Young Writers Society

Hi everyone, there's this novel that I've been planning for a while, which I've got quite excited about. This will be my first novel if I manage to knuckle down and do it! I'd hugely appreciate input on my ideas and what I could improve on!

This story will probably be called Legend of the Riverwalker.

History:

I'll try to make this as simple as I can. This will be an high fantasy, set on a made up world called Arkania within a continent I have called the Ascended Kingdoms. Basically, in the Ascended Kingdoms there live the Sancturii. A race who thousands of years ago crossed from another world into Arkania, and bumped into the Elementals, who were living in the Ascended Kingdoms and the surrounding lands. The Sancturii and the other races that they arrived with, (Known collectively as the Old Colonies.) overthrew the Elementals. The luckiest of the Elementals managed to escape. But the majority of them were enslaved by the Old Colonies and chained in other dimensions. Eventually the Old Colonies learnt to harness the awesome magic of the Elementals. Those who succeeded in this became the first Lightcallers. Powerful sorcerers who bind Elementals to their will.

It was a couple of millennia later until the Arturians crossed the sea from West Arkania, and settled in the Ascended Kingdoms. One thing you have to understand is that West Arkania was a totally different world. Completely separate from the lands of the Elementals. The Arturians had previously ruled a great empire, known as Arturax,that had governed most of the lands in the West. However, the empire had recently collapsed, and the Arturians were forced to flee to the Ascended Kingdoms. They were welcomed by the Sancturii who consider everyone equal, and they made a good life there.

Story:

Decades later, the Arturians are used to their new home now. They live in a small section of land known as the Vale of Artura. There lives an Arturian, ranger, mercenary, warrior, and tracker named Terian Riverwalker. Terian has become famous out the Vale for his success in his tasks that he is hired for, and the strange legend that he destroyed an entire lair of Kemp^e, (Weird ogre creatures.) when he was fifteen. Then Terian is hired by the Prince Kuros of the Vale, to rescue Kuros' betrothed, (Lady Sanna of Stormtide city.) from a malevolent Lightcaller named Morkus, who is the the Prince's uncle, who was banished after attempting to take the throne from his brother, 'the mad king Hrathim.' On this mission Terian is accompanied by his sombre older brother. The lightcaller, Saardric Stormcaller, but he draws ever closer to discovering a plot that threatens the Vale itself.

So that's it! Does it sound good? Bad? Please give me some feedback it would be much appreciated!

First of all, it's not the plot that makes a story bad or good. It's the writing. Your plot seems pretty run of the mill fantasy, so my question is, what are you going to do with your writing to make your story different?
What about what you write is going to make your story stand out? If I had one critique for you, it'd be your names. They're all so odd, that I wouldn't know how to start pronouncing them, and I'd probably have trouble remembering them too. Don't let your desire to be different get in the way of you having names that actually make sense.
What does the elementals have to do with your plot? Is your main character secretly an elemental (that would be quite interesting)? Why is this history you've told us about important to the story? If the Old Colonies considered everyone their equals, why did they have no qualms about enslaving and binding elementals to themselves? Have the elementals tried to overthrow the old colonies since they were enslaved? Is their race dying slowly? Will the elementals be featured in the story at all, or are they just a backdrop? Is the plot that threatens the Vale spured by elementals? What does the princess or prince have to do with any of this?

You might have the answers to some of these questions already, but I thought I'd ask them just to make sure. There's no right or wrong answer to any of them, and you don't have to answer them in this thread. (If you do, however, I'll probably come back with follow up questions)

Best of luck to you and your story!

I'd agree that it sounds generic, and echo a lot of Spark's questions.

I'm wondering about these Arturians though. The name instantly made me think 'Arthurian' from King Arthur, and the arthurian legends. Are you intending some connection, or was this just an unfortunate coincidence? Arthurian legend holds much less magic and fantasy, so I'm guessing not.

I like the title though. The last name 'Riverwalker' is pretty good.

Thanks for commenting! No the Arturians are nothing to do with Arthurian legends. I had just thought of the name Arturax, so the only name I could think of for their people was Arturians!

LadySpark wrote:First of all, it's not the plot that makes a story bad or good. It's the writing. Your plot seems pretty run of the mill fantasy, so my question is, what are you going to do with your writing to make your story different?
What about what you write is going to make your story stand out? If I had one critique for you, it'd be your names. They're all so odd, that I wouldn't know how to start pronouncing them, and I'd probably have trouble remembering them too. Don't let your desire to be different get in the way of you having names that actually make sense.
What does the elementals have to do with your plot? Is your main character secretly an elemental (that would be quite interesting)? Why is this history you've told us about important to the story? If the Old Colonies considered everyone their equals, why did they have no qualms about enslaving and binding elementals to themselves? Have the elementals tried to overthrow the old colonies since they were enslaved? Is their race dying slowly? Will the elementals be featured in the story at all, or are they just a backdrop? Is the plot that threatens the Vale spured by elementals? What does the princess or prince have to do with any of this?

You might have the answers to some of these questions already, but I thought I'd ask them just to make sure. There's no right or wrong answer to any of them, and you don't have to answer them in this thread. (If you do, however, I'll probably come back with follow up questions)

Best of luck to you and your story!

And thanks for your feedback too Spark. I will definitely take it into account. No the Elementals do not play much of a part in this story, the history is pretty much only to explain how everyone got where they are, and who the Lightcallers are. However the Elementals will play a more important part in a future sequel to this. Do you think I should write both these novels at once?

I don't feel you're exploring colonialism enough.

This reads frighteningly similar to European colonialism, and the enslaving of elementals is particularly close to the Spanish exploiting the Central American Natives. Even the "working together and accepted" part lines up with North American Natives— at first, Europeans completely relied on them until they decided they owned the place and violated treaties made in good faith. When you just pull this history at complete random, then you're going to have your own biases influence you and you could inadvertently produce a work that falls along some really not nice themes just because you're not aware of them. Right now, I'd really make sure you understand the full repercussions of colonialism, slavery, and cultural genocide before you go much farther.

This also includes why they ended up winning/becoming dominant. Honestly, what makes them so good that they win over magic beings with what I assume is a strong culture? Why do they feel they need to dominate other groups and prove their own might? With colonialism, the answer is Christianity, but you don't seem to have any particular reason past "they were the best", which is really weak worldbuilding. If this history plays a part as much as you say it does, it had better be rock solid. Right now, this feels more like quicksand.

You're missing the reason, the why, the rationale. Why does your society take on this shape and why does it encounter other people but remain the dominant group. Once you figure out those answers (and explore the potential unfortunate implications of those answers/interactions), then you'll have something much stronger. "Simple" does not mean "can ignore the reasons why this happened the way it did".

Also, there's the linguistic cacophony Spark already pointed out. Your names read vaguely Arabic, to me, while you've also got a very English naming structure when it comes to places. Names, in general, should all sound like they come from the same place/culture and right now they very much do not. If you want to go English (which, honestly, is what it sounds like you're doing; between the empire expansion and the Arturians, you will have people assume they are English), then have the names be used in England.

Also, consider the implications. Even if they're not related to King Arthur, everybody who has even passing familiarity with the legends will look at that and go "it's related". You hit a point in reader interpretations outweigh your intent. You have to be aware of the implications and, if you don't like them/don't intend it, changing it is advisable. Some things you cannot help, but when you have only a one letter difference between your term and "Arthurian" (which is in and of itself a descriptive term for a setting), those implications are extremely strong.

I'm also wondering why you're capitalizing everything. Fantasy has a bad rap for capitalizing needless things, and unless you have a whole nation tied to a political identity called Elementals, there's no real reason to capitalize it. And if they do have a nation, I'm wondering why they don't have any development, or at least enough development to earn their own name that defines them as a nation. This ties into some of the unfortunate implications I mentioned above: why is it the dominant group has all this cultural development, but the group they enslaved and nearly drove to extinction lack any and all development?

That's my two cents. You've got a world that feels very thrown together, right now, and until you create a solid cultural bedrock for why the history played out the way it did, you'll not have a strong setting.

Sounds very good. you should give a more in-depth history though, and explain more as to what the Elementals are.