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[SirTimberWolf]

Okay,
Hello one and all. My name is John and I'm a DooMRL addict. . . err, sorry. Wrong forum. :o

But seriously, I'm nearing completion of my first full-length novel and I'm really excited by what I have accomplished. (All modesty aside, I never thought I'd get this close to done.) However, just like anyone who's undertaken a major project I'm kind of having doubts on what I'm doing.
I want to make it clear that I'm not asking for an ego stroke here, but I have little outlet to communicate my ideas with others and get creative feedback. So, with the glory of the interweb I was hopping that maybe I could coax some responses (positive or negative) from the communities I belong to. . .
I've been working on this story for about 7 years now (Just the story, the book itself has taken about a year and a half to write.) Getting so close to the finish line I'm looking forward to starting the second in what I hope will become a series, however like I said earlier, I really don't have that much in the way of constructive crits as no one around my area reads all that much. Not placing blame, they have families and jobs I mean hell.

So here I am, humbly before you with a modest request for input. I'm trying to do a plot analyses and figure out what works, deepen the characters' motivations are and so forth. I gotta say it's pretty interesting and also quite aggravating.
I LOVE my characters, my story and my ideas. But it's like kids I guess, there's times where you're just like >_< and others where everything is going smoothly. . .
So anyway, thank you in advance for your help and would be more than happy to answer any questions.

Characters
Jonathan Prower
Samantha Prower
(siblings)
Melissa Li (Samantha's 'significant other')
Michael Avery (Cop, semi-antagonist)
Kathrine Rikes (Jon's interest)

Hayden Winters (Primary antagonist)
Jackie Torsque (Secondary Antagonist, spy)
Nicole/Aileana Leandrea (Third Antagonist/Ally)
Irana (Leader of The Clan of The White Rose)

Major Factions
Order of the Earth Purifiers
Clan of the White Rose
Kattah (The race of people that make up the Clan.)


The story starts with a pair of siblings living together, Jon meets Kat and they become fast friends. However one night while hanging out they get attacked and nearly killed, hiding out at Kat's place they make plans and what not, coming back into town they stop for something to eat (after Jon's badgering) And Nicole shows up, scares them off. They go to the police and almost get arrested.

From here it becomes a 'game' of hide and seek with Jon and Kat hiding out, come back to her home to find it burning and Nicole checking stuff inside. Learn a little about her when Jon rifles around in her car; how very dangerous she is.

Back to Sam and her attempts to find clues to the situation unfolding. She's made an appearance on the news who is advertising them (Jon and Kat) as criminals. Nicole and Hayden both show up to 'get' her. In the ensuing firefight Nicole gets Sam out, but when she comes too she's tied to a chair and Nicole has a plate of small knives and stuff sitting between them.

Jon and Kat treat it more like a vacation than an actual threat until Melissa calls and tells them that Sam is missing. After an exhaustive search they find Nicole waiting outside their hotel. Then from here on Jon and Kat are pretty much on their own.
Sam DID find something though, Jon calls Melissa and asks her to meet them somewhere to trade info. They do, but so do the cops. . .

Hayden isn't treating this 'case' like anything more than a speck, though he is seriously upset that his 'friend' (Jackie) held the information back from him. We start to see the first trappings of the scale in which they are involved here. We also learn about his daughter. . . (I think this should be expanded slightly, but we'll see)

Nicole comes back, slightly irritated. She takes Sam out of her cell, gives her a weapon and armor. . . They start searching together, using Nicole's contacts and Sam's knowledge of her brother.
After a couple of pretty intense firefights and some information gathering Sam is starting to figure out what's up (With Nicole's exposition as well)

More 'close calls' including Melissa getting shot and Jon having to take a life to defend Kat's bring the first act to a head. By now we've established that there's a war going on between two groups of people, both of them are dedicated to their respective causes and have the resources to do it and Jon and Kat are simply 'caught in it'.

The second informal 'act' starts off with Jon and Kat running to get away from Avery and several people chasing them. During this time we've seen Jon's resolve fading as much as his physical body failing him.

By the end of the act the group (Sam, Kat and Jon) are at an old girlfriends of Sam's (It isn't pretty.) By the end of that chapter Sam is at Kat's throat but devises a plan to get rid of her and rescue Jon in the process. Whether he likes it or not.
When cops show up they bolt out, Sam puts her plan in motion as best she can. . .

The end of this act (I call it the 1.5 act) Has Nicole taking them as a group to a house deep in the forest to begin training. . .

To this end we have Hayden carrying on his life, making judgments and setting his plans in motion and so forth, His daughter as well. . . Basically his life hasn't been that adversely affected but while he becomes more- 'complacent' isn't really the word but while he gets back into the swing of things the 'team' is training hard (for the most part) on how to combat these people.
During this time we also learn the 'big picture' regarding both sides, how they came about and what exactly they are. . .

The one side (Hayden's) Called the Order of the Earth Purifiers has been around for generations, hunting the Kattah (people like Nicole, Kat and almost 800 others) and trying to exterminate them from the earth. Though started before Hayden was even born he has since picked up the gauntlet and used it to destroy those who had put him so far above everyone else within 'the clan' (Being the ONLY male of the species and being treated that drastically different still bothers him to this day. . . But at the time it had actually become a serious issue.) But the Clan of the White Rose maintains a sprawling base deep under the city where they train, recruit and carry on their customs. . .

The closer we get to the team showing up at the base (Sempiternal) the more we see Jon start to come out of his shell and into a more focused mindset, Kat and Sam already knew it but Nicole is slightly troubled by it. . . (Her own story comes out during this time in clips and blurbs. . .)

After being introduced to this 'radically' different way of life the team goes to trial to apply for combat rights, fails and is subsequently ejected. (After having been given the chance to argue their case to Irana, the leader of the clan) She won't let them back in without proof that they know something about the Order's activities. . . (Remember that information Sam found?)

So they go to the place Sam and Kat used to work, sneak in and find more to it than what they first thought. This leads them to San Diego, Kat's home town.

While in San Diego they find several clues to what they found at the plywood factory (where Sam got the information from), names and stuff. . . Before leaving, Kat visits her father and her old church. During this time several questions get answered (Kathrine's past to some extent is also exposed. How she was born to completely human parents and stuff. [Technically according to the Katta this shouldn't happen. This makes her very valuable to them for research and even to some extent, religious reasons]) When they do get to the facility they're all thrown for a loop at what they find.

They nearly get killed and caught but I'll leave the end for you to see. . . er, read.

It ends along the lines of them starting back to LakeFalls with information on a new facility going online soon. . . The second book (Shades of Grey: Black Rain) would pick up here.

So there you have it, a quick and dirty layout of my novel. Though a lot of points are omitted for time and curiosity ;) I'd still love to hear what you have to say about this. . .
Take care everyone and thanks again.

[Magekind]

I honestly object to the formal training bit; call me weird. The strongest warriors are those who live in it daily, not the ones that get the before-hand preps. I think Jon is a serious and strong enough person to survive the first-hand training.  I also think it would make him a greater hand in the ensuing trials.

Your call, though.

[SirTimberWolf]

I agree, completely.

 The problem with the outline I wrote here is that it lacks the 'why' factor of some of these trials. . . The reason Nicole didn't leave them (Jon and Sam) at the edge of town and take Kathrine with her to the clan (like her job description says. . . Heh) Is because they show so much promise, however if they go to the Clan straight up they'd be rejected outright because of Nicole's past.
 She was at one time the leader of a team, however they were ambushed and Nicole was (Not in the exact same words, but this IS what happened) exiled from the Clan for failing her duty (The Clan places an extremely high value on life, it's a cultural thing that's held over from their earlier days after almost being wiped off the planet.)
 To that end, the very idea of her showing up with another team is both scary to them and kind of welcome as they are facing a very close call (this is handled in book 2) But at the same time, given her record. . .

 I really should have put more down on my outline *sigh*

[Magekind]

Which means... they'd have to do a lot more damage, stir the waters quite a bit more until the Clan either declared war on them outright, at which point they could bring it to its knees, or the Clan accepted Nicole back in.

But this fails to tell the exact place Jon and Sam will have in that period.

Jon would tend to want to bring the clan to its knees, now that he's a bona-fide warrior. That way, he/they could call the shots; and that's always the best position to be in for a warrior. Nicole, naturally, wants to get back in diplomatically, as her honor resides there. Sam... probably doesn't say but tends toward diplomacy, and I'm not getting a grip on Kathy. She feels like an extra. Not an important factor.

[SirTimberWolf]

Thats the thing about Jon and Sam,
 Particularly Sam. She has someone close to her that she learns is being held by the order, as the second and third books progress we'd see Sam waring over her attachment to her brother, Nicole, and Jynx (A woman she meets during the course of the first book and develops a relationship throuhg the second one)

 As far as Kathrine goes: the whole thing starts out with Kathrine being just that, an extra. However through the book we learn more about her and stuff, Jon and Kat develop a relationship but  the real 'power point' (for lack of a better term...) is when we find out that Kathrine was both A) born to completely human parents (this shouldn't biologically be possible) and B) can become pregnant at almost any time (unlike the Kattah's cycles [think going into heat/season for animals] or the human menstration stuff.)
 To be kind of honest (and it really wasn't that intentional) Kat takes a back seat to everyone else in the grander scheme of things, but she has some surprises that still make her both relevant and (in my opinion anyway) intriguing.

[Magekind]

So, she's fully asexual? Odd.

As for her being a Kattah, they had to start somewhere, and from humans is as good a start as they get. There's obviously an old starting point, this is a new one. Someone has to be able to accept that fact and the probability of it, or forever remain weak. If Jon ever gets his head into philosophy, which is quite possible considering he wasn't always a warrior, not accepting this will weaken him.

I don't know if you can really understand how much weaker a warrior with a closed mind is over an open-minded one. In battles like the one you're talking about, it could easily be the difference between those that are still standing and the rest of your friends.

[SirTimberWolf]

Not exactly asexual, her body still needs the biological material to reproduce; however she's 'primed' (as in she can/will get pregnant just about any time. There's no biological warnings or anything. It's just 'surprise, you've got kids.' Heh.) And she might always be that way, which would be a drag to be sure I suppose.

 Within the story there's several theories that they have about themselves and even the world in general (some religious, some biological, some mixing them.) Unfortunately no one (including Kat herself) has realized or even considered the possibility, they're too into what they're doing (Not that I can blame them, but it is a shame.)
 The thing with Jon (and this comes out the closer we get to him as a person) is that until he's had it beat into his head by the RIGHT people all the talk is useless, even his own ideas and insights are subject to question. This external need for validation comes into direct conflict with his closed off personality and mind. But ultimately (one would hope) I think it'll be such that he'll come out and be like 'okay, you know what? I need help.' But that remains to be seen. . .
 
 I personaly know the diffrence between an open minded one and a close minded. However save for Nicole, Tammy (one of the 'elders' that help run the clan) and a couple others, people don't generaly pick up on that kind of thing. Particularly with Nicole at the reigns and her ideal of being the 'alpha' of this little team will bring her and Jon into a lot of conflict about what they're gonna do.
 She's already done it with Kat. When she refused to pick up a weapon (a firearm) she took Jon out and laid the gun at Kat's feet, she then proceded to make a big show, give Kat plenty of time to react, etc. But when she didn't Nicole shot him with a paint round and tore into her about 'Do you see this? Everything you value, everything he's fought for is gone because you couldn't do something as simple as defend it.'
 Stuff like this brings out her zealousy but at the same time (be it a cultural thing or more likely, her own inability to save those she cared about) we start seeing more and more (through the characters) their grasp of the seriousness of the situations.
 Even having ran a number of gambits between the start and then, they still learn, still develop and that's not counting the physical and tactial stuff, it's just 'do you realize what you stand to loose here? Can you full appriciate it until you have?'
 But then again, maybe I'm just reading too far into my own little hopes.