Need Some Advice On Story Idea

[BunnyJen90]

Finally coming up with some ideas for my magical school girl story and want to get some opinions. The story takes place sometime in the future and begins with a rather geeky eleven year old school girl named Porcelain Geller. One day her English teacher Ms. Roberts tells her and three other girls Dolly Rhine, Marionette Brown, and Teresa Cayce that they have magical powers and that she also has magical powers and would like to be their mentor. The teacher goes on to tell the story of how in a lost time people believed in magic and everything was peaceful until an evil enitity took over making people believe magic was evil. Those who practiced magic were persecuted against and forced into hiding until people began to forget magic was even real. She then goes on to warn the girls she believes the evil entity has reincarnated in the current time and if they dont stop them humanity will no longer exist. Eventually they discover the evil entity has reincarnated as a famous billionaire This is as much as I got planned for the plot so far.

 

[Devor]

Pretty straightforward, a little heavy on the early info-dump.

Assuming all of that is more or less decided, I would focus next on figuring out what the billionaire wants and on connecting that to both the MC’s pre-magical life and how she learns about her powers. Let’s say the billionaire sells a gadget or fashion accessory the MC loves, or she has a friend who just got a job working for him, or more ominously the guy is trying to buy up the neighborhood to build a factory, or is dumping pollutants nearby. Or maybe they’re related, or he dated the MC’s mom, if you want to go there. Something along those lines would help make the stakes personal, introduce the villain earlier, and can be the first clues of their endgame.

It also creates an opening for the MC’s power to have some kind of early interaction that might serve as a catalyst. “Ahh, you got a whiff of the evil nearby, what you’re feeling is your power awakening…” instead of, “Okay, I’m here to tell you out of nowhere you’re magical and have to fight the billionaire.” It gives you a chance to create an action-drama sequence leading into getting the new power.

If you’re looking to push it further, you really want a strong dynamic between each of the four magical girls, the teacher who recruited them, and the villain. You could start by writing all six names spread out on a sheet of paper, drawing a line between each name, and writing the relationship between each combo of two characters on the line. Keep changing the relationships until a clear story jumps out at you. Then change them several times more until your favorite story jumps out at you.

 

[BunnyJen90]

I really dont want my antagonist to be related to any of my protagonist. As much as I like a sympathetic villain I also dislike them. I want my billionaire antagonist to be bad because he is. As for his endgame not sure if you've seen legend of Korra but I imagine him somewhat like the villain Zaheer in the third season of that show who wants a world of freedom from rules. I imagine my antagonist using his popularity to sell the idea of anarchy to other people. Instead I want to focus more on the protagonist and their character arcs. I want people to be able to sympathize more with my protagonist than my antagonist. I want people to see themselves more in the protagonist than the antagonist and to want to root for my protagonist.

 

[Prince of Spires]

I really dont want my antagonist to be related to any of my protagonist.

They don't have to be related and the antagonist doesn't have to be relatable. However, they do need to get into contact at some point. How do they interact? How does the antagonist try to defeat them? Does he even know they exist at this point? What steps is he taking to destroy the wold? (which in itself is a slightly dumb plan, since most people tend to be part of the world...).

There's a reason why in Harry Potter people prefer Umbridge as a villain over Voldemort. Umbridge gets a lot of screen time (relatively speaking). Her motivations are known: she has very strickt ideas about rules and how to enforce them. And she directly opposes the protagonist. Compare this to Voldemort who just wants to rule the world and doesn't ever interact with Harry Potter except in the last chapter of each book when he gets his ass kicked. Nobody is rooting for Umbridge or identifying with her just because she interacts with the protagonist.

 

[Devor]

So, the reason I suggested to connect your protagonist to the villain is to make the stakes personal to the character’s arc. You need something pushing against your character’s personal goals to deepen the plot line beyond fate-of-the-world. You need to fuel that inner conflict.

You don’t have a story idea until you have that, just some tropes you want to work with.

But maybe your billionaire villain isn’t really the antagonist. Maybe he’s the long term evil and you’re planning a series. Maybe he doesn’t need to connect to the MC just yet, since you have to build that as the series goes on. I would still suggest finding a connection of some kind with the billionaire you can develop later, but I won’t beleaguer the point.

Then for now you should be looking at finding a lesser book one antagonist, who connects to the MC before the billionaire. That can look a little different. Maybe the MC’s friend is the first one “possessed” by the Billionaire’s evil powers. Or maybe one of the Billionaire’s henchmen has been searching for the unawakened magical kids and messing with the neighborhood as they zeroed in in.

But you need to bring the conflict to the character in act one, both the personal conflict and the high stakes one. If your whole first act is a group of people talking about how they’re going to be magical girls now, the book will fail to find an audience.

 

[Prince of Spires]

But you need to bring the conflict to the character in act one, both the personal conflict and the high stakes one.

Sort of, but also not really.

I think a good case study is the first Harry Potter book (since this is about a magical school, it's going to get compared to it anyway). The first book doesn't really have an antagonist. Yes, Voldemort is sort of lurking in the background, and he's the thing to overcome in the climax of the story. But I'd say Draco Malfoy is just as much an antagonist to Harry in the first book. And it's as much about simply going to school and winning the house cup as it is about the stone.

The whole search for the philosopher's stone is more window dressing and not really that central to the book. Simply going to school, learning to be a wizard is the plot. The search is just there to have stuff actually happen, so they can learn and visit all the interesting places and offer some kind of climax.

As far as learning from it, also check out how Harry learns he's a wizard. It starts with a mystery, to which the reader knows the answer. But the actual explanation is a chapter, at most, and it's stuffed in between a shopping trip that's filled with enough magical gimmicks to keep the reader occupied. Don't bore the reader with a history lesson.

 

[Devor]

Sort of, but also not really.

I think a good case study is the first Harry Potter book (since this is about a magical school, it's going to get compared to it anyway). The first book doesn't really have an antagonist.

Two things.

First, Magical Girls are a totally different genre than Harry Potter. Harry Potter wasn’t being trained to fight Voldemort. He was just a kid going to school. There’s a huge Slice of Life piece to that. But the OP isn’t talking about a magic school. The girls are being trained as magical girls to stop an evil that’s about to destroy humanity. Magical Girls are a cute action genre, and action is expected early and often; action without an antagonist is difficult to say the least.

Second, I was talking about connecting the character to the antagonist. Harry’s connection to Voldemort, and the mystery of the philosopher’s stone, are crucial parts of the first act and don’t fall to the background until Harry boards the train in act two. Harry is focused on unraveling the truth about his parents, and on asking prying questions about everything, including Hagrid’s mysterious package that he’s picking up, which all takes a good chunk of story time.

In short, Magical Girls is an action/fighting genre, while the Philosopher’s Stone plot is a mix of slice of life school with a variation of the classic “Quest” plot, full of puzzles the characters have to figure out on the way to acquiring the stone.

 

[minta]

I really dont want my antagonist to be related to any of my protagonist. As much as I like a sympathetic villain I also dislike them. I want my billionaire antagonist to be bad because he is. As for his endgame not sure if you've seen legend of Korra but I imagine him somewhat like the villain Zaheer in the third season of that show who wants a world of freedom from rules. I imagine my antagonist using his popularity to sell the idea of anarchy to other people. Instead I want to focus more on the protagonist and their character arcs. I want people to be able to sympathize more with my protagonist than my antagonist. I want people to see themselves more in the protagonist than the antagonist and to want to root for my protagonist.

If I kept the villain outside the girls' world, I'd show him only in grand chaos‑preaching scenes and contrast that with the girls' struggles, fears and moments of self‑doubt and growth so readers naturally cheer for them over the distant billionaire.

 

[xena]

For the next part, I’d be thinking about what kind of problems they run into, not just from the villain but also from people who don’t believe in magic. And how their everyday lives might clash with their magical duties.