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story about shapeshifting help!



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Tue Mar 31, 2015 3:54 am
queenofscience says...



Hi. So im trying to write a story about shapeshifters. My characters are all teens/-young adults. They have a genetic illness that has psychological/physical symtoms. My characters live in a group home. Any good ideas for names? My story takes place in moderen times.

My characters can only chane into one animals ( somtimes they can somewhat change into another one.)

My villen is a doctor ( psychiatrist/ Internest) and a scientist. My villen studies my characters while in animal form. She is wanting to do reserch on certin "animal abilityes" to apply them to the medical community. For exsample, lizards being able to regenerate parts of their bodies, useing this "regeration" to make donation orgins obsoleat. My characters can change into dog, cat, seagull/somewhat a fish, lizard. I havent gotten into what species yet. Anyways...

1. What are some abilites that animals have, that, if studyed ( you know what i mean) could have pratical applications in the medical feild?

2. How could reserch be conducted on my characters? What kind of test?

I want my reader to feel some empthy for my villen. How do i do thst? I dont want her to be purly evil.

And i have more questions in regards to my story.
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Tue Mar 31, 2015 10:18 am
AttackOfTheFlash says...



Hello. Being a fan of Shapeshifters myself, I've come to try to help you out.

Search "names" in a search engine. Baby name websites will pop up most likely, but baby name websites help me a lot when I'm finding names.

1. Animals have many enhanced abilities we humans lack. Enchanted sight, smell, senses, night vision, etc. Tons of things you could use, depending on which animal. The scientist could test such abilities to further enhance the human race or something.

2. See last sentence of above. I don't know how, though.

And empathy regarding angonists. The key is to give her feelings other than just, "I'm gonna test on these kids muahahahaha!" Maybe give her a family she's got a soft spot for. (Or maybe one of the kids is her own/has a soft spot for them). Or, maybe don't give her a family and she's sad because of that. Many possibilities there.

I hope I helped!
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Tue Mar 31, 2015 12:54 pm
queenofscience says...



oops, i meant for a name for the group home, should of specified that. I tried doing reserch, but i cant find anything.

With my main character, in the beginning of my story my character said that she has an illness, but she dosnt know. I want it to leave the reader gussing and my chracter figuring out how to deal with it. My main charcters mom and the doctor talk. What could be a possabal lie that the doctor could tell her mom about her (1)" condition " and (2) taking her to this group home and (3) a reason why she cant be visited. I want theas lies to believeable. I dont want it to be " because she can shapeshift" I want it to be for a ligitiment reason.

I was thinking of the doctor saying that my character is schizophrinic ( I have a character in my story, who is my villens daughter, who is important to my story, who has ligitiment schizophrinia.) But why could somone with schizophrinia not be visited? Any ideas on conditions. And yes, i have done my reserch on schizophrinia/ I have schizophrinia.

What could be a good name for my disease? I need help with symtoms. Idk at to what I have is good or not.

symtoms

Feeling "weird" or "diffirent" about yourself, like you dont belong in your own body
delousions about believing that hair on body is fur
feeling "not in this world" or like everything is like a dream (dissaciation)
pchical pain ( could be anywhere)

Is this good?
Last edited by queenofscience on Tue Mar 31, 2015 2:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I am the science and science fiction guru.

The mind is beautiful, yet brilliant. You can think, create, and imagine so many things.

Eugenics= scientific racism.
  





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Tue Mar 31, 2015 1:02 pm
AttackOfTheFlash says...



Maybe for the group name home name them after a specific thing. Like, choose something that relates to them. For example, if they "rise from the ashes" by rising above challenges name them something like "The Phoenixes." Something that relates to them as a whole.
And what research do you mean? I presume research on the animals and their abilities that could be relevant to humans. Look up an animal. Learn about it. You will eventually come across traits unique to it. For example, say somebody is a cat shapeshifter. Cats have amazing night vision. Say the scientist wants to learn about the cat's night vision and apply it to the human eye.
If you mean research as in the type of tests, I only have one word of advice: imagination. Trust me, I love writing about science and my largest struggle is the testing parts. Can't find anything? Make it up. But make it logical, if that makes any sense.
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Tue Mar 31, 2015 2:23 pm
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niteowl says...



For example, if they "rise from the ashes" by rising above challenges name them something like "The Phoenixes." Something that relates to them as a whole.


Actually, I would caution against naming the building something so conspicuous. I did a quick search for group homes and the ones in my area have pretty boring names, like "Providence Group" or
"Teen Advocacy Group". If you want the place to seem unassuming from the outside, I would name it either after a person (John A. Phoenix, to play off the earlier suggestion) or something that sounds really boring (Youth Investment Group) so people don't think anything of it.

As for research...generally I would think about what sort of qualities you might want from each animal, then figure out how to best bring that out. Like for night-vision in a cat-person, you would probably keep them in mostly dark conditions. For sense of smell (dog or other animals), a blindfolded obstacle course.

Something to think about...if the goal is to have these qualities in humans, these tests should ideally be completed in the human form, not the animal one. So, say, the cat-person has to find things in pitch dark, but they do this more and more in the human form, and there's a penalty for switching to cat form. Not sure if that makes sense.

As for giving the villain empathy, it seems like you've got to figure out what drives her. The obvious (and therefore probably cliche, but it could work) is the personal tragedy, where someone she knew could have been saved by these abilities. Or maybe she's driven by some sort of greater cause (for example, "This cat-person's life could save thousands of people that work in the dark") and believes she's doing the right thing. Or you could give her interests outside of the lab and friends/family members that know her as something other than "evil/mad scientist".

Hope that helps!
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Sun Apr 12, 2015 2:00 am
Rosendorn says...



You seem to be under the assumption that animal research has very little application to humans, and the animal applications includes improved visible skills such as night vision. This is really limiting your possibilities and does not reflect how animal-based research is done at all.

Animals can have subtle improvements that are useful for humans, such as a horseshoe crab's blue blood that acts as a method of detecting toxins in drugs, or how some species of whales have produced cancer suppressing genes that are so effective they basically do not get cancer. These enhancements are just as useful to study, simply because they lead to huge medical advancements that have immediate, already-funded research disciplines just waiting to have the breakthrough they need.

As for villains: motive is key. You're probably looking at an anti villain, and you'll want a really strong reason for her to be willing to commit evil acts in the name of good.

I'd suggest to start looking into what animals are already being used for medical research and branching out from there, if you're looking for ideas on what animals to include.
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Sun Apr 12, 2015 2:27 am
XPresidentTurtlesX says...



Hello, queenofscience! I like shapeshifters, they're pretty cool. I figured I'd try to help you out the best I could, because I also can have trouble on what to do with a book. It's that sense of knowing what you want from the book, but not quite sure about the little details. By the way, I regarded all the posts prior to mine. If they answer something about the same way I do, forgive me, I was not aware.
Your first question, I assume, would mean that you want to know animals that can medically aid humans. I found a site that might help with that, so I'll drop the link right here:
http://www.statesforbiomed.org/content/how-animals-help
If that's not what you were looking for, then my bad! You can respond to me and say it wasn't what you were looking for and then elaborate on what you do want, if you would like me to find ACTUAL help. Don't be scared to tell me I was wrong, I won't bite (unless provoked...).
For your second question, there could be many ways to conduct research. I'm sure there could be a surgery that would allow research. How that would work, I'm not quite sure. There are also loads of research conducted on animals to see how they would react so a product can be considered safe for humans, so that's also an "alternative." I also think if you were to google "how do people do research on animals," you'd get results. I'm sorry, my answer to the second question probably wasn't that helpful...
As for pity and empathy to the villain, give her a large backstory. Also, make it different then making her look like she's just throwing some shapeshifting kids into a cage and then throwing them into a test chamber that might as well lead them to their deaths. She can be partially caring to the kids, as well as cruel to them. (It would be cool if she had multiple personalities *hint hint*)
You also asked for name suggestions, so I'm going to make two little lists of boy and girl (or both) names. I'm not the best with names, and I prefer unique and original names, meanwhile, you might like more of a casual, everyday name approach.
Boy Names:
Cairo
Carver
Dex
Jay

Girl Names:
Lilac
Acacia
Caprica
Jayna

Both:
Briar
Indigo
Ash
Sparrow

Yeah, like I mentioned before, I like really rare names.
Oh, by the way, you mentioned a group home? So is that attached to a lab, or...? I don't know, I was just wondering.
If you need anymore help, feel free to ask me anything! I really like shapeshifting and the idea of escaping from labs and testing, so I'd really be willing to help! I also like to edit, so that's another thing you can keep in mind if you need help with that.
I hope this helps! ~Prez. T
  








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