The story if works according to plans, when finished will be as or longer than THE LORD OF THE RINGS, and be hopefully an epic as LOTR or Star Wars. It is going to be based in the future and involve earth getting taken over and a group of people trying to save the universe with the undertone of defining who we are, the nature on man, what good and evil is, and etc.

I got some good ideas. I got charicters and a rough outline of the plot, but I don't know where to start writing. I was wondering how all you pro authors go from an idea to a novel sold at Barns and Noble. Any help will be welcome.

I know the next part is long. For all those who are brave enough is the basic concept of the trilogy. I want peoples thumbs up and down on it and comments of what I can do with it.

So the whole concept is the nature of man and more importanly the nature of men on earth. The concept goes around two questions. The first what would life on other planets be like. The premise to that question I'm using is that of Christ being a savior of not only this world but that of worlds without number. So Christ was only crusified on this earth because we are the only ones to reject him. So this in mind how would people from other planets think of us for killing the savior. The other question is there anything that makes me an you special. First we crusified Christ. Also we are a very smart and adaptive people going leap farther than possibly imagined. Mostly due to not tying down to primitive beliefs. The last thing is we don't use much of our minds. Only a small percentage. If we where unable to unlock those parts of our minds. It could give people on earth god like powers possibly.

quote:

---

On the other hand if anyone thinks about stealing any of these ideas I will kill you. If I see any bood that slightly

---

Lighten up, Francis.

To get started, get a lot of books and read them. It sounds like you've got some high concepts but no plot. I'd get a book on plot like Jack Bickham's _Writing the Short Story_ or Martha Alderson's _Blockbuster Plots_. And, since you're mostly writing conceptually and apparently haven't thought much about characters, you might want to get Orson Scott Card's _Characters & Viewpoint_ or Noah Lukeman's _The Plot Thickens_, which does lots of character work at the beginning as well. Another good book is Nancy Kress's _Beginnings, Middles, and Ends_.

And write. A lot. And then revise a lot, and then do it again.

Also, I don't believe that the fear of anyone stealing your idea is all that realistic; it practically never happens. You only gave us a vague sketch of it in any case, which could be taken in one of any number of different directions. What's worse, I believe, is someone shooting down your idea as total and complete bu110cks..if it's stolen, well, at least that means it had merit to someone. But as I say, idea-stealing hardly ever happens; it's really a non-issue. Ideas are a pence per googleplex; it's their eventual written execution that matters, IMO.

For example, the idea of multiple Christ figures appearing on multiple planets...I think I may have read something like this before, if only in non-fiction (i.e. theological speculation), and I do believe I may have skimmed (for amusement's sake) a small SF work done in the 60s or 70s I found at the small local library, having to do with Earth-visting extraterrestrials, at least one of whom accepts Christ as their personal savior (all those Chick tracts got to him, I'm guessing).>> see http://www.chick.com/default.asp for a review of Chick tracks; I came across them all the time when I was a practicing Christian, back in my personal Paleolithic era.

If you're unfamiliar with how novels are supposed to be engineered, I'd suggest starting smaller...short stories maybe? As well as read how-to books concerning fiction writing, covering both short-story and novel-length works. Everyone has to start somewhere.

John Barnes, Sin of Origin. We see how aliens react to the gospel. Also Xenocide, OSC, had some of this.

I will personally react against humanity getting godlike powers from using more of their brains, unless you do some handwavium to distract me. More intelligence shouldn't mean magical powers. Maybe there's a brain structure that was never activated?

What I really need to know is how to make it look good on paper. Any suggestions for books on grammer and stucture would help.

Also I would like to know how I can be able to throw ideas off people here about possibilities. My major problem is I would have to explain a lot. So for the people that have written about they don't know where ideas are going, that its done before, or they where not sure if it would fly, I got most of it figured out. All is really interweaved and complex and I have not really scratched the top of the iceburg. So any advice on how to relay only parts of the story instead of laying out from point A to Z will help.

EDIT: oh, crud, I confused this post with the one where you posted info about your short story. Well, the advice is still applicable, but you'll just have to forgive the reference to your other story in this post. Ha ha.

The old venerable Elements of Style will probably help you understand how and when to use punctuation better. It really does make a HUGE difference in how the audience (your readers) perceive the action and dialogue and all the things that make up your story.

You can study grammar (specifically) until your brain explodes, but I think the best way to learn how to make your story fit its intended genre would probably be to read an awful lot of short stories and novels in that genre. Really take note of how some of your favorite writers handle situations. Keep an actual notebook, if it will help you to refer back to it. Read a story or a scene, and then try outlining on paper what the main action points were, or what the main personality traits of the most important characters were, and then try to put into your own words how the writer accomplished getting those impressions across to you.

For example, since you had some unfavorable crits of your use of "Boom!" to get the idea across of the sound of a sudden, loud explosion, what are some ways that some of your favorite writers handle similar situations?

Rather than using an onomotopoeic word, maybe they would write something like, "Before he could greet the director, the lights went out as an explosion shook the walls. Bryce instinctively reached for his pistol, only letting go when the generator coughed and the backup lights sputtered to life." Using something like this conveys the sudden sound, the lights going out completely, and addresses the concept of some kind of backup power source, that the CIA would most definitely have. Plus, it gives you some insight into Bryce. He's the kind of guy who doesn't scream and pee his pants when there's an explosion *inside* the CIA, but he definitely does think to grab his gun before anything else.

This is just my totally random example, though. What you need to do is gather a whole bunch of stories that you like, and maybe some you've never read as well, and just study them. Take your notes on each scene - what is the major thing happening here? Who is involved? What kind of language does the writer use to get the action across to you? If it's a more comic story, what kind of action and dialogue are used to make it funny? If it's very serious, how does the language differ from a comedy? If a character is cool as a cucumber all the time on the outside, what are the little humanizing quirks that the writer gives him to make him seem real, and not robotic, or unbelievable? Every character has a history and every character has problems he needs to overcome - that's why he's worth telling a story about. If he's perfect and handles everything easily, he's no fun to read about!

Just read, and then read some more, and then read some more. The more you familiarize yourself with a variety of writers' works, the more familiar you will become with writing.

Are you going for a sci-fi story with this one? I don't think you mentioned for what genre this story is intended. Read whatever you can in genres you want to write for, and then expand and read "outside the box" a bit, just to see what you do and don't like in unfamiliar genres and from unfamiliar writers.

By the way, my husband used to be an intelligence analyst at the NSA and did a lot of work with the CIA and FBI as well. If there are particulars you need to know, I can see if he can tell you anything about how things work inside intelligence organizations. Of course, what you want to know may not be something he can reveal.

Have you read Dune, by Frank Herbert? I wouldn't bother with the other books in the series, personally - just read Dune. It's long, but it deals with some of the themes your ideas seem to be concerned with. It might give you some good ideas of where to take your story (obviously, you don't want to copy Dune or anything else, but reading similar stories will give provoke some critical thinking - "How is my story different from this one? If I were writing this book, what would I have done differently? Will my characters react to the plot in a similar way, or will their reactions be totally different?" And most importantly, "WHY will my characters react to this general plot in a different or similar way?").

As for grammer I say learn how to diagram sentences, (I wonder if they teach that anymore?)

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/diagrams/diagrams.htm