Young Writers Society

This might sound awkward but trust me, it's better (and more complicated) than what I wrote here. I just put it in simple words to make it easier to explain. My question is about how Mother Nature could take revenge on a group of inhabitants.

The plot:
We have about 250 druids, divided among 5 groups of 50. Each group controls their own element (fire/water/wind/earth/energy). There is some rivalry between the groups and the 4 main elements want to kill the 5th group for several reasons. This 5th group gets tricked into going to a specific location (still to be defined) and find themselves surrounded by all the other druids. At that place the entire 5th group gets murdered.

Mother Nature condemns this death because someone's life should never be taken by the hand of magic. As their blood seeps into the soil she unleashes her wrath upon the 200 druids. This wrath ends with 3 days of rain which symbolizes Nature's grief for the loss of lives. 99% of the druids present at that location will be killed, only 7 will survive.

My Question:
The question I now have is "How are they killed?" I took some references from real natural disasters and placed the druids near the sea where a tsunami would hit them. Or I placed them inside a mountain which crumbles during an earthquake. But the thing is it's never complete, or if I may call it, "spectacular" enough. Mother Nature should use all the 4 elements (Air/debris, Fire/lightning, Water/ice, Earth/nature) to strike down onto the druids. She's furious. I should add that a volcanic eruption is impossible since this planet doesn't have a magma core like our Earth. ^^

Is there anyone with an imagination like mine, who could help me with this? It's been bugging me for a year now.

Often in something like this you'll get the spectacular feeling if you go down the violent or shocking route, but it's very important you do this well. Now instead of thinking so naturally - i.e. tsunamis or falling mountain rocks etc, why not give Mother Nature a true hand in the killings?

For example the druids killed by earth could walk along a land filled with tree stubs and when they're all on the land the tree stubs don't just come alive but grow ferociously through the druids limbs and rise up into their insides before widening out and literally imploding the druids? Sounds horrific no? Also sounds like Mother Nature's pretty angry... Spirals of water could fly out of the seas like big snakes and choke the druids rather than drown them... Fire could turn into the figure of Mother Nature's hand herself as she picks them up and squeezes them, burning them in her palms... and the air could vault the druids high into the air and leave them to fall to their deaths.

Just an idea - bit gruesome. Sorry.

If you don't mind combos, something like earthquake opening natural gas leaks > sudden lightning storm coming to spark explosions > subsequent rainfall to cause flooding and/or heavy mud slides to bury the survivors might do the job?

Just a sudden idea--- rain that's poisonous or toxic in someway would easily kill 200 people. So could a hail storm.

Besides that, rain floods. Floods kill. Rain erodes ground. Rainstorms=lighting. Tsunamis are more of earthquakes, really, but a hurricane....

But I see you want all four elements used...

Wind is tornadoes, basically. Unless you did a cold front or something, that could cause problems.

Fire... well, there's valcanoes and meteor showers

Earth--- this one should be easy, earthquakes and what-nots....

So, it seems to me that your real problem is an overabundance of ideas, rather than a lack of it. My advice? Write the thing. If you don't like it write it again, and again...

I liked Ben Franks suggestion, make it more supernatural than natural. Water serpents sound awesome, walking earth giants and vines that pierce through anything sound cool too.

Mainly though, I assume since it's raining for three days, the most detremental force is going to be the rain. ;P

BenFranks wrote:For example the druids killed by earth could walk along a land filled with tree stubs and when they're all on the land the tree stubs don't just come alive but grow ferociously through the druids limbs and rise up into their insides before widening out and literally imploding the druids?

Reminds of of Japanese tentacle...(ugh). Maybe I should mention that the main characters are 12-14yo, so it won't be an 18+ story. I like the forest part though, it sets a nice scene and offers many options. I never thought about that but it might just become the place that I've been looking for.

EloquentDragon wrote:So, it seems to me that your real problem is an overabundance of ideas, rather than a lack of it. My advice? Write the thing. If you don't like it write it again, and again...

Trust me, I wrote various pieces but I get stuck at the "spectacular" part where almost everyone dies.

The supernatural part would fit pretty well, considering that the story already involves parts of magic. Trees and vines can easily form a barrier, can be set on fire, can create poison, or can slowly freeze which is an indication that something bad is happening. Something like the devil's snare from Harry Potter and the Phil.Stone.

Thank you for these suggestions. I'll brainstorm abut the forest part, but other suggestions are also still welcome. I'm so glad I found this forum.

Vines killing people doesn't have to be graphic... don't describe in detail. (Maybe they choke them instead?)

In fact, why do you have to describe any of this in detail? It seems to me that you're tyring to make this "incredible" but unless it directly involves the main characters---- the reader could care less. Why not go over this in a very broad manner, not focusing on detailed description/actions of dying characters. (Afterall, they're going to die anyways so why take up page space?)

EloquentDragon wrote:Vines killing people doesn't have to be graphic... don't describe in detail. (Maybe they choke them instead?)

In fact, why do you have to describe any of this in detail? It seems to me that you're tyring to make this "incredible" but unless it directly involves the main characters---- the reader could care less. Why not go over this in a very broad manner, not focusing on detailed description/actions of dying characters. (Afterall, they're going to die anyways so why take up page space?)

I don't mean to put every single detail on paper. Nature has no voice so her actions need to tell her story, and this message needs to be very clear because what happens there and then will determine the environment which the main characters live in. One where everyone has respect for nature and it's (magical) wonders.