Young Writers Society

definitely the characters and their voice!!!!
The more unique and different the character the more the reader gets hooked!
I mean who wants to read about a perfect girl who's beautiful, popular, charming and has the boys running after her??? Not me! A quirky, unconventional character makes a story so more original where a character has traits in their personality rather than being pure innocent etc ......

My unfinished novel Muse has a government where four magically gifted writers (LOL) control everything in that whatever they write comes true. The protagonist is a fifteen-year-old mercenary/thief who is mortally afraid of friendship after the death of her parents. She hangs out in the back of taverns until she spots someone who she stole from or killed for, and then she runs away. She has no qualms about killing, does not believe in any sort of afterlife. And yes, she is on the good side.

Cool, are you going to post it? Sound like something of my type, lol.

'My unfinished novel' (oh, the dreaded words) is NOT original. Well, maybe (ha, one can always dream?) I mean, medieval setting, etc. But there's no elves in the world, lol! I'm so proud of myself.
Oh, or maybe there will be elves. Have no idea.
Ah, so my main character is going to be bad at first! Is that enough? (becomes very, very tiny). And she is not going to save the world. And she is not perfect. And she... Well, that's pretty much the end.

Eh, what am I doing here, hehe?

-elein

Well, I think my plot is fairly original, but it's changing all the time, and the plot as I have it at the moment is completely different from the much cliched plot that I started out with - it was basically a rip-off of LOTR, although I hope now that I have made it sufficiently different to be considered original.

Magic does not exist, I make that clear from the start. I think that, unless in something like Harry Potter, having 'magic' in a novel can be considered very cheesey.

All of my characters have flaws, especially the protagonists. They include the likes of a con-artist, who cares only for herself, and an over-religious person who tends to take his beliefs to extremes. No-one is all good, that sort of character tends to bore me. Eragon is a perfect example of an all good character, and I find it would be very gratifying for him to get a slap somewhere through the novel! They all have darker sides, and I hope that because of this they are more believable, and have more depth to them.

They each have their own unique past. Absolutely none of the characters, even the antagonists, are 'evil'. I've tried to stay as far away from that as possible, as I have no wish to follow in the traditional thread that a group of 'good' people have to stop the opposing 'evil' person at all costs. Of course, my protagonists do want to stop the 'villain', but hopefully, depending on what angle the reader chooses to view from, they can see that both sides are right and wrong, and it all depends on the perspective. My main antagonist basically gets forced into the position he is in, through prejudice and discrimination from others, and so has been forced into rejecting them and the rest of society. If the story was being told from his point of view, hopefully the reader could see that he is basically just a flawed character who has had a bad life.

I think the Middle-Earth setting of mountains and different terrains is good, so I do have a similar setting for my story, though I hope I've distanced myself from the whole sword-swinging, large battles and huge armies stereotype of this genre. It is for this reason that none of my main characters carry swords, unless absolutely necessary, such as in circumstances of battle. And when they are used, they are just that: tools for battle, no fancy names, etc.

Anyways, I've ranted on a bit. I hope my ideas are original, and if not, oh well, I like them!!

*busts into tears* Okay, I admit it! My story has elves!
Hehe. But, yeah it really does. But that's really the only Tolkein-related fantasy in my book. And they're not even very Tolkein-ish, i've made them my own. I'm still in the planning process, but so far it's sounding fairly original. Okay, it has manticores too, but they aren't used too much in fantasy nowadays. And i'm very proud to say my story has NO Dragons! Woot for me!