So I'm making good progress on my first chapter of my first novel, but I know I'm heading towardsa "dead end", I know what is supposed to happen but not how to get my character there. So quick summary. The MC have been hired to find out what's happened to a local farmer and his family, he arrives at their house, finds them gone and the rotten body of their child, but no trace of the parents with obvious signs of foul play (the door is kicked in and the house is a mess). Now, I need him to get from their house to an abbandoned, small village about an hours ride from there, but I'm not sure how. I've thought about him finding tracks leading in that direction, but in the story it's been raining all day and the body of the child is 1-2 weeks old, so any tracks would be gone. Another option I've considered is the MC just coming to the conclusion that going to that village is the next logical step, as there is no other place anywhere near they could have gone. Any suggestions on how to resolve this?
Maybe a trace he will use to find what it came from. And where it went. The search could easily transpire in another chapter or two.
It isn't really supposed to go on for more than a chapter, it's not a huge plotpoint as such but meant more as a crash course in the world the story takes place in. Not sure what trace I could come up with that would achieve that, but it's worth considering for sure!
Good luck. I was thinking in conventional terms of abduction, someone would link a trace to a source, which can be an interesting subplot, or even make up the whole story in detective stories. In fantasy or science fiction these monster hunters would likely have an unusual source or odd character with clues about the supernatural stuff they encounter. For an immediate jump, you can keep it as simple as your character having a hunch, or for some reason taking the wrong road and by accident entering the village.
And when he gets there he can head for the pub or general store or smithy wherever it is people in that culture hang out to exchange news. There your MC can meet someone who heard or saw something . . . or a lot of someones who refuse to admit they heard or saw anything, but your MC suspects they're all lying. Now, if in your made-up culture people don't hang out anywhere, but stay shuttered inside their houses all day, you'll have to take another tack. EDIT: Wait a minute. You said that village was abandoned. Does it have to be? And if it does, does your MC know that ahead of time? I mean, does he think he might find someone there to give him news, but then he discovers . . . ? The good thing for you is that your story is in its beginning phase. As long as you keep in mind where you want it to go in the end, you have great flexibility in how you're going to get it there.
It does have to be abandoned for what is going to happen there and he knows it is, most villages are ^^ He's currently working off of the assumption that the people have been kidnapped. I'll probably go with the "heading for the abondoned town seems the most logical"-angle...it's a lot easier. I've everything sorted as soon as he reaches the village.
Oooh, yeah, okay. And the fact that the child was killed and the adults taken really raises the creeps. Usually, it's the other way around: we feel more sympathy for child kidnapping victims. But this scenario has me thinking that the perp (does the MC suspect it's a monster at this stage?) wants people for something, and the child was useless to him/her/it. So what does the perp waaaaaannnnnttttt?
Well, yes and no...he does suspect that it's more than a simple kidnapping, mainly because the child wasn't taken but also because the door (being solid oak) was completely torn off the door frame, as if hit by a battering ram. The only monsters he's encountered so far though have been ghoul like corpse eaters, who never kidnap people...so at the point in the story he's drawing as big of a blank as the reader ^^
