Hello everybody - I'm new here, and I usually just read. A few months back, I decided to start writing, but would stop every time due to horrid writing. I learned a bit, read a lot, and have finally decided to write a book. I am heavily influenced my Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle. The emotions were deep, the plot was twisty and unexpected, and you were tossed right into the middle of the conflict. My main worry with my plot is that people cannot relate to a new universe. If I wrote a book with the setting as Earth and killed Barrack Obama, people would be mad/disgusted. I am worried that I will not be able to simulate that in my stories. Anyways, let me begin. In a new universe called Albacinia, several large civilizations live. There are petty outbreaks, skirmishes, and occasionally minor wars, but nothing major. The medieval towns and their inhabitants recognize magic, but it is a rare gift, and those that have it often do not tell. Stretching across a large portion of the continent is a country with a monarchy for a government. This country is called Valia. A neighboring country, Isunis, which has been Valia's allies for a long time turns against them suddenly. Investigation reveals a network of assassins/wizards that sprawls across the two countries, and of their sinister plot to gain control of the continent. How does it sound? Too cliche? Decent? And please don't tell me "anything can be good if you write it good enough", I want your honest opinion.
I'm not really a fantasy guy so take my opinion with a grain of salt... but this seems like a solid plot. And even though you don't want to hear "anything can be good if you write it good enough"... it's really true. For example, I'm a crime/mystery junkie myself... and I've read my share of books and watched my share of shows and it's rediculous how many times I've seen someone do the "Strangers on a Train" plot. For those unfamiliar with the story, basically two people meet up by chance and decide to 'trade victims'... as in both of them kill the victim of the other person. By doing this they make it impossible for the police to find a motive for each murder. I've seen it done like 5 different times, but each time there was a slight twist and it was still a great plot even though it had been done so many times. You mentioned that you were new to writing. I would suggest starting small. I don't think anyone can write a novel just right off the bat. All that's going to happen is you will get discouraged midway through and quit. I used to do that all of the time and then I realized the best thing to do is set small goals for yourself.
I love it, something "feels" fimiliar, YET it is original. Bluntly, if it were for sale I would buy it in a heartbeat.
@agentkirb Thanks for your response and feedback! I don't want to try writing short stories though, I'll just keep trying novels until I get one of them right :0. @soital Motivation much! Thanks - means alot. If you want to read it, I will be putting it in the Writer's Workshop soon. The title will be The Valian Crows. I don't plan on publishing, but rather gathering critique for every chapter to get better, and publish a novel later on.
To be honest, I think the "allies suddenly becoming enemies" thing is a little cliched. I've seen it done a fair few times now and, unless you have a great explanation for it, it can be hard to pull off to the reader's satisfaction. The rest of it looks good though. You've got a lot of room for different types of characters and, with the spies in particular, a chance for some great moral grey area types of scenes. Magic might need to be fleshed out; your sentence now is a little vague (i.e. is there a reason people don't talk about it if they have it? Are there clear limitations or drawbacks when using it?), although it is just a sentence and for all I know you might have a complete Sanderson-esque magic system in place. Finally, as to the rest of your post, you should just write. Everybody writes badly to start with and, what a lot of people don't know or ignore, is that the first time you write something down its only a first draft. A book can go through half a dozen drafts before it gets published, so don't get discouraged if its not perfect right from the start. Hope this helps and I'll be following your story.
@shangrila Thank's a lot for your post - I see you put some time into it. Regarding the plot, I guess I didn't make it clear enough in the outline - this network of assassins is influencing Isunis and Valia, so they can gain control of the areas when they are weak. My magic system will be somewhat like Christopher Paolini's. Basically, the golden rule for magic is casting a spell with magic cost as much energy as would be lost to do the task by mundane means. The reason people who are gifted usually do not tell is because wizards/witches/mages are automatically drafted into the army, where they will fight for the majority of their days. I look forward to having you read. Thank you
It seems like there's a lot of potential here for twists and morally ambiguous characters which is always good. I look forward to seeing an excerpt on here hopefully.
@Protar Again - you guys are awesome. I'll be posting an excerpt in about an hour - check the novel's section.
It seems like a good plot. Fairly generic, but not too cliche. I think it works as a good canvas on which to paint your story, without being too boring or overused. I like the view on magic and magic users in this concept. There are a lot of ways to approach it, and I think this is a good one. The approach of it costing as much energy as it otherwise might is fairly good, although I really wouldn't like if it were too much like the inheritance books. I think you could take that basic idea but not go too far with it. It would need to be fairly useful while not overpowered, but I think making it too powerful but too costly in energy would be the opposite of good. Oddly, it's reminding me of gaming, and the discussions on gaming I've been reading lately. There's this odd thing that happens sometimes, when it seems like an ability is overpowered, but if you make it too costly it becomes useless despite the potential to completely destroy whatever opponent your up against. I can't put my finger on exactly what causes an ability to be this way. Perhaps it's because it's situation, and sometimes it's overpowered but mostly it's useless. Usually they can't be balanced just right and have to be scrapped. I feel like the magic like this can be a bit like these abilities. You need to make it useful, and worth training/improving at it, I guess, if it's possible to get better at it. Yet, if it costs too much energy it becomes very difficult. The Inheritance Books did it well, having you increase stamina over time to be able to get less exhausted from magic, but I wouldn't suggest a carbon copy of this, for originality's sake.
It sounds like it could get convoluted BUT the assassins/wizards sounds like something you really want to develope. I imagine an almost terrorist network which is also the social glue of the new universe and they hold a lot of secrets. Perhaps they cause destruction to control alliances in this universe.
I like this too, it really sounds like a good plot, with enough detail and intricate intrigue to work.
@gfire Thanks for that in depth post. Regarding magic - the one thing that bugs me the most is "silly" magic. Basically, magic you have to rhyme to cast, or use runes or do goofy dances. I just can't have any of that - ruins the whole mood of the book. I'm working on balancing it, and I think it will work pretty good. I'm not going to copy the Inheritance magic, I'm just going to use some of the main ideas Christopher did - the energy one, to name one, and making it based off of science for number two. @ic1978 That's what I'm going for. A huge network of assassins that has power everywhere, but not enough to take over. They are very secretive. Good post! @rainshine Thanks! By the way, I suggest getting MindGenius. It's a wonderful program that helped me alot. Also, I can post my planning files that can only be opened with MindGenius here if people get it.
Well, you could remove the part where they have to say something out loud to use magic. This could differentiate it somewhat. It would change how you learned magic somewhat, it would be harder to explain how you would study it, but it could make things interesting. It might seem a little more on the silly side, but I don't think it has to if done right. For example, in The Lord of the Rings they never use any spoken spells, and the magic is not overly powerful or silly. Granted, the wizards in The Lord of the Rings are angelic beings capable of supernatural ability, and it's less silly since there are so few of them and they are not the common folk. It feels more like a superpower this way, and less like something you learn from a book. This may or may not be good. But it does really emphasize how "special" the people are who can use magic, as well as let them use it more secretly without giving it away. If the assassins have power everywhere, there may not be any motivation to "take over" publicly. If they already control everything, there's little point to changing anything. It reminds be somewhat of Star Wars, where Palpatine was controlling both sides of the war in order to make himself look better, to eventually gain enough popularity that he could unquestionably create an empire. You'd need some sort of goal like this if you want the assassin network to be actively trying to achieve things. Of course, they could also work on expanding their power some more if it's too limited to do what they want to do.
I should have worded that better. The assassins don't have power everywhere, they just have influence everywhere. They don't have a force strong enough to conquer the entire military yet, so that is their goal.
Thank you...I'm writing the first chapter right now...could I keep further discussion going on in this thread or should I move it to general writing? I'm not sure of the rules.
Ah, ok. I think, after re-reading your original post, I must have skimmed over the last sentence. I just assumed they were the spies of each country infiltrating the other...so yeah, my mistake. Sounds interesting. So it's a secret society type of group? This is good. I like that magic has a clear drawback, which should keep it from being overpowered. And I think the reason for magic users keeping quiet makes sense. Getting dragged off to fight against your will is a fairly good incentive. Just out of curiousity, what type of character/s are you going for? Is magic going to be a huge part of the story or kind of pushed to the side (ala Joe Abercrombie or Scott Lynch's books)?
Magic won't be the main part of the book, but it will be in most places. For example, some of the assassins I created are dependant on magic.
