Writing Ideas and Characters

[Rukatin]

Thread for what ever ideas I have (which is a lot). As well as characters. Commentary enjoyed.

[Rukatin]

So this idea i had a long time ago, but it wasn't thought out completely. It's a continuation idea for the end of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.
So at the end of the manga, it shows Edward and Alphonse going the separate ways after a 2-year timeskip to continue figuring out the secrets of alchemy. Ed heads west while Al heads east to Xing with Jerso and Zampano to learn Alkahestry. My idea follows Alphonse upon crossing the desert and entering Xing, he is openly welcomed by Emperor Ling Yao, who since being crowned, has been making changes. Some of which, has given him some negative attention.
Amestris has since opened a diplomatic office in Xing upon the plan to build a railroad across the desert. One that Maria Ross is a part of. (Makes sense as she was hidden in Xing for a while she would be a part of the office right?)
This whole idea revolves around Alphonse getting thrown into the cut-throat political system of Xing, and the fact that Ling has suspicions some is trying to create a philosopher's stone with Alkahestry...   

[Rukatin]

This is another idea I had thought out awhile ago, and I'm re-thinking it out. It started with me thinking: 'What if Black magic wasn't evil?'
I eventually started think out a fantasy world where there was two Magic systems, White Magic and Black Magic, where the taboo magic would be Gray Magic, where you would combine the two magical energies.
Black or Dark magic could also be called Nature magic, because it's domain is in the natural forces of the universe and it's symbol being a pentagram. (Four points being the classical four elements, the fifth being life/spirit, and the circle being the shroud of darkness.) Powered by willpower and emotion and natural magical energy. Comparison would be the magic system from The Dresden Files and Familiar of Zero.

White or Light Magic would be more 'scientific' than black magic, and focuses outside of nature. Its domains would be æther, force/gravity, enchantments/runes, Time, and Energy, all bound by light.

[Anastasia]

This is another idea I had thought out awhile ago, and I'm re-thinking it out. It started with me thinking: 'What if Black magic wasn't evil?'
I eventually started think out a fantasy world where there was two Magic systems, White Magic and Black Magic, where the taboo magic would be Gray Magic, where you would combine the two magical energies.
Black or Dark magic could also be called Nature magic, because it's domain is in the natural forces of the universe and it's symbol being a pentagram. (Four points being the classical four elements, the fifth being life/spirit, and the circle being the shroud of darkness.) Powered by willpower and emotion and natural magical energy. Comparison would be the magic system from The Dresden Files and Familiar of Zero.

White or Light Magic would be more 'scientific' than black magic, and focuses outside of nature. Its domains would be æther, force/gravity, enchantments/runes, Time, and Energy, all bound by light.

Sounds like a fairly typical magical world setup. It feels fairly Japanese, insofar as it has the duality of light and dark that they're fond of.

[Rukatin]

But without the classical thematic element of 'the battle between light and dark'. Light is not good, Dark is not evil. But they are opposites in other senses, like Black magic is primal and filled with emotion, while White is scientific and logical.
Man, I want to say so much more, I could just keep going on and create this magic system!

[KLSymph]

A tip from someone who's spent a few years thinking about magic systems: go down to concrete details. What you describe is entirely abstract, and it's hard to make abstractions not cliche.  Light and dark is cliche.  "Light is not good and dark is not evil" is also cliche, because good and evil are abstractions too, and other people have had that idea for a long time.  "White is scientific and Black is primal" is still cliche.  "White is gravity/time/energy while Black is classical elements" is very slowly coming down from the abstract, but it's still very abstract.

Get down to concrete details. Start naming your spells and brainstorming the principles and mechanics that allow them to happen.  Give them essential limitations and quirks.  Create non-obvious characteristics.  Randomly assign competencies between White and Black and force yourself to work out how those competencies all fit together.

[Jason_Miao]

If I might offer a bit of general advice about pitching ideas (and not necessarily limited to the two you've already mentioned)?  When you come up with an idea, try writing a few paragraphs in a scene (that isn't just a monologue of the various features of your magic system, Tokienesque descriptions of scenery, etc.) capturing the essence of the idea. 

If you get stuck in writing more than a paragraph, that's a sign that your idea may be a cool concept, but needs some elaboration before it can be used for writing.  If you can write a few paragraphs, but are not sure where to take it, then the idea may be sound and you'll want to work on plot and characters.  Once you've put together a scene or two that captures the idea in writing, it's usually easy to figure out if you want to write an story based on it or have an idea of what needs to be developed.

[Rukatin]

Even though I haven't been posting it here, I've been writing a lot in notebooks. And what started as a small idea grew into a big steampunk-magic story idea when written.

[Anastasia]

Even though I haven't been posting it here, I've been writing a lot in notebooks. And what started as a small idea grew into a big steampunk-magic story idea when written.

Cool. Writing makes more writing, so keep on writing.

[Rukatin]

Cool. Writing makes more writing, so keep on writing.

I know, as I write, I think of more stuff to add so I write it in and the same thing happens over and over until I've written 3 pages for a single scene.

[Rukatin]

The first thing Axion remarked upon when he came to consciousness was what the hell he had been doing last night to receive the migraine pounding at his skull. Licking his dry lips with a equally dry tongue, he struggled to open his eyes as he shifted on the surprisingly uncomfortable bed. Rolling over and sitting up, Axion blearily cracked open his eyelids and rubbed them. 'Is this what a hangover feels like?' He sluggishly thought. 'Barely even touched any of that stuff.' Wrinkling his nose, Axion rolled off his back and onto his side, meanwhile swinging his legs around off the bed in on smooth motion. Or it would have, had rolling to his side not taken him to the edge of the bed, and swinging his legs causing him to fall off the unfamiliar bedding. Grunting as he hit the floor, Axion's arms flailed through the air a bit before one hand caught a vibrating tube and barely keeping his head from hitting the floor. Pulling himself up and resting his arms on the short bed, Axion looked up and around to find he could only see vague shadows on windowless walls cast by a dim light emanating from somewhere behind him. Rubbing his eyes some more, he took a few deep breaths to calm himself from the brief moment of panic. 'The hell? This isn't my room, nor my bed. Where am I?' He slapped his cheeks a couple times then vigorously shook his head back and forth in an attempt to banish the sleep from his body. Blinking his eyes several times, Axion's field of vision cleared at little to see that the bed he was resting on was an old cot bolted and chained to the wall.

With the tiredness quickly leaving his body, Axion pulled himself up and inspected himself. He was clothed in a dirty cotton shirt that hung loosely from his thin frame and work pants made for someone with a wider waist and shorter legs. 'These are not my clothes, they look like what a beggar would own.' Axion grimaced and wiggled his toes, and that's when he noticed his feet were touching metal. But instead of being cool, it was warm. In fact, as he breathed he noted the air was slightly hot and humid as well. Axion twisted his head around and started notice more of his unfamiliar surroundings as his vision adjusted to the low light levels.

First thing he picked out was the pipes all around him. They criss-crossed the ceiling and Axion was pretty sure they made up the ceiling itself. Several ran across the walls and disappeared into them or turned upwards to join the many pipes making up the ceiling. Most of them hissed or gurgled, filling the room with a low hum. Occasional groans of metal sounded and one of the large pipes let out a short puff of steam from a bolted seem whenever it happened. Inhaling deeply again, Axion swirled his tongue around his mouth at the rich iron and rust taste. 'Where am I? Some sort of complex?' Axion wondered.

Then looking to his left, He saw something that didn't really answer any of his quickly forming questions, but only made him ask many more.

The forth wall to the small 5-by-10 foot room was a cell door.

Rushing forward off the cot, Axion slammed against the cell door and wrapped his hands around the bars. "Hello? Anybody? Is anyone out there?" He called out, voice carrying his worry, confusion, and mounting levels of panic. Nothing answered him except the ambient sounds of the plumbing around him. Grunting, he pushed and pulled on the door, unsurprisingly finding it to be locked and causing it to clang loudly. Stepping back from the door, Axion panted lightly before trying to slow his breathing again and calm himself down.
"Okay, calm down Axion, panicking won't get you anywhere, you know that. You have no idea where you are or what events happened that put you here. Now you've got to think. Remember how you got here." He started to pace the confined space of his cell, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples. "Come on. I wouldn't have done anything that would've put me in jail, I mean I have down some pretty...gray things now and then, but I've always been careful about it!" He grunted as the headache returned as he sifted through his memories. First was the fragmented yet happy early childhood memories, back when he still had his parents. Then came the war and his father left and never came back. His mother soon got sick working in the factories, and there wasn't enough money to pay for medicine. The Authorities sent him to a crowded orphanage not soon after. 'I was only 10 at the time...Was it so long ago?' Axion shook his head and returned to his memories. 'I soon ran away from that orphanage, too overcrowded with kids like me. Begging on the streets wasn't much better though, I was lucky George's goons found me hen they did, I was almost dead from starvation.' Axion recalled he wasn't the only kid that George, only a teen himself, took in. But he also remembered that he didn't care. He had a roof over his head and food to eat. It wasn't until a few months later and a sizable group as formed that George made it very clear they all needed to start pulling their weight. 'It wasn't all bad, sure George wasn't as nice as he advertised, and he put us to work, but we got fed and we had each other more or less.'

Axion slapped his cheeks. 'Why am I reminiscing on the past? Lets fast forward a bit. Okay, I didn't have any solid beats at the moment, so I was doing odd jobs like usual. It was just after the courier job that could've gone a whole lot better that I decided to sign onto an airship as a deckhand. I had signed onto the.... What was the ship's name? Argh! I can't... remember what happened next!' Axion ground his teeth together. 'I can recall everything more or less clearly until that point! So why can I not remember!' In his head he could see the ship's hull, he could see the title, but the letters weren't forming together, like they were blurry or scratched out. Axion pressed his hands against his forehead and concentrated on the memory.

Then with a sudden stab of pain that felt like both an icicle and red-hot fire poker being jabbed through his temple, the darkness of his mind shattered and a vivid image played in his mind's eye.

A crash of thunder and the split-second illumination of lightning revealed not just a storm, but a tempest. A strong gale heaved the ship and the whole deck tilted at a steep angle for a few heart-pounding minutes. He grabbed the railing and hung on for dear life as a barely heard scream sounded in the darkness and he saw a crew member lose his grip and plummet off the side. A strike of lightning briefly showed him a terrible sight. A massive roaring wall of inky black crested by white.
Axion closed his eyes as the squall came down.

Axion opened his eyes to find himself on the floor slumped against the wall. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and as he rubbed them away, his hand came away stained with the blood that dripped from his nose. Getting to his feet and pinching his nose, Axion shuddered. The image, the memory was the most haunting things he had ever seen. And it was still sharp and clear in his mind, thought not to the affect of seeing it for the first time.

Axion sat on the cot again. 'Is that...How I died?'

[Rukatin]

Huzzah! I was on a roll! Tell me what you think.

[Jason_Miao]

I think the idea of a character/scene introduction after trying to work through a hangover-like headache is a sound one. 

Some of the thoughts are a bit odd for that sort of situation.  I can't imagine anyone who wakes up and immediately says to him or herself "Well, time take inventory."  In fact, I can't imagine anyone who would ever say that (except, perhaps, for text-adventure characters.  "inventory.  n.  n.  w.  XYZZY.").

As a baseline, when *you* wake up in the morning, what's your first thought?  Or do you even really think of anything, or do you unthinkingly go through a routine half-asleep?  If you instead mysteriously found yourself in a strange place with a massive headache, what would your first thoughts be?

Then think about how Axion's character differs from yours.  Would that change his first thoughts and actions?

Stepping back from the door, Axion panted lightly before calming his breathing and suppressing his rising levels of panic.

"Okay, calm down Axion, panicking won't get you anywhere, you know that. Now you've got to think. Remember how you got here." He started to pace the confined space of his cell, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples. "Come on." He grunted as the headache returned. He sifted through his memories, fragmented yet happy early childhood, loss of his parents and turning into an urchin, begging on the streets, being accepted into an orphanage, running away when he got older to join a gang of older kids, learning how to be a petty thief, surviving a gang war, barely escaping imprisonment when law enforcement captured most of the gang, deciding to live honestly from then on, getting a job at a sweatshop, leaving to work at a tavern, jumbled teenage memories mixed with bouncing from apprenticeship to apprenticeship, gaining a reputation as a jack-of-all trades, and preforming odd jobs from then on until adulthood

Rather than "Think!!!" as your dialogue, perhaps consider trying to flesh out his background as dialogue.

For example "Why am I in a cell?  Sure, I was part of a gang when I was a 'spore', but I left that all behind when I became a 'mucus' 'n' years ago(1).  I doubt it would be the constables.  I haven't stayed around at any job or any town longer than a few months (2), so I doubt I've made any enemies.  Except maybe Jason at the Wayside Smithy, but he was a jerk to everyone.

Sure, that courier gig could have gone a little better.  But I managed to get away after I signed on as an airship deckhand with the...the..."

(1) given actual developmental stage labels for 'spore' and 'mucus' and a number for 'n', this gives a rough estimate of Axion's age.
(2) implication of transient lifestyle and having done a little of everything.

Argh! I can't... remember what happened next!' Axion ground his teeth together. 'I can recall everything more or less clearly until that point! So why! Can! I! Not! Remember!'

"!!!!!!!!"

Few thoughts:
A rule of thumb is that exclamation points are for exclamations.  "Wow!"  "OMG!"  "You!"

A more general rule is that using emphasis on everything emphasizes nothing.  That holds true whether you're using exclamation points, italics, very large font, allcaps, etc.

As a style note, I find that throwing in dramatic pauses after every word rarely seems natural, and never as part of an introduction.  If it works at all, it works as the last five seconds of the unforgiving minute, or as the last gasp before death.

"The peak.  Almost there.  This mountain...defeated my father.  This mountain...defeated my brothers.  It won't defeat me.  It won't!  Because I.  Am.  RUKATIN."

"My friends, I will not last much longer.  Leave me behind.  It is...it is up to you...to rescue the princess.  I shall tell...the secret.   To defeat...the warlord Dracos...you...must...urk."

[Rukatin]

Rewrote it a bit.

Edit: rewrote the memory-thing. Didn't know where I was going with that before.

[Rukatin]

Ever hear Latin choir singing and imagine it being a sound track to a epic church sword fight?