insideoutfan said:
I can't speak to your thoughts on the movie, I thought the depression metaphor was pretty plain-sight.
I've been reading a lot of Scott Adams stuff about his
Moist Robot hypothesis so I was primed to look at it in a different direction.
I mean, the Five Emotions are literally personified, button-pushers in a control room, internal conflict rendered as interpersonal dialogue.
I didn't want to write in any major destructive force like a disease, mental illness, or rape. ...
I year ya' what you're saying with the hero saving her from rape. It's definitely cliche. I think my goal was to introduce Mystie as a female role model, in a way. I want to paint a picture that Riley's tough, I mean, she plays hockey after all, and she was really capable of getting out of that situation at any time, she just doesn't know her own strength. I didn't mean to convey damsel in distress; I think I need to go back and rewrite that whole set of scenes.
You're saying one thing and writing another though.
I think the problem is that the story is kind of... meandering, it's like "oh shit the scene were Riley was passively sitting in a gym getting lectured at was boring, better turn up the Melodrama dial!"
Like, my advice is to recast that scene not as Riley getting
molesterated in the bathroom of a club, she never even goes in the bathroom.
My advice is actually to kinda keep the scene, just tone it down.
Rather than making Rodney some random villain, make him a "prospective love interest." Cute and charming, and he flirts with Riley and she's interested back, but she's also hiding that she feels out of her depth and getting increasingly uncomfortable because she wants to put the brakes on it without knowing quite how.
And that's when Mystie shows up, and she's the one that observes that Riley is uncomfortable and gets her acquaintance/buddy/ex-boyfriend/"it's complicated" Rodney to back off without it being a problem or a scene.
That allows you to use Rodney as a crush-figure that she's attracted to for mediocre reasons without actually knowing anything about him, just having hormones dragging her along by the hypothalamus.
I think that would work better. It's more about uncertainly and insecurity about new, unfamiliar relationships, rather than having all the nasty sex stuff being overtly threatening. And it's not establishing this dynamic you're falling into where girls get character development traumatic sexual encounters, like:
Mystie's tough and weathered with high self confidence despite her own growing pains including a violent rape; ... Mystie only knows men through the violent lens of her past. The party girl only concerns herself with sex, and the appearance or social status of men.
Yeah, too much, reel it back in, she's Obi-Won Kenobi not Luke Skywalker; Mystie is the mentor, not the Journeying Hero who's gotta have revelations. Also the rape-as-melodrama thing is back.
Also why did Riley lie to her parents about going to the club? I kinda go the impression it was so you-the-author could head her off from having to call her parents and have her rely on the cool and mysterious Original Character instead.
I think she should just go ahead and have her parent's permission, and you can make it an awkward conversation scene to highlight how even if she's comfortable talking with them, actual communication is hard.
I want Riley to go home to Minnesota; somewhat against her will (out of fear of starting over, again) and in large part because her parents are too busy with their jobs to watch her as she gets into more and more grown up situations. There she ends up with more freedom than she bargained for, and even in folksy, backwater Minnesota, she can't avoid modern teenage problems.
How? Is she going to stay with her grandparents while over summer break or anything? Meet up with Old Best Friend while still texting Mystie?
It could be interesting, but this isn't really enough to support a story arc in itself.
She has horrible female role models. Her mother is an oblivious pushover who tries her best, her friends are vacuous and self-centered, and she's one face in a sea of little girls with problems.
This might be overstating the case, it's too easy to do the "parents don't understand teenagers lol" thing.
Also since her friends are all OCs, they're only vacuous or self-centered if you want them to be.
It sounds like you're better off just making it so that all these girls are taking to each other about what's bothering them but they all give each other bad answers because of mutual ignorance.
Maybe another is a party girl who teaches Riley to have fun and let loose, and live care free (often resulting in questionable hijinks and even more adult situations).
Maybe another teaches caring for her feminine side; beauty products, shaving, feminine hygiene. Basically, all of them replace the function of her mother in some way. Maybe she comes back home using that knowledge to repair the relationship with her mother?
Isn't Mystie already the "party girl"?
Why even replace mom?
My advice is cut 'em.
Romance comes and goes, but at that age, it's quick! I had boyfriends that lasted months, or even weeks! Maybe two or three boys come and go with each one leaving an unfulfilling impression of masculinity that she has to reconcile with her female role models. They, in turn, only offer one part each of the full picture.
I'm getting that Lesbian Earth Goddess vibe. I think you should just go ahead and introduce one of those, all new-age nonsense and stuff. I mean, the story
is already set in San Fransisco, you can introduce all the weirdos you want.
Also
Yahtzee Crowshow trots out a question he got asked by a writing professor he had once:
Is this the most interesting time of the protagonist's life, and if not, why aren't you writing about that instead?
Since it's fanfiction coming off a movie, it's pretty tough not to just write a movie rehash.
I feel like the reason you're writing this is just to talk about Riley going through puberty, which needs to have some narrative purpose or you're going to be writing more a series of events rather than a
story.