First I was absent for some time due ro having covid, but I'm better now So I've had these ideas for a while and have been trying to work on them, but it's been a struggle, figuring out what to do. I had this martial arts fantasy story but im going to hold off on that ifea for the time being and focus on my original idea. For a while, I was trying to work on combining martial arts in this futuristic setting, where the MC would be this cyber samurai, who would be half Japanese/American born to an American father and Japanese mother and dealing with corrupted corporations ruling the world and fighting against those who killed his parents, training all these years in the military and going through all these conflicts, body augmentations and such. My inspiration of the setting is like John Wick, Matrix, OldBoy, Cyberpunk and Bladerunner and Ironman. Even the MC is a mix of John Wick, Neo and Logan. Then my other idea is this same fururitstic cyberpunk setting as above, only difference is this MC is a fully American soldier who wants his revenge for being betrayed by both his parents that work for their own corporations and the MC's mentor/captain, who trained and raised him and left for dead on a mission. When the MC is still found to be alive, the parents and the mentor are all trying to hunt the MC down. He was rescued by someone who he saved during one of his missions. Then this other idea is the same type of setting, only more like the Terminator series, with a future cyberpunk setting with the MC having a more Terminator/Dutch from Predator vibes, who was basically as a child was raised in a lab and conducted on all sorts of experimentations, into their elite, big strong soldier program. One day on a mission, he is left for dead, then rescued and put back together, then gets revenge on the ones who created and raised him and fights all sorts of futuristic mob organizations. He finds out later that he was a clone from a Russian super soldier from the Cold War, who will be a villain he faces and finds out who his surrogate mother is. How can I combine all these stories and MC's into one? Or just keep them separate stories?
It sounds like you can use each variation as a member of a trio of protagonists; you've got the cyber samurai, the human soldier and the lab hybrid. I like the idea that they are "discards" looking for revenge/redemption fighting against the evil mega-corporation that done them wrong.
One story; as I said, a trio of protagonists. Maybe they worked for Big Bad and were: 1) Tossed aside after they completed but are injured/damaged on their individual missions. 2) Since they're no longer mission capable, they're interned because they know too much. 3) As long as we have them anyway let's use them as lab rats. They meet in the corporate gulag, band together to escape and then... what? Cyber Samurai is a soldier/assassin specializing in hard-to-reach targets - poisons and other exotics in addition to weapons and sabotage. Hugh Man is more the intelligence/espionage side of things; he can ferret out secrets and compromise people, dabbles in murder as well. Lab Rat hasn't turned out as Big Bad expected - or so they think; it just takes longer for his abilities to manifest. They start appearing in prison, which gives them the edge on their escape attempt. You can run parallel stories until they meet. - OR - You can start with them meeting in confinement and relating their stories to each other. With soldiers it usually starts with, "How did you get that scar?" Flashbacks ensue. The similarities in how they got screwed over and what's being done to them becomes their bond. It's their combined skill sets that win out in the end, even if not all of them survive. You need more than a "mega" organization as the antagonist. Pick a fairly important person in Big Bad and give him/her a staff plus a few unsavory henchmen/women to do the dirty work. It helps your world building, and writing bad guys is a lot of fun. Maybe the trio can pick off M. Important's lackeys one by one; some are killed by Samurai Assassin, some compromised by Hugh Man, and others "abilitied" by Lab Rat. Just my two ducats. Peace, Bob
This works great, thanks! They would make a good trio, standing against those who wronged them from the Big Bad Corp. I like each of their own unique specialties as well. But there's one more thing, I had these other characters, a female who didn't know she was an enhanced clone that was accidentally switched with her real counter parts family, a female cyborg who didn't know she was a cyborg her entire life, an enhanced female soldier/officer agent that was reawakend into this future to chase a criminal who's also from the past and was reawakened as well. And last but not least, a guy who was genetically altered with animal genes that his parents and doctor put him through geiwing upand then he escapes when older. Is there a way I can add these four characters to the trio?
You can make them additional "soldiers" for the Trio. Your first two - enhanced clone and cyborg - should probably be combined into one character. Enhanced clone is cyborged and switched with their doppelganger by Big Bad as an experiment. Cyberclone finds out the truth when the Trio breaks into their home during the escape/evasion, sensed by the abilities of Lab Rat. Maybe even the second pair could be combined - a guy who was genetically altered with animal genes becomes a soldier. Maybe he's a guard at the gulag and escapes with, or is held hostage by, the Trio.
