Feedback on story idea

[CaptainCornhole]

So I have had this concept for a story floating around in my head for awhile, and I'm looking for some harsh, unfiltered feedback and constructive criticism in regards to what I have come up with thus far. Some of the details I have spent more time on then others, so not everything has been entirely thought out thus far. With that said I thought I would share a basic premise of my story/concept, please tell me what you think. :) Don't hold anything back.

So the story I plan on writing is set in a purposefully ambiguous futuristic setting where the non-human civilizations that inhabit the galaxy are few and far between. I want to avoid creating numerous alien species and populating my fictional galaxy with them, because at least to me it seems kinda cliche to have a galactic community buzzing and bustling with life. I want to create a sense of wonder at a vastly unexplored galaxy; having it already being teaming with alien life sorta seems to ruin that aspect, I think it is important to strike a right balance.

All that said, the story starts off with the human government becoming formally involved in a proxy war against a species of hyper-religious capitalists called hygori (it has a nice ring to it). Essentially a large group of human terrorists have been harassing and encroaching on hygori territory for sometime now and after a change in hygori clan leadership, the hygori have resorted to military force to kick these humans on their planet, thus starting the war. From there you can see how the situation quickly escalates.

What the story will be focusing on is a squad of skilled, yet expendable soldiers sent on somewhat of a suicide mission to track down and terminate a rouge human agent who has become a huge risk and liability to combat operations. I plan on covering the squad's adventures as they traverse this one planet in order to kill this fellow. I plan on exposing them to different war related situations that will reveal the grittiness of the conflict and that are designed to make the readers think about the fictional politics of the universe (possibly hinting at a few real life political comparisons). These events are also to allow character development to happen and get the reader to become familiar with people's personalities, so by when the plot twists happens one can see how these plot twists might impact the character. But as the story picks up the squad learn that this rouge agent is a recent convert to hygori religion and has become absurdly obsessed with the krell, an ancient/extinct race of super beings. Because of his stupid obsession, it come to the point where killing this guy is a must as he has become quite dangerous. This plot twist opens the door for a few minor twists and one large one down the road. These twists shed light on the beginning of the current conflict, familiarizing the readers with certain previously unexplored aspects of the "universe" this is set in and more importantly begging the question of why the krell are extinct, which will significantly change the direction of the story to a McGuffin driven plot to a character driven plot based of how the squad handles these twists.

The squad is comprised of four individuals with an addition of a 5th later down the road.

Johnson is the squadleader, he is three days away from retirement and is black. He totally won't die.

Elissa is very shy and has cybernetic implants, in human society cybernetics are treated poorly so she harbors some ill feelings towards humans.

Cankerous is the nerdy tech expert, he drools over anything even remotely related to technology/archaeology. He currently is in love with his sister.

Simmons is a duke nukem sorta of character, he his a badass and offers some dark humor. He is quiet about his past, leading some to speculate that he was a clown that escaped from the circus.

[GamerGoddess360]

I really love your attention to character development and the fact you have a plan for it (you would be surprise on how little aspiring writers care about that.)

But what mostly stood out to me is the original idea of having less alien species because I feel that this would help the reader follow along and not have to remember each one. And if you have ADD readers in college like me, this is a golden thing. And with that said, keep the politics on a down-low. Not that I thought you had to much, what you have is perfect, but just remember that because I had to cut about fifty pages of that sort of stuff that was irreverent to the plot and I feel that you might face that same situation.

I would like to see the first chapter if it's ready and I love to help my fellow writers with critiques. I will send you my e-mail.

[starwarsjunkie]

At 9/8/12 04:48 PM, CaptainCornhole wrote:

:Don't hold anything back.

Gotcha, harshness level set to maximum.

So the story I plan on writing is set in a purposefully ambiguous futuristic setting where the non-human civilizations that inhabit the galaxy are few and far between. I want to avoid creating numerous alien species and populating my fictional galaxy with them, because at least to me it seems kinda cliche to have a galactic community buzzing and bustling with life. I want to create a sense of wonder at a vastly unexplored galaxy; having it already being teaming with alien life sorta seems to ruin that aspect, I think it is important to strike a right balance.

I'm not sure what you mean by purposefully ambiguous. World building is one of the essential parts of any sci-fi/fantasy story. If you don't give your readers an idea of the universe you've created, it could hurt the rest of your story. Characters' reactions or politics will have no reference. You won't be able to tell if that's how people act in this world or not. It'll also be hard to come up with a compelling plot without some explanation of the world and its politics/societies/technology and such.

The sparsely populated galaxy is a relatively cool idea too. Keeps some mystery and always leaves room for future developments.

All that said, the story starts off with the human government becoming formally involved in a proxy war against a species of hyper-religious capitalists called hygori (it has a nice ring to it). Essentially a large group of human terrorists have been harassing and encroaching on hygori territory for sometime now and after a change in hygori clan leadership, the hygori have resorted to military force to kick these humans on their planet, thus starting the war. From there you can see how the situation quickly escalates.

I fail to see how this is a proxy war. Proxy wars are things where the two opposing sides don't actually fight, instead finding others to fight for them. For example, the cold war was full of proxy wars, with America funding rebels to take down communist governments and the Soviets funding those governments and vice versa. For more info look at the wars in Nicaragua, Afgahnistan, and Vietnam. All of those are good examples of proxy wars.

If the humans and the hygori are directly fighting, its not a proxy war. Then its just a war.

What the story will be focusing on is a squad of skilled, yet expendable soldiers sent on somewhat of a suicide mission to track down and terminate a rouge human agent who has become a huge risk and liability to combat operations. I plan on covering the squad's adventures as they traverse this one planet in order to kill this fellow. I plan on exposing them to different war related situations that will reveal the grittiness of the conflict and that are designed to make the readers think about the fictional politics of the universe (possibly hinting at a few real life political comparisons).

This sounds like a decent plot. Maybe a little similar to Apocalypse Now, but that's forgivable. One question, if they're so skilled, why are they expendable?

These events are also to allow character development to happen and get the reader to become familiar with people's personalities, so by when the plot twists happens one can see how these plot twists might impact the character.

Character development is definitely a good thing, just make sure your characters actually influence these events as well, otherwise its just a string of events that happen to a group of soldiers, rather then a group of soldiers doing something.

But as the story picks up the squad learn that this rouge agent is a recent convert to hygori religion and has become absurdly obsessed with the krell, an ancient/extinct race of super beings. Because of his stupid obsession, it come to the point where killing this guy is a must as he has become quite dangerous.

I thought they were already trying to kill him? Why does conversion to a new religion make him more dangerous?

This plot twist opens the door for a few minor twists and one large one down the road. These twists shed light on the beginning of the current conflict, familiarizing the readers with certain previously unexplored aspects of the "universe" this is set in and more importantly begging the question of why the krell are extinct, which will significantly change the direction of the story to a McGuffin driven plot to a character driven plot based of how the squad handles these twists.

Yay, character driven plot!

The squad is comprised of four individuals with an addition of a 5th later down the road.

Johnson is the squadleader, he is three days away from retirement and is black. He totally won't die.

Ha

Elissa is very shy and has cybernetic implants, in human society cybernetics are treated poorly so she harbors some ill feelings towards humans.

Cankerous is the nerdy tech expert, he drools over anything even remotely related to technology/archaeology. He currently is in love with his sister.

Sounds like Otacon from MGS2.

Simmons is a duke nukem sorta of character, he his a badass and offers some dark humor. He is quiet about his past, leading some to speculate that he was a clown that escaped from the circus.

I guess that's a start for the characters, doesn't really tell us much about the actual personalities of each character, but that'll come through in the story hopefully.

Overall, I think your story has potential. Just beware the whole "ancient race that was way super cool and mysteriously vanished" plot. It's been done a lot so you're gonna have to work extra hard to stand out.

[CaptainCornhole]

Lets see if I got this whole quote and reply thing down, btw thanks I really appreciate the harshness.

At 9/11/12 11:49 PM, starwarsjunkie wrote:

I'm not sure what you mean by purposefully ambiguous. World building is one of the essential parts of any sci-fi/fantasy story. If you don't give your readers an idea of the universe you've created, it could hurt the rest of your story. Characters' reactions or politics will have no reference. You won't be able to tell if that's how people act in this world or not. It'll also be hard to come up with a compelling plot without some explanation of the world and its politics/societies/technology and such.

Yeah, the world building elements, politics/societies/tech/etc I all plan to have. But what I meant by purposefully ambiguous is we don't know how far in the future the story is set in relation to our the now. Part of this is because I haven't decided on everything yet, and I want to avoid what in my opinion is a tiring cliche of a fictional history of significant human events leading to the colonization of space. For instance like, with Halo or Mass Effect they all have their dragged back story. But as you said how much of that should i remove, what is important to the story and what isn't. Like with the Hunger Games there is no context that I am aware of leading up to the North American state of Pamem or what ever it is called, in my opinion that kinda impacts the story negatively. But then again in 1984, we aren't told exactly how the Party came to ruling Oceania or how the other super nations formed exactly.

The sparsely populated galaxy is a relatively cool idea too. Keeps some mystery and always leaves room for future developments.

Thanks.

I fail to see how this is a proxy war. Proxy wars are things where the two opposing sides don't actually fight, instead finding others to fight for them. For example, the cold war was full of proxy wars, with America funding rebels to take down communist governments and the Soviets funding those governments and vice versa. For more info look at the wars in Nicaragua, Afgahnistan, and Vietnam. All of those are good examples of proxy wars.

Thanks, I'm just getting mixed up on my terminology. What I was meaning is early on in the beginnings of the conflict the human government wasn't fully fighting the local hygori clans. In retrospect, your right. I suppose my scenario is something more similar to Korea. Where the local human terrorists represent the South Koreans, humans being US, local hygori clans North Koreans and the backing of the other hygori clans (I haven't explained that aspect yet) effectively being China/USSR.

This sounds like a decent plot. Maybe a little similar to Apocalypse Now, but that's forgivable. One question, if they're so skilled, why are they expendable?

I can definitely see how is can be similar, I guess that can be a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it and how it is eventually written. It is kinda complicated, don't want to give that much away, but let me try to explain this. They are skilled (that doesn't mean top of field expert), but let's just say that is a combination of incompetence, back room politics, and past behavior. Like is Cankerous' case, he is skilled with hacking (not the best by any means) but with that said part of his back story is while on active duty his commanding officer asked him to hack a government server in order to find out where in the chain of command his CO's orders were coming down from. Despite his criminal behavior, hacking said server was a notable feet and he was reassigned to a company with a high loss rate. From there his name was drawn to be part of this mission. In Elissa's case it is a little more political (I don't really want to go into that over the interwebs)

Character development is definitely a good thing, just make sure your characters actually influence these events as well, otherwise its just a string of events that happen to a group of soldiers, rather then a group of soldiers doing something.

That is one thing I am trying to work on. I'm not the best writer in the world and I don't want it too seem like said string. I think one way to present that is to have multiple path options presented to solve a certain event and go through with the option fitting the characters personality. I dunno that might be a bad way to do it. I would love some tips on this as it is one of my goals.

I thought they were already trying to kill him? Why does conversion to a new religion make him more dangerous?

Poorly worded on my part, and also part of it is plot twist related. But let's just say, although his is already dangerous his conversion makes him much more of a potential threat. For this character's back story there are certain events and poor choices that lead him to believing in the tenants that are part of hygori religion. And that religious elements changes him in such a profound way. This isn't an exact example but think of it like this. You have someone who has access to explosives and has the knowledge one how to properly use them etc. Sure he is a threat but how likely is he to act on something without a serious motive. Lets say our explosive expert now is someone who religiously hates abortions, now how likely is it we might see an abortion clinic being bombed from this guy? Despite weather or not he will act on it is irrelevant for this analogy, the fact his religious views provide a motive or what have you makes him more dangerous. If that makes some sense.

Yay, character driven plot!

Yeah that's my goal for the latter half of the book, but IDK how successful it will be.

Ha

Like I said, or at least think I said, I want this story to be serious but humorous in parts. And in some situations part of the humor regarding Bo is the silly tropes previously mentioned that I want to play off of.

Sounds like Otacon from MGS2.

I have actually never played MGS or any MG game, shame on me I know.

I guess that's a start for the characters, doesn't really tell us much about the actual personalities of each character, but that'll come through in the story hopefully.

No those descriptions don't really tell much, don't wanna publish too much on interwebs. That said, the basic and bland discretion are the basic trope for a military squad they would fall into, but I wanna make them much more with their own distinct personalilites with those descriptions as more of attributes.

Overall, I think your story has potential. Just beware the whole "ancient race that was way super cool and mysteriously vanished" plot. It's been done a lot so you're gonna have to work extra hard to stand out.

Thankyou, I appreciate it. Yeah with that plot/trope I mean I like it cause it has potential and sorta plays off having an unexplored galaxy, but is has been done so many times before. I just hope my idea is a little more unique and mysterious then a simple plague, or galactic extinction event or apocalyptic war or galactic conspiracy. Thing is I really don't want to entirely solve what happened to the Krell, but their race and the tie ins to the hygori religion is meant to be that push that will get the characters to use their personalities to drive the story forward after using the McGuffin of terminating to rouge agent.

[CaptainCornhole]

bump?