Young Writers Society

[The World] is in chaos. Entire continents, once filled with life, have become nothing more than barren hunks of tainted soil and rock. Life can no longer thrive in those lands, because of what man has done. The discovery of nuclear power, and the sins of greed and envy had caused this blankness on the face of the planet. Only one uncontaminated continent of four equal-sized countries survived.

Yet man doesn't know when to stop. The North and the East had begun to dispute over land. Three years later, it becomes war.

Is it really man who is trying to control this new war? Or is it something else, a higher being... a Darkling, or so [The Gods] call them, demons.

Human beings were created by [The Gods] as lower beings, with a choice in their life. Man was given the option to live in the Divine or in the Dark. Human life was to bring balance and intellect into the world, to enhance it, and discover it. In [The Gods'] eyes, this form of life was their greatest creation, and should be given time to make up for their mistakes, and walk which ever path they might choose.

[The Antagonist] used to be an ally of the Divine, but his opinions of man were different, and he left, hoping he could fix the [Higher One's] mistake. He did this by killing off humans, by controlling them into creating almost "pointless" wars, in the [Metal Armor] ages. He wasn't only trying to rid the world of man, but perfect it. Man domesticated animals, and those animals were slaughtered at his hands.

[The Gods] were beginning to tense up over the traitor. They needed to stop him before all human intellect was lost. They were going to get rid of him, and the best way to kill off a demon was to slowly weaken them, until their body could no longer endure a heartbeat. They found him, and casted a curse, causing [The Antagonist's] body to slowly burn from the inside.

[The Antagonist] had backup. He had found out how to transfer his soul form to another physical form, in this case he would go from [An Animal] form to the form of a human-figure. Without the awareness of [The Gods] he used the body of a young man, a prince, and hid in disguise for centuries.

He got followers, and with them, he formed an empire in the Darkling world.

Years later, his heiress was born. The mother died shortly after her daughter's birth.

His daughter, however, was not like him. When old enough the gain some intelligence, she knew what he was doing was all wrong. [The Protagonist] spoke her mind to her father several times. Each time she spoke to him, she threatened him, and it worried him, even as powerful as he was. [The Protagonist] would grow up to the power her father had, and could over throw him with her bare hands.

At the age of five [The Protagonist] was had died at her father's hand, but was soon to be brought back to life by the [Second Rank] of [The God's] and was raised in the Divine until the age of fourteen, she was one of the four [Guardians of Humanity].

During those nine years [The Protagonist] was thought to be dead, [The Antagonist] was remaining quiet, knowing [The Gods] had gotten suspicious again. When [The Protagonist] returns to the physical world, her father makes another move in order to save his life and accomplish his duty. [The Antagonist] doesn't only want to get rid of his daughter, but he wants her power, he wants to draw her over to his side, to fight for him, but [The Protagonist] always refuses.

[The Protagonist] works alongside two comrades, they are a team of three out of the four [Guardians of Humanity]. The countries are never at peace because of [The Antagonist] and they must protect both the people and bring an end to the killer in the shadows. Become victorious, or die in the attempt.

Bickazer wrote:I'm going to be frank and say...

I was a bit confused what with the lack of names; I can only hope that the names you have picked are reasonable and aren't Paolinesque keyboard-bangings like K'zzkue's or Aralalelalelaleala or something like that. I think my main beef with the fantasy genre is how ridiculous the names can get. So do try to keep your names reasonable, okay? (though how can I say this without even knowing the names...)

1) The nuclear war? Seriously? Surely you can think of a much better reason for humanity's degeneration than...this. Yes, it's a serious problem but it's been so overdone that...and wait a second, is this actually set on Earth as we know it? *confused* (maybe I'm just a bad reader though)

2) The Divine and the Dark. Yeah, I don't get it. You might want to elaborate because it doesn't make much sense to me.

3) The mother dies in childbirth? Again, think about how overused that plot point is. And also, is there a reason for it beyond getting the mother out of the picture? Again, this is just my personal taste, but I don't like stories that get rid of parents for the sole sake of not having the parents hinder their children's adventures. I like stories that portray strong family relationships, and it'd certainly be different for a fantasy story to develop strong family relationships as well.

4) Your villain seems like a rather stereotypical megolomaniac at the moment. Work on making him more unique.

The plot seems very typical at the moment, so you need to do something to make it more original.

Divine is the holy, the "good." Dark is the damned, the "evil."
That's what most fantasy, as well as religion, is based off of, good and evil.
Fantasy without that struggle is distasteful.

The idea of parents isn't supposed to play a big role, as well as the main character is close to adulthood. Her mother was there only to bare her, so her father had an heir to hold his place if anything happened to him. Her parents were unmarried. I don't tell this in the story, I leave this to be figured out on one's own, but her father is homosexual, and it's likely the mother would be killed afterwards because she was useless to him.

He also envy's the divine and the power it has over him. He used to be high ranked in the divine, but he lagged in his efforts at his position and was demoted and his place was stolen by a newer god. He wanted the rank back, so he worked at it again, then he was dumped out of the force (for reasons I best work out a little better.)

Yet it is still a modern-based fantasy, meaning the time it is based in is equivalent to ours. Man in [Their World] has gained intelligence like man on Earth, they have cites, vehicles, schools, and various technology (mentioned with the nukes.)

Bickazer wrote:There's also chaos vs. order, which doesn't always have to be chaos=bad and order=good (consider Star Wars: Chaotic good vs. lawful evil. Actually, looking back this is the kind of conflict I use in every one of my [fizzled-out] epic projects. Yikes).

(though I hope you're not trying to imply that gay = evil). See, it's details like this that make a story unique.

Gods being demoted? Perchance, does your society of gods work kind of like a hierarchal bureaucracy? (if that's the case I need to go back and change the plot of my epic project...cough). But I do like the idea of higher beings organized as a bureaucracy, and the idea that gods can be demoted and promoted from their stations.

Hmm, you didn't mention much about this in the original summary...I was kind of under the impresson that the world was in a primitive post-apocalyptic state.

I suppose it's hard to judge an entire story plot based on a basic summary. Your story might have an archetypical fantasy structure, but it's what you do with that structure that makes in unique. So far, your details--the gay father, the promotion-and-demotion of gods--seem to be fascinating and unique. So I'm not really qualified to judge at this stage...

He also envy's the divine and the power it has over him. He used to be high ranked in the divine, but he lagged in his efforts at his position and was demoted and his place was stolen by a newer god. He wanted the rank back, so he worked at it again, then he was dumped out of the force (for reasons I best work out a little better.)

ButterFlyInk wrote:

He also envy's the divine and the power it has over him. He used to be high ranked in the divine, but he lagged in his efforts at his position and was demoted and his place was stolen by a newer god. He wanted the rank back, so he worked at it again, then he was dumped out of the force (for reasons I best work out a little better.)

Sounds a little like Lucifer the angel of music from the bible, and how God sent him to hell because he wanted to be God himself, hence him becoming the fallen angel and given the title of the devil. (no i'm not religious, my mother is and i have heard this over and over again )

To be honest I'm soooo not a fantasy reader but so far your plot sounds good (even though you need to work out some stuff, that was already said by Bickazer)
[ i can't stress enough on how you have to make sure you aren't emplying that gay people are evil, and you have to make sure your not using the homosexuality out of context (if that makes sense)]

Good luck and happy writing =]
B