The other wizard reveals his necromantic abilities and raises his fallen friend, at great personal cost, and while the first is alive, his visage is horribly twisted. Ashamed and angry that his friend would bring him back to this cursed life with evil, forbidden arts instead of letting him die a death of glory, he turns on his friend, and they begin to wage a great war.
That's actually the exposition of the story. What I'm interested in is: what on earth could that fatal quest be? I don't want to rip something right out of mythology, but I want it to be of the same flavor. It really doesn't matter what the quest was as much as the resolution of it, but it bugs me. I'm drawing a blank.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
how about having it be a quest for a magic ring they can use to defeat the bad guy! only the first wizard is tempted by the ring and tries to keep it for himself and it betrays him and kills him.
And I also mentioned that I didn't want something right out of mythology... or LOTR!
And I could have come up with "bad guy"... but what qualifies as a "bad guy"? Also- this world has no humanoids, just humans. Dragons and other magical creatures, maybe, but not much.
Perhaps she is also laughing at the fact that you're asking us for one of the most influencial aspects of your story. What this "quest " is and why they're going on it could be a very major thing...it could tell us lots about the characters, setting, and whatnot.
Beth, I like that whale idea. Its like "wizarding harpooners gone bad" or something. You shouldn't give away all your good story ideas like that.
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Wellington
[Edit: I totally typoed on my own name. Wow.]
[This message has been edited by 'Graff (edited April 22, 2006).]
The Liche King was trying to raise a giant undead army or something like that (which is why they were out to stop him). Everything's been set up already...but instead of using the spell to raise tens of thousands of shambling zombies or whatever, your character realizes that he could alter it to revive his friend.
He isn't secretly studying forbidden arts the whole time, he just happens to have the opportunity right when it would be most difficult for him to resist temptation. That also can explain why he doesn't get things quite right, he's working with an unfamiliar spell and trying to change the use sort of on the fly. It also makes both characters more complex, how much of the rage and bitter emnity of his friend is really his own and how much is the result of the flawed spell? How much of the novice necromancer's war against his former friend is motivated by desire for self-preservation and how much is in the hope of undoing his own tragic error?
And, most importantly, it's one of the archtypes of mythic cycles. They set out to destroy a great evil and end up becoming the very thing they were fighting.
Not that there aren't other options.
Furthermore, by the very fact that you're asking I have to presume that you're using a standard-issue D&D world, which always show me a lack of real thought or planning. If this were an original world, then there's no way we could tell you what quest finally ended life for your wizard because we wouldn't understand enough about the world to give you a reasonable answer.
Sooo....
I have a suggestion, and I do hope it helps but you may not like it...Stop what you're doing and do some planning. Think about the world these wizards live in. Think about the magic. Think about the cost of magic. (You've hinted at that with the necromancy problems but I think you could do even more.) All magic should have a cost. Does the caster's hair fall out? Do they lose a year of their life every time they cast a spell? Do people start to hate them more and more with each use of magic? Let your imagination soar and try to answer the question.
This is a good place to start because it will help shape and define the world in which your wizards live. Once you have shaped such a world, drawn the maps, thought about the politics, populatd it with peoples, creatures, tribes, etc...once you've done all that, I suspect your quest will roll right out. You may even find you have a far richer story.
Good luck. I know how difficult background and exposition can be.
I suggest you explore the world you're creating so thoroughly that you know the ways a wizard could get himself killed (beyond getting hit by a bus, I mean, a chariot). It shouldn't just be interesting how what happens after the necromancy; it should be interesting before.
I will find it hard to believe that a friend would wage war against someone for saving his life! There *must* be something else going on. What is it?
Recommended: "A Thousand Ideas in an Hour," in OSC's Characters & Viewpoint. For fantasy worlds, he has this variant: "What is the price of magic?" -- a starting place for brainstorming. I dislike that question; I prefer the more general, "Why isn't magic so commonplace it's mundane?"
Anyhow, with that very rough concept in mind, I began assembling the "bits and pieces" of my world. I like Tibetan culture, so my group of men became a monastery of men living in a remote location high in the Himalayan-like mountains. My group of women became a tribe of goddess worshippers, at odds with the religious beliefs of the men. And then there were the common people, and countries/towns where men and women cohabitate.
From there I asked myself a question: How can I create friction in the society, in a way that is not easily resolved? My answer was: divide them up into castes. Make several religions that don't agree with each other. Make magic taboo in some places, revered in others.
Why, I asked myself, would magic be a big taboo? Perhaps there was some horrendous and heinous event connected with magic/mages that left a lasting imprint on the society. People can't get over the effects of that event. Some people would see it as proof that magic is evil. Others would see the men (mages) performing the act as the evil ones.
Once I had a gameplan for the society, I began drawing a map. I wanted my monks to be in a remote, inhospitable environment, so they had to be high in the frozen mountains. Other facets of the world began to emerge as I drew a map, began detailing how the castes were divided up, the mythology that explained the division, and writing a history of the horrible event that made magic a thing to be feared.
Having this level of detail about my society is absolutely crucial to me. It allows me to KNOW my characters well, to know their reactions, their motives, and their backstory. 99% percent of this world-building detail will never ever make it into print. 100% of this world-building detail is essential to the development of my characters. Every word they speak, every action they take springs from the underlying world building I've done.
I rarely find myself puzzled about character motive. I've never been in the situation where I needed to figure out a "quest" because the quest evolved naturally out of the culture of the world.
World building is, for me, as important as my main character development. In essence, the world IS a character, and the MC's interaction with it is no less important than any other relationship they have.
[This message has been edited by Elan (edited April 23, 2006).]
"Rock energy" as Elan calls it, is a bit of a misleading term. For the most part, rocks transmit or reshape energy flows, they do not originate the energy. I think that one thing most people can do is to go somewhere that has exposed bedrock. If you take off your shoes and walk about on it, you should be able to sense the remarkable difference in feel between that and, say...asphalt. How much you feel depends on your sensitivity, but any normal human should be able to feel something, it's your home planet, after all.
http://www.hatrack.com/writingclass/lessons/1999-01-29-1.shtml
http://www.hatrack.com/writingclass/lessons/2000-04-26-1.shtml
http://www.hatrack.com/writingclass/lessons/lesson22.shtml
http://www.hatrack.com/writingclass/lessons/lesson23.shtml
I won't mention specifics, but as another means to help, list what you don't want to use (quests for ring, destroying deathstars, ...), and then list some new ideas. Don't worry about how silly they are, just list them. Eventually, you may find one you like, or trigger something that inspires another idea.
Basically, these two wizards are high-born and go out to do quests, none of which I go into great detail about. Basically I just wanted some idea of a quest that is interesting. Heck, I'll probably just do something trite like battling a dragon or something. Anyway, it's not the quest that's the focus, it's what happens after that. How the raised wizard turns on the other and wages a mighty war and stuff happens.
But I don't even know if I'll keep the story. I've told by one person the plot is a piece of crap anyway. So maybe I'll just write it as a piece of crap and use Beth's brilliant ideas.
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Sorry- this is the start of the third week of illness, and I'm a little less than cordial right now. Susannaj4 had the right idea- I have the entire story done, but I've changed POV, so what had just been referred to as "their final quest" now needs more than that. It changed from focusing on the necromancer's heir to omniscient focusing on the two wizards. I don't really want something like "and the two mighty wizard went on a futile quest to save the world from an evil Dark Lord by destroying the One Ring" or "they went on a ship searching for a great white whale [insert Moby Dick here]"... And it's not a terribly important quest either, it's simply to increase their glory by proving valor. In fact, if they hadn't gone on the quest to begin with, nothing bad would have happened. I'd rather not have a trite, cliched little quest, but if I need to, I will.
I know a lot of people on here don't like 'epic quests' and such, but also people do...
different strokes for different folks.
I just wanted to give you a suggestion that might help, it's what helped me get through a lot of tough places I experienced in writing my own story.
Don't think about such problems in advance. Just write the story. Looking at the problem with knowledge of everything that happens in your story (because its written) is better than not knowing anything at all...
And i also found, at least in my case anyways, that your characters do things that suprise you, and events have a way of sometimes writing themselves, and you never anticipated it. Its really neat when that happens..
So I say, just write it, and worry about that when you get to it, and maybe you'll have a better time of it.
But it also may not work out that way... who knows - it's just what worked for me
-leaf
What sounds like crap is everything but the plot -- most notably, the millieu. In fact, it highlights my biggest problem with fantasy today.
Just a normal wizard? What the hell is a normal wizard? We don't have wizards in this world, so there can't be anything normal about one. And even if there were wizards in this world, I suspect that saying it's just a normal wizard is something like saying, "He's just a normal human." or even, "He' just a normal lawyer." or, "She's just a normal doctor." What is a normal anything? Everyone has more depth than that and if you want to tell a story, if you want to fill out a plot and make it shine, then you need to explore that.
Why are you writing this story anyway? What is your end goal?
Anyway, of wizards L and K, K is a necromancer, but L doesn't know it. Necromancy is a dark, forbidden art, so K doesn't let it be known, instead focusing on "lighter" magick. As per tradition, the sons of great holders become errant mages/knights/etc to hone their skills and prove their valor. L and K were childhood friends, so they set off together, seeking glory.
But then one day L and K take on too great a challenge. L dies, and K, feeling woe at L's death, uses his yet unrevealed necromantic skills to raise L, but while L is alive, his face is horrible to behold. L grows angry at K, for rather than dying a glorious death, he lives a twisted life. L leaves K, and gathers great force with which to destroy K.
That's the way the story starts, and focuses on the great war that begins between L and K. I originally started this story as a prequel to a story I actually wrote as a child, about a young wizard who overcomes and evil wizard A. So I started it from A's POV, who came rather abruptly into the middle of this war, and came to be K's heir. A only knew the consequence of the abovementioned quest, not what the quest was.
Now, all of my attempts at writing this story have failed miserably, and I don't know why. (Maybe b/c I keep getting sick or busy and losing my train of thought) However, I'm also a songwriter who writes epic rock. I thought maybe I could take K and L's story, drop A, and use it as material for my songs. (That's to answer Christine's post)
So what I'm asking is: what would serve as an acceptable quest for the abovementioned situation? It might help to know that L is of fiery disposition and quick to action, while K is his foil - thinking well before acting.
I've dismissed all forms of
-'artifact/magical item proves to be fickle and kills (in)directly it's bearer'
-Anything by sea
-Anything that will affect the world dramatically (and directly) whether they win/lose/ignore it
I tried brainstorming with a friend, and ended up with something involving invisible missile-bearing ducks and a morbid version of our programming teacher who attacks with interfaces and SDTs and a "smile attack" So if that shows you how well I'm doing at this...
I was reluctant to offer concrete ideas, because it seems like a key part to writing itself. However, I'll offer something nearly tangible.
You say the quest really isn't important, don't want it to be cliched, is for glory, and one of them dies on the quest. Seeking knowledge seems to be the perfect motivation, and could even explain the death (if they're new to whatever they seek...).
You could make the stakes worse, say having the necro-able wizard having to steal the life energy from a child to return his friend to life. Find some way to rationalize it through and you have both interior and exterior conflict that goes several layers deep.
There are plenty of ideas here to fill in that shell of a pillar of a great plot.
One more thing that I think will help you, to me it sounds like you are approaching this story as a reader, not a writer. Just because something isn't focused on in the story doesn't mean that you don't have to. This quest and it's results are the cause of the major conflict, that makes exactally what happened important. I like this plot, but if you don't start caring about it it will be as your friend said crap.
Oh and don't waste your time on things you don't want to include.
Just some things that I would want addressed if I were reading your finished work.