I have an idea, central characters... now what about the plot?

Hello, TV Tropes. I'm feeling rather shy about posting any of this, and that this is the first time I've posted anything (and honestly one of the first times I've even come by) on the forums doesn't help, but I'm probably overdue on asking for assistance.

There's been a story I've been wanting to get a start on for a while. The basic idea is this - there are two protagonists, friends and trainees in a modern-fantasy Adventure Guild. To raise to a certain status in said guild, one needs to be mentored. There is a limited number of members of that rank and for a promotion, a trainee needs to take on a graduation mission of sorts accompanied by their mentor and at the end, perform a sort of rite that requires their mentor to die. An exploration of Mentor Occupational Hazard in a way, and probably a few other Mentor Tropes while I'm at it, since strangely The Mentor is one of my favorite character types.

The trouble is I have no idea what each pair's graduation mission, as I thought would make sense to follow them on, should entail. If it helps, at the end I thought that maybe the more reluctant of the two to lead his mentor to her death would sort of "lose her"/be unable to prevent something else from killing her in the culmination of the mission and that the other pair would both survive and the student would go for another sort of "test" and challenge his mentor to a fight.

I suppose I was wondering if any sort of quests would offer me more fodder for/room to work with what I had in mind.

And thank you for your time, even if it was only glancing over, since even that much care/interest is appreciated!

I know exactly what that's like (I'm currently in that stage, myself). It might help to do a bit of worldbuilding first, then work out the different problems that might take place in your universe. Once you've done that, the plot can consist of trying to solve one of these problems; the villain and the problem should be apparent before you choose main characters (keep the ones you already made, just in case; no sense throwing out perfectly good characters. Even if they don't end up being in the main role, you can always insert them somewhere else to fit a needed part). Always have your end point in mind; even if that end point changes to fit the characters (indeed, that's a good sign that you're telling a complex story with well-rounded people in it, instead of derivative trash with flat, wooden characters), you should always be writing towards a conclusion. That way, you prevent your story from losing its focus and becoming crammed with filler.

edited 18th Jan '12 11:13:44 PM by tropetown

To make that short: plan the conclusion of your story. Once you have a start and an end it's just a matter of filling everything in between.

Start —> ??? —> End

What do your characters need to do to reach the end?

I'm rather confused as to why the Mentor has to die for his trainees to graduate, so I hope you have the proper worldbuilding so as to make that seem less weird or at least make it justified.

"maybe the more reluctant of the two to lead his mentor to her death would sort of "lose her"/be unable to prevent something else from killing her in the culmination of the mission and that the other pair would both survive and the student would go for another sort of "test" and challenge his mentor to a fight."

Can you please explain this a bit more clearly? I don't I fully understand what you were saying, the sentence is kinda wonky.

Oh, and perhaps think of an antagonist that might make the mission not go as planned.

Perhaps the antagonist is against the "killing your own mentor" initiation, so the conflict has shades of gray.

edited 19th Jan '12 5:24:20 AM by chihuahua0