So, in Project Red’s current draft Jorildyn is a Knight climbing the ranks to reclaim her divinity back which has taken the form of a red key (called a Saint Key). The Saint Key is located in the KUA’s headquarters somewhere out of sight. Jorildyn is trying to not only climb the ranks, but to find the Saint Key as well. The issue that I am having is making her a Knight and making the KUA have the Saint Key in the first place.
Jorildyn still needs to find the Saint Key, but it’s a matter of where she goes and what she does in order to get the key. I feel like something has to be there to fill the void of things getting taken out.
I am no longer using the KUA for draft two and Jorildyn won’t be a Knight. This changes the story only slightly. It no longer works for what I am trying to do and frankly, I am getting bored with using it.
I don’t know what to do in order to make it so Jorildyn can still strive to find her Saint Key, reclaim her divinity, and to get her revenge. I know going on an epic adventure or quest can help, but there needs to be something else happening there as well.
So, I’m lost on what needs to change.
What are your thoughts and feelings?
So the KUA is like the real life Knights Templar or something? And like the Knights Templar, they’re believed to own magical possessions that everyone wants to get their hands on? Maybe Jorildyn doesn’t know it’s a key exactly, or just what kind of object it is–only that it can help her get her revenge? And maybe it’s not a literal key, as in something you put in a door lock, but the key to solving a puzzle? ¯\_(ﭢ)_/¯
Jorildyn Calverstone is a wealthy heiress who left her family to pursue becoming a Knight, but because she failed the Knighthood Exam, she winds up working at a knight guild taking on odd jobs. That changes when she retakes the Knighthood Exam again which lands her as an Arch-Knight. However, Jorildyn has a huge secret that she isn’t willing to share. The cold, hard reality is that Jorildyn is a Ravakalyn—a fallen Saint (gods in the world of Alagossia) who is searching for her Saint Key and trying to raise the ranks within the Knighthood Union Alliance organization, so that she can steal the Saint Key which is rightfully hers. Along the way, she will make friends and rivals while pretending to be this caring and duty-bound heiress turned Knight. Though she isn’t alone as an Aelynthi-born (a person resurrected into a demigod) named Anjan Terris is trying to climb to greater heights in the KUA and making rivalry with Jorildyn. This is the story about how an evil and manipulative villain is trying to reach the top to seek her revenge and an anti-hero who wants nothing more than to understand themselves and to seek the truth. How will these two fair once the truth about themselves comes to light? This is their story.
I don’t know much about the project, but it sounds like you want Jordilyn to get from point A to point B with some plot stuff fit in.
You could make it so someone maybe collects these Saint Key’s for their own purposes (maybe they keep them to eat them, or make deals, or bargain with them) and so she has to not just hunt down her specific Saint Key, but also the person selling them. Maybe once she finds the person collecting them, they inform her it was sold/lost/stolen and so then she has to track it down some more.
a story always follows this structure setup but then therefore setup/idea but then therefore and so on and so forth repeating that pattern until the work has ended . a narrative takes that pattern and rearranges it so it doesn’t have to follow that pattern but it still contains those three elements.
if you have two or more setups/ideas back to back. they can either be not connected to each-other ie parallel. or they can be connected to each-other. if they are connected to eachother there must be a but then… or a therefore… between them.
right now your setups about half of them are connected by and then. which is fine if you aren’t trying for a story/ narrative but since you are you are not alligned with your purpose.
this may also be why you are having story troubles when you have and then it can go on forever. there is no interconnectedness and it is often that interconnectedness that provides us insights into those details and inspiration for them if the insight is not enough.
so I would look at that and see okay how can I add in a but then or a therefore wherever there’s a and then or swap them.
Im not critiquing what the story is about or your ideas I’m saying the structure makes it so that its not functioning as a story/narrative at all times. thats totally fine but the struggles you are having come from that.
fixing the structure is one way to resolve the struggles.
if that doesn’t interest you. it’s really just about writing down every thought idea you have and generating regardless of how boring or bad or incomplete you think it is or it is or feel it is until you get something that you like/ want/ works for you.
thats totally valid too. you can figure out those things as you write as well. but the reason why you are having trouble figuring out the details is the structure. so what I said above is one solution.
for other people simply just writing resolves the issues cuz its easier for them to get structure when they are writing as opposed to brain storming.
I think my problem could also be that when I am getting deeper into the story, I start to overthink about everything because I tend to see the first draft as the finished product.
Like I wonder if having the KUA is good because it’s not quite fleshed out enough. So, I am still figuring things out with the organization.
The structure isn’t the problem, it’s mainly my issue with the KUA and if it fits with the story.
what makes a creative work a story as opposed to just a creative work each idea is connected via a but then or a therefore. I called that structure to simplify things but its not exactly accurate.
I am saying your ideas are not connected by but then and or therefore all the way through. sometimes they are connected by and then.