Looking for a Past

writing
#1

Needing some inspiration for MC SP of The Past. None of the Gists I’ve scanned over have really stood out. Let’s call this throughline “Woman trapped in a man’s world”.
I’m trying to be short and quick here, hopefully the actual story will not seem so…cliche, I guess.

SP 1 - There is a place/event MC needs to go to but is not allowed in because it would be improper for a woman to attend.
SP 2 - Her increasing success in the publishing world turns her peers and family against her because they are embarrassed by what she’s doing, or are threatened by women spreading ideas, or whatever.
SP 3 - The Past
SP 4- Existing into the future through her work and the ideas she’s shared.

If it helps, the story will be placed in a fictional place and time that closely resembles…maybe mid-late 1800s England? Something you might find in a Jane Austen novel (I’m guessing based on the few movies I’ve seen, haven’t read much Austen, kind of straying outside of my comfort zone here). Don’t want to go into too much more, but there will be some magic in it (IC is one of the MCs fictional characters come to life), and it’s meant to be a fun piece, not meant to be anything heavy or serious or a downer, despite the struggle of the MC being oppressed because of who she is. Hopefully the final product will look less like its about female oppression and more like a woman learning to write her own life story rather than following the one she’s expected to follow.

I had two ideas. 1. She stopped selling, her work fades into obscurity as some new thing comes along to grab everyone’s attention, and 2.there’s some old rule or law from the past that someone digs up that prevents her being able to continue publishing.
Neither is doing much for me. Just thought I’d see if anyone might have a suggestion?

thanks,

#2

Well, lessee what the gists have to say.

Burying one’s past – could something from her past (a marriage, and illegal activity, a scandal) catch up to her and prevent her from publishing?

Chronicling the past – Could she be telling someone else’s story that they don’t want told and they threaten her?

Discovering someone’s past - Could research into a well known past event prove that it couldn’t have happened the way it’s remembered and that difference do damage to her or someone she cares about?

Exploring someone’s past – could she have been following the advice of someone’s diary in order to get published and the diary end’s and with no past to guide her she doesn’t know how to go forward?

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#3

Hey, thanks! That has unlocked a couple of ideas I liked. Maybe either a version of Chronicling the Past that looks maybe a bit like Unburying the Past, and maybe mixing in a bit of your Exploring the Past with it.

Part of what I don’t like about what I was coming up with is that it seemed too much like Os material (Psychology-an increasing sense of propriety leads to too-high standards). I guess it’s fine for throughlines to start converging toward the end, but I’d prefer to not do that here.(edit: looking back at it now, the first two seem pretty tied into that as well. Dang it!)

#4

You could also have a scandal that’s brought about what she did in SP1 – maybe she fought to get into the event, was prevented, and now someone is saying that somehow she snuck in. The same event burns her twice.

She could lose a lover who wants a family like the one he (and she) grew up in, where the women were compliant.

She could examine the reasons that she is trying to break the mould. Her backstory, re-examined, essentially.

She could research a topic for her next book. (Just at that level, it will work. I still like to push people to look for something interesting or conflictual – her research means reading about what only men wrote about a certain event, say, and that gets under her skin. “When I read about the Old War, it’s always about the men who had to go off – what about the women who had to stay?”)

And, if you want something to propel her into SP4, then how about – she’s venting to a friend about her treatment as a pioneering woman and her friends says, “but if someone had broken this ground before, you couldn’t do it now.”

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#5

More great stuff! I like the idea of going back to SP1 and the idea of examining why she wants to break the mould. This is clearly going to be the longest and most fleshed out Sign Post in this story now.

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#6

If you want fun yet this ending, what comes to mind is she might end up in charge of the Publishing Company and publishes things that sell instead of her own work. She settles to be a founding publishing empire person rather than fame as a writer.

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#7

1800’s was part of my historical writers tours, years ago…once again with fun being the outcome…she could end up being a long-lost heir of a great estate or another kingdom. Sometimes, there were limitations what people could do in such advanced stations, depending on the decade, of course.

#8

If SP2 involves everyone she knows turning against her, it seems most logical to me that one or more of those people would try to use something from her past to stop her as SP3. Threatening to publish personal letters that undercut her public position? Proof of something she did in the past that crossed over from “improper” to “illegal” (in-universe, like a woman buying land or thinking without a license or whatever she has to overcome)?

It just seems like the most direct kind of story flow to me.

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#9

And there is always the classic threat to expose a nephew/niece or adopted child who is really her own child.