Hatrack River Writers Workshop: The Premise

This is topic The Premise - Your Thoughts? in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by KoDe Nichols (Member # 7884) on :

Here is the premise and backstory of my book. Pardon the simple terms, I will develop them later with names and whatnot.

Incorporal beings have existed since before recorded time.
These beings are engaged in a competition, bragging rights basically.
They follow a set of rules agreed on by all of them, they can not directly act in the world, they can only give information.
They use people and army as pawns in their game.
There is a being above them that acts as a referee.

Long ago, (in the last game they played) They had taught their civilizations how to use magic and access pools of power. But in the course of the game one being broke the rules and began acting directly in the world, attacking the civilizations of the other beings directly. They take their case to the referee being and the being seals these powers into stones that can not, WILL not give power to any of the beings. The rogue being is exiled from the being's plane of existance and is forced into a physical body. The rest of the beings go into low activity, all their civilizations had dispersed because of the attacks, and they decided to take a break.

Now, thousands of years later, a new game has begun.
The beings are mobilizing again. They have caught wind that the exiled being is creating an army using some of the power it retained from its "beinghood"

The story starts with a group of three being hired to steal one of these stones from Gasa Vitoli, but different people are lead by different beings and spheres of influence. And as the story unfolds the characters attempt to discover how the stones work as beings influence people and goverments around them, each trying to gain access to the stones.

Posted by TheOnceandFutureMe on :

That all sounds cool, but who is it about? Great stories are character driven. It seems to me you've described a world rather than a story. Tell me more about the plot arc, and the development and of the characters.

[This message has been edited by TheOnceandFutureMe (edited April 02, 2008).]

Posted by KoDe Nichols (Member # 7884) on :

Oh, rest assured, I have characters. Some of them are around longer than I thought they would be, some left before I thought they would and I'm not entirely sure when exactly they will return. I think I'll be writing the story one day and they will knock on the door and say "This is where I come in"
Some I knew had to die shortly after their conception.
I really strive to have characters with personality, and to reflect that through the dialogue. They use different expressions, have different beliefs, and I try to write each line taking into account how the person thinks. I've read, (or rather, started to read,) some books in the past by popular authors with hugely successful series, and found that the characters meant nothing to me. They are all written to be the same person, the same, non-descript, personality deficient person.

This is more of the underlying premise then a synopsis of the book.

Posted by Wolfe_boy (Member # 5456) on :

Okay... so why don't you start hiting on a few specifics them... who are your main characters? What is their goal/task? Since you have already planned out 9 books of the series, maybe just limit yourself to the first book to keep things tight, but it's easiest to properly judge a story by knowing what happens, rather than just vague background.

(Here's hoping it's not a group of unlikely heroes on a quest to find the artifact/magic item/historic weapon that will save the world)

Jayson Merryfield

Posted by TheOnceandFutureMe on :

What he said.

Yeah, I didn't mean to suggest that you knew nothing of characters. But for me to get excited about a story, I need to know about more than just the world. The world you described is interesting, but I'm not going to read a novel based solely on its world. For me to read a premise and know if I'm interested, I need to know about individual characters - who am I going to be following around for 9 books?

Best of luck with it.