I need a little advice on the back-romance of my story. I've got a sci-fi novel I'm starting where my mercenary MC has been taken prisoner by a pirates on the planet her small troupe was sent to. She's a skilled mechanic and the pirates have acquired several government crafts they need her and another couple trained mechanics to fix and tweak for their own purposes. So, she's held captive and minorly tortured, but with time, she agrees to their terms and does several jobs for them. One particular pirate is impressed, slowly befriends her, and eventually, she goes over to the dark side and becomes his partner in crime. Where I'm having trouble with is what would make her even remotely attracted to him in the first place? As she gets to know him, he turns out to be quite caring and certainly a sweet-talker. Still, she would have a negative connotation with him for a while. Any thoughts?
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50,088 / 50,000
Mrt 19, 2008 - 22 26
Stockholm Syndrome?
57,308 / 50,000
Mrt 20, 2008 - 07 23
I would think Stockholm Syndrome, for sure.
However, most of us don't want to have a romance story end with "bad guys." Whether they are in love or not, they are still doing something (presumably) illegal and against the moral fabric of their environment.
So how about making the "pirates" more like "freedom fighters" or revolutionaries trying to fix/change a corrupt government? Then their "illegal" work is for a noble purpose and therefore okay.
----------"Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia." ~E.L. Doctorow
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Celestial Chicken Blog
23,200 / 50,000
Mrt 20, 2008 - 08 24
MC would easily fall for a pirate if he was disillusioned and trying to get away from piracy. Perhaps, he has offered to get her out with him when the time comes so together they cook up a scheme to escape.
What is the stockholm syndrome?
Lucille
----------Lucille Perkins Robinson
http://lucilleperkinsrobinson.com
http://blog.lucilleperkinsrobinson.com
57,308 / 50,000
Mrt 20, 2008 - 08 57
Stockholm Syndrome is the effect captors and captivity have on their captives. In general, captives eventually become allied with their captors, even fighting for them/their cause or falling in love/beginning relationships with their captors. It is a well-known process and requires much therapy to break after the captivity ends.
This is why I stay away from this type of scenario in any book. It is morally abhorrent to me to take someone captive knowing that if you hold them in captivity long enough, they will be "yours."
----------"Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia." ~E.L. Doctorow
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Celestial Chicken Blog
4,784 / 50,000
Mrt 20, 2008 - 22 41
Yeah, most of the points presented there have been bugging me. I definitely have several dark characters running around this story. However, I guess the most of them actually kind of serve a purpose as something of a contrast against the MC pirate. Besides, he's technically separate from the ones that took her. He just uses their base as a dock for his little space ship and agrees to work with them on the odd job as payment. He was just working around there when the rest acted on this operation and he got wound up in it. I do need him to be a little insensitive and selfish, but he's not without a heart. I'm just trying to regulate the situation because he's still got to balance the line between charming and jerk. I guess the basic point is that he does get her out of the whole captive mess. But then again problems come along when with him, but hey, the universe isn't perfect. Besides, she slams him one if he tries to flirt during the first while when they're traveling together.
On another note, she, him, and a few of the others pirates closer to him end up finding a redeeming cause. It's all fuzzy and complicated at this point, but they end up willingly taking down a corrupt company that's been secretly doing mass genetic experimentation. Anyways, thanks. Hopefully the plot bunny gods are good to me here. lol.
50,472 / 50,000
Apr 14, 2008 - 18 37
OK, maybe this is too obvious, but have you ever seen Pirates of Penzance? Maybelle, the Major General's daughter, falls for Fredrick, the pirate apprentice. Turns out, he was erroneously apprenticed to a priate (was supposed to have been apprenticed to a *pilot*), and now that he is free of his indentures plans to lead a blameless life evermore.
(of course, the pirates come back and claim that he was apprenticed to them until his 21st birthday, and since he was born on leap year, he has only had 5 birthdays. Fredrick, the slave of duty that he is, returns to the pirate fold, and leads them in the attack on the Major General's castle. Luckily, love wins out in the end, and ALL the pirate's end up marrying one or the other of the major generals many daughters).
:) Jen