Novels thrive on conflict and adversity. Without horrible things happening to your characters, there is less to interest the readers (even in the Raggedy Ann books the heroine encountered quite a bit of bad luck!).

What are you planning to do to your characters?

• For instance, in my novel's climax (or leading up to it), one of Maya's parallel world counterparts is made unconscious (I am now thinking ether) and tied up and hooked up to provide a blood transfusion to her step father. Something will go wrong and that counterpart will bleed to death (too dark?).
• Maya will have to deal with that counterpart's father, who will find his daughter's body.
• Earlier, Maya will exchange places with a skilled volleyball player self and mess up her tryoutu at school.

my main character get sick...a sickness that starts off mundane...like a cold or a flu or something...but gets worse...yet treatable...until BAM! new symptom comes up that makes it possibly terminal!!...with what, i don't know yet...but my friend is a dr. pharmacist, as is my brother...so i gave them my criteria so i could research a sickness/illness that meets what i need...and my friend said "heart disease" and what does my brother say?! "Just watch an episode of house!"

My character gets really ill in the beginning...you know..the supposed flu/cold that she thinks she has...so exhausted that she passes out and hits her head on the coffee table and has to go to the ER...beginning of the book...where she finds out "oh shit, it's NOT the flu! it's ________!!!!!!"

There is a ghost in the house!!! woooOOOOooooOOOOOoooo...spoopy and creppy things that go bump in the night...and when you add the fact that she is now sick and has to manage her illness...AND the fact that she JUST BOUGHT this house (unpacking day is chapter 1)...AND the transfering/setting up utilities/change of addresses/etc...AND...noticing that things may have gotten lost in the move...AND finding stuff broken from those damned movers...AND it's an old house to begin with...so it comes with repairs and leaky things...it's very stressful...and considering her abusive past...she doesn't handle the stressors well...YOU try being an anxiety ridden mess who is only trying to get her shit together but it seems that the universe is against you!

being sick a lot = missing work quite a bit. Anyone who has been in a similar situation knows that some bosses may be ok with it and be all "just get better" and other bosses are all "you are on thin ice!"

uhh...hmm...sick! sick can be a terrible fate when the new symptom comes up and BAM "oops, sorry, we thought it was ____ but it's actually ______ which is worse"

Aside from Hell's demons trying to overtake the world, my characters have to deal with:

• The return of a biological mother long thought to not exist (He didn't know he was raised by his step mom.)
• A wife having enough and leaving, moving back in with her mother just to get away.
  
  
• The death of a close friend
• Being ostracized for being a demon, even though he is one of the good guys
• Teen-aged children

Granted, not all of these are happening to the same character, but I think there's enough torment going around to fill a novel.

death - demons, ghosts, and terrible things will happen - and death... tee hee. :) I'm very exited to make some characters suffer. I'm writing a horror by the way. :)

Cool - you have demons in your story too. Cool. :)

It is cool, isn't it? :)

Well, the universe is ending for all of them, for one. So that's pretty bad. One of my characters is an experimental cyborg raised in a lab, and when she escapes, she ends up in the possession of someone else and gets used all over again. Another character of mine has essentially lost her family to a religious cult. And then there's another character who gets murdered by the cyborg character during her escape attempt.

RiverSeal wrote:Well, the universe is ending for all of them, for one. So that's pretty bad. One of my characters is an experimental cyborg raised in a lab, and when she escapes, she ends up in the possession of someone else and gets used all over again. Another character of mine has essentially lost her family to a religious cult. And then there's another character who gets murdered by the cyborg character during her escape attempt.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry...SO SORRY!!! BUT...ALL I KEEP THINKING WHEN YOU SAY "universe ending" IS...is...A BIG GIANT CRACK
will all the stars disappear?

This is a good way to plot brainstorm. I am not an outliner, but I use every alternative method of pre-planning possible. Maybe I can make a list of potential disasters? I started one for my current work in progress, though I tend to be the type to discover plot points as I'm writing. I'll be thinking on this one further.

Well the worst fate that my main character is going to suffer... she'll eventually be kidnapped by her father.. though I have't decided if love conquers all and he has her kidnapped because he wants to get to know her or if he has her kidnapped because he wants to kill her because she's a direct connection to him and he wants to keep himself safe.

The love interest former DEA agent will of course come running after her and will somehow also end up at the mercy of El Jefe be tortured and maimed and probably beat within an inch of his life and most likely the female main character will express her unrealized (until the moment she blurts out the words) love for him and beg El Jefe to set him free.

Oh.. and she also has a boyfriend prior to the realized love for the DEA agent that is a little sh-- and doesnt know how to treat a woman right... and Im thinking is probably somehow connected to El Jefe and will be the one that leads the drug lord to his daughter (probably selling her out for some easy money).

One major one is Dana's grandfather passes away, while she is okay knowing he was sick, it is not at a time she can handle it

Two - her computer is hacked and her information taken which then leads into her becoming a direct target once again of the rival clan

Three - Daman just dealing with what happened to him in the first book of the series (he's brushed off and sectioned off the memories)

Four - Daman will be captured and tortured again. I seriously don't want to do this to him, but he's turned into this character that just can't stay out of trouble

Five - This doesn't actually happen but it will be their black moment. Details of that I don't know but I have a feeling it is not going to be pretty.

My two young protagonists, Jane and Birdie are being stalked in their own worlds and also when they exchange worlds ( they don't know it, yet) by the evil train conductor and time traveler, Talon Cooper. (Jane actually has a crush on him.) He will kill in order to get an important manifesto on the Rules of Parallel Travel that one of the girl has in her possession.

Talon wants to kill his parallel self (Prof Z-- readers learn this later in the story) for revenge but more important to gain more power. (Talon learns this from the manifesto that he manages to find.) A great shoot-out will occur at the end between these two. They are as opposite as can be-- Talon is much younger and stronger ( he's a time traveler and doesn't age) and Prof Z is older and slightly overweight. ( He's from the present time and is aging normally) Should make for an interesting fight scene right out of the Old West but with a twist. (Prof Z -western-style pistol vs.Talon- futuristic ray gun)

My major character having her service dog run away. Service dogs are supposed to be well-behaved and not run away. They are especially supposed to not run away into secret government military bases!

Oh, my, yesterday two of my characters died in an explosion attempting to defuse a bomb. One character is living but half crushed under the collapsed passage and will die soon. This character's 13 year old son (the small community had just shouted "Happy Birthday" when the alarm sounded) will fail to rescue his father. His mother was one of the two attempting to defuse the bomb. The thirteen year old not only has to cope with his parent's death, but the remaining two members of the base have terminal diseases. They will die and the boy be left alone. Don't know which fate is worse.

Sounds like light reading!