Well just because it's cliche doesn't mean it won't work! The details are really what matter. Who is "the guy?" What is his past, his personality, his goals? Who is this fallen angel? What is her relationship to the guy, or the evil man? Who is the evil man? Why is he evil, what does he really want? Who else important exists in this world?
Going beyond the characters, what is this portal? Where did it come from, how does it work, why does it exist? This crystal, what makes it so powerful? Who made it, or what? How does one tap into it's power? Why does the angel need it go get back to heaven?
Obviously if all you can come up with is "It just is" the story is gonna be dull as crap. If you can come up with original answers to these and other, similar questions you can take a boring premise and turn it into a creative story people want to read.
Fenn is right. Cliche isn't bad. Cliches are cliche because when they're done well, they're very good. Somethings you might want to think about:
How did she get the Crystal into the boy's world?
If he had the Crystal in the beginning, how did he lose it?
Also, the more details you add, the less generic it will become. Hopefully.
cliche isn't always bad, as, like both fenn and bacon said, if they are done well. but honestly, just do each detail exquisitly, and it will turn out good.
Sigged.Originally Posted by Bacon_Barbarian
I will regret that statement for the rest of my life.
So the crystal will work as the Adventure Call, one that doesn't let the character to chose his own fate, because ones the character finds the crystal a portal will open transporting him to another world. Then he will meet a girl (who is obviously a angel, so I can predict he is going to fell in love and she will be the mirror of everything good in the world, even more she might be a reflect of a good all mother figure that the character is gonna fell in love later) who escapes from a evil guy (why is he evil? what does evil mean? what is his reach or influence? How does controlling the world will mean equally to be evil? what connection does he have with the hero so it can become a antagonist? Because a antagonist and a evil guy are different things and one having a object that the other wants doesn't make it to create a villain) who wants the crystal, which mean that if the character never found the crystal in first place the "evil guy" wouldn't have a motive or a goal, which will make the story even more random and weak (already the hero doesn't chose to step to the adventure and neither the villain chose his goal, it was the fate of the hero what made the villain), and even more weak is the plot if you say the crystal belong to the girl (which is obvious as you said she was a angel, and so she is the incarnation of the chains of actions) because she is from a different world than the guy who found the crystal.What about:
That the main character ( a guy) in the beginning finds this crystal, that opens a portal into the world where he meets the girl(the fallen angel) who has escaped from the hands of the evil guy, but it's not her he wants. He wants the crystal which the boy have, but belongs to her. The crystal contains great powers which the evil guy needs to rule the world. But the girl needs it too, because it is the key, the way of getting back to heaven where she belongs. Now the guy only wants to get back to where he was before, and the crystal can again help him getting back. But it's only at one end of the world, that they'll be able to get back.
And so the story goes and they are getting hunted down by evil guys, and at some point the evil guy get a hold on the crystal, but the guy and the girl gets it back, and reaches the point where they can activate the portal..
And then the end, I haven't thought more about yet.
What do you think about that?
At the end the story is basically a odyssey triggered by fate, a fate that neither villain, hero or others control, its just a satiric play from a childish God.
Advices:
Work your characters, you don't want them to be fantastics, you want them to be believable.
Work your antagonist, you need to create someone that reader would love to hate, or if you want to go to another direction, someone they hate to love.
Work your hero, no ones like a character that is just there waiting for things to happen, who never takes decisions or that doesn't chose a path. Show personality.
Delete every religious bullshit, not because is bad or cliche, but because you are over doing it. The fallen angel girl is a satire of an angel, not an angel.
Give real emotional goals to the characters, yes coming back home is a great story driver for the epic quest, but it doesn't have emotional power. One thing that make the Odyssey of Homer so good is that Ulises doesn't want to get home just because he is not in home, but because in there are the persons he love and the ones he promised to see again and stay with.
More characters; I'm not saying this as a rule for every story, but you have 3 characters, one the hero, the villain and the companion, in this case its a bad idea to not add other characters (with weight in the story), because if you don't every rol should be taken by the same characters. Example: in a moment you are going to reach the point of "the fake friends" in here one of the characters must trick his friend because some reason, as there are 2 only characters that are friends, the possibilities of who is going to trick who are obvious.
Read; read a lot, read like your life depend upon that. Not just comics or mangas, read books, encyclopedias, blogs, news, articles, etcetera, everything is helpful to do a story.
Follow greek principles like: Characters must be judged by their actions not their beings.
Last edited by ClockHand; 11-29-2011 at 02:05 AM.
How about that the evil man, is evil and want's to rule the world he lives in, because in his childhood, he was the one serving the highest ranked people. His parents where killed in a riot against them, and all orphans were to serve for the highest ranked. But then one day he escaped from them, and created an army of cyborgs, and went against the people who had used him in all these years.
The crystal with the great powers was only a myth, until one day, when his soldiers were on a routine check around the villages, they caught a girl that had the crystal around here neck. In a necklace. If the evil man could get a hold on that crystal his powers would be amazing, and no one could stop him.
The girl was told, when she got the necklace from her dying mom, that when ever she was in danger, she should simple just take the necklace, and say "help" and then throw it against the sky, and it would get help. The necklace would find the best suitable person to help her. In this case it ends up with our main character which name is Daichi. And it's kinda ironic because Daichi is not the adventure, brave, fighter kind of guy. He is like the oppisite...
Agreed on just about everything...until you suggested reading encyclopedias.
Getting better. Still, however, it feels like you are creating plot elements to fit your mold, rather than the plot driving the story. It's kinda like you went, "Okay, so I need a reason for the guy to be evil. I know!" This isn't always bad, but it's best to avoid this process, especially if we can pick it out right away.How about that the evil man, is evil and want's to rule the world he lives in, because in his childhood, he was the one serving the highest ranked people. His parents where killed in a riot against them, and all orphans were to serve for the highest ranked. But then one day he escaped from them, and created an army of cyborgs, and went against the people who had used him in all these years.
The crystal with the great powers was only a myth, until one day, when his soldiers were on a routine check around the villages, they caught a girl that had the crystal around here neck. In a necklace. If the evil man could get a hold on that crystal his powers would be amazing, and no one could stop him.
The girl was told, when she got the necklace from her dying mom, that when ever she was in danger, she should simple just take the necklace, and say "help" and then throw it against the sky, and it would get help. The necklace would find the best suitable person to help her. In this case it ends up with our main character which name is Daichi. And it's kinda ironic because Daichi is not the adventure, brave, fighter kind of guy. He is like the oppisite...
I mean, of course someone's gonna be pissed if they had to serve upper class snobs. There are still questions to be answered here. Where on earth did he get the funds and resources to build giant robots? Why did this girl's mom happen to have the necklace of superpower?
Now, this time, as you think through these questions, don't just look for a quick fix for your answers like "Oh btw the evil guy got his robot army in a scrapyard." Make the answer meaningful. If he really did get everything from a dump, make that show how creative/intellectual he is, and how determined he is to conquer them. If he got funding from some rich person, bring them into the plot as well. Is this person the true evil (this is cliche too but its something), or did they make a mistake by helping them and want to correct it by aiding the hero?
The purpose was to make him this creative/intellectual guy.
I may sound stupid now.. but.. I don't quite understand what you want me to do exactly..
Again, I am "shit" at making good stories..
But I am really really happy that you are trying to help me
Haha I was worried we were nitpicking a little too much. Essentially, what you've given us isn't a fully fleshout out story but a basic premise. And for the function of a premise, you're actually doing fine. I think I went a bit overboard with the critique because I was looking at it like a full-out storyboard.
Here's the bottom line: you have a fairly common framework for you story laid out. I'm not going to lie, this concept doesn't contain that many unique hooks. However, that's okay. Now, your job is to decide whether the idea you've presented is something you really want to use in a story. If you do, then that's good! The next step is to start fleshing out the story, and this is something you should spend plenty of time brainstorming and tossing ideas around for. THIS is where the bulk of creativity comes from, adding the details and specifics to the story.
As you begin adding characters, events, locations, and important objects to the story, you might find yourself wanting to tweak or change the basic plot. If so, go for it! Nothing's set in stone until you finish that final copy.
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