hey guys, I just started writing a book recently, and so far it's about this young alien at an academy attempting to graduate in his fight school where in order to graduate you have to kill somebody else in the academy who graduate's in the same year. The thing is I already set the book up in a way that the graduation fight will happen between the protagonist and his best friend at the start of the book... and that fight is only supposed to happen between rivals, so this basically means that by the end of the story the two characters have to be rivals who dislike or preferably hate eachother I am quite lost on how to get any way to get the two to realistically hate eachother The above is good enough to understand what i want but this is 1000 word part of my story from my first chapter which will help you understand perfectly my situation if you really feel like helping (if u do I promise to criticise your work back) -------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1 Kell’un Vas’gath awoke immediately. He had been having several of these nightmares as of late. Strange was it that he would always wake up just before the buzzer for the academy went off. Each time the dream was the same, a battle between him and a friend of his, Neutri. The battle would be taking place in one of the academy exams, him and his roommate squaring off against each other in a fight where both friends would be fighting to the death, indeed this fight is one which could well be expected, but if it was to be expected it would not come any time soon. It was only five in the morning and still an hour before the novices would be expected to wake up. In Akwa Melee Arena every style of hand to hand combat is taught with over 100 styles and for each of those styles there are at least four levels of combat to escalate through, each level has it’s own teacher and at the higher levels of combat a master of the style will teach each lesson in a way that the student of the art may progress quickly to an adept fighter. In principle, every child at the academy wanted to become a fighter, some wanted to be a bodyguard, some other’s just fight in various competitions, some join the army and others wished to be assassins. But will was not the only thing required to join the academy, indeed many young people wish to be an adept at fighting, Akun Melee Arena is the most popular because every graduate will go on to become a fighter and the recruiters pick carefully those who have the potential to be great at the martial arts. The recruiters pick students who have the will, potential and a certain unique prowess in each individual which no one else has. And every year a host of new kids enter, to join the academy for their tough training which will bring them to a level of skill in the fighting style that may allow the young combatant to continue on his own path. This year, Kell’un enterred the academy with a host of 1200 other children. And even with 15,000 other trainee’s Kell’un Vas’gath’s hands were uniquely fast, even not specially trained, it was amazing how he could move his fists out wide a meter away and bring them back in the blink of an eye. When he rotated his arms and snapped his wrists the movements would seem just a blur but the effect would strike like the bite of a shark. Kell’un stared blankly at his roommate Neutri and wondered if his blurring fists would one day have to meet Neutri and his cunning footing; it was a lot like staring straight into a mirror. Though the two had only been together for two months, the two connected immediately like brothers. Both had the same passion for fighting, both were young yet both were better at their designed martial style than several of their older peers. Both worshipped Aewin the Ilgra god of wind who was a master of all martial styles which required speed and cunning, and both had their parents taken away from them at a very young age in their respective childhood towns. Another astounding connection was the fact that both of them had golden eyes, something extremely rare in the race of Ilgra, where most have light blue, silver or velvet colored eyes; not only that but they were the same height and weight and apart from their facial features their bodies looked very much alike, most people at the academy who met the two characters thought that the two were brothers, Kell’un sometimes was surprised as well as to how the two ended up not being brother’s for the two shared so much in common that no one would doubt the notion. There was not much for Kell’un to do at this moment so he simply continued to stare at his best friend, mindless thoughts coming into his mind hoping he would never have to enter that fight which Kell’un was dreaming of so often in his troubled sleep. These nightmares were of a kind that he could not ignore though, the scenes kept on reappearing in his mind, the swirling fists, the connections of the forearms the determination on each warrior’s face to kill the other, to Kell’un it was something unimaginable. Yes to graduate you did need to complete a final test which involved killing another child of the academy unless in the fight both were worthy of graduating, but it had to be against a rival whom you had created over the years studying to become a fully fledged combatant. A rivalry between the roommates was utterly unimaginable to anybody in the academy. And so Kell’un simply kept thinking of Neutri and how any serious dispute could be possible. The thoughts abruptly came to an end though when the footsteps of the sentries of the academy enterred the corridor. Then came the brash knocking, the noise a youth makes when waking up causing a ruckus, going to the shower-room and changing clothes. I saw Neutri’s gold eyes slowly open, at first they stayed half closed as if on a hangover then in a blink of the eye his eyes widened. As if realizing that he just woke up and enterred the real world. Neutri looked at Kell’un curiously, “You’re up early quite often these days” “Nightmares keep on recurring during my sleep, always the same one.” “Mmm, the nightmare with us sparring?” Neutri paused, “well with us fighting to the death?” he rephrased. “It never stops coming back to my mind.” “Don’t worry about it, we both know that it won’t ever happen in this world, how could it? My martial style takes three years to learn yours takes four. Besides even if it does happen, it’s not for another four years so might as well simply put it in the back of your head for now” The guards approached our door and gave a thunderous knock on the door before entering the room and telling us to be ready for classes in three quarters of an hour. Neutri was right though. Kell’un knew that even if this dream did come true it was not in the near future and for now his priority should be to continue reaching higher levels of his martial style. ------------------------------------------------------------------- I have background info and some more of chapter one written but I dunno if that is going to really help with the question I specifically asked for which is How do I get Kell'un (main character) and Neutri (best friend and roommate) to hate eachother to set them up for that fight in the prophesizing dream??? Oh btw i got a lot of time to do this, over a year in the storybook time advanced thx to anybody who answers
Here's a few of my ideas -Replace Neutri in the dream with somebody completely different -Have Neutri get jealous of Kell'un's fast progression/skill and escalate from there -Have the two characters distance themselves over along period of time -find/create some kind of crazy twist that would explain this hatred between the two...
Potentially, there are many things you could use. A conversation or situation that was blown out of proportion, supposed favoritism, envy, jealousy, a shared love interest, even a minor event could breed contempt if it happens right before they are separated for a long time. Let the memory of the event grow more important that the event itself. Let things get twisted around. Bring in some heresay and simmer on low heat. And then let it explode. You'll want them to be glad to have the opportunity to pummel the other to death, if I read that right.
yes you read it right and I do want the two to want to kill eachother by the end of the book (perhaps even books if I get lost in the describing of events, a lot can happen in two years, but this battle has been set up as the climax), I specially like the one where you said let it simmer on low heat and then explode, since to me this seems rather realistic and I have had cases like this before in my personal life just now that I think about it I could kind of make it something a bit like how Anakin turned to the dark side in the starwars series (of course not with, "come to the dark side anakin and save your mother" but yeah you get my point)
Jealously? Bitterness? He become jealous of his friend because he proves to be more promising and is perfect at everything he does. This makes him jealous and bitter. Or maybe introduce some sort of romace into the story where a conflict arises over a girl resulting in a spilt between their friendship that has gone beyond repair?
This sounds forced. Why must the conflict be between Kell'un and his best friend Neutri? I think the dream sequence is going to turn out to be pointless forshadowing. If you write their conflict well enough, the dream will be excessive. Also, what color is "velvet?"
Hmm, you know what I agree with Spherical Time, this end fight just never seemed right to me and even with all the things you've suggested, I'll start the chapter with the second paragraph and change the dialogue quite a bit thanks a lot for the feedback
