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Post by mllersil on Jul 12, 2013 15:11:36 GMT -5
I'm kind of stuck at a certain point of one of my stories. There's this young woman, my MC. I want her to uncover a secret unethical research project going on at the pharmaceutical company she's working at. She works in accounting, the secret project is taking place at the research department (same building, different level). So, right now it goes like that: The MC's close friend and mentor is found dead by the MC. Before, her friend had sent her an e-mail, requesting an urgent meeting outside the company, preferably at her home. (This part is debatable, I've changed it countless times before.) That's where the MC found her dead body. There are no evidence for a crime, at least not at first sight of the forensics. Of course, basic criminal investigations are started. MC and important character No. 2 - let's call him Mr. Detective - meet for the first time. Later, at her job, MC has to take over part of the work of her belated friend. They shared an office and worked together (that's where they got to know each other), so naturally, her boss - after condoling - asks her to take over all the work. While working through the files and matching everything with the online accounts, she finds among the bills and papers in her friend's desk some which curiously don't appear in the PC. From the research department, marked with a certain project name. There's something scribbled on them like "this is madness" and "ask Martin" (one of the subplots) and "highly illegal" or the like. <<< g i a n t p l o t h o l e>>>  MC starts investigating inside the company by herself. The head doctor of the research department (= Mr. Antagonist) notices that. Later, he actually takes her to see the secret human test lab and infects her, thus adding her to the test lab victims. For her not breathing a word he offers treatment, and the story goes on ... . There's a kind of second protagonist, introduced right at the start. One of the illegal researchers, but with an active conscience, who will later make his mind up and stand up against Mr. Antagonist. This Mr. Antagonist is the murderer of MC's friend. ("She knew too much." - the classical reason. The killing method is something I'm proud of, worthy of a doctor.) Oh yeah, and there might be a romance between Mr. Second Protagonist and MC. I think, he kind of fell in love and wants to save her, helps making his mind up. Mr. Detective also got a crucial role in all this. There are a handful of subplots, some turning and one or two red herrings along the way. The scenes are written alternately with one of those four characters (MC, Mr. Detective, Mr. Second Protagonist and Mr. Antagonist) as the main focus. Not first person, but close third person.  Copied that stylistic idea from A Song of Ice and Fire. So .... it's more or less a classical mystery with some added ethics and gore. The story has it's focus on the characters, not so much on the murder itself. I really want the reader to get to know them and their character development.  Any ideas regarding this black plot hole above? Without knowing my MC further - could you think of reasons why anyone would investigate such a thing themselves? Or investigate at all? Knowing my MC I kind of have an idea, but it's not as credible as I'd like it to be. |
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Post by aquarose on Jul 12, 2013 17:03:56 GMT -5
Is it possible that 'dead friend' might have mailed or emailed something listing her suspicions and fears to the MC, with a 'open if i disappear' sort of feeling. Or (maybe to cliche) a personal journal saying that 'dead friend' is afraid of Mr Antagonist finding out.
Is MC the type who would normally tell the detective or ask her boss? Or is she the type who fancies herself to be a terrific puzzle solver and is thrilled at a chance to discover secrets?
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Post by Bird on Jul 13, 2013 0:57:42 GMT -5
Does the MC think the friend's death was accidental/natural, or does she think there could be some sort of foul play? I think that makes a big difference. If her friend dies under questionable circumstances and the MC later finds it might be tied to the company (like wanting the urgent meeting away from work, and related things), the MC might not trust the company or its officials to be objective, honest, or determined to find out the truth. So she might want to investigate for herself and find out what was actually going on instead of believing the "spin" or handing over what could be damning information to the guilty party, who could then erase evidence of wrongdoing. Just a thought.  |
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Post by mllersil on Jul 13, 2013 5:50:17 GMT -5
Thank you for your thoughts! Really appreciated and also inspiring. Here are some more background info: The MC is kind of an obsessive-compulsive character (and I hope I got the right term here). You know, she rearranges her books on the shelf by colour, everything has to look organized, neat and tidy around her, she takes a shower at least twice a day and tries to be as immaculate as possible. Something out of order is pure horror for her. She has her few daily rituals and gets uneasy if she can't perform them. But not so much as a complete breakdown, she is able to cope with change and will have to throughout the entire story since I like to torment my MCs to get the best development out of them. Although this coping is really taking a toll on her. Despite all these quirks she is highly intelligent. Now, she also is socially inept and really shy. No love life since this would bring her routines out of order. Her belated friend actually is, no was her only one. What I thought is, that she just can't picture her healthy friend die like this with no proper reason at all. That feels too chaotic for her and doesn't let her sleep at night. And then there was this urgent meeting request and these strange bills from the research department in her friend's desk. I thought, maybe she just HAS to tidy everything up for getting her peace of mind. And I thought also, she can't rely on others - namely the police - to get it right. Normally, she does everything herself so that it meets her expectations of order. Then, there might be a kind of exceptional shyness towards authorities. (There is quite a family backstory explaining all her character traits, I've got it all covered.) Does this sound believable to you? Aren't there maybe other - better - reasons for her to start investigating? It has to be something she definitely HAS to do, something which doesn't allow her to go back on it, no matter how many obstacles. Frankly, right now I don't know why I invented a character like her in the first place. I'm more like a Homer Simpson person, thriving on the chaos always surrounding me. It's really hard to try and feel like my MC would in this situation. But then again, that's why I'm writing - the joy of exploring other perspectives to the max. *sigh* And at this stage, all of those four characters mentioned above have become really dear to me, I can't just go on and change them completely. I'll have to get the plot around them fitting their behaviour. |
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Post by aquarose on Jul 13, 2013 9:58:16 GMT -5
Start slow. Everything she uncovers makes more of a mess in her work life which will affect her home life. She has to fix it... she can't sleep, her order compulsions get worse interfering even more with work and life. The personality is hard, but use it by making her worse so that she feels that if she doesn't fix it she may ... (go insane, lose control, commit suicide, kill someone)
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Post by r.elena.t on Jul 13, 2013 12:00:25 GMT -5
What I thought is, that she just can't picture her healthy friend die like this with no proper reason at all. That feels too chaotic for her and doesn't let her sleep at night. And then there was this urgent meeting request and these strange bills from the research department in her friend's desk. I thought, maybe she just HAS to tidy everything up for getting her peace of mind. And I thought also, she can't rely on others - namely the police - to get it right. Normally, she does everything herself so that it meets her expectations of order. Then, there might be a kind of exceptional shyness towards authorities. (There is quite a family backstory explaining all her character traits, I've got it all covered.) Does this sound believable to you? It does sound believable. Although there is a developmental/neurological component to obsessive-compulsive behavior, it is my understanding that quite often, experience pushes the oc person from normal-with-a-few-odd-habits to true compulsion. So is your MC post-traumatic? Something from childhood that is long buried? Her friend's death & other suspicious events might be triggering her memory of old trauma. She could be having flash-backs & acting out dramas from her past - with present-day people forced into the roles of past perpetrators. This could be cracking her rigid, habit carapace - even though she doesn't want to leave it an tries even harder than normal to hold on. An important trait of childhood trauma survivors is hyper-vigilance - the need to figure out what is really going on for yourself, with no help from any "authority" - never to be trusted. Excruciating washes of adrenaline are coursing through your body for no external reason - calmed by whatever addictive behavior the survivor has - in her case an oc need to get everything in order. So straightening out her friends death is a physical necessity. Her inner struggle to be involved or not could be tipped by receiving a snail mail message (I would think dead friend wouldn't trust email - that the company keeps tabs on for proprietary reasons & who knows if that extends to personal email). If a snail mail message , it can arrive later so MC has a while to vacillate - to try old oc tricks for numbing out & pushing the trauma away & experience those tricks failing to be enough. So in neatening her friends death, your MC could start on the road to healing her own trauma. |
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Post by mllersil on Jul 13, 2013 14:04:21 GMT -5
Awesome! Thank you so much! @ Bird - That "not trusting the guilty party" will come in definitely later. @ aquarose - Yeah, like I said, tormenting MCs is a hobby of mine and I want to make her journey kind of painfully slow and full of setbacks. There are also some "inner action scenes" in which she is forced to develop rather suddenly, but those are few highlights. This slow MC evolving is fun to write, makes wonderful end-of-chapter cliffhangers and keeps at least me (hopefully later readers, too) trapped in the story. @ r.elena.t - That. Was. Brilliant. Your snail mail idea is something I just want to try out really badly - thank you so much. The MC indeed had a severe childhood trauma. My July project (= four short stories each featuring one of the novel characters) is about it, at least MCs story is. The way you put it this makes a lot more sense than my chaotic thinking. I'm so glad right now - thank you so so much! Your help made my day.  |
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Post by r.elena.t on Jul 14, 2013 13:23:39 GMT -5
Glad to be of help. Been exploring this topic for decades now. out of, um... physical necessity  |
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Post by boomboom on Jul 18, 2013 20:26:29 GMT -5
Been meaning to answer your questions, mllersil, for some time but saw Elena had hit the nail on the head with the childhood trauma and its aftereffects. That fit well with the conversation we had on Mumble. I would also say that it is important that her OCD be the reason she is pushes herself to pursue tidying up her friend's death and life leftover. I think it important that this unique quality of hers leads her to innocently discover the unethical experiment and that she should probably be completely unaware that she is pursuing something like that. Perhaps the bad guy should also make fun or be totally unsympathetic, righteous about her condition, especially since he can see where it is going to lead. She is just following her "crazies" and doesn't expect anything from it expect a tidy conclusion. It would make it more satisfying when she realizes that something is terribly wrong.
You might also provide her with a doctor or therapist who she discusses her compulsions with to help the reader understand them. They could have professional discussions about it
Are you going to have the reader know about the experiments and watch her get closer and closer to it or leave it a mystery where she and the reader discover together?
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Post by mllersil on Jul 19, 2013 6:37:00 GMT -5
Thank you for thinking so hard about my problems! Your opinion and knowledge really are a great help to me getting that thing out on paper in a decent way. At the early stages I thought of getting a therapist into the story, too, for exactly the same reasons. But then I got kind of ambitious and wanted to connect the reader with MC in a deeper way, not with an interposed medium, but more directly. I then made her being relatively stable at the beginning of the story, she’s in a safe surrounding, no surprises, everything is alright, some quirks are still there, but nothing too serious. Then she loses her friend/mentor, which kind of repeats her childhood trauma without her or in the beginning the reader realizing. And she is driven into more OC-ness, as I explained above. No place for a therapist there, I think. The reader will be sucked into her OC problem and her investigation directly along with her, at least, that’s what I’m trying to do. The antagonist is definitely not someone to make fun of her, he’s earnestness in person. And he’s not nasty per se, he is just doing what he thinks is the right thing to do. In his opinion, he is saving thousands of people in the future by dooming a few chosen ones today. Actually, he has his own backstory, making him the man he is today, making him smudge the fine line between ethical and unethical behavior. He is introduced personally a little later to the reader, but I want him to make an impact. If I can do this right, he will be unsympatheticly aiming for the greater good of mankind. (It’s a regional thing. A person like him depicts what we call a “modern Nazi”.) He will make life worse for MC by forcing her into his ways the minute she understands his plans. This will be the last third of the story. MC has come far enough in solving the death as well as the hidden plans of Antagonist. Then he takes the initiative again. She’ll get infected by him and develop a cancer, which is the worst disease ever for someone like her, trying to have everything neat and tidy. Now her own body is in disorder, too, and she has to deal with it. In the end, she will - with some unexpected help by MC2 (this special reluctant scientist) - overcome part of her OC. That’s the character development I’m planning for her, sending her gradually to her own personal hell, forcing her to not only relive her childhood trauma, but also to live her worst nightmare (= cancer). Then at rock bottom, when there are only two choices left, she kind of decides to fight back instead of giving up and discovers that she is stronger that she thought. I don’t know yet how I want to end this thing, though … sometimes I have an idea, sometimes I don’t. It’s still kind of fuzzy. And with introducing MC2 at the beginning of the story, the reader get's to know his world and involvement in the secret experiments. So the reader will know about this way earlier than OC-MC. |
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Copied that stylistic idea from A Song of Ice and Fire.
Now, where did I leave off at?
My latest edition of Straight From Thecliff Chamber