Okay. So, I got this villain. I reall like her and plan to use her in another story. I was thinking about her and her origins and I hit a bump. In the sense, I think her backstory concept is solid and nice, perfect for history and even great as a story, but. Something is poking at me bad about when I try and think about it as its own story. I feel it has potential, so I am wondering why it feels like it is failing in my mind. It is backstory, so I only have vauge points, but it feels like the vague points are fighting each other. The points. - She is an Alien Queen on a random planet that has very low tech resources but makes up with it by having magic. - Her home is peaceful. People are happy. - She is a bad ass, able to fight masses of highly magical people at the same time. - Her home is attacked by a god who wishes for her to join him. He uses trickier to hide that he is attacking her. - She sees through the tricks and join anyhow to protect her people. This last point could go off cannon for a movie plot. Why doesn't that seem to work in my mind? It is like, we have peaceful place attacked by god, a call to action. A strange world with no tech and magic, which should be interesting, a bad ass lead character who tragically loses. Political stuff like giving up in-spite of knowing he is evil. Also hiding/discovering he is evil. If I went off cannon, I could even see this going into a final battle between them, but she would lose. Her story is meant to be tragic. All of those ingredaints look like they are awesome but when put them together in my mind, it sounds like a failure. Because, - New world is hard to relate too, meaning I might have to be too slow to express it well. - The lead being a bad ass means their is very little for them to do growing wise. Even emotionally, the only growth they achieve is meant to be giving up and becoming evil to protect those you love, again, it is supposed to be tragic. - Her place being peaceful ruins action until war but you need development before then effecty killing any pacing! Yeah, I can figure out how to fix stuff like that! Arg, maybe this isn't such a good story. Thoughts?
I think yoru have 'commitment' issues. In the sense that you lack confidence to have faith in your characters. Your premise and plot sound interesting (which says a fair amount coming from a Sci-fi junky, that typically doesn't like magic mixed in but whatever). I like the whole tragic ending angle your trying to make, but damn it commit to it. Write it out, and if it doesn't work then try to make it work, and if that don't work then try to figure where it doesn't feel right. You feeling me? Don't give up before even letting it get off the ground, you never know unless you apply it. Don't scrap it unless it really does fall apart. I have faith in you, even if you don't have it in yourself. So give it a go and see what comes of it before you make a decision one way or another. Word of the wise: You are your own worst critic. Sometimes you have to push on even when it looks like it might go tits up, but at least you gave it an honest try before resigning it to the bin. Now go forth boldly and make it so! Kick ass and take names lady, you got this.
Thank you for the kind words. Though, I think two things are somewhat misrepresented. Because for one. I am very committed. In this case, all of that is back story to a character in another story. And i like it for that. I don't plan on changing it. The issue stems from me thinking that it would make a good story all on its own but then doubting that as I begin to think of it in more detail. Meaning that perhaps it is a story that is only meant to be back story. Does that make more sense? 2. Even though "magic" is a fantasy thing, I see this much more as Sci-fi. Alien world, culture signifigantly different to our own. Alien invaion on the alien planet. Feats beyond what we could do. Not much is really "fantasy ish". Like the MC has a pair of whips. I see them very much like whiplash's whips from Iron Man 2. Yet the point being she replicated that with magic. Does that make sense?
It does, except I don't know about the whole Iron Man reference though. Try it both ways, and see which works best. It all depends on when it all takes place, in the past or in the present of your setting. Sounds like a fun character to play around with for a while in my opinion, but it is up to you. I get that they die off, but it would be neat to read the mini epic on that instead of resigning it to a blurb in the backstory. IDK, I was just trying to be supportive. It can be hard sometimes.
You could leave it as strictly backstory, or you could write it out in a mini epic in addition to the backstory. Kind of like a mini story within the bigger one. But it is entirely up to you.
Oh, you mean like how deep I plan to dive into it? During the main book. Oh I was never debating that. In a sense that is its own thing. My thinking here, was if teh backstory had enough "stuff" to support its own story. If so, I like the idea of writing that story, if not, I would abandon it. Does that make more sense?
I believe is an honest-to-goodness god is trying to do... anything, really, with this magic-using alien race, it is as much or more fantasy than it is science fiction. I'm not sure if that will affect the way you go about telling the story, but it's something to take note of; if that isn't the case, you might want to go into more detail in explaining the "god/magic" aspects of the setting and story. Other than that, the story of a well-intentioned leader turning evil through tragedy is a good one. You should probably remember what you want to happen throughout the story before planning how the character development will work.
On Genre. I am not sure I agree. Here is my argument. Magic in my world has its own rules and it isn't really that similar to most fantasy. But even if it was. I am reminded of what someone else said. On this forum actually, though long time ago. They were talking about a anime named Dragonball and Dragonball Z. The claim was that Dragonball was more fantasy as it had standard journey for special items and you traveled around the world meeting colorful characters. They also claimed that Dragonball Z was Scifi because that journey was no longer the plot, now the plot was fighting robots or cyborgs or time traveling monsters or alien invaions. The fact that the MC's powers were the same since same MC in both shows seemed to have little burden on Genre, and I tend to agree. Dragonball Z theme sound sci-fi, but the MC powers were derived from magic. On the other issue. I know what the story I want to tell is. That is the trick Valuing if it is a story "worth" telling. Because I am not sure.
