posted
I knew that it was a blacklisted item when I came up with the idea, but I didn't realize it was because of cliche.
quote:# The Bad Guy travels through time to kill the Hero in his childhood, or to prevent him from ever being born.
The above is quoted from an SF Cliche listing.
I just realized that this is EXACTLY the basis of the latest development in my WIP's milieu. I never intended to include this part in the WIP, it was just an entertaining side-show.
Anyways, "Satan" or Luke, as he's called in my story, is setting up a change in the events that lead my heroes into BECOMING heroes. Basically, he wants to stifle their progress and prevent them from becoming a threat.
"God" or Jethresh, as he's called in my story, sent the brothers on a wild-goose-chase mission that Luke devised in order to prevent the brothers from figuring out what he planned. Unfortunately, Slicer, one of the brothers, stumbles upon a camp of Lukes followers babbling about the plan and he goes back to his brother in order to take on this latest threat.
Upon returning to the place and time where they'd been trying to unravel a mystery Slicer's female companion at the time had her mind stuck between the two places, Luke was trying to gain control of her. After a rather harrowing experience the brothers wake up in a cabin, and then they make a null-space rift and travel to their home, pre-events that led to them being what they are, in order to combat Lukes plans.
I think I'm going to leave all of that stuff remain backstory, since it's all information that was developed jointly in a text RPG I've been participating in, and then start the story right where the brothers wake up.
Do you guys (and gals) think this is a viable story for the SF Cliche thing? My main obstacle will be in keeping it under limits, probably... I'll probably need to limit it to one or two scenes where they end up ahead of Luke, one or two where Luke realizes they're onto him and ups the ante, setting the brothers back, and then a Final Encounter with whoever Luke is using to mastermind this series of events. (Can't get rid of Luke, that just wouldn't work for the rest of the stories.)
Yeah, I'm already breaking the rules by using human-brain enhancement time-travel, but that's being used in just about all of the stories based around my WIP. I think I could pull off a good enough twist on that to make an interesting set of stories.
The following would be about what I'm planning on starting with:
quote: Slicer and Viniece woke up about a half hour later, someone had dragged them into the shack they had hidden in what felt like eons ago.
"Hey Slicer, sleepy head, you feeling okay?" Viniece asked.
"No, m'bro, m'body feels like't's been dragged over white hot coals behind a semi-truck going 100 miles an hour down a ravine'n run over by a steamroller on it's way over a cliff."
"OUCH. I must say that I do not feel quite that bad. I've got bad news for you Slicer, appearantly Gem was killed while you were gone." Slicer got bolt upright.
"Why, How, When, Where?" Slicer started asking.
"I don't know the details, Slicer, but believe me, it's so. We need to get out of here and back to our own time to try to stop what is happening there. Are you ready?"
Basically, I'm looking for a general take on the idea itself, and then any thoughts on the segment I posted. Nothing definite yet, as I haven't REALLY started writing it yet.
posted
For me, I think the trick to this anthology is going to be to keep it simple. You only get 5000 words and he made it very plain that going over the word count will not help your chances.
My personal opinion is that you write something unrelated to any WIP. You can steal ideas from yourself, but create something that can stand alone.
Thing is, Spaceman, I've NEVER been able to keep two completely individual projects going and actually keep them seperate. Things ALWAYS have a way of blurring into each other.
When I had initially began writing my Christmas parody I was hoping to keep it divorced from my WIP, and just borrow the characterizations of the brothers, but they ended up taking over and leading it right into the WIP...
posted
You may wish to exercise caution, using any storyline developed in a role-playing session with other people. It is a many-pitfalled road (speaking, as I do, from miserable experience).
I'm a little hard-pressed to see how to manage juggling god, satan, and two sets of the same group of heroes (past and present), as well as an involved storyline in 5,000 words. Of course, I cannot discount the very likely possibility that you're simply better at pacing and plot than I am, *L*
I think it would make for an interesting story outside of the word limit, though.
Also, Viniece seems to be speaking in a jarring style, juxtaposing contractions and uncontracted speech. Is that just a character point?
posted
Viniece speaks relatively normally, Slicer has an obsession with over-use of contractions.
They are character points, in other words.
Viniece does use occasional contractions, things like "it's" and "isn't." Slicer talks super fast and shortens any word that he can to as few syllables as will still remain comprehensible. Of course, that line where he tells you how he feels was rather flamboyant and perhaps hard to follow, but he's like that. It isn't too much further in and Viniece asks Slicer to cut down on the contractions and Slicer obliges.
God, Satan, and the Slicer and Viniece of the past are only going to be referred to indirectly, all the action will center around the two brothers of the present and, after a little time, Yulanaia. This is going to be my chance to actually do something with her. I killed her off right in the very first chapter of the first book in my WIP.
I know that this is going to have to be one heck of a fast-paced story. Setting up a climax with having this kind of starting pace is going to be hard.
I think I'm going to give it a try. If I can crunch this into 5k words, it would make for some very condensed feeling reading. Maybe I should expand it into a novel at a later date and perhaps spend some time with God and Satan... dunno...
Oh, I forgot to address the RPG concern. My plotline was designed entirely by me, other players barely contributed anything other than the "distraction" which within this story doesn't even play a part other than backstory. As long as I keep the RPG as backstory and don't use any of it within the body of action, I should think it'd work ok.
Well, time to draw myself out of that RPG and not continue this story within it's confines. If I'm actually to make this salable, I can't be giving away twice it's contents for free on the internet.
[This message has been edited by dpatridge (edited July 12, 2005).]
posted
I'd echo lordnequam's concerns about RPG-based material. RPGs operate in a very different way and with a very different structure. They do not flow in the same way that fiction does. I have borrowed ideas and characters from RPGS for some of my fiction (and vice versa) but the two are, and must be, kept separate. Don't make the mistake of thinking "but that's how it happened in the game" as if it's sacrosanct. Again, I speak with some experience; I originally tried to plot out a novel arc based on a campaign I ran, until I realised that while many of the motifs and supporting characters were usable, the structure was completely incompatible. I still intend to write the stories (one day), because there are some nice settings and a nice escalation of events in a traditional fantasy way (the lead characters being slowly dragged into something far larger than they intended), but they need to be their own stories, not retellings of the events in the game.
posted
That's ok tcher. As I've said before, the RPG is just backstory. I will NOT rewrite any of the RPG into the story, I WILL borrow a few of the character's from the RPG, and I will "refer" to events in the RPG as things that already happened.
I'm fully aware of the differences in structure between games and completed fiction. Games are interactive and immediately changeable, finished fiction is a bit more like an amorphous solid, you can change it, but it takes time and effort.
I have just come across a concern in my writing this... I see no way of progressing this story fast enough with complete scenes and "travel time" included, so do you think it'd be ok to use small catch-scenes and then even smaller info-dumps with section breaks?
Bah, no examples... I did a bad thing in putting them on here in the first place.
Basically, what I am considering doing with this story is to use "episodes." In other words: A small catch-scene of maybe about 200-300 words, and then an even smaller info-dump of ideally less than 50 words. After the info-dump, use a section break, and then repeat all the way up until the end of the story.
[This message has been edited by dpatridge (edited July 12, 2005).]
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