Young Writers Society

Hello good people of YWS

I’ve decided to revisit a super old story concept and was wondering if I could kindly get some feedback, because I think it’s going to be pretty challenging.

Setting:

Earth - present day. But with made-up places and events because research is boring lel.

Shinedon - a volatile world where the human-type-species are unable to develop a civilization due to the harsh, jungle/desert environments where the plant life and animals overpower the humans in a "there's always a bigger fish" kind of way. Some inspiration will come from a few anime productions by Studio Ghibli (Wolf Children, My Neighbour Totoro).

Summary of Book One

The first installment follows Scarlett, a highschooler from Earth who never dealt with the death of her father, and Jeremy, a young survivalist from Shinedon who lives and breathes to protect his younger sister.

As if they didn't have enough issues, Scarlett and Jeremy begin to hear each other's thoughts and develop strange abilities. But just as they begin to question their sanity, they are each met by a mysterious stranger who leads them to the gate between their worlds, and the purpose of their existence.

Scarlett and Jeremy have been paired. But will they cooperate long enough to learn what that means?

Format/Concept/Tense/Perspective

The reason I think this will be challenging is that the story will constantly switch point of view between the two protagonists, sometimes after just a couple of paragraphs. I am writing in first person because I want each side of the story to have a contrast in voice and tone.

I started off writing in past tense however I'm considering a switch to present tense instead, because there are issues writing past tense with characters that can hear each other's thoughts--to me it sounds awkward.

Message/Theme

There will be mild LGBT themes and also some of the humans from Shinedon are kind of animalistic in a very cutesy, anime kind of way (I know, I know).

Because of this, there will be some unusual "pairings" throughout the series, the message being that despite our differences in appearance, culture, gender etc, our souls are equal.

Mostly everything will center around friendship, romance, family values etc.

Origin of this concept

I actually started this as an RPG years ago why am I so old. People entered in "pairs" and collaborated their plot points together, while I drove the rules/world building by role-playing the "mysterious strangers" I mentioned above. Unfortunately, the forum was deleted before the RPG really took off. A lot of people wanted to join it, which is why the story always stuck in my head because people seemed to find it appealing to some extent.

Thoughts? ^_^

-Zoom

Hiya, Zoom! This does sound interesting. Parallel world stories are my jam, and I've actually written some similar stuff in regards to the the whole telekinesis-through-universes theme. It's a tricky thing to handle, so it'd be great to see how you explore it.

I guess my main question reading this summary is what the actual plot of the novel is. I can see a good premise and inciting incident in Scarlett and Jeremy being paired together, but I'm not clear on what happens after that. Are they asked to do something by the mysterious stranger? How does the plot tie into each character's motivations? Having a better sense of the trajectory of the novel would probably make it easier for me to offer my opinion on it.

The first thing that immediately jumps out at me is "don't confuse lack of civilization for lack of culture."

It looks like you're tying into the whole concept of "animalistic savages with no culture to speak of", which... is disrespectful to a lot of Indigenous groups for reasons you are probably well aware of.

Make sure these groups have the social complexity of hunter-gatherer peoples, and I'd look into horticulturalist peoples as well. I would also avoid falling into the trap of believing that just because a group is hunter-gatherer doesn't mean they didn't once or will not ever create large complex cities. The Maya and Aztec, for example, still exist as horticulturalist groups in the jungle. Their civilization might have become unsustainable, but the peoples still exist.

There seems to be a deep, deep underpinning here that their culture is going to be "simple" and "unrefined" here, when many of the so-called "primitive" groups have some of the most complex family and marriage systems on the planet, and also have some of the oldest scientific measurements on earth (Australian Aboriginals were called "stone aged peoples" because they don't cook food to an even distribution and hardly wear clothes, but they have a stone circle used for astronomy that pre-dates Stonehenge by millennia, and have a marriage/ family totem system so complex anthropologists still haven't figured it out yet)

So you're really going to have to drill down and make those humanoid people an actual people, with a culture, and with scientific advancements. Because it seems to be heavily relying on the myth that there is such a thing as cultural evolution (progressing from "savage" to "barbarian" to "civilized", when "civilized" just means "has agriculture" with the assumption only cultures with agriculture are complex), when there very much is not.

@DarkPandemonium

Thanks for your reply. I have a few storylines in mind, including the original storyline I used for the RPG. I'll post a few ideas later. I personally tend to avoid deciding on a complete storyline because it makes me feel like I've already told the story and then I lose the motivation to actually write it. I prefer to chuck ideas into an idea bank and see which ones come back out as I'm writing haha.

@Rosendorn

I was too vague/misleading in my summary. When I said that some humans will be animalistic in an anime kind of way, I meant that they would have cute cat ears etc.

The reason they cannot develop a civilization to the point of living in mansions sipping champagne is because of a plethora of predatory species preventing them from doing so. That doesn't mean they have nothing, otherwise, they wouldn't survive at all. I mentioned that they have a culture, just different from ours.

I know my vagueness has of course led you to make assumptions and fill in the blanks yourself, so apologies. Perhaps you did let yourself get carried away a bit too far though. I'm writing a fantasy story. I don't have to take cues from actual cultures in the real world, and I'm definitely in no danger of disrespecting them.

This is going to sound much harsher than I intend, but I'm mostly expressing this sentiment to make a point: fantasy stories should still be respectful to what already exists.

Sure, you don't have to pull from pre-existing cultures if you don't want to (I do for my own worldbuilding, because I feel like it's already been done on earth, I want to grab the clues that made it develop that way to create something that feels real to people who are familiar with it). But if you're creating a hunter/ gatherer or horticulturalist group, you should be familiar with what's possible for them, culture-wise, just to avoid accidentally pulling from tropes such as Noble Savage. Those cultural narratives are so pervasive on a subconscious level that you have to work to break them down in your head.

When I say "you should pull from pre-existing cultures", what I mean is "you should be aware of what sort of stereotypes exist about them culturally and how they themselves break those stereotypes in order to make something that feels real". I don't mean to clone earth cultures. I mean to be respectful to earth cultures that have parallels to what you're trying to create.

Hope that clears up what I was getting at. I'm not trying to say you're doing that, but I wanted to come back and explain what I meant.

Hey Zoom!

You mention that your inspiration comes from Studio Ghibli? I assume that means you're into film and animation?

There is an awkward habit that I find isn't uncommon in people who enjoy the cinematic arts, and it's the constant switching of perspectives. It's just one of those things that is near impossible to translate into writing.

Switching perspective every few paragraphs will likely be really disruptive to your reader, and detatch them from either character. One of the great things about writing is being able to really dive into the mindset about the character, but that's not really possible in such a short space.

That's not to say not to do it, just that you're absolutely right- it's going to be tough! The idea of it sounds awesome, and personally I love stories that can be told in completely different ways depending on which character is telling it. It might be worth allowing for more space in between switches. It's important to have a bit of a re-introduction to each person's thought process before describing what is happening in the scene.

If you do stick to past tense, then you can make use of being able to write the same event twice instead of switching half way through, and if you're telling it from contrasting perspectives then that would be pretty interesting to read.

Book One sounds great. The idea on its own is quite solid, and it looks like you've set up for a lot of really interesting character dynamics and the way their environments will have an influence on them and each other. Also, you mentioned that you never decide on a complete story line and I think you could really use that to your benefit with this plot because it will give those characters so much more room to grow without restricting them to a set end goal.