difficulties with plot

I find again and again that while I´m really good at worldbuilding, my plots suck! big time. I read and write, among other things, a lot of fantasy/scifi. sometimes with a twist towards bdsm but not necessarily so.
I think that my worlds are believable and well constructed. I never loose sight of the foundation I built and usually get a good review from those I let read the first chapters.
Also if something happens to my main character I´m mostly satisfied with the description of a certain event but I always end up having troubles with the plot... to integrate the sigle scenes into a larger whole instead of a series of events.

e.g. Ipresent my heroine, how she became the person she is, what her onlook to the world is, her motivation.
I describe her meeting and interaction with the male hero and from that point on everything deteriorates. I know what i want to happen between the people I introduce, i know if i want to have a good/ bad / twisted/ open ending and i usually know what I want it to be.. but I´m never able to fill the << in between>>. Either I don´t move the plot forward at all and get lost in a sigle scene or I jump from one point to the next and when reading the text, there seems to be a part of the story missing, you wonder how I came from one situation to the next...grr.. really frustrating

Do you know this? do you have the same problem? how do you deal with it?
Or is it the other way round and you are spinning the tale but the people seem unrealistic because their inner workings are missing?
Or have you caught yourself writing something contrary to something earlier in your story?

deigja

Example of my writing, still unfinished


Deal with the Demon



Liz had always known she was a mage.
Even as a kid she had been able to feel all energies that surrounded her. When she was in distress, the air around her was sparkling and she had even once knocked a man out with a little lightning when he came too close in a dark alley. She had been able to decipher the feelings of humans and animals alike and had learned early on to project her own feelings to another. Animals were easiest. She just had to show them her own calm and even the most scared horse would relax immediately. Humans were a little harder as their feelings were more complex. They were never just scared or just unhappy...
Still she had always succeeded in making her mother just as exited about the coming fair as she herself was, making sure they would go there.. even if mother had more important matters to tend to.
But that were her childhood games. Now at the age of 20 she was way to adult to use her influence in such a way. She was actually pretty contend, working in the stables and leaving human emotions be as far as this was possible.
The problems that had arisen over the last few years were her own emotions and her control over them. Whenever she was emotionally involved she could not prevent sending out her feelings.
She would never know if her first love had actually loved her back or just reflected her own feelings, and as soon as she´d realized she was projecting her love on him, she had instantly ended their relationship.
She had tried again, over and over, but she had never been sure of anothers feelings. She wanted to be loved for herself, not because of her ability to make anyone feel anything towards her.
But how could she find the love she craved with everyone being prey to her abilities with no control on her own?
Had there still been a school for mages, she would have made her way there a long time ago, but as it was, with the school broken, and the magelaws in place, there was no place she knew to look for other mages.
She had never heard more than a few rumors about mages in the bigger cities, and they were probably years old.

The last few weeks had been a revelation to Liz. Finally she had found someone who loved her for her own. Definitely. Absolutely 100% sure. She knew it, loved it even, that she could evoke feelings like this in another being without her magic. But she couldn´t love Gill back.
There was this wonderful young man who brought her flowers, who walked with her whenever she wanted company, who tried with all his might to charm her...But she didn´t feel anything but friendship towards the gentle boy. As much as she tried, she could no more create feelings in herself than prevent to send her feelings out.
It was absurd. The one she definitely knew was in love with her she couldn´t love back after craving so long to be loved.

It was time for a change.
She would start her long overdue journey. A journey to find other mages, to perhaps find control, to find herself without all the insecurities created by her gift, to find love!



She had made her way to Sandar in a matter of days. The big city was overwhelming. Hordes of strangers whose emotions waved over her, close alleys, rattling of hooves behind her, a chamber pot emptied almost over her head.. It was nerve wracking! She was constantly alert and it showed in peoples reaction towards her.
Why couldn´t she stop sending those damned feelings out? It might be frustrating to have ones love reflected back and not be loved for the person one was, but reflected fear was another matter. It was dangerous! And her projecting seemed to get worse. She had never felt less in control of her feelings than today.

The landlord of the inn she bought her lunch from had been skeptical, and asked to see her money first, the woman she had bumped into at a corner had tried to grab her wrist, thinking she was a thief, the kids at the well had eyed her suspiciously... This just didn´t do. She had to get out of the crowd, had to find a place to calm down and start fresh. She walked into a less crowded area with tall houses and big fenced yards, pressed herself against the closest wall whenever somebody crossed her path and tried to get her nerves under control. In her small hometown, where she knew everyone apart from a few travelers, and everyone’s emotions were familiar, crowds had always been something exiting and new. But this here was terror.
Could she get used to it, at least enough so she could stop projecting fear?

She got lost in the maze of the capitals streets, that seemed to follow no order, and came again upon a more frequently used street where passersby looked at her as if she were a veritable monster. She knew that her own panic showed and people just mirrored it, but that didn´t make it any better. It didn´t make her feel any less afraid.
Human emotions were complex and she knew that it was only a matter of time until someone of a little more aggressive nature decided to go against his fear and destroy the monster he thought she was. Some people were like this. They just overcame their fear and attacked, be it magically induced or normal.

She stumbled into a narrow and dark, but thankfully empty back alley and slumped on the floor as soon as she was ought of sight. Slowly her pulse came down until she could almost breathe normally again. Then a dark shadow entered her seemingly secure hideout, reminding her once again of her panic attack.

„Whoa little mage ! Calm down.“
A masculine voice called out as a huge man approached her. He felt calm. She felt as if she had entered a huge bubble in which she was safe from anything. The hostile atmosphere practically fell away as if she had awoken from a nightmare and realized just now, that she was lying safely tucked under a soft blanked in her own familiar bed. She stayed on the floor, waiting calmly as the big bear of a man approached and wondered about herself. Where had her panic gone?

He finally stopped , crouching so he could see into her eyes
„ I could feel you half over the city. You almost turned people into a mob, chasing you. You know that?“
His voice was concerned and warm.
She nodded „ I couldn´t help it“
„I know. That´s why I´m here“ He held out a hand. „I´m Demian“
„Liz“ she said, taking his hand. „ Thank you very much“
„Now, what do I do about you?“ He murmured to himself, shook his head, mumbled something else that Liz could not understand and looked at her again.
„If you need a place to stay and somebody to talk to, I can bring you to the guild house. If you just want to get out of the city and go back home, I´m sure I can help with that ,too. So, which is it?
He looked at her questioningly and it has never been clearer to her what she had to do. „ Talking and staying sounds good.“

He had to be a mage. It was the only possibility. Otherwise he would not have been able to calm her down, Liz was sure. This was her chance to learn something, to find someone to teach her control.



Demian straightened and pulled her up as well. He kept her hand in his own big one and led her through the alley and some scarcely used streets. For the few minutes on the streets Liz stayed silent, gauging her own emotions, almost expecting her fear to creep in again. But all was well. Her companion stayed silent as well, just humming a little tune to himself until he stopped in front of a huge building.
„This is the guild house. It keeps all the records and books from the school of mages that we could save after the magewars. There will always be a bed and some food available for any mage that passes the city gates, as soon as there are more mages, and we can be called upon here if anybody needs the help of a mage.“
„Called upon?“ Liz wondered,“That means, anybody could have told me where it is and I could just have come here?“
„It´s no common knowledge yet. We have just formed the guild a few weeks back. Two friends of mine and I have been collecting whatever we could of mage origin for years but there was destroyed more than we could collect in a lifetime, and there are so few mages left. We want to teach as well, so finding young people with the gift has become equally as important as saving as much of our past as we can. And let me tell you: you´re the first mage we found for a long time.
But do come inside and we can go on with our conversation in a private study for now, then we will get you settled in and I will make introductions later on.“

Demian lead her to a quiet and cozy room with comfortable armchairs arranged around a small table. Soon she sat in one of those big chairs, her feet pulled under herself and a soft cushion on her lap so she had something to hold on to.
When she felt comfortable he left her for a moment to bring back a teapot and two mugs and started talking.
Demian told her how he was one of three mages he knew who had survived the magewars and the terror afterwards, when the late king had chased down all mages to either kill them or keep them secure in his dungeon to do his bidding and nothing more. He and his friends had stayed hidden for a decade, meanwhile chasing for remnants of their past, records, books, even colleagues even if they had not found anyone but each other. They wanted to conserve what they knew of the way of the mages.
When the new King had let the imprisoned mages go and passed the magelaws they had decided to move into the open again. Of the prisoners, that had been stark raving mad when they were finally released, there had survived only one as far as they knew and he lived a lonely life in a cabin by a mountain up in the north. They visited him from time to time, to see how he was, and if they could help him in any way, had even healed some of his madness with projection of calm, but left him alone otherwise.

Now they had founded a guild. It´s purpose was to find and educate young mages such as herself, to keep mage traditions, and to help ordinary people by using their gift for an honorable cause as often as they could after the cruelties that had been done to nonmage people by some mages.
It was common knowledge even to Liz, that in the magewars atrocities had been committed by mages that used the now forbidden demon magic.
They had struck a deal with a demon, a being that fed as far as she knew, on emotions and wanted to be fed with pain and had in return gained power.
Most mages were good with psychic energies, mostly emotions, a few even with thoughts. But there were some, like her, who could also in a specific way influence the physical realm.
She could produce lightnings out of thin air, others could light fires, blow wind or influence any other element.
By striking a deal with a demon, a mage could enhance these abilities or gain one if his gift was not strong enough to show his innate ability, in return feeding the demon with his control over emotions.

Demian and Liz talked for hours, just having little breaks for food, until they realized the sun would rise once again in only a few hours.
Demian brought her to a small room with a bed, a table and a wardrobe, told her good night and made his way to his own bed.
But Liz could not sleep. She tossed and turned, and her thoughts kept spinning in her head. Here she found exactly what she had been looking for. What if she had decided against the capital and traveled to one of the other cities? Demian had not mentioned any mages there. She could have wandered the world, never stumbling upon another mage, and here she was, inside their newly founded guild.
When the sun came up, Liz finally fell asleep, to exhausted to even think any more.



Sometime around noon Liz came to life again, stretching lazily in her bed, remembering her evening. Her life eventually seemed to take a good turn. Smiling to herself she got up, dressed and went to find Demian.
She found him standing in the kitchen on the ground floor talking to an rigid old man with a long gray beard.
„She could well be the one“ Demian told the other man frowning. „She´s gorgeous. All innocence and she is so easy to read. You should have seen her when I found her. She was afraid of her own Shadow.“
„No“ The man told Demian in no uncertain terms. He would not risk trusting a stranger with their most important secrets.
Demian argued with him a little longer until he turned and saw her standing in the door. He smiled, welcomed her warmly.
„ May I introduce you? Liz, this is Seran. I have told you of him yesterday. He is one of my oldest friends and used to be my teacher.“
He turned towards his friend.
„Seran meet Liz. I found her yesterday and I think she would make an excellent student for us my friend.“
Seran eyed her suspiciously. Then asked: „ May I have a look?“
She was confused. „What do you wish to do?“
He blushed a little. „I would like to have a closer look at you, at your feelings especially. You know, it is considered rude among mages to use ones abilities on another mage without asking. And I don´t take on students without knowing them better.
At least not any longer.“
He looked sad as he added this afterthought.
Liz nodded. „ go ahead.“
Demian smiled and told her that they would also like to test her and her abilities a bit more thoroughly . If she would consent, they would ask her some questions, weird ones even, to feel her reaction to them and judge her abilities as well as her character. Then they would decide if they wanted to teach her just basic control or grant her a full apprenticeship. He told her that they would definitely help her to control herself so she would not have to fear sending her emotions any more but that only if they considered her worthy to be their student, they would tell her what possibilities and responsibilities came with her gift so she could decide if she wanted to learn more.

While Demian had told her about the procedure, Seran had prepared a light meal that they took with them into the study she knew from the last evening. He put some roasted bread on the coffee table as well as some cheese, a hard, red sausage with peppers, some sliced vegetables, butter and a pitcher of water. They settled into the chairs and talked a little about everything during the simple meal. They asking about her life, she asking about the life in the city. Nothing serious yet. The atmosphere was a little tense, all three expectant, the energy of their emotions, especially Liz´s rising.
When the last bite was eaten Seran sat back and watched Liz curiously for a moment, then he started bombarding her with questions...
Had she ever consciously influenced someone with her gift? Who and in what way? What would she do in this or that situation? How would she feel if this or that happened to her? What did she think were the costs of her gift? What did she want to gain from this tutoring? Had she ever punched someone in the face? What did she do if she found a cat peacefully asleep in her bed? What did she think about the magelaws? To what use would she like to put her gift? Had she ever been raped? Had she ever tortured an animal? Killed a spider? A mouse? Had she ever whipped a horse? Did she have temper tantrums? Was she sad or angry when she realized she had made her first boyfriend love her? How had it felt when she had knocked out the man with her lightnings? Could she use them on purpose?

He grilled her for almost an hour, always watching her, judging every answer, and the questions got weirder and weirder. She felt a little as if she was a criminal and he a prosecutor.
But it wasn´t all. When Seran came to an end, Demian took over the questioning. They judged her for honesty but she was sure this was not all they were looking for. In the end they started taking turns, making her tell them of her insecurities, of everything that made her angry. Grilled her on past behavior as well as opinions, political as well as economical ones.
They made her feel transparent. As if they knew her as well as she herself, if not better.

After her interrogation she went to her room, laid down on the bed and dosed of, while the two mages discussed what they had seen.
Later on they fetched her to talk with her. As before Demian was the one to explain.
So far they had liked what they had seen. Demian approved off her honesty, of her straight forward and open personality. They liked her high morals, he said.
He hinted that they would like to take her on as a full apprentice but said that they would cover the basics first, so she would know better what their offer entailed
They wanted to cover basic control, mage history and current politics first so she would know exactly what her role as their pupil would be.
She accepted this without hesitancy. It meant that she would get exactly what she had sought when she left her home and family to come to the capital and it would mean that her life would henceforth be much less complicated... or so she assumed.
She would keep the room Demian had given her the first night and be trained by both of them as well as their third friend Kimon who was currently traveling to add to their collection, once he returned from his errands.

Soon they settled into an easy routine. Liz would wake early, take over fixing breakfast. Then she would work with Demian first. He would teach her control of her feelings.
He taught her techniques to change her own emotions in order to change what she was projecting. Meditation techniques to calm down, bringing up happy memories to banish sadness or anger, more meditation until she could almost look at herself from the outside and see herself for who really she was to overcome insecurities.
These lessons were exhausting and she always needed a break afterwards, when she would sit in the backyard and think on everything that had happened to her since she had realized for the first time that not everybody could feel others emotions as distinctly as she, when she was still a kid.
Meanwhile Demian would talk to Seran who would make something for lunch as he was by far the best cook between the three of them.
After lunch Seran would teach her history. He would tell her how a mage had found out that you could enhance your powers by bonding on an emotional level with a demon, a being that thrived on pain and other strong feelings.
A demon, so he told her, had no power at all in this world by himself but loved to feel the unfiltered feelings of humans. For this he needed a mage to channel it to him from a being in pain, physical or emotional. In return he could enhance the innate powers a mage possessed. How much he could give depended on his own powers and his standing among the demons. So naturally a demonlord would be able to do much better than a demonsoldier.
What they all had in common was that they bargained hard and tried to corrupt their mage because a mage who enjoyed pain as much as themselves would be much more willing to sacrifice others to the demons greed.
In the past mages had committed atrocities of the worst kind in order to feed their demons. They had tortured innocents, killed children before their mothers eyes, had made husbands kill their wives in front of the children to make their demons flourish.
This finally brought the magewars upon the world when not corrupted mages had tried to use demonmagic themselves to stop the wrongdoers. The best among them had sacrificed themselves, using demonpower until they had destroyed the foe and killing themselves afterwards for redemption and to sever the emotional bond that allowed the demon to influence them .
Others had sacrificed themselves to the torture of the „good“ demonmages to make all this possible and everyone knew that this had ended in the death of almost all mages and by now in the magelaws. This was the reason why demonmagic had been banished and was prosecuted and punished by death only.

Liz started to realize that the death of so many of her kind had saved the world as she knew it and shuddered at the thought of the torture so many innocents had gone through, some even willingly as a sacrifice.
She wondered briefly why she had to learn so much about demons when demonmagic was the worst crime that you could commit but reassured herself that it was just history. After all she would not have been able to even communicate with a demon because she didn´t know how.

Demons, so Seran would go on had their own honor none the less. They honored a bargain more than anything else. There was no demon known who had ever backed out of the bargain or not kept his world.. but they took it literally so they often found a way around it. People had forgotten to limit the amount of pain a demon could demand in exchange for their power or had forgotten to mention that they wanted to have the power continuously... the demon would smell a loophole three miles against the wind, bargain anew and accept only a better bargain next time.
Also, they had a way to make their mage addicted... so he would eventually accept any bargain to keep the demons power.

This honor seemed pretty complicated to Liz. She was sure people has tried to out bargain the demons, had thought to find a way around it to.. but how could you if the initial bargain stated that you had to give other peoples pain to a demon?
She could not understand how anyone would value power any higher than a human being. How could you live with yourself torturing other people? How could you stand it? Even more so as a mage. You could actually feel what the other person was going through. Almost as if it was done to yourself. It had broken her Heart when she had broken up with Gill because she had felt what he felt that moment and she had almost taken back her word. So how could you inflict pain in others consciously? Ad the way it had been done: Killing children, mothers, anyone in front of their beloved ones.
She almost felt ashamed for being a mage, for being one who would be able to bargain with a demon even if she chose not to.
Also: Seran had talked about an emotional Bond with a Demon... Did you have to be in love with him to share his power?
This all seemed so strange. And one thing she knew for sure: The magelaws were a really really good thing and she did´t want to have to do anything with Demons. At all. Ever.



The days went on with endless lessons. She already felt secure in her control in all but the most stressful situations, had even gone out into the city with Demian without him sending his calmness to her.
And she had seen him at his preferred work: Helping nonmages.
A woman had called them to see heir daughter in Liz´s third week. The girl had been a wreck, slumped on the bed, sometimes crying, sometimes rot reacting at anything. She was only 11 years old and nobody knew how to deal with her. She had been like this for a week and her mother had given up hope that this would eventually stop when she had caught the girl trying to cut her own wrists one day ago.
Liz had watched Demian first calming the girl down, then talking to her quietly. After a while he had talked with Liz and asked her to take over the talking while he handled the girls emotions. He had a vague suspicion that the girl had been raped and he didn´t want her to have to deal with a man.
They had stayed with the girl for several hours, bringing up happy memories with her to make her forget for a moment, calming her down until she fell asleep, even watching her sleep for some time to keep nightmares at bay.
Demian had told her that they would eventually have to let the girl deal with her emotions on her own, but that he would supervise her for a few weeks and let her have just a bit more of what had overwhelmed her, moving gradually to the full impact of the rape... because she would have to overcome her own fear at some time to live a normal life. He could not take away what had happened to her, he could just help her deal with it.

She had been with the pair for almost half a year when Demian came to her one evening and told her they wanted to speak with her. She could sense more of his emotions than ever before and what she felt alarmed her a little. Demian showed a little insecurity and even fear. The strong man who had spent the last months to teach her control seemed to have lost part of his own.

They assembled once again in the study. Without any words Demian handed her a letter that seemed to come from Kimon, the last part of the Trio, the mage she had not yet met. Seran shot her a reassuring glance and told her to read it, they would explain later on.


„ Dear Friends
If this letter reaches you I will be dead. I have spent the last weeks investigating the person we talked about and have found proof that he did not only strike a deal with any demon but with the high lord. His power is by now unbelievably strong and I can only hope to get away with killing him before he realizes what I´m up to. Well, if this letter reaches you I will have failed and payed for my foolishness with my life.
I know that I should come back and solve this together with the two of you, but just the chance of saving you from the torture you planned for yourself is worth risking my life.
I would never attempt this, had you not written to me about this wonderful young mage that you think worthy of a place among us and I´m sure you will prepare her well so she can eventually take my place .
Please forward to her my apology that I can not perform this most important duty and that it must ultimately be her fate.
Always yours,
Kimon“

Liz was shocked. There was a demonmage on the run. Horror pictures kept sneaking in on her . She started shaking lightly. And no Demian or Seran took over to calm her down. She had to fight her panic all by herself this time but was prepared way better.
She closed her eyes, going through a meditation routine until her thoughts stopped turning.
When she opened her eyes she saw Demian crying, big tears rolling silently down his face. He looked at her, his eyes looking sad and opened his mouth several times, as if he wanted to speak, only to close it again, lost for words.
They sat in silence for a while until Seran cleared his throat and began talking in the same calm teachers voice that he used when teaching her history.

“ We have been chasing down all documents that tell how to actually become a demonmage for three years now, but we did not consider our mad friend up in the mountains. He knows as well as Kimon knew, and Demian and I know how to reach a Demon and how to bargain with him. Last year we found out that he had, for a short time, taken in a pupil to keep his loneliness at bay. The lad stayed with him for only half a year but we feared that he had been told to much and started investigating immediately, still hoping that he had no clue about demonmagic.
Our worst fears came true and we found the first victims of his magic two month before Demian here stumbled upon you.
This is when we made a deal among ourselves. Kimon, who was by far the most compassionate mage we knew would become a demonmage with ourselves the only victims of his torture. We would stop the demonmage and he would kill himself so no other person came to harm. Just to be sure he wanted to investigate what demon Thorp had bonded himself to and on what conditions, while we would try to find someone to teach, so just in case we would die trying, there was somebody to fight on, somebody who could pass all information to the king, somebody to know what happened if we succeeded.
But we didn´t happen upon any student. Demian found you and you were the most innocent that we could think of. Even more compassionate than Kimon and, so we think, incorruptible for a demon.
We decided to ask you to take over Kimons quest because we think that you could strike a deal with a demon that releases you in the end and not ask the demon for another one.
You see, our trust in you is deep, because we could read you so easily when we first met you. You didn´t even try to conceal any of your emotions and we have never seen so much honesty in anyone, so if there is anyone who could sever a soulbond to a demon and survive, it is you. And we don´t want a single person to die in order to save the world.”

This was really hard on Liz. She could not think of anything worse than being a demonlord. The thought was horrible. But: how could she reject them? This was about the whole world and they tried to keep losses at a minimum. No death on their side at all. How could she refuse?
But how could she torture her two teachers? The two that she had become fast friends with and who were like family to her?
She knew that they felt her dread, her being torn. But they did not try to manipulate her emotions and she knew that this was how this had to be. It would have to be her choice alone if she did this.

Demian jumped in now
“We thought about this a lot and discussed the deal we want you to make so we can see no loophole. Perhaps you let me tell you before you decide?”
She could not stand the sad expression in his eyes, sad for the loss of his friend but also, she sensed, because he tried to pass this burden to her, so she nodded at him to go on.
“We would like you to bargain with the demonprince as there are only two demons that are higher in rank and stronger in power than the highlord: the King and the prince. We aim for the prince as there is only one thing that we can offer making it worth for a demon to be satisfied with two victims only: pulling him to our world in his corporeal form.
This is something that takes a lot of energy and can only be achieved when three or more mages work together. The demons crave the bodily experience above everything else and by coming here in corporeal form he could inflict the pain himself. This is also the reason we must aim for the prince, as the king would never ever leave his realm even for a short time. So this is the deal: we three enable the demonprince to pass into our world where he will be allowed to torture only the two of us in exchange for his power and his soulbonding to you. His access to us will be limited to the time we need his power to get rid of Thorp and his demon but we will enable him to pass safely into his realm after this quest.
We hope, Liz, but we are not sure, that hiss passage to his own realm will sever the soulbond so you will walk free. But you need to be aware that there is the risk that you will feel part of his emotions for the rest of your life.”

“What about the soulbond. How does it work?” Liz asked suspiciously. She didn´t really want to feel a demon for the rest of her life.

“ You know of the tradition to ask a mage to seal a marriage? It is not common any more but once it was considered a great blessing if a mage was willing to join you in marriage to your spouse, because he could channel the couples feelings towards each other and if he added his own energy he could create what we call a soulbond. It means that the couple will be able to feel each others emotions, similar to what each mage can feel from everyone surrounding him. But to perform a soulbond was a great responsibility. The mage would have to be sure that the mutual feelings were lasting, as the soulbond can only be severed by death.
It was an honor to have the soulbond performed at your wedding but some people didn´t even ask for it as they didn´t want to be rejected. They were afraid that their love was not strong enough or that the one they loved did marry them for the wrong reasons or that the mage would reject them just to be sure and it would rip the love apart that would otherwise have flourished.
For a mage a soulbond is even stronger, as we can already sense our lovers emotions. It creates a bond that enables you to feel and think as almost one person. You can even hear your bondpartners thoughts it is said. So when you perform a bond with a demon you will constantly feel his anger, his hatred, you will be able to hear his thoughts, sense his scheming against you and the people you love, so he will in a certain way be able to torture you through the bond.”

Liz smiled weakly. “So the demon will in reality have three victims to the price of two”
She closed her eyes , shivering at the thought of sharing the feelings of a demon. Would she get used to cruel behavior? Would she become like a demon herself? Demian had told her that demons corrupted their counterparts. But he had also said that he thought her strong enough and pure enough to keep her innocence.
She sat there in silence for a long time while Seran and Demian let her think it out on her own.
But ultimately there was only one way to decide and she thought that they were sure enough in their judgment of her character to already know the outcome. She could not stand the thought of becoming a demonmage, but not becoming one would be way worse.


The next morning they met once again in the study to determine what steps were next to take.
For the next days they would go on as usual, Demian teaching her further control and in preparation for her ordeal as a demonmage how to channel anothers emotions to a third person in the mornings and Seran would go on teaching her mage history and all he knew about hoe to become a demonmage and how to out-bargain a demon in the afternoon. In addition she would meditate each evening with the two of them until she could reach in her meditation what they called “ the realm behind the shadows”.

Seran explained the routine to her this very evening:
Once you were deep into your meditation, totally focused until you could perceive your own self from the outside, detached from your bodily form , you could spread your awareness to the whole world and even beyond that. It was in that state of mind that you could reach out to the realm of the demons and could establish communication. If a demon wanted to he could reach out to you from his side too, in this world where nothing stayed hidden, where you could perceive all and everything.
It was also in this place that the demonmage would usually channel all the emotions to he would collect for the demon, all the pain and suffering, would in this world find the intended target, unless of cause, you pulled the demon to the realm of humans in his bodily form.
It could take some time to reach the realm behind the shadows but in her strife for control she had already mastered part of it so she had just to learn how to use her awareness to gain access.
Nevertheless, they would go slow. It did not matter if the demonmage Thorp had a few days or even weeks more to run amok among nonmages, what mattered was that she would be well prepared to face the demonprince, who went by the name of Kieral, and to negotiate the pact they wanted from him. For the bargaining she would have to face him alone and she probably would have to improvise because you never knew what demands a demon would come up with and you would still need to make a deal he could not find a loophole in. You could just not prepare something, learn it by heart and expect a demon to just accept at the first try.

The lessons went on, Liz feeling a bit gloomy. It was as if a big black cloud was constantly hanging over her head.
After some time Demian changed the content of his lessons from basic control to channeling other persons feelings. He taught her how to use her empathy to mirror another persons feeling and how to project it towards a third party. Part of this was easy on Liz. She could easily feel her way into his emotions when he was exited or sad, but when they first tried it outside with the kids on the streets, she just couldn´t bring herself to mirror the cruelty of the little thief that took his fellow lunch away. She protested loudly! Why would she want to be cruel and why would she pass this cruelty on? No way.
She was so relieved when he told her that this was some final test on her resolve.
When she had a clue on using other peoples emotions for her own goals Demian started on hiding ones emotions, which was actually little more than the control she already had in combination with distraction... You over layered your true emotions with remembered emotions, all the while trying to send as few as you could. In the end a mage could only sense peoples emotions because he was sensitive to them and they could prevent sending them out constantly. On the other hand a mage could project emotions because he could send his own feelings more strongly.. It was like People were talking all the time and mages the only ones who could hear and only a mages loud voice would get through to the almost deaf rest of the world.


One day Demian and Seran took her to a nearby village and brought her to a rather wealthy farm. As usual whenever she was with the pair of them, Demian was the one to talk:
“ We want you to meet Yonna and Pol. This is their farm and I hid with them for many years when the late King was still hunting mages. I had the honor to seal their marriage anew at their 20 years anniversary, so theirs is a soulbond. I want you to have a look at those two for a better understanding of what a soulbond is meant to be.”
They were soon warmly welcomed by an elderly couple that invited them instantly for lunch. Yonna and Pol seemed to be glowing with love. Pol smiled whenever Yonna looked at him, as if he could feel her gaze on him. You could see that these two belonged together. Bering in their presence reminded Liz once more, that she would not have a bond like theirs, that she would not feel loved but... hated? ..used? She could not put a name on it but she did have to get out for a moment, needed to be alone. She excused herself and went to the stable, breathing in the familiar scent, closing her eyes and letting her tears fall freely.

It took three days until Liz could go on as if nothing had ever happened. Everything back to normal, learning everything she needed to learn. Seran had stopped giving her history lessons, declaring her well prepared, and gone on with training her in the use of her lightnings. It seemed that she could use them only when she felt threatened. And everything Seran achieved in the training was getting himself knocked out several times until he lead her to the garden where he had erected a wooden post.
He told her to imagine this post to be a threatening beast that wanted to kill her.
It took her some time to get the lightnings to strike, but once Seran had seen her doing it he helped her focus.
At her next lesson she found another post beside the first and he made her strike them first alternately, then at command until she could strike whichever one she wanted without thinking.
It occurred to her then, that this was perhaps the solution to her demon problem. Why not strike Thorp with a lightning? She could surely do this without a demon.
When she brought it up in the evening Demian looked at her seriously. “You´re right. You could do this, and we could not, as neither of us has elemental control. But this would make you a murderer. And nothing short of a death strike would possibly stop Thorp and his demon. Do you want to kill a man with your power?
You have to understand, that what we try to achieve is, that you will stop Thorp not only from sensing your own emotions but with training and the help of a superior demon, also shield other peoples emotions long enough that he cannot live up to his bargain. When the demon considers the pact broken and takes away his power we want to take Thorp prisoner and bring him to justice.”
Liz thought about this for a while. Hadn´t Kimon tried to kill Thorp?
Demian looked really sad now. She could sense his disappointment. Kimon had been the youngest of the three. They had chosen him as their demonmage because of his empathy, because, like her, Kimon could not see anybody suffer and would prevent anybody to come to harm from his being a demonmage. They had not taken into account that he had been so close to them, that he had rather wanted to have a murder on his conscience that seeing them suffer from the torture they were willing to go through to honor his bargain. He had wanted to save his friends more than to keep his innocence.

The black cloud was back, hanging once again right over Liz´ head.

For two more weeks they fell back into their routine of training and meditation until Seran and Demian declared, they could not teach her anything more. Everything else would come with the deal.
When the time came for their evening meditation Liz was far from being relaxed. And her mentors weren´t anything better.
It seemed to go endlessly until she finally reached the realm behind the shadows. As she had been thought she spread her awareness, felt something unfamiliar and called out:
“Kieral of the other world. Kieral please find your way to me as I want to bond with you.”
At first she felt an awareness somewhere in the background, then she was surrounded by a power unknown to her. Wild emotions, excitement, curiosity, playfulness and yearning washed over her... not at all what she had expected.
Then a dark but not unpleasant voice seemed to talk right inside her head:
“Who are you?”
She smiled inwardly and introduced herself.
As she knew that they would not come to a deal today she asked him if he would tell her from his perspective why a bond with her would be desirable and what he would gain from it. When she heard his answer she knew that she had some hard thinking to do. The pact as it was intended by Demian and Seran would have to change a lot.
Kjeral had been really startled when he´d felt the sudden urge to go through a meditation routine that he had not used since his father showed it to him in his early childhood. Being used to follow his gut rather than thinking things out rationally, he sat back comfortably and relaxed. He had done this before and it did not take him long to reach the state that his father had called “ the place of the unconcealed” because you gained some kind of universal perception.. nothing stayed hidden once you directed your thoughts at it.. you noticed the smallest movement, the most insignificant scent and something above all this...
He first heard a faint voice, coming from inside him, calling out.
Then he heard himself called demon and everything became clear...delight and relief flooded him. It seemed that he of all people would perhaps be able to find a bondpartner.. if that potential partner would only allow a true bond.
Kjeral cringed at that thought. There had not been a true bond for what? 30 years? The youngest bond he knew of was that of his parents and even at their time it was highly unusual that a mage had attempted a true soulbond with a Keshe. But he could hope.. When a mage actively sought out a bargain with him, he could win a soulbond. He just had to play his cards right, had to out-bargain a mage...

When I asked a pro writer what I had done wrong with a story that was supposed to be a novel, but came to a natural end after 30kw, she said "You didn't give your hero enough problems."

A plot, basically, is a problem that you set the characters and watch how they solve it, throwing them more curves any time they look like solving it too soon to be fun. The problem can be outside - a murderer chasing them, an unattainable love, a magic ring they have to destroy - or inside - they're cripplingly self-doubting, they're born weak and deformed in a world that prizes strength, they've lost their memory - or best of all, some from column A and some from column B. Bujold, who I just referred to, said that her plot generator was "What's the worst thing I can do to this character?" Tolkien's characters are thin cardboard, but he could plot. Watch how he starts with a challenge that sounds as bad as it can get (break into the grimmest fortress in the world, carrying the one thing its ruler mustn't get hold of, are you serious?) then makes it steadily worse with one new setback after another till you really can't see how they can possibly win... so the moment when they do is like sunshine after a thunderstorm.

There are various plot templates that people swear by, but as far as I can see they come down to a few simple steps:

State the problem. Who is your protagonist, what's his/her problem(s), and (most importantly) why should the reader care? And state it fast, because most people want to be hooked in the first few pages, or they're out of here.

Protagonist confronts the problem cautiously, and finds it's bigger than it looked. Tries again, harder, and gets knocked down harder. Rinse and repeat until:

Protagonist appears completely defeated, everything has gone wrong, the farm is going to be sold, the lover has left, the dog has died, the murderer is chopping down the door with an axe.

By an amazing achievement which nevertheless was, with hindsight, implicit in the situation and the protagonist's nature right from the start (gods from the machine not required), at the very last minute they overcome all odds and win the day, slay the princess and marry the dragon and ride off into the sunset.

Try it!

Wow thank you very much Leo9 !!!
This is a totally new perspective for me. So far the advice of others was mostly: make a list.. a plot is nothing more than single scenes in a row... but i never actually thought of creating problems that way.. I knew there should something interesting happen and that all my single scenes missed a linking element. But I didn´t know how to create it. I´ll definitely go back to working on my story with a new outlook and will post here how far I get ;-)

Deigja

Setting it out like that led me to thinking about how I had managed back when I was still plotting by feel, without trying to plan it. The last book I wrote that way has been published under the name of “Living Doll” (I didn't pick the title!) and it's interesting with hindsight to see how I made the plot work. This is just my own self-indulgent musings, so I don't promise it will be interesting...

The idea was to make a real, working novel out of the ancient BDSM cliché of the kidnap victim who learns to love her captor. The hero starts with an obvious problem – to convert the heroine from captive to willing slave – but that wouldn't carry more than a short story, so I raised the bar high: he's not a rich charismatic experienced Christian Grey, he's an 18yo with congenital dwarfism that's left him short and ugly with parents who treat him like a sick child. (I wanted him to be a precocious 15 to make it even harder, but I hit my publisher's rules on underage sex.) And he's got a tight deadline, he's got to have her on his side in ten days.

Even then, his plot line is basically going to be a straight-line task, though I managed to throw in a few curves. I particularly liked the scene where, late on, he fulfils the fantasy of taking her out in public sexily dressed, and gets attacked by a predatory drunk and only saved by his slave's fighting skills, so they both have to come to terms with a threat to their roles and their self-images.

But left to itself that's still not much of a plot, so right from the start I made the heroine not just a fantasy sex object but an equal protagonist with her own story arc. And hers is really interesting, with her initial goal being to survive a horrible ordeal, then having to come to terms with starting to enjoy what's happening to her and wanting to submit to her captor, with all the self-reappraisal that involves. So the story became the entwining of those two plot lines and the growth and changes that both characters go through.

.

while i do like to have more than one perspective, sometimes it gets to much.. take for example george r.r. martins song of ice and fire.. while i love the way he writes, he has by now so many different plotlines interwoven that it´s sometimes hard to follow, hard to not get confused, and if you, like me, get attached to one of the characters it´s sometimes hard to get going when the story moves to far away from them... so you need to be careful when using this..

by the way, thanks again for your earlier comment. I decided to try it on a new project and let the other one lie until I get unstuck because it would be hard to get away from just letting it flow with that story.. it will developp naturally in time ( so i hope ).

deigja

Just to give you all an update: I started a new project after thinking about all the advice I got here and on the chatroom and it´s going much better. I´m 5 chapters into it and it´s still running. I don´t have the feeling that it´s just a sequence of scenes any more. I don´t know yet, how it will go on but I´m getting better at keeping to my basic story line and not getting lost in secondary scenes.
Thank you all, and hopefully you will soon get to read the fifnished project ;-)
deigja