Multi-"MC" based plot ~ Highway to the danger zone ?

[Nagash]

Hey guys !

At last, I've been drafting some sort of plot for a rather consequent story i will probably end up breaking up in a few novels/books. Indeed, the world where the story takes place being pretty vast, rich in cultures, species, history what have you, i ended up drafting a multi-plot story, with multiple arcs eventually converging as the story unravels and closes in to an end. The idea seemed good, but definitely more complex than mono-cameral storytelling, since it meant i had to embrace a multi-character based plot, rather than a MC based plot. Seeing the number of characters involved, none could actually be called a "MC". Of course, this type of storytelling seems ideal, especially when i must write many connected plots in over than five different settings. Multi-plot stories aren't unheard of - G.R.R. Martin did it with some success, albeit with several books. While I cannot compare myself to Martin, I don't see how this would be an unthinkable achievement. This being said, it would definitely be tricky and the road... rocky.

Two issues stood out pretty quickly : 1) Keeping the focus of the reader and avoid confusing him with this myriad of characters, 2) Make each and everyone of the main characters important enough by developing them sufficiently, despite their shortened time in the spotlight. In pretty much any case, this concretely means "more chapters, and longer ones".

To give a general idea of the plot i had in mind, here is a list of each storyline i'd follow and their respective main characters.

1) On the main continent, Southern Empire of the Sehras, Imperial capital of Ulatek ~ Following the intriguing death of the emperor, the imperial administration goes in motion to gather the clans and elect the future ruler. Nakash, a general in the imperial army is left shattered by the death of his friend and liege, and has a tough time getting over the mourning period, while life goes one for pretty much every one else. Selace, a member of the consulate comes to him, and hints that the death of the Emperor might have been due to something else than a simple accident. The two Sehras are dragged in an infernal road, as they unveil a greater conspiracy. Meanwhile, news of troubles in the human kingdoms came with a dignitary of the foreign Koshan, named Zayla Leiv.

2) On the main continent, Forgotten lands, Yshan forest ~ Rumors of death lurking in the shadows has caused the Sehras administration to send some of its men scouting through the forgotten lands and the Yshan forest, where the Dixyde, a long lost insectoid empire once ruled. Najek, a general of the southern imperial army and his men, meet up with troops sent by the northern empire of the Sehras, led by Yzlakh, one of three main military leader of the northern army. Zayla Leiv, whom we mentioned previously tagged along with the Sehras, fasciated by this people of warmonger - she gets to hear about the ancient history of blood and war who tear up the Sehras people. The small group quickly realizes they walked into a death trap by entering the Forest of Yshan, as something ancient seems to arise from the past.

3) On the archipelago of Skala'Nuui, colonial armies of the newly found Empire of Toxo, are roaming through the luxurious forests, pillaging the villages of the primitive and mystic Mahibas. Kenneth Faust, a colonial soldiers assists and participates to the slaughter of many innocents, as his regiment makes its way through the old jungle. Some Sehras sent by the southern empire, led by the two generals Sath-Rash and Zalekh assist with disgust to the massacre of the Mahiba. Ideological tension between the two armies quickly generates heated arguments and conflict, as they discover the mysterious Mahiba and their rather dark history with some old Gods...

4) Foreign continent, Lycan Empire, capital city of Cyanopolis ~ Tribal tensions have spread throughout the mighty Lycan empire, and horrific conflicts break out in the streets, as many Lycans dispute their rightful claim to the throne. Slaughters and massacrers ensue, as the imperial administration is virtually non-existant. A fourteen-teen year old oboe human [Name to come] finds himself trapped within the conflict along with his friend, a lycan pariah [Name to come]. They constantly try to survive, in an empire falling apart, as hate and violence explode everywhere.

5) Foreign continent, Empire of Toxo, capital city of Deas-Minoth ~ The great expansion of the Toxo empire made it one of the most promising superpower, and an interesting ally... as well as a dangerous foe. Callia Minos, a prominent member of House Minos, makes her way through the imperial power, familiarizing herself with the tools of power, and the intrigue surrounding them... Progressively, she sinks in what turns out to be a plot way over what she could ever imagine...

6) Main continent, Khalaani country, city of Vahn-Shaa ~ Arosh, a young Khalaani joins in a company led by a shady priest of a forbidden cult : Nuebism, the cult of Rashi'Nuua, the eternal night. The little group journeys in the grim country, where the sun never seem to appear. Arosh being quite innocent, familiarize with the old culture of his country as he socializes with other members of his group, and ends up learning he's on his way to a new dawn for the Khalaani folks, as they are about to realize "the prophecy" of the last great Dark King, Xal-Nuui.

Those are the six first storylines i would develop. As the story unravels, they would evolve, or be replaced by others, but in their first stage, they are mainly about plotting and conspiracy. Later on, they turn to cataclysmic war and dispute about historic matter. One thing which doesn't appears in these very brief resumés, is the importance of the past, religion, and the issue of death, fatality. I'll update this with time, if some ideas come by.

What about you guys ? What do you think about a multi-plot story ? Ever done one ? What do you think about a multitude of characters ?

Care about giving some advices about this specific story i began to draft ? Any comments ?

Feel free to respond !

 

[Noma Galway]

I don't write multi-plot. I may try when I get better at multiple POVs (my current WIP has two, but I might add some to round out the story. One thing about reading multiplot that I enjoy is that I can sympathize with a lot more characters, but a downside to it is that there will inevitable storylines that I just don't care about as much (I was disappointed with Feast of Crows for this reason. He added new perspectives, but he pulled out all the storylines I cared about (except Tyrion's)). Of course ASOIAF is one of my favorite book series, so he did well with multi plot. With yours, since there's only this information about it, I don't know. It's definitely an interesting set of characters and it looks like you really would have to write more than one to get the story done.

The plot you have up is very interesting to me, personally, and in an extremely developed world like yours, I think it fits.

 

[zizban]

I did a long multi-plot once. To keep track of things I kept a timeline and lots of notes. It was a fun challenge and it worked out OK.

 

[AnneL]

I'm doing 2 plots now, with lots of intersections, and the big challenge is wrapping them both up at the same time so the book only ends once.

With regard to yours, I think it could be confusing to have two imperial generals with similar names (Nakash and Najek). I would change the name of one of them.

 

[skip.knox]

Two comments. One, what you describe is in a grey area between world building and plot. You may find you don't need to tell *everyone's* story in order to tell *a* story. That first plot has a character who sounds interesting. Something has actually happened to him--the death of a friend--and he has a motivation (revenge, or at least seeing the truth). In the other scenarios, people fall into something or realize something, but there's little at the personal level.

You might try choosing just one of these and writing the whole thing as a self-contained story. That might prove to be sufficient unto itself. Trying to write everything all at the same time is where I see the danger.

My second comment is that my own WIP has multiple characters, though only one plot. Even at that very modest level, I'm finding numerous challenges in pacing, in choosing POV (especially when all four are present in a scene), and in continuity (when they are separated). And even then, I'm finding myself pulled in the direction of writing scenes involving antagonists rather than protagonists, as well as scenes involving secondary characters.

In short, every character is a spinning plate. Or, if you prefer, each is a voice in a fugue. The more you have going, the more difficult it will be to make it to the end without something crashing or clashing.

My own approach has been to keep everything as simple as possible. When one of those secondary characters seems to demand a scene, I write it, but I keep it to one side and try not to have any other chapter depend on it. I've completed the first draft and the whole novel is rather a mess, but I have already been able to see ways to use the information or description or dialog from those secondary scenes but bring them into the main story. I haven't quite got rid of all my stray POVs, but I'm starting to believe it will be possible. In fact, I'm not starting to work toward having a POV from just two of my four MCs, on the theory that fewer voices will allow my reader to care more about them.

hth!

 

[Penpilot]

Dealing with multiple plots can be tricky if you're not organized. The thing to remember is that each plot is itself a story, with an inciting incident, a beginning, a middle, and and an end. I lay out the key points to all the plots in a story independently first then find ways in which to weave them together as a greater whole.

I shill this video quite a lot but I think it applies. Dan Wells on Story Structure, part 1 of 5 - YouTube

 

[A. E. Lowan]

We have 8 POV characters in our WIP, but only 1 major plotline. We write what I like to call "ensemble," where we don't have one MC that is the title character of the book or series - if there is a MC of our series, it's the family as a whole, which is where we derive our series title "The Books of Binding" from.

I think that writing a multi-plot book could be very interesting and possible if you're very organized and if you have a thread binding your various plots together - else, why are you telling all these stories at the same time? I'm assuming that at some point your plot will come together as a whole?

 

[Nagash]

Two comments. One, what you describe is in a grey area between world building and plot. You may find you don't need to tell *everyone's* story in order to tell *a* story. That first plot has a character who sounds interesting. Something has actually happened to him--the death of a friend--and he has a motivation (revenge, or at least seeing the truth). In the other scenarios, people fall into something or realize something, but there's little at the personal level.

You might try choosing just one of these and writing the whole thing as a self-contained story. That might prove to be sufficient unto itself. Trying to write everything all at the same time is where I see the danger.

My second comment is that my own WIP has multiple characters, though only one plot. Even at that very modest level, I'm finding numerous challenges in pacing, in choosing POV (especially when all four are present in a scene), and in continuity (when they are separated). And even then, I'm finding myself pulled in the direction of writing scenes involving antagonists rather than protagonists, as well as scenes involving secondary characters.

In short, every character is a spinning plate. Or, if you prefer, each is a voice in a fugue. The more you have going, the more difficult it will be to make it to the end without something crashing or clashing.

My own approach has been to keep everything as simple as possible. When one of those secondary characters seems to demand a scene, I write it, but I keep it to one side and try not to have any other chapter depend on it. I've completed the first draft and the whole novel is rather a mess, but I have already been able to see ways to use the information or description or dialog from those secondary scenes but bring them into the main story. I haven't quite got rid of all my stray POVs, but I'm starting to believe it will be possible. In fact, I'm not starting to work toward having a POV from just two of my four MCs, on the theory that fewer voices will allow my reader to care more about them.

hth!

I know it seems like most of these characters are empty on a complex emotional viewpoint. However, while drafting each and every one of them - or most of them - I carefully tried to draw the shapes of their psychism and beliefs, in order to represent some aspects of the human nature, and illustrates a few of these great themes of existence (e.g. death, loss, memory, faith). I actually described Nakash situation with a few more details, leaving behind the other characters. But I don't think they would be any less compelling. Just to make a few examples...

- Najek is one of the greatest warrior of his people, a Sehras who lived a tough and extraordinary life (not to mention long : < 500 years) and went through many atrocious wars of religions, genocides etc... Sehras history is often blurred by revisited facts, naive optimism and artificial legends hiding the entire truth. Najek, for one, actually knows what happened three hundred years ago, during the first dark wars, and saw that the glory of the mighty Sehras could also be sheer cruelty and horrible slaughters. He has value, since he's the one who saw, who lived. An exceptionally virtuous characters, he'll actually be one of the few MC's to make it to the end, since he'll have his share of responsibility in the empire falls apart as truth comes out.

- Alike Najek, Sath-Rash is an army general, a "Ka-Shahn" of the Sehras empire. Unlike Najek, however, Sath-Rash isn't nearing a half-century of age. A much younger Sehras (~ 200 years old), he has the skills of war, yet with few of the wisdom the ancients tend to obtain throughout the centuries and the raging war. He belongs to clan Bathalekk, one of the commissioner of the genocide of many of the Khalaani people in the aftermath of the Dark War. While bound to a strict honor-code and many values, he is possessed by a fierce desire of revenge, and alike most of he's brethren, hates deeply foreigners (especially those adoring "foul" gods). Extremely powerful, tortured by his demons, Sath-Rash will be in these books, the face of wrath.

... Most of the characters therefore displays a unique set of skills, abilities and most importantly, emotional complexity, each becoming an iconic figure for diverse concepts (sins, virtues, themes, etc)

I get the point you're getting at, however, and must agree that the fewer characters, the more will the reader care about them. This leaves me with the possibility to kill-off some of the MC's along the way, and spend time for each one of the remaining, and probably embrace this possibility you submitted.

Thanks Useful post !

Dealing with multiple plots can be tricky if you're not organized. The thing to remember is that each plot is itself a story, with an inciting incident, a beginning, a middle, and and an end. I lay out the key points to all the plots in a story independently first then find ways in which to weave them together as a greater whole.

I shill this video quite a lot but I think it applies. Dan Wells on Story Structure, part 1 of 5 - YouTube

Useful video. Thanks for sharing

We have 8 POV characters in our WIP, but only 1 major plotline. We write what I like to call "ensemble," where we don't have one MC that is the title character of the book or series - if there is a MC of our series, it's the family as a whole, which is where we derive our series title "The Books of Binding" from.

I think that writing a multi-plot book could be very interesting and possible if you're very organized and if you have a thread binding your various plots together - else, why are you telling all these stories at the same time? I'm assuming that at some point your plot will come together as a whole?

Precisely; the plot will eventually come together as a whole from each storyline. These are actually deeply connected, although the connection is inexistent at first sight.

I'm doing 2 plots now, with lots of intersections, and the big challenge is wrapping them both up at the same time so the book only ends once.

With regard to yours, I think it could be confusing to have two imperial generals with similar names (Nakash and Najek). I would change the name of one of them.

I'll keep that in mind. I planned many endings already, but timing will definitely be a challenge; as for the names, i'm not sure about renaming any of these two since i built a history behind their names... I will however try to differentiate ad maximo the two profiles as the story goes along.

Good advice however on a general basis.

Thanks for this guys