Hi all! I get a lot of inspiration from my dreams, and the other night I had a dream about a girl falling in love with a demon who was trying to kill her and eventually marrying him. I thought about working on this idea, making it a horror/thriller type of thing. But the only thing I can seem to focus on is that it isn't believable or that it's already been written to death. I try to make stories as original as possible. And I would definitely make the romance the subplot and have a bigger major plot. But I don't want to put all this effort into it if this is the wrong direction to go. So what do you think? Boring? It is pretty boring as just that.. Cliche writing? Overdone subject? Should I just scrap the idea and move on to bigger and better things? Thanks in advance.
What @Duchess-Yukine-Suoh said. No idea is novel under the sun. Yet, every writers injects a little bit of himself/herself into the story, and makes it something different from before; people differ in perception one atom to the next, and a generic plot such as that is so pliable to interpretation, it doesn't have to be cliched if it is played right. How you tell your story is the deciding vote on cliche.
Is the demon good, deep down? Is is he manipulating her all along? I've seen both, and I think either can work as long as the characters and story are good.
I haven't really decided yet. I don't really want to do the "good deep down" angle, because I'm doing something similar in another novel. But I do want him to have actual feelings for her.. but not the same as a human. I thought about making my MC basically fall in love with the power that comes with marrying a demon. So in a way, the demon will be corrupting her instead of her saving him. I really love to play with people's view of good and evil. I like making good people go bad and bad people go good, and I loovee unhappy endings. So I wanted it to be a pretty dark story. I haven't decided if I'm going to stick with this or not yet.. I'm struggling to find a story to go with the romance. But everyone's input greatly helped. thanks so much!
As the people above said, don't worry about an idea being cliche or not; a good story is all in the execution. The one thing I would advise though, is to be aware of the "type" of demon you plan on using. As in, which mythos is he going to be from? For example I would have a hard time buying a demon from true, un-bastardized Christian mythos marrying a human, for almost any reason. Seducing or taking them as a lover as a means to some other goal- maybe, but not so much marrying. On the other hand, certain kinds of demons from Japanese mythos hook up with humans all the time, so I wouldn't bat an eye at seeing them together. Basically I just want to suggest doing your research if you plan to use an established type of demon. Though you could of course just make up your own monster with it's own rules/aspects and slap the title "demon" on it and I don't think anyone would mind.
If you search my threads you will find the start of this story. A demoness fell in love with a guy. It is good you know that it is a real story and happened really in an area about 60 years ago. I found the origin story in Farsi language somewhere. Of course it was not like a story that to be written by a writer. It was a documentary explanation. The guy who had married a demoness, his family and other familiar persons had told the story. It was written similar to a biography by a person. If I had decided to write the story completely, it could be a very good horror/mysterious/ thriller story like " Exorcist" movie. The important issue is that, it is a real story and I just have to develop plots, characters, scenes and also add a series thriller dialogues based on the origin event. If you want to write this story, you must have some information about these paranormal entities.
Also, you should check out the famous Russian poem, The Demon by Mikhail Lermontov, about a demon who falls in love with a Russian Princess. Sadness ensues > : D
As long as you avoid the usual conflict around racism and elitism, I think you are good to go. I am sure you could find a unique way to execute that if you wanted to, but I just personally feel tired of that plot.
This kind of plot, unless it is very well done, tends to play on an old trope of abusive relationships turning romantic, with the implications that all women like to be abused and mistreated, that it turns them on so much they end up marrying the 'demon'. Not saying this is your story, but most stories with this premise are just lazy writing, exploiting misogynist stereotypes and indulging in descriptions of female abuse. But like I said, if you can justify it and write it well, even that could work.
Idunno about demons, but we daemons find it fascinating to read the stories that humans write about falling in love with us.
What really in fantasy hasnt been overdone? But shouldnt stop you, its is still a love story and they been overdone to lol. No matter what It has been done before.
Hmm.. I disagree that everything has been done before. If you look at it as "fantasy" or "love stories" are overdone, then I can see that. But there are still new ideas and new views of old ideas that can make a story original. I've always loved the idea of a good person falling in love with power and letting it corrupt them. That was going to be the general theme of my novel. A normal girl is given a once in a lifetime opportunity to be incredibly powerful and goes against her morals to make it so. And I feel like I came up with a pretty decent idea for a horror novel.. Very The Forbidden Game by L. J. Smith. But my idea is also pretty.. boring, I guess. I'm used to writing very complex fantasies with many different conflicts. And this one was very simple. I don't think I can make it more complex without taking away from the general theme of the novel. So I think I'm just going to scrap the idea and move on. Thanks guys.
I kinda find it hard to believe a demon would want anything good to anyone except themselves, so while anything can be done well or badly, I wouldn't necessarily buy a story where a demon truly, honestly falls in love with a human. Or anyone, in fact, as love isn't probably all that common among evil beings. One request though; please try to make the demon "demon-y", i.e. evil, and not in that cartoony Buffy-style either (*cough* Angel *cough*). If the marriage is just a means to an evil end, I'd read it.
Well, I originally planned on making him love her. But then I realized that wasn't going to work.. lol So I thought about having my female MC the offspring of a very powerful magical family. But for some reason I didn't decide on (death, adoption, etc), my MC would be separated from her family and unaware of her heritage. So then the male demon would know she exists and hunt her down in an attempt to get her to join him (because yanno.. power). The whole story would be him trying to unlock her hidden powers and bring her to join him. And at the end, he would be successful. But I felt that was way too cliche. So... Again, probably just going to scrap it or change the story completely. I haven't really decided yet.
personally, i wouldn't have a demon fall in love with a girl either, given that a demon has no reason whatsoever to like humans. in essence, a human girl would be a reminder of god's favoritism and unequal punishment since god banned them from ever receiving forgiveness while humans get to repent and all that. but hell, who knows right?? lol
Yeah had typed out more but phone deleted it...fun fun so I thought oh I just put name..stupid small keyboards.
...unless the demon has compelling human traits. I believe that, prior to the Christian concept, demons weren't supposed to be purely evil entities.
