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Hey guys! I'm Lisa and currently working on my first story, which is a Miraculous Ladybug fanfiction. It's a Hogwarts au too. I'm going to do it from Marinette's pov, and I could really use some help in writing the story and developing the plot. Can someone please help? :D

Well that's a combination I've never seen before. Granted, I tend to ignore the entire fanfiction genre as a general rule, so I wouldn't know much about what franchises work well with one another. Anyways, if you were hoping for someone to collaborate with you, I'm sorry to say it's probably not going to happen. The vast majority of newbies such as yourself don't manage to produce particularly impressive results when it's their first time making a storygame, and that's assuming they even manage to finish it at all before losing interest and disappearing from the site. Even if you think you are capable of writing a quality story, you have yet to provide any tangible evidence that you can deliver. This leaves a virtually nonexistent pool of potential helpers, and that's before taking into consideration just how niche the subject matter is. 

On the other hand, if it's just advice you're looking for, there are plenty of resources out there to help you out. If you haven't already, go ahead and check out the Help and Info section on the left side of your screen. There are a whole bunch of articles there full of tips on writing, using the editor, and even more advanced skills such scripting and forum etiquette. You can also ask questions in this forum if you're still struggling after you've finished. With that in mind, here are a few bits of advice to start you out. First, be sure to draw up some sort of plan or outline before you start writing. These kinds of stories can get overwhelming really fast, so knowing where you're going with the story is crucial. Second, try to keep your first game small, 10,000 words or less. Don't try to do anything fancy, just do a simple project to get your bearings. Finally, be sure to read other people's writing and learn from it. That's one of the quickest ways to improve outside of actually practicing. Also, if someone tells you your work is bad, don't throw a fit. Instead, take the criticism to heart and use it to improve. That's the other major component to developing your skills.

That's about as much as I can do to help for now. Good luck with your story!

Thank you for the help! I'm not looking for a co-author, just advice. Although a co-author would be appreciated :D

I can't help with content, but ... this may be stating the obvious but keep narrative structure in mind. All memorable stories follow a pattern where complexity increases, rises to challenging levels, then a change occurs that reduces complexity, bringing us almost back to the beginning while some effects of the change persist.

A simple realization of this is the classic seven-part narrative, where the change is driven by the protagonist.If Marinette is your protagonist, i would start thinking what change she can undergo: e.g. becoming more confident, or more cautious, or readjusting her priorities such as realizing the value of friendships.

In a classic story she will undergo the change in response to an extreme crisis of some sort. Think about what scene could effect the change you want to describe. Now you need to construct some narrative leading up to the crisis.

Once that is done you basically have your work cut out for you. In a 7-part narrative your scenes would be:

• Opening: We see her in her normal life. This is important to establish a baseline. Explain the ground rules of your world, but you can also forshadow the twist, without giving the game away.
• Hook: Something is happening, it catches our interest. It could be just curiosity at this stage, or a threat on the horizon
• Early success: We start following the hook up and things go well, we are making progress. This is important to deepen the readers investment in the character.
• Turn for the worse: Only now do we see the the full scale of the problem, or there is something we overlook. Maybe we got tricked or betrayed and now we are headed into trouble.
• Crisis/Twist: In the moment of greatest crisis a change occurs in the protagonist and it is this change that allows them to overcome the crisis and emerge victorious.
• End: It's not over yet. Having survived the crisis we want to enjoy our newfound strength and we also want to see the protagonist go back to their normal lives. On the surface nothing has changed, yet everything has changed.

The above recipe basically gives you awesome fantasy stories. The majority of movies works like this (including everything that Disney has ever produced). Also once you have your plans laid out like this it is pretty clear what needs to go into the early scenes as there is a lot of setting up to do so that the eventual twist does not come out of the blue.

So we have a good story, but not a storygame yet. For a storygame you want to think about alternative endings. There is a temptation to have some 'wrong' choices that lead to quick deaths, but they are usually a let down. Instead you can have multiple endings that follow the same structure as above. For example there could be multiple ways to resolve the crisis, some of which may turn the the protagonist dead or evil (saving your friends, sacrificing yourself for your friends, abandoning your friends to save yourself, turning against your friends to become an evil superhero). Such evil bad endings can also make great experiences if you give them the same attention including the same sort of detailed ending (where the protagonist goes back to their normal life, now cackling softly to themselves).

Ideally we don't decide for an ending not in one big choice, but through a series of seemingly small choices, the proverbial slippery slope

Thanks! I'll keep that in mind, this was really useful :)

You should really start writing articles. You could probably repurpose some of your older posts like this one to submit a at least one or two. It's a great way to get a MASSIVE amount of points without spending a long time writing story games and reviews, and you seem to have a knack for it.

He was going to at one point.

Because yeah, he really does put down a lot of useful advice places where it'll do no good at all.

Do you mean develop the plot or come up with one for you

I just need some help developing the plot. Here's the plot so far: Marinette Dupain-Cheng is a girl who loves magic, and wants it to be real with every fiber of her being. She discovers it's real and is really shocked. This is a hogwarts au, so she will attend hogwarts. She'll meet new people, make friends and enemies there, and develop a crush.

There is going to be some betrayal too. Anyway, when she gets to hogwarts, she'll get sorted, yada yada yada. Cut to a few days later (or the next day, depends on your choices) she gets a pair of magical ladybug earrings called a "miraculous" which links the owner to a magical being called a kwami. There a lot of miraculouses, they are all animal or insect based. They basically transform you into a super hero/heroine and you get some powers, they differ according to the miraculous.

They (Alya Cesaire, Nino Lahiffe, Adrien Agreste and some more people, all of which were hand-picked by Marinette, all exept Adrien, that is.) have to fight a supervillian called Hawkmoth, he gets some allies too. He has the butterfly miraculous. The strongest miraculous are the Ladybug Miraculous (a pair of earrings) and the Cat Miraculous (a ring) Adrien Agreste is Cat Noir and Marinette is Ladybug. I'll reveal the rest of the identities and miraculous in the book. I'll reveal Hawkmoth's origin story there too. Otherwise, you might as well have played it already.

Oh yeah and when the Ladybug and Cat miraculous are combined together the person who has both will have ultimate power and will be granted one wish. But each wish has a price to pay, to even it out. That's why Hawkmoth can't have the miraculouses, no matter what.

1) I have no idea who Marinette is and I doubt anyone else does either.

2) I have no idea how or why I would want to write someone else's story.

3) I have no idea what sort of plot you have in mind or what part you want help with.


Caring enough to clearly introduce and communicate your thoughts is kind of important in any type of writing. As is having at least some idea of what you want to write. And writing.

1) Marinette is a character from a TV show called Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir
2) I'm not asking you to write it, I'm just asking you to help me with some small parts
3) I posted an overview of the plot in this thread, I need help with the fight scenes.

Otherwise I have it figured out.

I read the description of your story and it actually has very good flow. Make sure the narrative structure works out and it should be a pretty good story. Happy to look over some fight scenes if you want my opinion.

Thanks! I'll keep that in mind! And yes, I could use all the help I can get. But please don't feel obligated to. I totally get it if you don't want to help. :)