My Journal #2

I Need Help with plotting, Please??

I need some suggested plots. I have a goldmine town, Characters of assorted economical prosperity. MC is a woman of Chinese/Scottish parents. possible: She is a reporter going undercover- to this town to report on the treatment of Chinese miners/workers. * Prominent man whose wife is very ill. Dr gets her hooked on opium from the Chinese connection. Man needs nanny for children. Spies woman in town asking ? and offers her $ to be a nanny. She accepts- Ok now what? I can think of life conflicts for this situation but might be the ultimate goal here? Can anyone come up with a mystery to find? Just a love story is boring to me, I want a challenge. The treatment of Chinese in this time was worse than the Mexicans today. They had no rights in the USA. I'm tapped out of ideas. anyone?? anything other than I've described I'm open to.  Thanks group!

OPT #1 MC finds out there's more going on than just exploitation of the Chinese workers: the mining corporation is deliberately creating dangerous working conditions to save money. MC wonders where the money saved goes, and finds out it's used to finance a massive clandestine operation, smuggling opium from China into the US. Her goal becomes twofold: blowing the whistle on the working conditions, and exposing the smuggling operation. Obviously, this is going to piss off both the mining company and the Chinese maffia bigtime.
To give her a personal conflict as well: she becomes romantically involved with the man who hired her as a nanny, gets pregnant, gives birth, and then finds out her lover (and the father of her child) is the guy in charge of the smuggling operation. That leaves her with a tough choice: does she make a run for it with the kids and the man she loves, or does she turn him in to the authorities, thus losing the man she loves and depriving the kids of their father? I don't like the lover bit. I want her above that and someone the reader can sympathize with.   OR she could be just overhear something she shouldn't? Employer begins to see her not Chinese when she dresses up for a dinner to introduce the children. The guests think she is Scottish when she puts on a slight brogue and she is accepted by the men and women. Employer is confused as he sees the Chinese others only the soft brogue and assume otherwise. She is sending articles back to Editor and Employer is reading them with interest.  Now what?


OPT #2 MC goal is to write a story on mining and miners life in Oregon. When she has to ride in a wagon load of Chinese Miners she sees a life different than her own upbringing. The mistreatment of the Chinese brings her to begin to educate the local and regional population about the Chinese and what they bring to America (I don't know what it will be during that time) 
when she is mistaken for a Chinese prostitute and offered a job (by a wealthy mine owner who wants to "reform" her) she decides to use him as a profile. what she learns is while he is an upstanding citizen, member of the Scottish Rites Free Masons, he has a dark side. He is a drug dealer and a brutal mine owner. Willing to kill to get any claim that is yielding gold. He will send his men to intimidate, steal and hold hostage anything he can, to get what he wants. 
When she discovers his dark side and see's it in person she is scared.     
(Ok now what? If I chose this path what needs to happen? so it isn't predictable or blase'?)

Opt#3 Maybe a miner (or a group of miners) was/were outright murdered, and the murder was lazily covered up by a local law enforcement that doesn't place value on the lives of Chinese immigrants. So on top of covering the generally poor working conditions for the miners, maybe the MC can chase evidence for the murder all while she's investigating the working conditions? It could give her a consistent goal to pursue throughout the novel, and it offers the potential for a clean conclusion. Also, there's a chance her nannying boss discovers her research and freaks out. To cover her tracks and hide her identity as a reporter, she can pretend she was collecting this incriminating info to blackmail him for money. This ploy can keep him scared and quiet and buy her some time before she runs the story. That one may be a little out there, but it's an interesting idea that a buttoned-up reporter comes to town to do an investigative piece, and ends up hooked on opium, blackmailing a crime lord.

Other possible conflict: it turns out the editor of the huge city paper she was planning on publishing the story through has a financial stake in the mining operation and won't print her story. Additionally, he threatens to end her career if she takes it elsewhere, so she has to make the decision of whether running the story is worth it, and if so, how she's going to find someone willing to print it. (I'm liking this one too)

More ideas- I love the idea of her editor underestimating her and then panicking when he realizes what she's really doing. I imagine her receiving a string of frantic telegrams at one-hour intervals the day her mailed first draft/outline/notes reach him.
She will have to be careful as she is "undercover" at the MMC house as nanny and dealing with his wife's addiction. I think she will have to have someone who sends the wires and picks them up for her. Someone wiley and street smart. an accomplice