Brainstorm for a Story
So, this is what I've got so far. I spent about half an hour on it and I'm thinking of doing this seriously. Seriously as in for fun, but make it seem novel. I don't know how to aim this at adults, so I'm just going to write it for young adults.
I'll be writing this in my spare time when I have no plans.
Suggestions and criticisms are welcome and needed. Thanks in advance!
[quote=Story]Valen - Green eyes, brown hair. Well-liked, villagers love him. Has loving parents (Parents always have a sad look in their eyes). Somewhat carefree. Excellent fighter, intelligent.
Aurelia - Blonde hair, blue eyes. Outgoing. Likes Valen. "Popular girl." Not the most intelligent, but knowledgeable in herbs and medicine, caring. Mother is dead, no siblings.
Kari - Red hair, green eyes. Shy. Well known and liked by most people. Can speak to animals and can tame them. Likes Zephyr. Has a younger brother and both parents. Bright.
Zephyr - Ice blue eyes, blackish-blue hair. Used to be quiet, eventually gains confidence and talks to people. Orphan. Unnoticed and not liked. Awesome analytical skills, crafter, fixer, smith; hard worker. He eventually gets stronger and stronger.
Erun - Blonde hair, green eyes. Loud and funny. Another hard worker, but isn't that great at things (initially). Has a large family. Relatively smart.
Asura - Black hair, brown eyes. Quiet, almost never talks. Is not shy, but doesn't enjoy talking a lot. Was raised by her grandparents, her parents left her. No siblings. Intelligent. A year younger than the others (fifteen, initially), about three years younger than Fay.
Fay - White hair, black eyes. Can see in the dark. Leader of the town's son, not shunned because of that. Quiet, talks when necessary. Tactical/strategical genius. Is adept at mastering all weapons. Two years older than the general group (eighteen, initially).
Intro - Spar match between Zephyr and Valen as kids (seven or eight), Zephyr loses. Kids laugh at Zephyr. Valen gives him a hand and introduces himself (Valen just moved into the town), tells Zephyr that he's noticed him and thought he was pretty cool. Acknowledges Zephyr's talents and smithing and crafting/fixing things. Become friends.
The rest of the characters are already a part of Valen's group of friends. Zephyr was first looked down upon by the town.
Main plot of story - Waging a war against "evil".
Major themes - Friendship, love, determination, preservation of life, martyrdom.
Setting - The reader will not know, even I will not know. It'll be a mix of a medieval and Romantic setting.
Races - Humans, Elves, Ents, Giants, Dwarves, Wizards and Summoners (not races, Summoners summon spirits and souls), Wraiths (a breed of elves and spirits), Gods (older race of Elves that are much stronger), Dragons, most mythical creatures and real-life creatures.
Edit: After the introduction, the story starts out nine or ten years in the future.
Main plot - Wraiths are planning on sacrificing the human race to summon an "evil" Ancient being which will enslave all races. The children's village is attacked by the Black Wraiths who are testing their abilities, the children escape, but the village is enslaved. The children plan on going to the Gods to help them stop the Black Wraiths.
Geography - The world is a sphere.
- It has a circular belt around it's north-south circumference.
- The belt is broken at the poles, where it has two ice islands.
- Boreal Island (north pole ice island) is home of the Grey Gods,
the older race of Gods.
- Notual Island (south pole ice island) is the home of the Wraiths.
- In the middles of the belt, there are two islands.
- Occidental Island is the home of the Light Gods, those who seek to help the lesser races.
- Oriental Island is the home of the Dark Gods, those who wish to mess around with the lesser races.
Background - The Eldest Race, the Ancients, the Gods and the Wraiths had withdrawn themselves from the rest of the races for a long time.
- The Grey Gods are neutral as they are the third eldest race of all (The Ancients are the second eldest, there was a race before the elves and the Ancients).
- The Ancients created the world uncountable millennia ago and the Gods shaped it (gave it definition and physical and environmental features) several hundred years after that. The Ancients are exponentially stronger than the Gods.
- Not all of the Wraiths have intentions that will harm the other races.
- The race before the Gods and the Ancients may still exist. They may be hidden in the ocean. They were the wandering race, they created the universe, mainly the stars.
- The elder races are not huge, as opposed to many thinking of powerful beings being huge. They are between seven and thirty feet tall.
- Zephyr is the son of the leader of the eldest race and the first black hole (which was not created by the eldest race). I picked his name because I've always liked the name, but he is the embodiment of the West Wind. He is the bringer of light spring and early summer breezes. In other words, he is the bringer of the light. (Winter brings darkness, spring brings light.)
- Zephyr's pretty much going to develop into an overpowered hero and will have an internal fight with himself.
- The Wraiths' intention of summoning the Ancient beings is to create one diverse, unified society and to stop the mischief and fighting among the races. This story is a question of good, evil and morality. The Wraiths' intent is good and is good ideally, but the other races see it as evil.
Valen - Green eyes, brown hair. Well-liked, villagers love him. Has loving parents (Parents always have a sad look in their eyes). Somewhat carefree. Excellent fighter, intelligent.
Aurelia - Blonde hair, blue eyes. Outgoing. Likes Valen. "Popular girl." Not the most intelligent, but knowledgeable in herbs and medicine, caring. Mother is dead, no siblings.
Kari - Red hair, green eyes. Shy. Well known and liked by most people. Can speak to animals and can tame them. Likes Zephyr. Has a younger brother and both parents. Bright.
Zephyr - Ice blue eyes, blackish-blue hair. Used to be quiet, eventually gains confidence and talks to people. Orphan. Unnoticed and not liked. Awesome analytical skills, crafter, fixer, smith; hard worker. He eventually gets stronger and stronger.
Erun - Blonde hair, green eyes. Loud and funny. Another hard worker, but isn't that great at things (initially). Has a large family. Relatively smart.
Asura - Black hair, brown eyes. Quiet, almost never talks. Is not shy, but doesn't enjoy talking a lot. Was raised by her grandparents, her parents left her. No siblings. Intelligent. A year younger than the others (fifteen, initially), about three years younger than Fay.
Fay - White hair, black eyes. Can see in the dark. Leader of the town's son, not shunned because of that. Quiet, talks when necessary. Tactical/strategical genius. Is adept at mastering all weapons. Two years older than the general group (eighteen, initially).
Intro - Spar match between Zephyr and Valen as kids (seven or eight), Zephyr loses. Kids laugh at Zephyr. Valen gives him a hand and introduces himself (Valen just moved into the town), tells Zephyr that he's noticed him and thought he was pretty cool. Acknowledges Zephyr's talents and smithing and crafting/fixing things. Become friends.
The rest of the characters are already a part of Valen's group of friends. Zephyr was first looked down upon by the town.
Main plot of story - Waging a war against "evil".
Major themes - Friendship, love, determination, preservation of life, martyrdom.
Setting - The reader will not know, even I will not know. It'll be a mix of a medieval and Romantic setting.
Races - Humans, Elves, Ents, Giants, Dwarves, Wizards and Summoners (not races, Summoners summon spirits and souls), Wraiths (a breed of elves and spirits), Gods (older race of Elves that are much stronger), Dragons, most mythical creatures and real-life creatures.
Edit: After the introduction, the story starts out nine or ten years in the future.
Main plot - Wraiths are planning on sacrificing the human race to summon an "evil" Ancient being which will enslave all races. The children's village is attacked by the Black Wraiths who are testing their abilities, the children escape, but the village is enslaved. The children plan on going to the Gods to help them stop the Black Wraiths.
Geography - The world is a sphere.
- It has a circular belt around it's north-south circumference.
- The belt is broken at the poles, where it has two ice islands.
- Boreal Island (north pole ice island) is home of the Grey Gods,
the older race of Gods.
- Notual Island (south pole ice island) is the home of the Wraiths.
- In the middles of the belt, there are two islands.
- Occidental Island is the home of the Light Gods, those who seek to help the lesser races.
- Oriental Island is the home of the Dark Gods, those who wish to mess around with the lesser races.
Background - The Eldest Race, the Ancients, the Gods and the Wraiths had withdrawn themselves from the rest of the races for a long time.
- The Grey Gods are neutral as they are the third eldest race of all (The Ancients are the second eldest, there was a race before the elves and the Ancients).
- The Ancients created the world uncountable millennia ago and the Gods shaped it (gave it definition and physical and environmental features) several hundred years after that. The Ancients are exponentially stronger than the Gods.
- Not all of the Wraiths have intentions that will harm the other races.
- The race before the Gods and the Ancients may still exist. They may be hidden in the ocean. They were the wandering race, they created the universe, mainly the stars.
- The elder races are not huge, as opposed to many thinking of powerful beings being huge. They are between seven and thirty feet tall.
- Zephyr is the son of the leader of the eldest race and the first black hole (which was not created by the eldest race). I picked his name because I've always liked the name, but he is the embodiment of the West Wind. He is the bringer of light spring and early summer breezes. In other words, he is the bringer of the light. (Winter brings darkness, spring brings light.)
- Zephyr's pretty much going to develop into an overpowered hero and will have an internal fight with himself.
- The Wraiths' intention of summoning the Ancient beings is to create one diverse, unified society and to stop the mischief and fighting among the races. This story is a question of good, evil and morality. The Wraiths' intent is good and is good ideally, but the other races see it as evil.
© May 23rd, 2011 Bose
[/quote]
10 Comments • Newest first
@ShiroNoYami: Okay, I understand, I think. And I was looking for something to read on my Nook, now I can read those.
[quote=LordZubin]@ShiroNoYami: Alright, I'll do that. And yeah, I've read excerpts from Lovecraft's Cthulhu canon.[/quote]
Oh, just making it clear: I don't mean using Lovecraftian horror as a basis for mythology, but rather as something to take note of in style and direction: Lovecraft tended to write in shades of grey when it comes to the protagonists' actions: a lot of the time, forces outside their control binds them, and they suffer for stepping towards that path form the very beginning.
And just as morality is not a black&white matter, Legend of the Galactic Heroes (aside from being a really old anime series) is something that's quite similar to what you're writing now (IMO). It deals with the clash of concepts, in the form of autocracy vs democracy; the way it presented and explored the ideologies through the characters and the universe around them is probably something similar to what you're going to be writing, no?
Oh, and here's the entire collection of Lovecraft's works under creative commons.
http://cthulhuchick.com/complete-works-lovecraft-pdf/
@bbqnuts123: I've never played an Elder Scrolls game, my brother had one of them in the 90's, but I never played it.
@ShiroNoYami: Alright, I'll do that. And yeah, I've read excerpts from Lovecraft's Cthulhu canon.
@UlquiorraRen: That's what I'm aiming at. Hence Zephyr being the overpowered hero and deciding factor.
@golatias: Kari has red hair. Are you talking about the book by Coelho?
@imtwocats: I'm sorry, I haven't played the Elder Scrolls, but I do plan on making different races. I plan on making it quite a diverse planet, as well as there being races of organisms under the water which will have a huge impact on the development of the earth and diversity.
Yeah, I haven't really thought about that yet. Harry Potter, Eragon and Lord of the Rings have pretty much taken all the "original ideas". I was thinking it would depend on the type of magic you use or whether you're a mage, warlock or wizard. I want to make it more Eragonesque than Harry-Potter-esque because I want them to have limits. It'd be seriously unfair if everyone had infinite power. I also don't want every lesser Elf (the ones lower than Gods) to be able to use magic and magic's going to be a rarer thing.
As for mythology... Well, I'm not sure if you know, but Balkan mythology was greatly influenced by Indo-European mythology which was influenced by Indus mythology. And Balkan mythology and Egyptian mythology influenced the Western religions. If I take some Balkan, some Egyptian and some Indus mythology, it'll pretty much cover most forms of mythology. I also know that "Oriental" mythology was influenced by Indus mythology and animism and the balance of life and nature, so I'll have to incorporate that as well. I'm going to need to study animism and life's balance.
Edit: Thanks, everyone!
The races seem a little too simple and commonly used. Perhaps you can do some sort of anthropomorphic race, like the Khajiit from Elder Scrolls? Or a race of unique humans that differ from regular ones?
Also since there is going to be magic, how is the magic system going to work? I've always been curious about that. Will the wizards be using elemental powers, energy attacks, transmutation, alchemy, etc? And what are the requirements to use magic for each person?
And for the mythology part, perhaps you can take something from Asian mythology instead of greek and norse. I've rarely seen stories with those types of mythologies and they would be intresting. Though I agree they are hard to incorporate, maybe you can take ideas from online or even games like Okami.
No gingers, I disapprove.
By any chance have you read "The alchemist" before?
@LordZubin: That still sounds rather generic...
But in any case, I recommend you much of Lovecraft's works as well as The Legend of the Galactic Heroes as some possible sources of inspiration for direction.
@ShiroNoYami: Well, it's a question book. I'll try to show the ambiguity of morality (good and evil) and such. As for pre-existing mythology, I'm incorporating Greek, Roman, Hindu and maybe some Middle-Eastern mythology into it as well as fictional mythology. It's supposed to be a parallel to Earth, but not really a parallel in that what constitutes the development of the world is not that a God or several Gods created it, but other mortal or semi-mortal beings created it.
"fight against evil" in that fantasy setting sounds quite generic IMO. Mix it up a bit, make it unique; there's no real reason to use existing archetypes of fantasy, is there? (especially if you want a go at an original story) Also, why not incorporate some (irl?) mythology (and try not to use the generic Greek and Roman and Norse mythologies, either; they've been overused, no?) to help structure the background? It might makes the structure of the story (provided you'll be visiting the backgrounds of the story a lot) feel easier to write if you have something pre-existing to work with, and will fill any holes left in your own constructed background, as well as help set up your physical settings.
@Samygxz85: Alright, thanks.
@K0reanPride4: Sorry, I had to write down all my thoughts at once. And thanks.
havent read it all cuz im too lazy to do it but it looks nice