Young Writers Society

hey guys!
so, I just joined this site, becuase I love writing. The Thing is, I'm stumped for Idea's.
But, strangly enough, I just had this dream, and I think I could make it work. I just need feedback from you guys after I've told you my dream.
Before I start, I have to say to a few people who might not believe I dreamed this, I dream VERY vividly, so I can recall almost all my dream perfectly.

I was on a boat with my father, and we were bringing goods (like foods and medicine) to Costa Rica. It was going fine, and the sky was clear. but then I saw one dark raincloud form, and another. The storm came out of nowhere. So father ordered everyone to tie down the goods and other loose items. We tried to navigate out of the storm but it was no use. We were sucked in by what we saw was a small whirlpool. Well, at first it was small, then it began to grow bigger and bigger. It sucked us under, and the last thing I remebered seeing was green seaweed coming towards me.
When I woke up, I was really sore, and the weird thing is, I actually was sore when I woke up, and I had a huge bruise plastered on my face. Anywho, It looked like I was in a forest clearing. The trees were'nt very high at all. Everything was green, and it seemed to be windy, because the abnormally thick grasses were waving back and forth, but it was only a gentle sway. I couldn't get my head around it. Then Off to the distance I saw the ship laying idle. It looked like the bow had snapped apart from the ship, and the sails were draped over it. There were greenpeople going back and forth throughout the ship. I saw them taking the crates that the medicine was in. They all had a different essence emitting from them, and I could see their vibrant eye colour from a distance. At that point I had jumped, for I felt a slimy hand on my shoulder. I turned around and saw that I was facing another green person. This one looked clearly like he was asian, if that was possible. His eyes looked startingly catlike, and were a vibrant yellow. He told me to look at myself. It was in a foriegn language, but somehow I understood. I looked at my arms. They were green and webbed. They had the same texture as seaweed. I looked at his arms and saw they were the same texture and colour as mine. He told me I was underwater. I screamed and it came out perfectly clear. He told me I had to stay underwater until I could make a whirlpool and pull some other unsuspecting sailors underneath the water. My maker had dissapeared as a human in my place. She had gone to the world, were she had dreamed about for many nights. She made me unique, however, and she put all her power into me, because she wanted to live a normal human life without imortality or her essence witch gave her the magyck every kelpie (which was their nations name) desired. He told me other kelpies would be after my essence, so I needed to keep it safe. He was to be my mentor, and I, his student.

And I woke up with bruises... Which scared me just a little bit, because I do sleepwalk, and I didnt know what I had been doing
Well, I hope I get some positive or negitive feedback on that. BYEEE!

Hiya!

This is a very interesting dream, and I can understand how it would scare you. However, in its current state, I don't think it would make that good a plot. The principle reason being I could see just about every "twist" (waking up underwater, being one of the green people, the guy behind you being a mentor) in the story. Do note that several stories have rather predictable plots and are still good stories. What makes this plot predictable in a bad way is how you are mostly using "new" cliches. "New" meaning that they have been used in popular stories recently. And some other cliches that aren't "new" per say are ones you'd rather avoid in general.

Take waking up underwater. As soon as you spent more than a sentence on where you woke up, I figured out where you were and wanted to move on to the next point. Same with the realization that you were a kelpie. Those realizations were unfolded too slowly for me to believe them and not want to skip ahead to where things get good.

The kelpie behind you being a mentor and telling you pretty much the whole plot is also slightly too quick. Plots need conflict to even be plots, and if you say what the conflict is strait out right at the beginning, there is no conflict. Let readers discover what's going on for themselves in the world, maybe not introducing the mentor until much later. One idea you can use is having the kelpies accept her at first, with the conflict of some kelpies wanting her power being more slowly introduced.

Note how in the above paragraph I said "some" instead of "all." As soon as you use "all" in a plot synopsis, you tend to get a "me against them" kind of plot which can quickly lead to a badly cliched situation and a poor "all-powerful" character. Each character needs their own loves, hates, desires, friendships and rivalries to be considered real. Don't lump characters into categories such as, "loves MC [main character] and wants to protect her" "hates MC and wants to kill her" and "is jealous of MC so therefore hates her and wants to kill her." Each character should love and hate others in a proper balance and have redeeming qualities.

Stripping away the plot and characters, the raw world you have is really nice and a good twist on kelpies as they are known. I'd incorporate maybe some known kelpie legends so that readers who know about kelpies aren't wondering why these kelpies have different powers. And I liked how the were taking away the supplies on the boat. I'd like to see you explore on that, saying why they need the supplies. You might just find another conflict in there.

Their desire for complete mortality is another choice I'd like to see explained. I'd avoid the Little Mermaid reason of "I love somebody on the surface" and maybe have it so the kelpie on land, if given a choice to keep her powers, then she does. Because if I was a magical creature and wanted to live on land, I probably wouldn't want to give up that "edge" of magic. I might also want to return home just in case the mortal world isn't all it's cracked up to be.

I think I've given you enough to chew on here. I like the general direction of this world, but it has the risk of getting really cliche. Focus on your characters and make a good, logical, well-organized world, and this could be something on the shelves.

Hope this helps, and PM me with any questions!

~Rosey

Thanks for the feedback!

I've realized this might be too predictable, and I have realized there are many fiction stories like this. But imagine the possibilities of it! I mean, with a little shaping and molding, I guess I could make something out of it. I guess I need some help with it though... I love writing, and I really want insperation and the dream inspired me... So if anybody has any more tips for me, I'd be willing to take them!

Thank you so much again for the feedback, it really helped *whooshes off to watch Final Destination*

Don't you love it when dreams do those things? XD I have very similar expiriences. I have a whole journal filled with dreams like these....

Anyway. Yeah, I think it would make a good story. You'd have to make the situation much more unique, though. If your character goes through the exact same expirience as the previous one, then it would get quite boring. yes, she has certain unique powers, but she would pretty much do everything the person before her would do; dream about becoming human night after night after night, create another kelpie...she'd have to break the cycle, maybe, or try to escape, or turn all the kelpies human, or whatever...you know? This has to be different and end different and actually have a real ending instead of "yeah, the story continues because I created yet another kelpie." your character actaully has to change something.

Anyway, that's all I have to say. Good luck!

~Vee

aw, thanks!
yah, I know what you mean. This dream does sound very... tedious. I'll do my best to make it unique

Yeah, I always wake up with the most vibrant dream in my head and announce "I'll write it down!" But dreams are unusually tedious things that just drone on and on and on.
AND then I met three fat jolly vampires and then harry potter asked me to race him on a broom but then lex luthor tried to hold up diagon alley so the....
interesting and tedious at the same time. Because dreams are weird like that.

Yeah I think you should definatly go with this. Its interesting and did you know that quite a lot of famous writers were inspired by their own dreams? Ever heard of Stephanie Meyer? You may not be a fan but her books are bestsellers and Twilight, which is a world wide hit at the moment, was inspired by one of Stephanie's dreams. So go with the dream. I also dream vividly, I often have those dreams that happen the next day. Before you say it I am not nuts LOL! I honestly have them. One time I had a dream and it was sort of like a whole Ninja theme. My sister got slashed in the throat with a huge sword and blood gushed out of her mouth, she was coughing up blood. Later after I had woken, and I mean hours later, she started coughing up blood and holding her throat just like my dream. They happen ALL the time. May just be coinedence, but oh well. Happy writing and welcome to YWS! x

This is my first post on the YWS.

I've had lots of dreams that I thought would make great books and/or stories,
but every time I tried to actually write my dream down on paper (with lots of parts added or removed in order to flow with the story) I either got stuck, or became bored halfway through.

However, with as vivid a dream as that I'm sure you'll be able to make a whopper
of a good story!

I'm afraid I don't have any real advice to give, but I hope you can find sufficient advice from everyone else's posts!

Hmmmm.... well, I think you've got a great idea. Some great ideas come from dreams too. That's where I get some of my ideas like the one I'm working on for "The Missing Light" (looooooooong story..) Anyway, I think you could make it work. But, I think it would be confusing if there was no legend or something that explains why kelpies need to suck in innocent people to take their place. I mean, it would be better if you did explain the connection between them, I guess. Also, why is it that there's only one kelpie who soes the sucking? Don't other kelpies deserve to suck people too? (sorry for my question, but I'm really curios... I mean, I'm just a kid!) So, that's it. Hope to hear more about the kelpie story!!!

sorry for the wrong spellings on the last post.