Activity

*walks in with a cup of coffee, blinks blankly*

Oh, an excuse to rant about my plot again! 😋✌️

To start @adnyole I love your concept and I can see a lot hinges on this plot and theme-wise so I think from what I’ve read you should keep her pregnant. I also think you can handle this subject matter if you commit to it and pray about it but *shrug* those are just my initial impressions. But.

1)      If you find you can have the same level of thematic and emotional impact with something lesser absolutely go with that as a rule of thumb.

2)      When you have a traumatized character they MUST have characterization outside their trauma ie a person with dreams, goals and hobbies and personality – even an entirely different potential character arc – pre-trauma and there must be conflict between pre/post-trauma identities.

My story almost exclusively deals with abuse and trauma and realistic recovery and finding that every part of that served a purpose in the end. It explores true love vs obsession, manipulation and abuse and right and wrong under extreme duress. I spent…4+ years researching C-PTSD, trauma recovery and uh lgbq+ actually lol so…all that to say like @calidris mentioned my story is intended to be a lot more visceral and intense.

I started when I was 13 y/o to cope with my depression and a lot of my “research” includes real-life experience around people who do have sexual abuse history in their families and “queer-coated” friends of mine.

The character you’re probably talking about would be my current MC who was kidnapped by the villain at 14 and invented a lie to avoid being assaulted – as he believed – which was the catalyst for a LOT that happens current story time when he’s 17. It’s absolutely vital to the plot because it drastically shifts my MC’s personality and reveals an aspect of the villain’s character that has several different interpretations in context and it’s a constant source of conflict not the least because the villain was his protector from his abusive parents and the closest thing to a friend he had at the time.

On that note, if you want your story to really explore moral ambiguity and the humanity of individuals – even villains – as well as overall hard topics I’d highly recommend watching Arcane (you can find it free on Internet Archive I’ll shoot you a link if you’re interested) and then watch Schnee’s YouTube vids analyzing the plot. *Forewarning: it cusses and it is very intense.* It doesn’t deal with sexual assault really but it really explores rock-bottom circumstances and I’ve never seen a more persuasively handled PTSD/insanity arc than Jinx/Powder. If you want something to really hone in on the consequences of the trauma your characters endure, that’d be the one to pick!

But…anyway, if you need research and plot devices or just about anything in general about these “heavy” YA fiction themes you can tag me!

Is there anything in particular you’re still looking to get a better grip of in your story? 🙂