You know what might be interesting, now that I think about it? Two cultures of dragons, one thinking of beta males as male and one thinking of beta males as females... That would probably require more beta male characters than just Lieann though.

You're right about that. But that would probably put your plot to the ground. I mean, if it is about overcoming society's prejudices about homosexuality, and it turns out that it is only a PART of the society that dispises the homosexual beta males for BEING beta males, then its a fable about one part of the society overcoming the other part, and not just these four particular characters overcoming the rest. The odds aren't just the same.

As for the way you and I are creating the stories, yes, I thought it was still the goal of this thread aptly named "mind monolog experiment" or subtitled "tell us how you create stories". I know, by now, how you function, or at least can figure it out pretty well. You wouldn't be my top choice character for a story, though, because I have many difficulties wrapping my mind around yours. I like things to evolve naturally, organically one might say, from an origin that came out of nowhere in particular. But I can easily imagine THOUSANDS of other ways of imagining a story, that will NOT involve either YOUR way or MY way in any point. Maybe just by linking cool scenes that came to my mind. It may create some gaps and voids if they are action scenes, or sex scenes, and leave the backstory as uninteresting as in oh so many porn movies. But it IS a way of doing things. And Hollywood has started doing things that way, lately... (no name will be said...)

Then, since everything clearly can't be taken out of the premises, tell me about the evolution of the characters, step by step. Tell me where Ravennin is coming from and why his father is trying to take him down. Is it REALLY because he is afraid of him? Isn't there a more hidden and strange reason? What about Merru? Being nose-blind won't put him in strange situations, such as trying to bluff his way into or out of something, while the rest of the dragons will KNOW how he feels, and he won't know a thing about them? Won't he feel incredibly lost for such a defect in him? What are teh obvious reactions of dragons to nose-blind dragons? Are they being looked from above? Are they simply ignored? Dispised as a homosexual? more? less?

What about the weakling, attranath? what will be his social position? Who are his relatives? What kind of relations does he have with them? And where is Lieann coming from? What is his social background? his relations? his behavior in such and such company? How does he feel about his being superiorly intelligent?

Quote: Original post by Fournicolas
if it is about overcoming society's prejudices about homosexuality, and it turns out that it is only a PART of the society that dispises the homosexual beta males for BEING beta males, then its a fable about one part of the society overcoming the other part, and not just these four particular characters overcoming the rest.

Oh, good thing you pointed that out! I better not do that then, because I definitely want it to be a fable about how the 4 individuals united their diverse talents in the search for their own happiness and ended up changing their society for the better.

Quote: Then, since everything clearly can't be taken out of the premises, tell me about the evolution of the characters, step by step. Tell me where Ravennin is coming from and why his father is trying to take him down. Is it REALLY because he is afraid of him? Isn't there a more hidden and strange reason? What about Merru? Being nose-blind won't put him in strange situations, such as trying to bluff his way into or out of something, while the rest of the dragons will KNOW how he feels, and he won't know a thing about them? Won't he feel incredibly lost for such a defect in him? What are teh obvious reactions of dragons to nose-blind dragons? Are they being looked from above? Are they simply ignored? Dispised as a homosexual? more? less?

What about the weakling, attranath? what will be his social position? Who are his relatives? What kind of relations does he have with them? And where is Lieann coming from? What is his social background? his relations? his behavior in such and such company? How does he feel about his being superiorly intelligent?

Hmm, this is the part where I haven't decided everything yet... Oh, I know, I can show you my character changes chart! :) This chart shows what the character's identity/role is at 8 points, 2 before the story starts, and 2 for each of the three acts. Character Change Chart

So, those are the essential steps in the characters' evolution - the rest is mostly negotiable details. Ravennin's father (who might work equally well as a several-years-older-brother) is truly afraid of Ravennin - at first he is afraid that Ravennin will embarrass him and put him at a political disadvantage, then later as Ravennin matures he is afraid that Ravennin might depose him as Dominion or even kill him in a fight - he thinks Ravennin might snap and go crazy. He acts contemptuous to politically distance himself from Ravennin and hide his fear of Ravennin.

Being noseblind is uncommon among dragons. It mostly makes Merru seem slightly cold and calculating, compared to scent-sensitive alpha males who are seen as more impulsive and passionate. Not reacting to their scent might make a lover doubt the sincerity and strength of Merru's attraction. It's not a major issue though.

then, if I may...

FILL IN THOSE GAPS POST HASTE!!!!!

I mean, you are writing a story about the reactions of people you know close to nothing about??!! How can you do that? Isn't there a minimum of the story that will rely heavily on their personal story and on their attitude towards the rest of the world, which is to be explazined by their own personal story?

As I see it, there are two different categories of character details which serve two totally different functions. The important ones are the structural ones - mainly, what personality the character has. The unimportant ones are everything that you could change and still have an audience recognize the character. Consider the example of an episodic TV series. A character in a comedy series might have a new profession every episode, but they are identifiable as a character because they have the same personality and mannerisms (yes name and appearance too, but you could have a character with the same name and appearance but change their personality, and your audience would say, "Something's wrong! This isn't the same character X!"

So, the way I can write about these characters without knowing everything about them is that I know the essential things about them - their names, appearances, and attitude/patterns of reactions. What backstory I make up to explain the existence of these should depend on what best supports the plot, the same as I was just saying about worldbuilding. Which makes sense, character details could be considered worldbuilding details.

From my perspective, as long as you understand my thematic goals and the essentials of my characters and their relationships, the next thing that we should work on is either the magic system, because it's a major element of the worldbuilding rather than a detail, or the plot because all the other details that are currently undecided depend on what I do with the plot.

Well, I gave you an option, if I remember correctly, about the magic system. It was going to be something along the kabbalistic system, which give sthe true name of things, and potentially writes it somewhere to make it happen. Do you remember the story of Praha's golem? This is the same thing.

Basically, as I understand it, this system allows for EVERYTHING that once existed, even in legends, to come into being, because its real name is known. Possibly the real name originates in an old draconic language... Which would explain why it takes so long personal studies to be able to understand any part of a treatise, or any part of a spell. And why Merru is able to alter the effect of it, simply by coining new words. Maybe this is the very important point in Dragon society: nothing new EVER happens, they just recycle old ideas.

And when the Betas have appeared, they weren't prepared to deal with them, because nothing equivalent had ever occured. They knew of homosexuality, because it existed previously, and was something you COULD witness before, even if it wasn't accepted. But Betas were an entirely new ball of wax, and they couldn't handle it in any other way than by either totally ignoring it (which they probably did for a while, until it became obvious they were just too numerous) or by trying to remove them entirely form the picture, by preventing them to reproduce, or to have any sexuality at all. Maybe there is something about Betas which allows them to have babies even though they aren't females? Maybe they ar emore apt to (pro)creation through the magic way? Only they wouldn't know because no one would ever try, because it had never been done before? Too many traditions leave a heavy burden... Maybe this could be a sort of motto in your story? "It can't be done, it has never been done before..." memory sort of replacing inventivity. And Merru, having so little knowledge of dragons' history, and so much inventivity would blow the bubble, because he wouldn't know what can and can't be done? Or more accurately what has and hasn't been done? Maybe he has a personal grudge, as a human being, against traditions and stupid behavior? Maybe this you should know?

As for the magic, I just guess that once you know enough of it, and enough of old draconic language, you can just coin anything, as long as you describe the true shape and goal of it? Which would leave an open door for explaining how life came into being through the group dynamic, for it originated in love?

Apologies, I haven't been able to access this forum for 2 days because the cookies on my computer were screwed up and I didn't realize this, thought the site was still down...

Here's what I was trying to post 2 days ago:

Well, the idea of true names just doesn't catch my imagination. The type of magic I like best is the kind based on willpower and visualization, maybe because that kind is the most similar to dreaming and wishing subconscious desires into existence. I also like sympathetic magic, e.g. where you make a stone egg and do some rituals with it as a charm to encourage conceiving a real egg. And I like biological magic, where you have people who have genetic special abilities, like being a shapeshifter or being psychic.

I do not like any kind of magic that requires the user to study and be real precise with incantations or ingredients of a ritual, because I think the ritual actions are just there to focus the person's mind, the physical details of them have nothing to do with the magic. And since I don't like the idea of gods the dragons' mythology doesn't have the concept of prayer - magic is more like... cooking, maybe. Rituals are like recipes passed down from your parents, but it's normal to substitute ingredients and mix-and-match ritual elements to try to accomplish whatever magical purpose you have in mind; the idea is that the ingredients have sympathy with the universe, so doing a ritual with the ingredients can cause the universe to change sympathetically.

For the magic about creating an egg, I was thinking, the culture already has this tradition of using little white stone eggs as fertility charm jewelry, maybe the nesting room creating ritual could use a lifesize stone egg which Attranath could accidentally transform into a real egg. Although, that would raise the question, if this is a real egg, why is Merru a construct instead of a real dragon...

See this thread in the lounge where I describe the metaphysics system I have been working on.

It in fact raises ANOTHER question, which is: What kind of sympathetic ritual can you perform to create a construcvt that will host a HUMAN soul, if both races completely ignore each others? Perform it with something like a dreamcatcher? I think it would be a little far-fetched...

But, on the other hand, if you prefer something more "real-time" and inventive, I can't think of anything better...

So maybe Merru, being unable to understand why the egg charm he has to get has to be in stone, gets a real egg instead, and that is the reason why the spell turns the egg charm into a real live egg, instead of transforming it into a safe chamber or something? Would that be too far fetched as an explanation? Maybe you could explain that, originally, the reproduction would happen this way, and only through the mixing of animal genes in their own, the dragons have discovered genres and sexuality, and that the safe chamber ritual was really the result of an experiment with a fake egg? It could explain quite a lot, without explaining everything, and leaving some ground for future development? Like maybe some other ritual you will evoke in your story could also be the result of a modification of the original one?

Ooh, inspiration!!! The reason dragons are having increasing problems with infertility is that their species in in a transitionary phase, trying to evolve to having accidental pregnancy be impossible, instead conception always has to be a deliberate choice!