Help me connect this plot!

[anthorn]

I have a plot, two plots, that a running together and should link but I am having trouble seeing how they do. It's steampunk fantasy

I have a gang leader who has taken control of most of Lull's criminal underworld. She's using a boy whose sister was killed as the assassin by claiming he is killing those responsible for his sister's death. Her main goal is to kill the Queen of the country when she comes to open Parliament.

The other plot is about a very successful merchant company that has grown so large it is almost a bank. Ullii, the woman running the Lull branch, discovers that someone has been falsifying contracts and syphoning monies for unknown purposes. When she sends her assistant to the bank to cancel the contracts before the assailant can claim the money, the assistant ends up dead with those contracts stuffed in her mouth. At the same time, she has to deal with her father sending her younger siblings to a school in Lull and the responsibility this entails.

Don't know how to link them as they seem to be running separately.

 

[Dozmonic]

The most obvious thing would be that the criminal underworld is involved in falsifying contracts in some way for the merchants, or they're stealing, conning etc. Or they are the ones who killed the assistant because Ullii is becoming too powerful, or they wish to cow them into giving them money and they're just starting to show how dangerous they are. Less obvious ways would be if Ullii has a close friend working for the criminals, or someone she's reliant on or who's reliant on her and their involvement draws her in.

You can marry the plot lines in a myriad of ways.

 

[Bowler1]

Protection.

Her assistant has been killed, she could be next, what to do? If the bad guys have bad guys, then the good guys need bad guys to stay safe. The plots can thicken up very nicely beyond this point.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

The merchant company want to take over the country, killing the queen (maybe she taxes them more heavily than they would like or they can't get away with their gun running or something so easily) to put their own leader in place and they approach the gang leader to do the job for them. She's expendable if she gets caught.

When I'm writing "How can I make this worse?" is a very important question to have in my head. When pulling threads together I then ask how can B be used to make A worse or vice versa.

 

[Laeraneth]

If you want conflict, perhaps even the opposite... the queen might be all for perks and support for merchants (particularly said company / bank for whatever reason) thus they would WANT her in power, whereas the others want her out/dead.

It might help keep readers guessing that way as well, if both your main plots have two totally opposite aims.

 

[Jonathan C]

Question- why does the gang leader want to kill the Queen? What would she gain by this?

 

[paranoid marvin]

The boy she is using could be going to the same school as Ullii's siblings. Or may have gone to the school and then mysteriously disappeared (he's staying permanently now with the criminals), or he could be the boyfriend of her sibling, or a combination of the three.

Could be that the detective looking for the missing boy is also put in the case of the murdered assistant.

There is more than one person involved in the contract fraud; the other party (still undiscovered at the merchant's) finds out that the assistant is going to try to stop their accomplice, so they contact the criminal underworld and arrange for the assistant to be murdered.

The simplest explanation is this; if the gang leader is in charge of most of the underworld, the chances are that whoever is falsifying the contracts is known to her. It could be that the criminal is falsifying the contracts without permission, or that they have been contracted to do so by the gang leader.

If they haven't been given permission, then the gang leader could then be trying to find out who did it and/or track them down. Or it could be that the gang leader is aware but that the assailant went a step too far by murdering an innocent. Or it could be that the gang leader was happy about someone falisfying contracts without permission/their knowledge, but that they aren't happy about an innocent being murdered.



So my recommendation would be this;

The gang leader finds out that someone has been murdered without their permission. Murdering innocents brings heat down from the authorities and is bad for business. It may also make killing the Queen more dificult with more police on the street. So the gang leader puts out a contract to find the assailant and bring them in for questioning.


Slightly off topic , Ullii working in Lull. If Lull is the place where most of the action takes place, and Ullii is one of the main protagonists, such siimilar names may be cause for a little confusion? I certainly was a little when reading your sypnosis - maybe that's just me though

 

[paranoid marvin]

Question- why does the gang leader want to kill the Queen? What would she gain by this?

Because the Queen ordered the death of the gang leader's partner/spouse/beloved? Or their parents? The Queen may be deeply unpopular and killing her may be seen as a good thing.

Or maybe her younger brother - feeling that as the male heir should have inherited instead of is older sister - has paid the gang leader a ton of cash to do away with his sister and to put him on the throne? Or he has promised the gang leader a pardon, or a title, or money titla and pardon if he does so.

Or maybe the gang leader is just plain evil!

 

[Gumboot]

The most obvious thing would be that the criminal underworld is involved in falsifying contracts in some way for the merchants, or they're stealing, conning etc. Or they are the ones who killed the assistant because Ullii is becoming too powerful, or they wish to cow them into giving them money and they're just starting to show how dangerous they are. Less obvious ways would be if Ullii has a close friend working for the criminals, or someone she's reliant on or who's reliant on her and their involvement draws her in.

You can marry the plot lines in a myriad of ways.

Yeah the most obvious one is that someone in the merchant company is in league with the gang. You might want to make it more interesting by making it something else though, but letting the reader assume that's what is going on.

 

[jastius]

start a third one and then collide them. use the third plot to zipper together the other two.

kidnap the kids by the third force in play and have the third force give information to the junior assasin about who really wanted his sisters death. have the assassin accused of the kidnapping, then throw in a love interest with one of the others that wants him dead.. then the third group is run by his sister and his sister isn't dead but has become a superspy for the government. ...

then the kid is recruited. the whole thing is being done by foreign forces. they join forces and attack through infiltration .. are mildly successful, mostly. then have a steampunk hover craft wisk them away..

remember the adage. if your plot is going nowhere, its like a cat stuck in a tree; send the hero up the tree then set the tree on fire, and throw on more cats.

 

[Bob Whitely]

Interesting concepts rolling along. Yeah, there's many ways this could go, of course without knowing more about what you have planned for those two plot threads, we could be shooting in the dark, but that's OK. This is a brainstorm.

I keep coming back to: "At the same time, she has to deal with her father sending her younger siblings to a school in Lull and the responsibility this entails." Gotta be more to all that, and my guess is, it's the father. Without knowing more, I say this is a plot line all on its own. Why is the Father doing this? Because it's too dangerous?

I'd say if there's anything in the story that seems like someone might guess it's outcome, be able to cleanly follow the story path and guess what's happening or can easily sort out who's responsible, then you might want to change directions. It depends on what sort of story you are telling. Do you have a detailed or at least simple outline on it all? That really helps a lot!

Perhaps the Father has had a long on-again off-again relationship with the much younger gang leader.

He knows she's just crazy enough to do something rash and she has indicated that she will have certain monies from the bank one way or another using his help. He is on the fence and hasn't decided yet how far he will let her go as Ullii's life could be on the line. For a grittier edge, ultimately he is willing to sacrifice Ullii to save his own neck. Sad but true. Or perhaps he will betray her, surprising readers, then have second thoughts and try to save her, though he might fail.

Ullii will at some point suspect her Father is involved, but refuse to believe it. His own reputation is at stake as the gang leader tells him that she has evidence that back when he brought that boy under his wing, hiring him - back a few years ago when he was on one of her several skyships... he was somehow inappropriate around the boy or someone the boys saw that came on board. Whether true or false, such an accusation could cause Ullii's Father much harm.

Further, while the gang leader has managed to conceal her own identity from the public, it was one of her "legit" corporations or dummy corporations, that Ullii's Father was stationed on. In fact, it was his work through that corporation earlier that gave Ullii's merchant company a shot in the arm when she really needed it. (Speaking of which, rumors of ties to the underworld wouldn't help Ullii). And of course the Father killed the assistant. He didn't want to, but he had to or his ex - the gang leader wouldn't have gotten the money and then she'd spill the beans, whatever the story, or so it seemed. That might not be the case, but that's what the Father believes she'd do. Or perhaps he has a way around that to betray her in the end?

Just more ideas for the frying pan.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Another idea idea is that it is one of Ullii's younger siblings that is being used by the gang leader to kill the Queen.