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Can I ask advice here? 'Cause I need it bad.



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Fri Mar 23, 2007 6:37 pm
Twit says...



Hi, all.

This might be just because I'm listening to the 1812 Overture right now, but I'm being just the teensiest-weensiet bit desperate/dramatic/unthinking.

Is this the place where I can get hints and stuff on my ideas for my novels and all? Or is that at some other place?

Because if it is, I'd like to hyperventilate, please.

-ShadowTwit
"TV makes sense. It has logic, structure, rules, and likeable leading men. In life, we have this."


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Fri Mar 23, 2007 6:40 pm
Emerson says...



You can get ideas for your novels and things here, yes. We can help you with your ideas, and develop them. Though, this isn't the exact forum for it :-D

Moved to Writing Tips
β€œIt's necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.”
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Fri Mar 23, 2007 9:11 pm
Twit says...



Thanks, Claudette. :D

Well, the thing is that I've had this idea for yonks, and I'd like public opinions on it. Please?

-

The first three chapters and prologue I've already posted on here, so if you've read them, you'll have got the beginning. This here is background info. In other words, a MEGA info-dump.

The Places

Kiona: Where the story takes place. Kiona is divided into five states, each ruled over by a governor: Parth, Brune, Daenon, Linon, and KionState. KionState is the capital state, where the royal family, the Kion family live in Kion Castle.

Sersura: Lies to the south of Kiona. This land has been at war with Kiona for several generations, but both sides have now agreed to peace.

Piraq: Lies to the north of Kiona. A very wild and mountainous land.

Aval-lon: Several hundred miles of the coast of Kiona, this island is famous for its orchards. It is sometimes called Aval-lon of the Apple Trees. This is where the Elves live, though some have settled in the above lands.

-

The People

Dara (The Raven): Main character. Female half elf; about thirteen years old. Used to live in THIS world; to be precise on the streets of London with her father and twin brother, Kester. Now a slave to the Queen of Kiona, Dara plays the part of dog/tumbler/fool to the Queen.

Charana Kion: Queen of Kiona. The Raven was a present on her last birthday. She miscarried numerous times before producing a healthy child, Prince True (the Dragon).

Valiad Kion: King of Kiona.

Prince True (the Dragon): The heir to the Kioni throne. Violently anti-half elven.

Those are the main characters.

-

The Half Elven and Pure Elven

The half elven are universally despised and abused. The children of the first human-elf matches were usually born mad or hideously deformed; this was able to be corrected, but by then, everyone had got used to the idea of all half elves being mad, bestial, etc. so the racism continued.
Terms used to describe the half elven are half-breed or hybrid. Both are derogatory.
A common and also offensive term for an elf is Sherla. This comes from the Elven word meaning "yellow", because a common eye-colour for Elves is golden. Another eye colour is black. Elves' skin is always a mixture of gold and brown, and their hair is either gold or black or a dark brown with golden tints at the ends.
Elves are very sensitive to the air, and love open spaces. They are claustrophobic, and hate being in close places where they cannot get out at will. Every Elf has limited control over the air; even if they can only properly control one element, they will always be able to manipulate the air to a certain extent.

Elves are very good at genetic engineering, and their feelings for the air are reflected in this. They managed to cross species of animals, and the results were, winged horses (ebren-each), unicorns (lew-each), bholain (ebren-cath), and numerous other winged creatures. Werewolves (den-blaith) are also an example. The Elves managed to cross wolves with men (don't ask me how, just accept it :wink: ) and there are two types of werewolves. The first is the type that stays as a man for all the time, and changes into a wolf at the full moon, and the other stays as a wolf and changes into a man at the full moon.

-

The Sense

Another Elven experiment. Sharks and duck-billed platypuses have an extra sense that enables them to feel the life around them, the energy of life itself, the movements of possible prey. The Elves took this sense and tried to incorporate it into willing human and elf volunteers. At first this failed; the human/elf fused with the sea creature (sharks were most commonly used) and became a half-fish, half-human; AKA, mer-people.
Eventually, the Elves succeeded, and Sensing elves and humans were born.
They found that for the Sense to work, the human/elf needed an animal base to connect to, so those with the Sense have to have an animal familiar, otherwise, they cannot use it. As the Sense was achieved by fiddling with genes and DNA and such, it became hereditary.
Sensing humans/elves look no different, except that they have a line of small dots on their skin running down one side of their body. These dots are like little sensors, and enable the person to pick up the motions from those around them. The Sense also allows a person to read another's thoughts; if another person has the Sense, they can tell if anyone is reading their thoughts. A non-Sensing person cannot feel this, and cannot communicate telepathically with anyone.

-

As the above is really VERY long, I'll won't put the plot up until those who are bothering to read this have recovered from being done to death by all this trivia. :) If you HAVE got this far, thank you very much for reading all the info above. :) Please give me your opinions as to how this is looking to turn out. I'd really appreciate it.

-ShadowTwit
"TV makes sense. It has logic, structure, rules, and likeable leading men. In life, we have this."


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Sat Mar 24, 2007 2:01 am
Goldenheart says...



AHA!

So THAT'S what I was reading! Is it titled 'Off the edge of the rainbow', your draft of this? If I'm wrong, please tell me, so that I can know that I've made a complete fool of myself.

I was wondering about that! I was thoroughly confused when I read the first bit of it! I had no idea if it was a dog or a human, because of the collar, etc. I liked it extremely!

You've planned your world out very well, with interesting details. The experiments will lead to interesting happenings, no? Ach! What possibilities! You've got a very good thing here.

Goldie
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Sat Mar 24, 2007 3:08 pm
Twit says...



Yes, Goldenheart, that's it! I decided to stop posting it up until I was sure that it was a good idea. I thought I could get some pointers for it on here. I'll put up the plot and everything so I can find out if that will work out all right. Then I'll write it up. :)

-ShadowTwit
"TV makes sense. It has logic, structure, rules, and likeable leading men. In life, we have this."


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Sat Mar 24, 2007 6:16 pm
Crysi says...



I think it's a very interesting idea, and I'd love to see you develop it! One thing I notice right away is that you express a lot of the emotions tied to elves, half-elves, and the Kion family. To me, that means this is going to have to really be character-driven in order to express everything you've said here. So character development is a must! Make sure you know your characters inside and out before you try to develop the plot; it will make things much easier in the long run.

I also really like the language you've created (I'm assuming it's original). Very nice touch, and almost a must if you're working with elves (thanks to Tolkien).

I noticed there are some parts where you just tell us to accept it. Well... it's always good to have an explanation, and good writers will always think about the reasons behind the circumstances instead of simply avoiding it. For instance, my characters can change into dragons. How did that race come to be? It took me a long time to realize I needed to figure that out, and an even longer time to do so. I now know the entire history of my characters' race, and that has actually helped me with the plot.

Keep working on it! It looks like you have a lot figured out, and I think that if you really work on your creation of this story, it will turn out fantastic. :)
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Sat Mar 24, 2007 8:05 pm
Twit says...



The Plot

Okay, this is basically what happens in Off The Edge Of The Rainbow.

Dara lives on the streets of London with her father and twin brother, Kester. They manage to work during the summer in various theatres, and so save enough money to stay in hostels and such in the winter.
One day, Dara finds the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, hence the title. It isn't a literal pot of gold, it's figurative, like a metaphor. A rainbow with eight colours (I'm not too sure about that part) appears in the sky, and the end of it touched down into the alley where Dara is poking about. And *da-da-da-da! Fanfare here!* from the end of the rainbow appears a bholain. You pronounce bholain as VOH-lane. The bholain is one of the Elven-modified creatures mentioned above, and it's like a silver-white cheetah with wings. It has a lion's tail, pale fawn spots, and long silky hair down the back of its legs, and its ears are tufted.

The bholain is a very young cub, and he bonds telepathically with Dara. BUT, he wasn't meant to. They can both feel that, and they cannot contact each other very well, or feel each other as well as they could if they had bonded properally. Dara has to show the bholain to her father and brother, and they agree that she can keep him, but her father feels that they should hand him over to specialists. Dara manages to persuade him not to, and they care for the bholain, keeping him hidden and feeding him. Dara's father seems fascinated by it, and names it Ta'aire. You pronounce that TAY-air. All is happy for a while, and Ta'aire grows very quickly.

There had to be another "but", didn't there?

BUT one night, while Dara's father is reading out loud to Kester and Dara, there's a scuffle at the other end of the alley. They look, and see two big wolf-like things there. They are like men but with wolf faces and covered in wolf hair. The wolf-things see Ta'aire and immediately run across to Dara and her family. They want to know where Ta'aire came from, but Dara's father (his name is Huw, by the way) will not tell. So they kill him. To be more specific, one wolf-things bites his throat out. They can tell that Dara is bonded to Ta'aire, so they ask her where he came from. She won't tell, so they kill Kester as well. Pleasant book this, isn't it? To try to get her to tell them, the wolf things cut Dara's face open (that's why she has that scar). Ta'aire manages to turn on the first wolf-thing and mauls it. This distracts them, and Dara breaks free. She runs away (duh) and Ta'aire runs after her. The wolf-things disappear into thin air, and Ta'aire is very disturbed by this. He makes Dara stop running, and tells her to hold onto him. Then he takes her out of this world and into another one, a fantasy one, which is his - Ta'aire's - world that he should have ended up in.

On the journey from one world to another, Dara, who is getting delirious from the poison on the wolf-things claws and teeth, sees a vision/dream/hallucination. She sees a woman holding a baby in her arms; the woman is crying and after holding the baby close, gives it to someone that Dara cannot see. Then the vision changes, and she sees another woman, also holding a child. This woman is not crying, but she looks as though she is goiong to do something which is heart-breaking for her. She puts her baby into someone's arms, then turns and walks away into mist.

When Dara wakes up, she can hear someone reading aloud in a language she does not know. She is in a strange bed in a strange house, and Ta'aire is sitting on the floor beside her bed. Then she meets Druth, who is the one doing the reading. You guessed it, he's an Elf, with short black hair and bright golden eyes. He has two undulating blue tatoo lines underneath his eyes, and his hands are covered in lines and curves of blue tatooing. He is also a seer. He tells Dara that she was found in woods above the village of Ludbury, which is where they are now. She was found by Druth, who brought her back to Lord Just's house, which is where he lives.
(NOTE: "Lord" or "Lady" is a title which has virtually no weight behind it. A Lord is not a pauper, but neither is he rich. It is the lowest of titles; Barons and Baronesses are the wealthy and influential.)
Having heard Dara's story, Lord Just takes her in as a companion for his son, Robin who is seven, and his daughter, Petkin, who is nineteen. He passes her off a distant relative to Druth; it would not be wise to publicise that she came from the normal world, as those in this fantasy world retain memories of being persecuted for being different by those in the normal world.
Druth teaches Dara about the history of this fantasy world. Long ago, elves, humans, and all different races lived together in harmony, and visits between worlds were not uncommon. BUT, this contact was diminished, and suspicions between races grew, until elves and those humans sympathetic with them moved permanently into this fantasy world. The last true medium between the worlds was a man named Myrddin, centuries ago. Since then, there was no way to move between worlds, except by way of Elven-modified animals. These animals have the ability to move at the speed of thought, and this takes them so fast that they can bridge the gap and cross from one world to another. That was how the werewolves that killed Dara's family got into London, and how Ta'aire got Dara out.

Druth also teaches Dara the Elven language, and how to control fire. Elemental power is the most common ability in Elves, and Dara can control fire and has limited control over the air. This helps her in her gymnastics, as she can help support herself in the air, and leap higher and more easily than before.
Dara is taught weapons, but is hopeless at sword-fighting or archery. She does, however, become an excellent horse-back rider, and rides Ta'aire in the skies when he grows big enough.

BUT...the king is raising massive taxes to pay off his debts from the Sersuarn Wars. The wars are over, and Kiona has agreed to a marriage alliance: the heir to the throne, Prince True (also called the Dragon) will marry the Shoran's daughter. The Shoran is the ruler of Sersura, and his daughter, Siaha, is called the Shoranling. Lord Just cannot pay the taxes, and after he is refused a money loan, Rhe Mawnsley comes to the house. Rhe Mawnsley is the one who collects the taxes - forcibly if need be. He intends to do so, but as Lord Just will not give in without a fight. Suprise, suprise, there IS a fight. All of Lord Just's household is killed, and so are all of Rhe Mawnsley's soldiers. Ta'aire kills Mawnsley, but is killed as well. Druth is killed as well, but Dara is knocked out, and so saved. She wakes up, and burns Just's home with her fire. Then she collapses outside in the front garden while the house burns itself into ruin.

When she awakes, it is to meet the slave-traders who knew that Mawnsley was there, and hoped to pick up any possible slaves. (It is a common practice to sell off a family member when one is in debt.) Instead they found Dara, and as hybrid slave was worth millions, they took her and sold her in the great slave market at Parth. Here she is brought by Governer Bard, and becomes his birthday present to the Queen, the Raven, dog and fool. Does NOTHING nice ever happen to this poor girl?

So that's all the background to the first few chapters. Now what happens next?

During her time at court, the Raven learns something important: the Dragon has two werewolves, called Cas and Serrys. You pronounce those names as CAZ, and ZAIR-iz. They mean Hate and Anger in Elvish. They spend most of their time as men, and change into wolves at the full moon. They are massive, seven feet tall, with no hair, and they have a dragon tatooed all over their faces. They have no memory of the time they spend as wolves. The Raven sees them once, as they roam abroad as wolves. Serrys meets a normal female wolf, and mates with her. The result is that the female wolf has one cub. When the female is killed by hunters, the Raven sneaks out and manages to find the cub. She bonds with it, and calls him Nightpad.

The Sersurans arrive, and the wedding takes place. The day before the wedding, Siaha asks the Queen why her son is called the Dragon. As the Raven is always at Charana's side, she hears this as well.
The Queen replies that so many years ago (I forget the exact number, five hundred or so) a Kion prince was living in the normal world. This was when they all lived together in the one world. This prince was bonded to a dragon, and for a time he thought he needed no wife or children. BUT, he saw a maiden once, Osiante of the Black Hair, and he fell in love with her. However, she was in an enemy country where the man dared not go. So, his dragon, instead of telling the man to snap out of it and find a girl that was closer, flew to the enemy country and brought the girl back. Then the man got married and lived happily ever after. And he was so grateful to his dragon that he changed his own name to The Dragon, and made a pact with his dragon, going deeper into the Sense-bond than it was wiser to go. He said that every ___ years, there would be a Kion prince called The Dragon, starting with his son, who he called The Son Of The Dragon, or in his own language, Draculea.

The wedding goes ahead all fine and dandy, but then people start falling ill from a disease that the Sersurans brought with them. The Kioni are susceptible to it, and many people die from it. The King is worried for Charana, as she is expecting a child soon. Charana has miscarried numerous times, so there is even more danger. It is the Raven, however, not the Queen, that catches the fever. She falls very ill; in her fever, she relaxes the Sense-wards that surround her mind, and she hears a voice inside her head, pleading with her not to die, because they have much left to do. It is Ta'aire.

Then, having dropped that bombshell, the first book ends.

I think that's everything. Please comment on it.

-ShadowTwit
"TV makes sense. It has logic, structure, rules, and likeable leading men. In life, we have this."


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Sat Mar 24, 2007 8:39 pm
Crysi says...



Hmm... That's interesting, but I'm not sure I like where you've ended the first book. What's Dara's goal? What's her main conflict? I highly suggest looking at the snowflake method of outlining (google it - it's the first link), because it focuses on what's important to each character and you can build off of that. This reads more like setup and less like a story plot. Work on it and develop it, because I know it has great potential! You just need to sift through it and bring out the killing points, you know? Good luck. :)
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Sat Mar 24, 2007 10:22 pm
Twit says...



All that is explored in the second book - this is the first of about five books that I have planned. Do you think it needs tweaking, then? How zigackly? I'll look up that snowflake thingy.

-ShadowTwit
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Sat Mar 24, 2007 11:51 pm
Twit says...



I looked it up. My head hurts. *sighs*
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Sun Mar 25, 2007 7:28 am
Crysi says...



Well.. My only concern is that it's all setup and no real conflict. While it's the first book of five, it also needs to have its own story and be its own complete part. There can (and should) be some loose ends, but it needs to contain its own story. If you were to never get the other four books published, or if the readers were never to read the next four books, you want the reader to still be able to leave the book feeling mostly satisfied, but still questioning things at the end... Does that make sense? It's like the Harry Potter books. Each has its own plot. Each presents its own conflict and resolution, but it also usually presents another minor conflict that is addressed in the next book. You don't want your readers to simply skip the first book, especially after all the hard work you've put into it!
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Wed Mar 28, 2007 5:13 pm
Twit says...



Hokey! I think I've got a better idea now. Thanks ever so much, Crysi for your helpful comments! :D :D I'll snowflake this and see if it turns out any better.

-ST
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