(My last topic got deleted? So here goes Ralph, Sylvia, Juliet and Jordan go to the "haunted" mansion, as a dare between Ralph and Jordan. Jordan accidentaly smashes a blue vase, which teleports them into a fantasy medieval world! In this land (Illiada), there is a war between Men, Elf, and Dwarves VS Dark Elves, Monsters (orcs, cyclops, etc...) and corrupted Humans and Demons. The latter are ruled by an evil lord Kargaroth, who is possesed by the ancient dragon "Roth'Anoc". They are found by a blond elf, Garmalak. He leads them to the capital city of elves (Lawnalia), where after a good deal of convincing, they learn that they are heroes from a prophecy. Your thoughts?
My thoughts are as follows: Evonia sounds like Evony, that online game in all the banner ads. Dagolas the blond elf sounds like Legolas the blond elf. Peleneas reminds me of Pellinor. Humans, elves, dwarves, dragons, and other mythical creatures are entirely unoriginal. Being teleported from earth into a medieval fantasy world is entirely unoriginal. Finding out the main characters are heroes in a prophecy is entirely unoriginal. My only other thoughts are that you're looking for validation of this idea, which is something you shouldn't be looking for. If you don't believe in your own idea to begin with, it's not likely to go very far. This is a massively derivative plot basis, and I suggest you broaden your reading horizons and read something other than cliché fantasy so you can learn to come up with your own ideas.
Are you hosting a brainstorming session in this thread? It looks like you have all the details worked out. Get writing. I'm thinking: it would be a lot of fun to write, it would be difficult to justify vase smashing = teleportation, the four modern characters would be great if they ended up on opposite sides of the war, a struggle between the dragon and those he is possessing would be interesting, and that it altogether sounds like the fantasy genre in its purest form. All you're missing are the magical women caste, and a blade of might.
^ Be careful about doing that. If you're going to take the advice of a fellow forum member, do it in a consecutive post, and not an edit. More details are located in forum rules and sticky posts. I would pay more attention to crucifiction's other advice anyway.
A story concept means nothing. What matters is how you write it, the characterization, the flow, the imagery, all of it. There's no benefit in asking what other people think of the concept! They'll either say,"Sounds great," or, "it sounds like a ripoff of..." If the idea stirs you, write it. Then ask people what they think of the final story. After they tell you what they don't like about it, revise it, usually several times, until you're happy with it or until you throw up your hands and say the hell with it. Please read What is Plot Creation and Development?
Although I generally tend to agree with Cog's generic "story concepts mean nothing" post, I have to say that sounds like a very cliched and unoriginal plot. Having a distinct name doesn't for instance prevent a gruff, scotish, axe swinging Dwarf from being a cliche, or a seren, aloof, magical elf.
You have a straightforward writing style devoid of purple prose, which I appreciate. Starting in media res is all right, but so far I've been thrown into the story with, what was it -- four characters? -- none of whom I know or care about yet. And there's an awful lot of dialogue right at the start, so I'm not really oriented yet. Keep writing. You might find the real start of your story is somewhere else, but you won't know until you continue.
Erm.... ok. Not really very helpful to post a couple hundred lines of dialogue as a teaser and expect us to respond. What exactly are you trying to get from us? Praise for your sizzling dialogue and masterful scene building? It aint there, I'm afraid. You cannot post work for comment until you have commented on others' work, so stop trying to circumvent forum rules and go critique some stuff.
Amusing, I was flipping through my old posts and saw this. God, was I high when I wrote that? Luckily my story has much progressed from a rip-off of Lord of the Rings and Narnia.
A small spark vs. a great forest. I agree with, Cogito, 100%. Delivery is key. To be fair, however, I only hope that your story delivers better than your synopsis! Ha, I josh.
If you are going to write a fantasy about elves, dwarves, dragons, etc... my advice would be to add an element to each race that has never been seen before or isn't seen very often. Maybe there are no elves on the "good" side, elves almost always are good guys; or maybe later in the story the reader finds out that demons are slaves and aren't actually evil.
