This all sounds super promising.

My god! I love it all. Write it!!

Dudes, that's the problem-- I can't write any of it, because I got no plot details... Just these bare frameworks...

Anyone here read romance novels? Wanna help me steal a couple plots, like chapter-by-chapter?

A guided astral visualization in which you meet and converse with these characcters may help :)

...unless your eating benzos. Never, never do astral visualizations on benzos... at least, that's what the gynander told me as she led me to the mushroom-lady. (The two of them were having a torrid affair, and I think they were each taking passive-aggressive stabs at each other in my conversations with them.)

Ah, the joys of character development!

For plot ideas, you could do bibliomancies with a random romance novel, then enter the result into Google and hit "I'm Feeling Lucky." Just a thought...

Joshua, seems like sound advice. It probably isn't-- but it does seem like! XD

If you do character charts on your characters they'll probably create the plot FOR you. Who are their enemies? What do they love? What are their biggest fears? Hangups? Ghosts from their pasts? Dreams? Weaknesses? Throw some obstacles out there and you'll have your plot. (I especially like the demon in love with the angel during a drought -- !)

If you want to write romance, you need a conflict that keeps your hero and heroine emotionally apart for the book. This should be an internal conflict, you also need an external issue that is keeping them physically together. Cliche coming up: Micro-managing, hyper-organized, materialistic, highly successful billionaire stuck on a sinking boat with a laid-back, go-with-the-flow artist type.

Ultimately, for a successful plot, you need to have the action be extremely important to the main characters. If one of your couple is accused of murder, then trust issues ought to be a personal issue. For example, the partner of the accused comes from a family with lots of people in police/legal/gov't professions. He generally believes that the authorities/police get it right. Now, when his partner is accused of murder, he has an internal conflict/challenge to his belief system in a way that someone who distrusts the police would not have. Or perhaps he values loyalty but has some doubts. If he is loyal, might he be helping a murderer escape?

For this, you have to give the accused a motive and opportunity for the murder. Then you have to create a real scenario.

Create something cliche'd like the butler did it in the pantry with the candlestick. Now ask why the butler did it and why everyone thought your character did it. This is what does your character care about. Does he get angry at slights to his pride? Does he need money and stand to inherit? As you ask why it matters, you might discover that the victim is the accused former lover, that he is a homophobe whom the accused suspects of inciting homophobic attacks, he might be a pedophile who abused the accused, etc.

Your character is jealous with an inability to let go of an old realtionship in the first case. What does this do to the trust of the other partner in the current relationship?

In the second, the accused is an activist. Maybe his partner is proud of his work and struggles between fearing harm to the accused great movement and justice (and does killing a homophobe really matter?) This is a values conflict for the partner.

In the third, the accused has a shameful secret. How does that impact his relationship with the partner and trust issues in that relationship. Can the partner trust the accused when he says he didn't murder the victim if the accused has not been honest in the relationship?

Note these are all character-driven suggestions. If the plot is about the characters and trust of values issues, the murder can be quite mundane and all the detecting left up to the police, although having the person involved discover the evidence makes a bigger impact.

If you do character driven novels, the twists and turns of the murder will be less important than the emotional changes in your main character. In a plot driven, it is the opposite. Great writing requires a balance.

You start with an inciting incident. This causes the main character to question his beliefs. He reacts. Then you should have a few turning points. This is where the main character has to change and the problem intensifies, up to a climax and then down to a resolution.

You also need to figure out your tone. Is this going to be a light-hearted thing with the police a-okay with your gay couple? Or is going to be gritty with police homophobia as an issue.

Anyway, I'd sketch out a basic plot for the murder and then see how the events are deeply personal for the characters and change the plot accordingly. Try to keep the thing subtle, rather than having Bubba-I-hate-fags as your main police contact.

grr, I want someone to do the work *for* me... pamper me please, like the princess I ought to be! ;)

I have no problems with the world building, I know who is homophobic in this potential novel and who is sympathetic, i know who does and doesn't have trust issues. that stuff is easy for me. I even know who gets killed and what his relationship is to my boys.

But figuring out who has killed him, or how involved my boys get in the detective work, or whether or not the suspected one gets dumped in the clink... I just draw a blank on the details!

I guess, it's the diagramming that I find so difficult. I can't figure out why I'm so blocked on this.

I tend to view plots as milestones. Imagine a number of events, like a chain of circumstances. Then speculate how your characters could pass along this chain, navigating their way towards the end. You might find, like me, that the overall shape of the plot falls into place as you write it. Have fun doing it though!