Greetings, Not sure what I expect to get out of this forum, but I thought I might as well sign up after I saw some of the interesting debates in the lounge, if for nothing else. I'm definitely more into fantasy, though I've mixed fantasy with sci-fi, and am considering trying fantasy-western. I'm currently working on a brutal fantasy novella. The background to the universe comes from a Talmudic story and magic came about due to an act of G-d (before anyone asks, I'm a moderately religious Jew and it is tradition not to write His name on computers). The brutality aspect comes from two points. I train in Israeli Krav Maga and use this military martial art as a fighting style for one of the main characters. The second aspect of the brutality is that this universe is a very dark one. The gods could be compared to the most brutal conquerers in the history of man. While not all kill for the sake of killing, all are quite willing to kill. Humans are nothing but playthings to be used in power struggles between the deities. I decided to twist the typical protagonist/antagonist plot. There are two protagonists that oppose each other, but don't know it until the end of the novella. I've got two potential endings, where either the good or the evil character could win. I haven't decided, yet. There will be a sequel, one way or the other. How that goes depends on who wins the final showdown. I like going against the mold, though. Typical fantasy novel has good triumphing over evil. You can already see that things aren't exactly normal, since this is a world dominated by evil, rather than a typically good world that evil is trying to corrupt. The hero isn't even the stereotypical puritanical one. This guy will have murdered dozens of innocent people by the end. Not sure what else to say. Think I'll just take a poke around.
Welcome to Writing Forums, Justin! I hope you find what you're looking for here, whatever your interests in writing. This forum aims to provide the best workshopping resources on the internet, and to that end we have a few rules which you should familiarise yourself with before you get stuck in. The main section of the site is the Writing Workshop, where members can post their writing in order to receive critique of their work. However, before we allow members to post their work, they must have met some basic requirments. Firstly, you must have been a member for fourteen days, and have made twenty posts on the forum overall (please note, posts in Word Games do not count towards this). This is so that members, when they post their work, have familiarised themselves with the forums and contributed to them (as well as hopefully learned something for themselves). Secondly, members must provide two constructive reviews of other people's work for each piece of their own that they wish to post. This is because we believe that the focus of workshopping should be equally upon giving reviews as receiving them, as they allow a writer to practice and improve their editing skills, which they can then apply to their own writing. Beyond the Writing Workshop, you will find that we have extensive forums for discussion of aspects of writing, as well as a community area for general discussion. We also run periodic short story and poetry contests, which are good for challenging yourself and expanding your skills. If you have any questions or problems, then the moderators (myself and Cogito) should be your first port of call. Any technical problems with the site itself should be directed to Daniel, the site administrator and owner. I would recommend you have a look over the rules so that you know what to expect, and what is expected. But aside from that, I hope you enjoy your time here. Banzai
