Young Writers Society

Firstly, I am curious if there is a legitimate reason why a city wouldn't allow anyone to leave its borders. Now, I'm sure if there is one, it has to do with money.... but for the life of me, I am stuck on this! Why would this law be instated? Right now I have that no one can leave the city and that there is a government-sponsered illusion surrounding it that makes it look like a wasteland outside. But the fake reason the government tells people in the city still has to seem reasonable to the majority of the people, and has to be a cover up for their real motive.

In my story, one of the major obstacles the main characters encounter are what I currently have written in my notes as "zombies." Now, they aren't zombies really; in my 'verse, magic operates off the life force of the person with it. But, most people that have magic don't know how to "turn it off" in this particular region, so it just runs constantly and depletes their "soul." When they get down to a certain point, they can literally absorb other people's souls; but those with agressive, or attack kind of magics end up going crazy from their survival instinct, and turn cannibalistic. Most of them just lumber around until they are killed, trying to literally "eat souls," although there are some "packs." But that's not important. What I could use some help on is figuring out what to call them--they're still alive, still semi-cognitive(and they grow more and more lucid as they "eat more souls" ), cannibalistic, and have pack instincts. I'm not sure of any pre-existing creature like this, so I'm unsure of what I should name them. More details can be give if it would help.

And finally, I need a little help with the matter of restoring a soul that's been "eaten." Since magic is viewed as "only negative" PREDOMINANTLY in my story, I'm curious how I can do it without it seeming cheesy or too convenient.

Yep. It would be nice if I could get some answers on this, haha.
Also, if anyone is interested in hearing the whole plot and offering some critique on it, just let me know and I'll PM it to you.

I'm afraid I can't help with the other questions, since I don't do fantasy, sci-fi or anything even vaguely otherworldly, but i think I can help with the first issue. In my experience with politics and political fiction, if a government wants to manipulate it's people, fear is the ultimate drug. If the government doesn't want people to leave the city (which I think is what you're saying), I would have them tell the people that it is for their own good that it is illegal to leave. The populace should be bombarded with propaganda telling them that they will certainly come to harm if they leave because of the (insert random threat). If you can make it a cultural thing as well as a political things too, that would really help with the image. Say if the children are taught about the (insert random threat) in school, or there are movies in cinemas about the (insert random threat).

That's just how I see it, since it makes sense that fear motivates people more than obedience.

On the first question I have to agree with Ohio. Fear is the best way to keep people contained. If the people are afraid to leave, then they won't.

I read a series, and I don't remember what exactly it was called or if it had a specific name but the three books were called "Uglies" "Pretties" and "Specials." Anyway, in the books, it was almost impossible to leave the limits of the city. Not only that, but nobody ever really tried to leave because everything they would ever need was found in the city. Not only that, but outside of the city, it was a wasteland. This, along with some toying with its peoples brains, kept people pretty content.

As far as the Naming question, I can really only thing of something like calling them Leaches, seeing as how they seem like rather leach-like creatures.

As far as the last one, well, I haven't the slightest, though prehaps it could be something as simple as exposing the dead soul to whatever soul is made up until it can feed off of that matter and become "alive" again.


Hope that was at least a little help.


ps. meant to stop by your welcome thread but never got to it. So here's my welcome.

On the subject of fear, the answer is pretty simple if those within the city know about the creatures but not about their origin - just say that the wasteland outside is so desolate and poisonous that those who venture outside will turn into the (insert magic-user thing name here), and that they don't want to endanger the population.

The "things"'s names is really up to you since you're creating this new race - Personally, I'd see what I could do around the word "anima", which is latin for soul. Another technique I use is taking a word that is crucial to the creature and replace each consonant or vowel in the word and replacing it with the next one along alphabetically - magic becomes nehod, soul becomes tuam. Think of that what you will.

As for restoring a soul - if the magic operates by consuming the soul, I imagine it would keep using it until it is done with it, i.e. until death. So killing the creature that fed from the soul would probably be a good way around it. I can't really think of a logical way around it that's less cliche than that.

Contact me when you've started writing - I'd be interested to see where these ideas go!

First off, that sounds so cool, almost like it should be a video game. I really want to read it once you start writing.

For the first problem, you could just expand on the illusion thing. The government's already created a way to keep them from leaving, so they just have to really send it home. Maybe they could say that something in the wasteland will deplete all of your magic. (so, use fear, like everyone else was saying)

As for what to call them, all I can think of is Soul Eaters, which is really cliched and obvious....sorry.

Maybe for the soul problem you could view the soul as a living thing completely connected to it's original owner. So, if the soul gets eaten then the thing that ate it were to get killed the soul could return to it's owner.

Hope I was able to help. Do you think I could read the rest of the plot? It seems really interesting right now.

An easy way to keep people from leaving is to make sure no one is coming. Maybe they halt traffic to and from the city, for "the people's safety". Maybe there's been a recent crisis: the rise in your pseudo-zombies, maybe, or perhaps there's an assassination attempt on your leader. (Maybe the assassination attempt isn't actually real, just an excuse to keep people inside.)

I also agree that telling people that the outside world is a wasteland is a good way to keep people in. Maybe the city officials could even raze/destroy the first few kilometres out of the city so that it would actually look like the outside world was destroyed. Or maybe there's supposed to be some kind of plague happening in the outside world (or so they say) so anyone who leaves will be "infected". They might say that anyone who leaves the city is never allowed back in, so out of fear of never again seeing their loved ones, people stay in it. (The government, depending on how nefarious you want them to seem, might occasionally dress some people up to look all disease-y, let them into the city and cause a Big Uproar so that the citizens can see how real and scary the threat of the outside world is.)

I'm awful at naming things, so I don't know how much I can help you with that. The simplest way to find a name might be to borrow from other sci-fi/fantasy terms — "ghouls" or "ghosts" or something that implies that they're not-quite-human. De-soulled? Okay, I'm going to stop.

As for how to restore a soul without the use of magic — hmm. To be honest, I kind of like that there's no possible cure. It raises the stakes and makes the threat of getting zombiefied (or whatever) much more palpable. If you really really need a cure, maybe it can be some kind of chemical antidote. It might involve the blood of the diseased (which would be hard to get because they're so violent) or the blood of someone who shares their DNA, or it might require their blood before they were diseased.

Anyway, it sounds pretty fantastic. Good luck on writing, and don't hesitate to post it on YWS for feedback when you're at that point.

Thank you for all the input! Between you guys, a similar thread I made on another website, and my friends, I've decided what I'm going to do on most of these points.

-The city that keeps them in is part of a city "chain" - almost like a chain of Walmarts, or something. If they keep all those people in, thus making more money for the chain, they receive more power and money for the big guns. In order to do this, the city is literally walled in, they have the illusion up, and they've told the citizens that the outside is a wasteland and that the zombies are the result of contamination, not the magic thing. Any people that come in are heavily screened, and are forced to wear a collar or ear piece or something that would detonate if they mention anything about the outside. This, when paired with their really strict government, is enough to keep people in check. Basically, a giant conglomerate of what everyone had suggested. LOL.
-The person's soul will be restored when someone else gives their soul for him. This isn't as cheesy as it sounds in the context of this story.

The only thing I have left to figure out is the name of the zombies! But I feel like I can slap a generic name on them, or call them something like leeches, at least for the first draft.

I plan to put it up chapter by chapter as I write it, so hopefully maybe some of you will stop by to read it.

Just wanted to add something I forgot to mention earlier:

You're taking the Evil Government route which, while it isn't necessarily a bad route to take, it's definitely a standard science fiction and fantasy trope. And as such, it's presented pretty implausibly a lot of times. I just wanted to note that a lot of totalitarian governments (or pseudo-totalitarian governments) in history are not Openly Evil, or that they at least seem to offer something to their citizens. Even Hitler offered the hope of rebuilding the nation and restoring its image — of course it doesn't forgive his actions, but it does in some ways explain why he was so successful in keeping a significant amount of people ready and willing to help him. People are grumpy whiny things and if they're not getting something positive out of it (or if they don't think they're getting something out of it) they're bound to make a fuss. See: French Revolution.

It definitely helps to look at tyrannies of the past and even present, if not to directly base your story off of, then to help you understand how and why they've worked before.

(The positive side effect of this is that the more plausible your government is, the more chilling of an effect it tends to have on your reader.)

I hope this doesn't sound too condescending. Again, good luck! : )

Thanks for the advice, Smaur! It wasn't condescending at all.

I actually had this in mind. I think I've figured out a way to get around, at least somewhat, the usual pitfalls of this nemesis.
They aren't aware of the ruse, so a lot of this would be different if the citizens knew, but in general, people are OK with the government. Most people in the cities actually believe that the city is protecting them from the zombies. Even the MC, knowing more, is nervous when he leaves that he will get sick. I have the level of dissatisfaction with the government similar to the US's right now. Yeah, we complain, but none of us ever do anything. And at the end of the day, just as much of us are happy with things as are not.
Even the collared people are largely happier in the city, because the standard of living there is much higher than the towns outside the chain.
The reason for Abel, the MC, to even know about the truth of things is that his friend gets sick because o her magic, and they have to leave the city. When they do, 10 times more people are trying to get in than their group trying to get out.

So hopefully, I have my bases covered there.

So hopefully, I have my bases covered there.

It definitely sounds like you do!

Maybe if the the law started out as a way to stop a plague or something, and then the city leaders realized the power they had, so ven after the plague/disaster was gone, they concealed this knowledge.

On the reverse magic thing--my only idea non-cheesy was sorta creepy, but here it is: If a stillborn baby is born, then the zombie could use the unformed "pure" soul to regenerate their own.

^okay don't know where i got that , but i can't think of a better one,