Young Writers Society

Hey guys!

So, I've recently been working on the outline for a new story and I wanted some feedback on it.

"Julian Pierce is the Fated One. He’s meant to kill Sebastien Carter, the Darkest Sorcerer of all time. On the night that he finally defeats Sebastien, Julian’s best friend Grayson Hunter kills him and takes the credit for defeating Sebastien. Alone in the underworld, Hades gives Julian another choice. He can have a second chance at life but this time Julian’s mission is completely different. If Julian wants a second chance, he must join with the very man he killed to defeat an even greater evil; Grayson. Grayson Hunter’s heart is black; his only goal is to rip apart the Magical World piece by piece. Julian must defeat the man he once called his brother with the man he once called his enemy to protect his back."

It's going to be an urban fantasy romance and I'm pretty sure it's only going to be one book. What I'm not sure is if it's over done. Is this something you guys would read? Thanks!

Shadow

Hey Shadow!

"Julian must defeat the man he once called his brother with the man he once called his enemy." That right there is awesome. Having to defeat someone you love who has turned rogue is one thing, having to make peace with your enemy to do it would be soul crushing. I would be really interested in reading this just to see how the character dynamics play out, it has so much potential.

It's a generic idea, but the great thing about generic ideas is that you can twist them whichever way you like. What I particularly like about this idea is that Grayson is clearly a beast, he wants to destroy the world, where Sebastien's quarrel is more personal, so to have them set up as companion and antagonist the way you have will probably be a good way to make it your own.

I think the key to this would lie in the motives of Sebastien and Greyson, they would both need compelling reasons to do the things they're doing, and if underdeveloped the plot would suffer for it.

Urban fantasies are always fun. I love how they blur the lines of reality and let little bits of fantasy leak into every day lives. I can't see at a glance where the romance would fit in; would it be part of the plot or fanservice?

The romance would be part of the plot definitely. It's definitely going to be slow going but it's going to be a big plot device. Sebastien will eventually realize that he likes being a good guy and that Julian was a big reason why he feels that way. For Julian, Sebastien gives him a reason to want to survive so that he can show Sebastien how good it feels to be... well, good.

Really interesting premise! One itty bitty little plot thing I'd like to see clarified:

If there are prophecies, and fated ones, and gods who roughly know who is evil and who is not... why was Grayson not predicted?

Basically, you've got a bit of a wrinkle where there's an unknown source of pure evil, when everything else seems to be nicely plotted out. While I like the concept of that (prophecy twists are a favourite trope of mine), you need to build in the whole "they didn't see him coming" part into the worldbuilding.

You can go about it a bunch of different ways, but I feel there needs to be something that explains the twist. It can be the prophecies are hearsay, or that they've been corrupted, or that they can apply to multiple different people (aka, Sebastian and Grayson both fit the description for "world's most evil", but people assumed wrong), or that not all of them are revealed, or that the gods thought Grayson would be swayed by being friends with Julian, or that the gods were too focused on the two key players and let one slip through the cracks, etc. You can also combine any of the above.

Tl;dr explain why there's a gap in knowledge somewhere, even if it's your own head (then it'll bleed into the prose and readers can pick up on it).

Other than that, it's all going to be in your execution. As Tenyo said, fairly generic idea, but that's what makes it really fun to write. And messing with prophecy and morals and asking what makes evil is a really cool thing to sink your teeth into, in my opinion.

At first I was like, "oh, just another one of THOSE stories," but then you have this fantastic twist. That's the real seller there, and you'll want to play to that.

I strongly, STRONGLY recommend that that twist happens IN THE FIRST CHAPTER. If a big enough portion of the story is them chasing down Sebastian, and then there's this big 180 deep into the book, you're going to be in trouble. The people who WANT the traditional black and white good-vs-evil story will get annoyed with you pulling the rug out from under them, and the people who didn't want that and would have loved the twist will never make it that far. Make the twist the story. Kind of like how Mistborn is the story of "what happens if the hero failed to kill the dark lord and the dark lord took over." Your real story here is Julian going to the underworld and getting his mission from Hades. That's the inciting incident and the really cool part. Be careful not to fluff around too much with the set-up to that point--we just need a bare minimum to know who's who and what significance everybody has.

I do worry that you describe this as an urban fantasy ROMANCE, when you haven't mentioned any romantic elements in your pitch. But your reply later puts me more at ease, and I think that's something not worth worrying about until you've written the whole thing and can see where the romance fits in and how important it is compared to the UF elements.

The reason the Seer who gave the prophecy about Sebastien did not foresee Grayson was because Hades had already planned on stepping in. Because Hades had already made his decision, he nullified the prophecy that would have come.

Ooh, that is really cool. So it sounds like the prophecy system works in that if the gods go "humans, figure it out", they get the prophecy, and if the gods go "mmk going to have a hand in this", then humans don't get the prophecy?

Exactly! The Gods usually don't step in, though, unless the potential danger is huge. And it's usually Hades who steps in because he's the God of the Underworld and he sees things a little differently than most of the Gods.

Late to the party, but this sounds really cool.