PixieXW said:
[font=Arial, Verdana, sans-serif]My characters, both who were thought to be infertile, have just had a baby. The mother- Unknown to anyone but herself- had a still birth seventy years ago, and never believed she could carry a baby. She didn't know she was pregnant until she was in labour. The father and her are no longer together, betrayal having split them apart, but he knows the baby girl, born alive and seemingly healthy, is his. There are many people out there who would love to experiment on this child also. I am unsure where to take the story, I don't want it to be overly long, a maximum of ten chapters, having already written two-possibly three. I'm not sure which avenue would be the best for people, and which avenue would give the most rounded storyline. Currently father is spending time with his daughter, who he already adores, and mother has just woken for the first time since giving birth having lost a huge amount of blood. Any help would be fantastic. [/font]
[font=Arial, Verdana, sans-serif]Ps, I had someone comment saying the story sounds dull and pointless, do others have this opinion? [/font]
First and foremost, why is the font color black? You can't see anything when your background is already black.
Secondly, without context, any and every story will sound boring in a synopsis. Take this for example: "Man wakes up with a woman in bed." Nothing exciting, nothing to care about, and that's the main question you'll ask yourself -- "
Who cares?"
Now, try this: "Man wakes up married to a woman in bed." A little more detail, but still, not really enough to make one actually care about him or his situation. You don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing, and there's not enough information present to try and decide either way. Anyone reading a synopsis like this isn't going to be drawn into the story.
Finally, look at this: "Hungover man wakes up married to his fiancee's sister."
Now we have a reason to care. There's enough information to tell us that this is very likely the worst-case scenario here, and it's going to cause friction for our protagonist, no matter what happens. A reader is likely going to be much more interested in a synopsis like this as opposed to "Man wakes up with a woman in bed."
Reading the paragraph above, this isn't a story, but an idea. That there is talk of experimenting on a baby tells me that this should be some wildly impossible concept, like "cross-species conception" level of impossible. If this story is not on that level of impossible, I would seriously reconsider the idea. Also, when it comes to writing, you write for yourself, unless you're getting paid to churn out stories like they're going out of style.
Okay, you don't know where the story is going? Easy fix -- decide how it ends right now. For example, the story about the man waking up married to his fiancee's sister, the ending will be the two of them fully accepting the marriage. Now that I know how it
ends, I have to establish what leads up to this acceptance. Which also means I'll have to establish a refusal
to accept it. Keep this ending in mind at all times.
So, for starters, let's make it so that their families, even the fiancee (eventually), are supporting their union, which goes against their feelings on the matter. The lack of support against their union stars up more resentment from them towards their marriage, which means, hostility, anger, even mutual sabotage of the wedded bliss. When those attempts backfire, it really starts wearing down on them. More tension, more drama.
Now, you can't keep ratcheting up the tension forever -- it'll wear people out, make them less caring and reduces the likeability/sympathy/empathy for the characters. There comes a breaking point where the characters have to stop bitching and moaning about their situation and take matters into their own hand. In other words, they stop reacting and begin acting. Back to the man with the fiancee's sister, they reach a point where enough is enough and they go on the offensive. Let's go with... someone was bastardly enough to blackmail them with very sensitive, private material. With this new plot twist in play, animosity is put on the backburner -- these two have bigger fish to fry. Cue the tracking down of the ones responsible. Go ahead and let them blow off some steam -- they desperately need the release, as do we the audience. But not too much; we'll be ratcheting up the tension again.
A centerpiece in writing is a plotpoint that you pin your story around. it's where things go down, and things inevitably change one way or another. Man and his unwilling wife find the blackmailer's place, and the plan is hatched, where man will distract the quarry, and she'll steal back the blackmail material. If it went exactly according to plan, it'd be boring to the reader, so let's ratchet up the tension. Blackmailer's enamored with the man, which causes him discomfort and pain; the wife discovers that there are duplicates of the blackmail evidence, and the master is hidden elsewhere. He has to keep the blackmailer away from discovering the wife sneaking around; she has to locate the hidden master copy. Tighter, and tighter. Blackmailer almost catches sight of the wife, forcing man to do something to entice attention back to him, which nets him even more problems; wife learns that the master copy is hidden near the man and the blackmailer. Jeez! Then... wife find the master copy without getting spotted! Hooray! We can all breathe a sigh of relief, she can signal the man, and they can go home.
...or she can betray the man and blackmail him for her own purposes.
Plot twist. Adds a sudden rush of tension, as well as catching readers by surprise. Use them sparingly; for they are powerful in limited usage, but can lose potency just as fast if they become predictable or heavy-handed.
All right, so the wife plans to doublecross her unwanted husband for her own reasons. If it goes according to plan, she'll have a powerful tool over him, becoming no better than the blackmailer that started this mess. And given that we have already started the shift of attitudes towards their relationship by taking their minds off the hatred for it, we must continue to progress forward. That means, she gets interrupted by a danger to her life, like the guardian of the blackmail material coming up from behind to cause her serious harm. We could go with more tension and the like, but let's let the rubber band snap back into place; I'm feeling we're good enough to create change. Short story, blackmailer and guardian are defeated, wife is saved by the man from a gruesome fate, and they make off with all the blackmail material.
After all that tension and action, we need some reflection, a little quiet time to collect and reconsider. Here, the man and wife will start to become closer after their harrowing adventure, their animosity lowering, their hearts opening a bit more to each other. Not a complete 180 just because, but they're working on it. Sure, if I were ending the story here, I could go with a stronger dosage of them bonding or whatnot, but since there's more that needs to be done to complete the metamorphosis, their change is gradual, and this will serve as the midpoint, where things have changed towards the opposite way of their normal life as they knew it.
And from here, they still scuffle and chafe against each other, but they begin to develop more as a unit as things continue to test them and their relationship. Tension, drama. But things have to take another dramatic turn if I'm seeking the acceptance ending. So, in comes a new centerpiece -- the couple is drawn into a life-or-death struggle against a homicidal jilted ex-lover that's stalking the wife, which draws the man and wife even closer, they finally put an end to the madness of outraged ex-lovers (only to learn a shocking truth in the end), and they quietly (maybe :wub: ) open themselves fully to each other, become wholly accepting of their situation and bring close to an old chapter of their life, looking towards a new beginning.
Tension, action, reflection. Bam.
And man, did I go on forever. :sweat: But, yeah, have an ending in mind, and you can map out all the stops along the way.Sure, you might find a better destination, and if so, try it out, see how it fits you. Original ending I thought of was that the pair had to break into an establishment they attended and do battle, only for one lone copy to end up in the wrong hands, and it would have eventually morphed into a career in show business, but the other ending sounded much cleaner and less complicated, so I went with that. It worked.
And, yes, this is the basis of a fanfic I already wrote.
For Better or For Worst-Case Scenario
But, really, we'd need a better idea of what exactly are you writing before we can really talk about the idea you have here. It kind of seems like it's supposed to be a drama, but it feels more sci-fi-y with a character listed as being pregnant seventy years ago as well as a child that people want to experiment on.
