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Your setup reminds me of multiple stories I've read as a kid of a group of characters getting stuck on a desert island. In particular, I'm fairly sure Jules Verne had one with kids, I recall anothe...
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#4: Attribution notice removed
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#3: Attribution notice added
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/42034 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
Your setup reminds me of multiple stories I've read as a kid of a group of characters getting stuck on a desert island. In particular, I'm fairly sure Jules Verne had one with kids, I recall another one with kids set in the 1930s or 1940s. (Not _Lord of the Flies_. That one put an end to the genre.) Now, your story isn't about a desert island, but it is about an unfamiliar environment where one must learn to survive, and it is unclear when/whether "returning home" will come to pass. All the desert-island stories had this commonality: a character, or a couple of characters, were the " **leaders**". They didn't just tell the others what to do - they kept their companions from "losing it" mentally. That is, they offered support to the other characters. There always was a scene (sometimes more than one) with one of the weaker characters breaking down, crying, etc., and the leader would be there to support and inspire them. Such scenes both acknowledge the struggles of the secondary characters, which is what you're trying to do, and maintain the focus on the MCs, building them up.