Unfinished Business, the story I’m working on now, started with a single question, as I said previously. “What would elves and dwarves in a modern setting look like?” The thing is, creating a setting was easy, creating Unfinished Business’ plot was a giant pain in the ass.
Really, I only came up with it once I was done with Raven: Priestess of Nocturne and finished excising those demons. This helped me get an idea that would actually work, one that involved a very lighthearted story, full of funny. The ghost angle I picked really helped out too. Once I had all that down, the rest came more easily, though not without its own challenges. There are a number of things I wanted to work in, and they haven’t all fallen into place yet, though they’re getting there. The previous ideas, if you’re curious, were very dark. Some even involved rape and murder. I think I burned myself out on those topics slightly, while writing Raven, though.
Issues issues issues
The single biggest issue was the rules for the ghost: only one who has nearly died can see ghosts. That meant I needed to nearly kill the protagonist in a way that didn’t make the story needlessly dark. I tossed around ideas until I came up with the one I ran with. You’ll just have to read the book to know what it is, though. Other problematic areas include how to give dwarves a bigger role in the story, since the protagonists are a human, an elf, and an elf ghost, and this story includes the old “elves vs. dwarves” dichotomy. Remember, I’m writing the story on the fly, being a pantser.
My viewpoint on plot
Regardless, I see the plot as more a structure to get the characters to do what needs to be done, especially in this case. The characters are the focus. I love character. Plot heavy works where the characters are unmemorable bore me. In games with thin plot and few to no characters, I actually tend to create my own characters to bounce off of each other. It’s much more fun in my opinion.