance of the mission. He'd rather go with her to be with her and possibly protect her. Not to mention rather die fighting than just stay at the safe (for now) station while others go to die. Waiting for an enemy warship to arrive.

En Route to the carrier he meets his own combat team (Carine isn't on it). He finds out they had the same father, but unlike Mark, they were all raised by somebody who knew their secrets. Mark was raised by adoptive parents, so even among others like him - family, Mark still feels a sense of isolation. Despite the team's individual talents, they don't work well together. So can they survive the battle? Will they even survive each other? And on a warship with over a thousand soldiers, will Mark find Carine again?

Skip the lost colony/Ganeshan details in the query letter.

Click to expand...

1. Do Mark and Carine share the same father? Because it kinda came off that they do, although at second glance that's not the case.

2. Why does Mark's team not work well together? Is it because of Mark? Or are they all having problems working together? Why isn't he transferred when it's obvious they're putting each other at risk when they're about to go into battle (if Mark is the problem)? Why would they put family members together in the same combat unit in the first place?
2a. How do the others feel about Mark, seeing as he's 'different' from them and the fact his mother killed their father?

3. Isn't Mark a hybrid? If yes, why is his attraction to Carine forbidden if she's a hybrid too? Why do they become attracted to each other in the first place?

4. Why would Mark think he's going to be able to join Carine's team in the first place? Does he have prior military training? Or does he join because she's leaving? He's trying to protect her in a very chauvanistic manner, despite the fact it sounds like she has the better training than he does. Or does he have skills that would make him useful, that make him more than just another grunt? And not just because of the telepathy because it sounds like others have that skill as well.