If it was any other writer, I'd likely agree two siblings adopting a space-child is a good starting premise, but I genuinely think it can't work for Lily for two reasons. One is he really can't handle writing that many characters, but more importantly, he can't handle writing children and seems incapable of even imagining what sort of issues might arise from suddenly having to care for a child.
You're probably right, but I went with the (alleged) premise for the sake of simplicity. More to the point, she should take literally any single theme she wants to explore and just focus on that. Your idea of just telling the story about this road trip would possibly work, although I would go back to my complaint that Lily presents premises, not plots, because 'two siblings to to an observatory' isn't much of a plot. We still need to answer why Kestri wants to go, what they intend to accomplish, what the real point is.
Which, maybe if she just focused on a single concept, she could figure out.
Maybe.
But I'm also giving Lily the credit to assume that she actually wants to write a book, which is a lot of leeway for what we all know is just a thinly veiled fetish project. All Lily wants is the environment to ram her dolls together while getting the emotional thrill of making them the most special and amazing and unfairly oppressed people in the universe.
I said before the real reason for these exercises is not to give actual advice to Lily, because obviously will never take it. It's to understand why this is a problem, and to explore the solutions within context of what we've already been given.
Lily will never do something sensible with it, but as a thought experiment, I think it's really beneficial to look at the mess she's laid out on the floor and see what can be salvaged.
But me? Imoen is too much of a comfort character, and her personality too genuinely comforting and warm to actually see her in a sexual way. There is literally nothing in the world less sexual than her.
Oh, cool, she let us know what it is she likes about Imoen, and it's that... she's a comfort character who's very comforting.
I know this is casual posting but come on, Lily, you're allegedly a writer, you shouldn't repeat the same word twice in a sentence like that.
Very telling that this is all she really has to say about Imeon other than gushing over the romance bod specifically. 'Comfort is comforting'.
EDIT:
Wendigoon just posted the movie adaptation of
The Road, if you want to experience one of Lily's major influences!
