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Story feedback

Started by May 25, 2019 05:07 PM
5 comments, last by CaptainVG 5 years, 1 month ago

Ok. I have a rough draft here that just explains the summary. I'm not a writer and I do not claim that I know everything better. But I thought of this idea and for once in my life, I have some faith in the concept and I would like to write and finish my creativity of the idea and maybe someday make it into a reality. If there is lack of depth, I plan to let someone in mind develop the characters further while still keeping the concept intact for as much as possible.

I would just like opinions from you all of what do you think of the concept and the plotholes and questions that it leads to. I have just written the summary of the chapter and what the main objective is for the chapter. If you have a better format in mind, let me know so I can improve.

 

1. Prologue

Summary: This is the beginning of the story which introduces the origins of the three gods, Jemmeous, Bruce Young and Kares.

The Sky Realm is a world where only gods live. People have worshipped them for generations as they are responsible for answering people’s prayers and giving them blessings for their happiness and wellbeing.

However, there are some of them who are either selfish or are not interested in people and are since then being forgotten. The council of the gods has yet to respond on what fate holds for these forgotten gods…

 In the present day at the Sky Realm, Jemmeous and Bruce were fighting in the arena. While fighting, Jemmeous constantly teases Bruce who got furious and ran towards him only to end up getting kicked back by Jemmeous winning the match as well as earning the Olympus trophy.

On their way out of the arena, Jemmeous cheers Bruce up insisting to even let Bruce take the trophy as he considers it just an empty cup to which, Bruce denies. The two decide to find out what Kares is upto as they head to his lab. While Jemmeous is amazed by the inventions done by Kares, Bruce mocks at them for being rather useless in the realm.

They encounter Kares who was busy inventing a device that has the ability to teleport to places without the need of electricity. As it was tested, it works as expected. Bruce mocks at the concept stating that it is practically useless in the realm, to which Kares sadly admits the fact.

Jemmeous however cheers him up saying that it may help gods who are injured and cannot either fly or move which makes Kares smile. The three go outside and develop conversations about how life on Earth must be. Jemmeous deeply wishes that he can one day live on Earth much to Kares and Bruce’s shock. Bruce becomes furious with the statement as he wants to settle with Jemmeous on who is best in the arena once and for all to which he replies that he can’t wait for that to happen.

Kares states that he is curious on how life on Earth must be considering that the world around Earth is vastly different than that of the Sky Realm but has no intention of settling life on Earth unlike Jemmeous.

Meanwhile in the council, a silhouette person looks at the three from the outside. Jemiah asks if he is to send the three in the council to which the shadowed man replies yes.

The next day, the three are given a message to attend to the council. They are ordered by Xander to enter the black portal outside of the coliseum as there appears to be someone stuck at the portal.

When the three enter the portal, they get sucked right into a dimension. As they look around, they observe water which Karel says that it only exists on Earth. Bruce looked for the portal but it suddenly disappeared. Both Bruce and Karel panicked but Jemmeous on the other hand screamed with joy.

Suddenly humans began to watch them and the three realized that they look terrifying due to their looks being deceiving and so they left to find a church. Kares manages to find the church and so the three enter it only to find an old man in there alongside a young woman. Both of them were terrified with Brian holding the crucifix in fear that the gods could harm them but Jemmeous calmed them down by simply ordering Brian to chant the mantra that Kares has written down while Bruce draws the Wicca.

After Brian and his assistant chanted the words as ordered, Jemiah is summoned. Bruce demands to know of why they were over here as they didn’t find anyone stuck in the portal. Jemiah replies by saying that they are banished from the Sky realm and are to remain in Earth for the next 15 years after which they are forgotten. When asked of what he meant by this, he answered that they will be wiped out of existence which to the three of them sounded more like facing death.

Jemiah further states that to prevent them from being forgotten, they have to perform any one of the two choices.

1. Helping the people in exchange for them to value the god’s existence so they can by a miracle return to the realm.

2. Becoming a mortal by marrying a mortal who can provide everlasting love to the god and the god in turn must do the same.

Before Jemiah leaves, Jemmeous cleverly manages to say that these options are impossible to meet unless they get certain conditions granted otherwise they can file a complaint to the council since this is an experiment and that they can make it go public to the realm. Jemiah reluctantly agrees.

The conditions that Kares has asked for are as follows

1. They must look exactly like humans and have the ability to understand the human world while keeping their powers intact which has been granted except for Bruce who is still big in size.

2. They need all of Bruce’s treasure that he has obtained in all the 10 million years of his life which has been granted.

3. They cannot be killed by legendary weapons that were built to kill gods. While this cannot be granted, they are granted the ability to sense such weapons even in far off places which can be granted.

Before Jemiah leaves, he warns them that humans or other creatures that have life and move cannot be killed otherwise, they will be completely erased and forgotten and disappears. The first thing that Jemmeous suggests is to change their names inorder for the humans to accept them. Jemmeous refers himself as Jimmy, Bruce Young is remained as Bruce and Kares is named as Karel.

Jimmy then says that they first should head to high school as means of not just an activity but also as means of their first spot to find their true love. Kares asks Jimmy as to what they plan to do for residence.

Brian interrupts and says that they can stay here in the church for as long as they want. The gang(except Bruce) thanks Brian for his kindness.

The next day, the gang enter the Orchard High School and because of how well they did in the entrance exams, they are in the 12th grade of high school meaning that they remain to stay there for the next one year.

This ends the prologue.

The objectives that the player must complete in the Prologue:

1. Defeat Bruce at the arena. This introduces the battle combat system.

2. Meet Kares from his lab. This teaches the basic movement of the game.

3. Enter the council.

4. Enter the portal.

Optional things that can be done:

1. Talk to various NPCs from the realm if interested.

 

1.Sky Realm is too cliché 

2. Bruce Young is very weird name for god

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I agree with henri45. There are a lot of good things in this story but I realize that the negative comments will have more weight. But at any rate I'll list the things I like and the things I am not convinced by:

Things I like

  • I like how the three gods have three personalities
  • I like how their choice to enter the portal forces them to a sacrifice point
  • I like how you synthesized the story into game-play points. That is a helpful design strategy.
  • Good choice to have a weapon that can kill them otherwise where will the difficulty come from?

Things I am not convinced by

  • The symbolism. So when you go to make a game about gods you are nowhere near the first person to write a story about gods. And because of that there is a long history of symbolism that stretches back for thousands of years. This is good and bad. The good part is you can use a lot of info for inspiration. That bad part is it becomes easy to mix you metaphors and when you do it kills story momentum.
  • The gods in this story as it is currently written would be more relatable if they were just humans with skills like brothers or just friends. This couples with what I was saying before there isn't enough ethos given to the characters to justify their titles as gods. But there is enough to make a story about a group of friends.
  • The sacrifice point as I said above was a good idea. But the options need to be fleshed out. What does everlasting love mean? Do they still get to be immortal on earth? Are their wives immortal as well? It sounds like they loose their immortality ? But maybe just phrase it better?
  • Going to high school? Again this would make more sense for a group of friends with supernatural skillz but a group of gods? Idk I kinda would just picture them as being older like Thor or Loki.

These are my thoughts as reading this. I am not trying to be mean but helpful to show you what I thought worked and could use work. Good luck on your writing!

15 hours ago, thepigeonfighter said:

I agree with henri45. There are a lot of good things in this story but I realize that the negative comments will have more weight. But at any rate I'll list the things I like and the things I am not convinced by:

Things I like

  • I like how the three gods have three personalities
  • I like how their choice to enter the portal forces them to a sacrifice point
  • I like how you synthesized the story into game-play points. That is a helpful design strategy.
  • Good choice to have a weapon that can kill them otherwise where will the difficulty come from?

Things I am not convinced by

  • The symbolism. So when you go to make a game about gods you are nowhere near the first person to write a story about gods. And because of that there is a long history of symbolism that stretches back for thousands of years. This is good and bad. The good part is you can use a lot of info for inspiration. That bad part is it becomes easy to mix you metaphors and when you do it kills story momentum.
  • The gods in this story as it is currently written would be more relatable if they were just humans with skills like brothers or just friends. This couples with what I was saying before there isn't enough ethos given to the characters to justify their titles as gods. But there is enough to make a story about a group of friends.
  • The sacrifice point as I said above was a good idea. But the options need to be fleshed out. What does everlasting love mean? Do they still get to be immortal on earth? Are their wives immortal as well? It sounds like they loose their immortality ? But maybe just phrase it better?
  • Going to high school? Again this would make more sense for a group of friends with supernatural skillz but a group of gods? Idk I kinda would just picture them as being older like Thor or Loki.

These are my thoughts as reading this. I am not trying to be mean but helpful to show you what I thought worked and could use work. Good luck on your writing!

Thank you for your feedback. I am right now changing chapter 1 and am now making it so that the gods become humans but have memory loss as to how they became human and since they live on Earth for so long, they decide whether they want to go back to being gods or stay as mortals.

Furthermore, while they cannot be harmed easily, they cannot use their super powers unless they receive prayers from followers or those who believe in them.

I believe this should make them more relatable.

 

 

"The Sky Realm is a world where only gods live. People have worshipped them for generations as they are responsible for answering people’s prayers and giving them blessings for their happiness and wellbeing."
This description of blessings and happiness sounds too pacifist for warmongering polytheism. Spice it up with ritualistic sacrifice or something more unique with a divine metaphor.

"the Olympus trophy"
Avoid direct references to anything outside of your fantasy realm. This has a huge affect on the theme and is the most difficult part on writing pure fantasy without a basis in alternative history to explain the language's origin. Words like "thug" from Hindi's "thuggee" would be okay thou, because that kind of word could appear from a translation of a similar word.

"teleport to places without the need of electricity"
This breaks the timeless feeling by using modern words. Using words like "portals" and "energy" would be okay for ancient fantasy, as if they always had the technology before us.

"the Orchard High School"
High School is a modern American concept.

"they get sucked right into a dimension"
A dimension is a vector along time/space in which one travels, an approximation of direction from temporal/spatial connectivity in a relatively coherent time-space fabric. You can say "another realm" or simply avoid using words for it in the final prose.

I'm used to critique whole novels for aspiring authors, so just pick something that sounds interesting to start with.
* Motivations allow the reader to relate with a character by knowing that they would do the same in their situation. Find all your actions and figure out the "why". If you can't find a motivation, skip the action.
* You need to test the prose of your characters because that's the main content of the final script. Just a short example dialogue will give a sense of how they speak, where they are from and who they are. Note that prose for the opposite sex is difficult even for professional authors.
* Standard three-arc stories has a low-point before they struggle up to success, but there's also riches-to-rags and other styles. Being completely flat without progress will not evoke any emotion, but might work for a grinding arcade game. Rags-to-riches is the story arc of RPGs by getting stronger. Being constantly at the bottom with contrast too much with game-play like in Max Payne 3.
* Get inside your characters heads and find out what drives the conflict. Everyone sees themselves as the good guy until they are forced to fight for survival. I'd start with the 16 personality types and then move into loyalty, empathy, sympathy, ethics and moral.
* It doesn't really feel like fantasy without at least one ethical dilemma that would never happen in our world. The choices here feels like picking a mystery box at a lottery show instead of having something to reason about.
* You need to read more about old myths and religions to get inspiration directly from the source without worn out popular concepts. Athena is probably the most worn out concept right now and there are many ancient countries with equally interesting folklore to use for inspiration or base on directly.

On 10/15/2019 at 3:57 PM, Dawoodoz said:

"The Sky Realm is a world where only gods live. People have worshipped them for generations as they are responsible for answering people’s prayers and giving them blessings for their happiness and wellbeing."
This description of blessings and happiness sounds too pacifist for warmongering polytheism. Spice it up with ritualistic sacrifice or something more unique with a divine metaphor.

"the Olympus trophy"
Avoid direct references to anything outside of your fantasy realm. This has a huge affect on the theme and is the most difficult part on writing pure fantasy without a basis in alternative history to explain the language's origin. Words like "thug" from Hindi's "thuggee" would be okay thou, because that kind of word could appear from a translation of a similar word.

"teleport to places without the need of electricity"
This breaks the timeless feeling by using modern words. Using words like "portals" and "energy" would be okay for ancient fantasy, as if they always had the technology before us.

"the Orchard High School"
High School is a modern American concept.

"they get sucked right into a dimension"
A dimension is a vector along time/space in which one travels, an approximation of direction from temporal/spatial connectivity in a relatively coherent time-space fabric. You can say "another realm" or simply avoid using words for it in the final prose.

I'm used to critique whole novels for aspiring authors, so just pick something that sounds interesting to start with.
* Motivations allow the reader to relate with a character by knowing that they would do the same in their situation. Find all your actions and figure out the "why". If you can't find a motivation, skip the action.
* You need to test the prose of your characters because that's the main content of the final script. Just a short example dialogue will give a sense of how they speak, where they are from and who they are. Note that prose for the opposite sex is difficult even for professional authors.
* Standard three-arc stories has a low-point before they struggle up to success, but there's also riches-to-rags and other styles. Being completely flat without progress will not evoke any emotion, but might work for a grinding arcade game. Rags-to-riches is the story arc of RPGs by getting stronger. Being constantly at the bottom with contrast too much with game-play like in Max Payne 3.
* Get inside your characters heads and find out what drives the conflict. Everyone sees themselves as the good guy until they are forced to fight for survival. I'd start with the 16 personality types and then move into loyalty, empathy, sympathy, ethics and moral.
* It doesn't really feel like fantasy without at least one ethical dilemma that would never happen in our world. The choices here feels like picking a mystery box at a lottery show instead of having something to reason about.
* You need to read more about old myths and religions to get inspiration directly from the source without worn out popular concepts. Athena is probably the most worn out concept right now and there are many ancient countries with equally interesting folklore to use for inspiration or base on directly.

Thank you for your feedback. Its complicated because this is not really a novel or anything that I'm trying to do. At best, it will just be a webcomic.

 

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