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Elves and dragon kings and space pirates.... ok. That sets the stage a bit.
The most plausible reason I can think of to let the elf lord go would be for ransom. If that wouldn't keep the dragon king from killing your pirate, then we need to dig deeper. Why does this prevent the dragon king from killing him? Does the dragon king feel he owes the pirate a favor? Does the DK mistakenly think the pirate is actually an ok guy, because of this event? Does the elf lord ask the DK to spare the pirate for his own reasons? Maybe the elf lord hasn't had a chance to pay the ransom yet, and honor forbids letting his enemy get killed until he is able to do so.
Sometimes when I'm having trouble making a story work, I try changing the genders of some of the characters. In this case, any chance your snotty elf lord is female (or a cross dresser, or the pirate just likes men)?
Maybe your pirate saves or frees the elf lord simply to spite someone else, e.g. an uppity member of his own crew. Maybe he has a policy of freeing one out of 1000 victims, because he likes to watch everyone else beg. Maybe he only frees the ones who don't beg. Maybe there's an omen, or he has a premonition (or another member of the crew has the premonition).
The elf lord doesn't seem the type to bargain, or try to trick the pirate, or cajole, or even accept a gample, e.g. "roll 10 snake-eyes in a row and I'll let you go."
I think there has to be someone else involved in the decision. I like the slightly psychic crew member, personally. "I hate it when you go all weird on me, but you've never been wrong yet. What the hell. Hit the road, Mr. Snotty Elf Lord, before I change my mind."
Elves and dragon kings and space pirates.... ok. That sets the stage a bit.
The most plausible reason I can think of to let the elf lord go would be for ransom. If that wouldn't keep the dragon king from killing your pirate, then we need to dig deeper. Why does this prevent the dragon king from killing him? Does the dragon king feel he owes the pirate a favor? Does the DK mistakenly think the pirate is actually an ok guy, because of this event? Does the elf lord ask the DK to spare the pirate for his own reasons? Maybe the elf lord hasn't had a chance to pay the ransom yet, and honor forbids letting his enemy get killed until he is able to do so.
Sometimes when I'm having trouble making a story work, I try changing the genders of some of the characters. In this case, any chance your snotty elf lord is female (or a cross dresser, or the pirate just likes men)?
Maybe your pirate saves or frees the elf lord simply to spite someone else, e.g. an uppity member of his own crew. Maybe he has a policy of freeing one out of 1000 victims, because he likes to watch everyone else beg. Maybe he only frees the ones who don't beg. Maybe there's an omen, or he has a premonition (or another member of the crew has the premonition).
The elf lord doesn't seem the type to bargain, or try to trick the pirate, or cajole, or even accept a gample, e.g. "roll 10 snake-eyes in a row and I'll let you go."
I think there has to be someone else involved in the decision. I like the slightly psychic crew member, personally. "I hate it when you go all weird on me, but you've never been wrong yet. What the hell. Hit the road, Mr. Snotty Elf Lord, before I change my mind."
the elf lord is an ambassador, hence the king's interest. the pirates are bi actually, the elf lord is one of the few characters who isn't, recipe for a little unconventional drama. ;)
begging would help. this gave me an idea for gruesome http://www.daz3d.com/madlab-4 means rewrite. again.
"Please, please, don't let me die like this, not like this ..." screams
still breaks character, capt isn't the type to be sensitive to begging, even if the begging is completely pitiful. what if, capt lynch plain doesn't like the captors, and the elf is the excuse to attack, but, isn't a reason for leniency later, unless, he has some history with the king.
"couldn't let 'im die like that,"
"you couldn't? Under all those scars, what beats?"
It'd be simpler, perhaps, to make the Elf's arrogance the trigger for an off-stage curse that makes him become a dragon, and thus the Dragon King himself. Maybe the act of grattitude (sparing the pirate's life) will break the curse.
Ah, your pirate arrives to find the elf lord in someone else's clutches. Sure, the elf lord could be the excuse for attacking the captors, and your pirate could even claim to be after a reward/ransom/a future favor. Your captain can find the elf lord strapped into the madlab set, begging for mercy, roll his eyes, have his subordinates cut the elf lord loose, say "send me your ransom later, come on crew, let's look for more interesting loot, gotta be something worth pillaging in this place," and walk off. In that case, "They were in my way" is probably enough reason to attack the captors, or "this is my territory, go get your own," or whatever excuse he wants to give. "I may be a ruthless bastard, but at least I kill my enemies quickly" could be another reason for not tolerating the captors. "Operations like that one are bad for business."
Find the formula that helps you tell the story you want to tell. Your formula will probably be completely unique to yourself and the current project.
Formulas are not a bad thing in my experience. Someone mentioned earlier how so many television shows are meant to run in non-successive order, making linear development impossible. I agree. These types of stories typically require major events to alter a character in any meaningful way, such as with cliff hangers.
A formula should be a useful tool that helps you get the writing done. Formulas are quite necessary especially when you must work with deadlines. But that is another discussion.
It really depends on what your "formula" entails. I for example am writing for a television show at the moment. To pull off what I am doing I know I need certain things from my formula:
Unlike many tv series of today, my story is meant to be viewed in proper sequence. I have a lot of characters and story-lines. That means I need to be very careful with screen-time management. Too much time spent on one character and not enough on others means some story arcs wont develop at the proper pace. So to guarantee that I don't fail to give anyone enough screen time I have decided that part of my formula is:
A. Each character must appear in (at least) two scenes per episode (even if only briefly).
B. Of the given character's two scenes per episode, one of the scenes must be in a private setting and one must be in a public setting.
Since a major aspect of this project is the multiple sides of human personality, displaying each character in private and in public settings gives the audience an opportunity to judge how honest or dishonest a given character may be based on the differences in the way they behave in public and in private situations. So in one scene we see a husband and wife having morning coffee and in a later scene we see the wife at a meeting with the other partners of her law firm. Seeing her be both a wife and a businesswoman in the same episode gives us a better idea of who she really is. Hearing her say "bye hon" to her husband and to later hear her say "bye hon" to one of the senior partners tells us that the phrase "bye hon" doesn't really mean much to this woman since she uses it with everyone...or maybe she's secretly having an affair with the senior partner as a second husband type of deal...who knows? Tune in next week to find out.
My example above is crude, but the point is that in this case I would argue that my formula is helpful, because without it I would have a difficult time telling a story about human personality quirks and switches. Knowing from the onset of each episode that each character will be seen twice in some way, lets me breathe more easily than if I was just to allow inspiration alone to guide me because we all know that inspiration comes in waves and doesn't concern itself with filling in the gaps along the way. Formulas however, are very good at filling in the gaps left behind in the wake of inspiration.
So to the OP...
If I were you I'd begin adopting some form of a formula. An example would be a phrase such as: "All characters in the scene must be faced with at least one childhood fear." Sounds silly perhaps, but from there you can then find ways to work in how one guys fear of heights, another guys fear of darkness, another guys fear of abandonment, somehow color and drive the interactions between these individuals in this given situation.
Make sure that everyone gets something out of the scenario. Make sure the pirate, the dragon, all parties have something they want from the situation and strive to achieve with or despite the help or hindrances of the others. Some players will win in this scenario, others will lose, but leave no one completely unchanged by the end of the scenario.
Best of luck.
Perhaps the pirate has a strict ethos... s/he doesn't believe in torture and so frees the elf. This way the pirate can remain a bad boy/girl but still do something admirable. Like some villains prefer to slay their enemy in a fair fight than to shoot them in the back... soem kind of self-imposed ethos like that?
Or, the captive elf has something the pirate needs... information of a treasure map... location of some key, etc... make the pirate and elf have a bond out of necessity that makes them have to work together even though they might be enemies...?
another problem, struggle with the smooth transition of a pov switch? tanya huff does it with an extra paragraph break.
i have a space squirmish going on.
(1)the 'main' pov fleet ship. 2 more fleet ships, in a 'we're not going to make it in time" commlink dialog.
(3)the pirate ship, 2nd pov. then the really ebil (5) pirate ship swoops in, i'm not switching to their bridge, but they attack (4) the elf ambassador's shuttle,and i need to show the events on the shuttle, none of the main characters are there.
not sure i can pull this off without confusing the reader. tempted to throw one more ship (6) into the action.
IMHO that's only an actual danger if none of your characters can carry a tune in a bucket. ;-)
Another source of interesting brain fuel: JRR Tolkien has some thoughts on what he calls "Secondary Creation" in his essay On Fairy-Stories, which appears in a couple of his collections. Maybe a bit more fantasy-oriented, but it should still be relevant.
:lol: carry a tune in a bucket
maybe there's used copies offered on amazon market?
hmm, i think you just solved one of my unresolved plot points. i needed to put an all seeing orb into lynch's hands. the one the really evil pirate has is destroyed. the elf could offer to show lynch where he can get one. it should work if the dragon king doesn't find out about the orb.
thanks! :)
A major limitation of most TV script writing in the US is the lack of story arc. Networks seem to prefer stories that are interchangeable in order, so they are not required to show them in any particular order. As a result, characters don't grow and change over time. Every episode has to end with the status quo pretty much unchanged. The stories are forced to be fairly formulaic.
The Simpsons actually lampshades this on multiple occasions for comedic effect. :) But usually it's a limitation that I feel has a severe negative impact on the quality of the storytelling.
Well, the upside of this sort of writing is that your show can go on virtually forever, while story arcs should come to an end at some point.
That being said, right now we're at a point in time where this seems to be changing, at least for US television shows. This so-called 'golden age' of TV does exactly that, focus on story arcs and on character development. There's so much worth seeing right now, it's kind of amazing. I did hear the theory that this is the influence of Japanese Anime and Manga and while I'm not fully buying that, wherever it came from, I find this quite a wonderful development.
As others have said, while there a lot of good guidelines for writing, there are not set rules. Personally, I don't think that being 'unpredictable' is really all that important. In fact, I would say that overreliance on twists and cliffhangers is really more of a detriment to writing these days. Your writing has be one thing an one thing only and that is, to steal a phrase from 'Extra Credits', 'engaging'. A boring story can be engaging, for example, if it focuses on an interesting topic. And you can write so very interesting stories about boring topics. Sometimes the characters can carry a story, and sometimes just witty writing. Twists can be engaging of course, but they often become dull and predictable really fast and can severely hinder a consistent story. So use them, but use them wisely :D
writing muse is quiet t'nite. delta alpha romeo november :down:
Is this a pure text story or graphic story with pictures?
haz chapter illustrations and i've reserved a few ISBN for "companion" art books, which will be color.
trying to set decorate a haunted spaceship :) but ebil haunted. pirates attacked a haunted ship, their ship is destroyed, their only refuge is the haunted ship.
flying dutchman is a bit overdone, putting them in space should be enough of a spin, i hope.
the only other cursed historical person i can think of is cain.
haz chapter illustrations and i've reserved a few ISBN for "companion" art books, which will be color.
trying to set decorate a haunted spaceship :) but ebil haunted. pirates attacked a haunted ship, their ship is destroyed, their only refuge is the haunted ship.
flying dutchman is a bit overdone, putting them in space should be enough of a spin, i hope.
the only other cursed historical person i can think of is cain.
Cain is a good baddun: but how is his curse tied to the pirate ship? The curse, I think, was a sevenfold (nonspecific) geas against his killer (Gen 4:15). In my own (rather stalled-out) story, the primary villainess is Lilith, the (extra-biblical) wife of Cain who killed him and thus damned herself to seven deaths before her final descent into hell.
Cain is a good baddun: but how is his curse tied to the pirate ship? The curse, I think, was a sevenfold (nonspecific) geas against his killer (Gen 4:15). In my own (rather stalled-out) story, the primary villainess is Lilith, the (extra-biblical) wife of Cain who killed him and thus damned herself to seven deaths before her final descent into hell.
she killed him? i need historical characters damned with immortality, loosely based, lol, lots of poetic license.
what if she kills him into a pseudo existence?
in prologue, there was an exodus of earth. my space pirates can run into them, liven up deep space.
so far, i've covered pandora and methuselah. i didn't find much on methsula, made it all up.
Cain is a good baddun: but how is his curse tied to the pirate ship? The curse, I think, was a sevenfold (nonspecific) geas against his killer (Gen 4:15). In my own (rather stalled-out) story, the primary villainess is Lilith, the (extra-biblical) wife of Cain who killed him and thus damned herself to seven deaths before her final descent into hell.
I'd never heard that Lilith was the wife of Cain. I'd heard that she was Adam's first wife (Jewish mythology). Probably depends on which extra-biblical references you're using.
There are tons of cursed historical and legendary characters you could refer to. I assume you want someone who is cursed to wander? Here's a write-up with some possible source material:
https://www.sdopera.com/Content/Operapaedia/Operas/TheFlyingDutchman/LibrettoSource.htm
Cain is a good baddun: but how is his curse tied to the pirate ship? The curse, I think, was a sevenfold (nonspecific) geas against his killer (Gen 4:15). In my own (rather stalled-out) story, the primary villainess is Lilith, the (extra-biblical) wife of Cain who killed him and thus damned herself to seven deaths before her final descent into hell.
I'd never heard that Lilith was the wife of Cain. I'd heard that she was Adam's first wife (Jewish mythology). Probably depends on which extra-biblical references you're using.
There are tons of cursed historical and legendary characters you could refer to. I assume you want someone who is cursed to wander? Here's a write-up with some possible source material:
https://www.sdopera.com/Content/Operapaedia/Operas/TheFlyingDutchman/LibrettoSource.htm
My version of Lilith is Cain's wife, now cursed with a pseudo-immortality. Some small bits of it I dipped into the Book of Enoch for, a few shavings of Bram Stoker, and a lot of it I made up. The Bible doesn't say whom he married or how he died.
Look on Sacred-Texts.Org (if it's still around) for all manner of obscure mythologic texts and apocrophiliana.
There's also the medaeval "Wandering Jew", and the legend of the (Blessed? Cursed?) Prester John, and the monastery of Shangri La in Lost Horizons where men and women age only ever-so-slowly. For that matter, you can take whole slabs of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner to seed your myth. It's your myth after all.
thanks for the linkie zigraphix :)
You're welcome.
You already know about the tropes page, right?
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FlyingDutchman
TVtropes is a great resource for all kinds of story references. Just beware-- you can lose hours there. ;)
You're welcome.
You already know about the tropes page, right?
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FlyingDutchman
TVtropes is a great resource for all kinds of story references. Just beware-- you can lose hours there. ;)
oh, lol don't i know it. :lol: beware clicking the random button
After completing my Bachelor of Arts last year in Professional and Creative Writing, I'd have to say following formula and convention is always going to happen to a certain degree.
Characters undergo all sorts of obstacles, obtain items or receive help, make enemies or lose friends.
What really matters most is if your story is engaging. Does the reader want to keep reading? Or prop up their busted window in summer time with the spine of your book?
Writing up a character bio sheet for each of your characters can help you to focus on where they are headed. Write their history, back story, likes and dislikes, but don't reveal any parts not necessary to the story you are currently telling. Don't give away too much too soon, but know your own character well enough to understand what path he/she may take in certain situations.
For example if you are writing a story about a character who will experience a trauma (physical or mental) what would they do in that situation? How will their history help them to cope with situations of distress? Having an asthma attack in a shopping center at age twenty-five, where they are struggling to breath and have forgotten their inhaler, reminds them of a time when they were nine, and had to learn to calm down and slow their breathing without an inhaler. History and back story help to give you the writer insights into how your own characters would deal with things.
Yet, if a giant monster attacked the city, well, how would they deal with that situation? Could twenty years of reading Gojira manga and six months living in Japan during earthquake season help them to deal with things?
Zombies have invaded downtown, and you're only armed with say, the watching of 200 B-grade horror movies and eight seasons of The Walking Dead. Will she survive the onslaught of rotting flesh and infection by taking the family van through the city? Or will cunning and logic and her experience as a World War III helicopter pilot steer her decision towards the airbase?
Writers, like magicians, should never reveal their secrets, and their characters become more enigmatic, more interesting and more exciting when they are layered, flawed, multifaceted, and fail. Characters that never fail and never change are boring, if they are too good, or too evil and cannot change, then there must be something that changes them.
The most recent movie I can think of that blends and changes genre conventions is Cowboys and Aliens. A quote from that is, "I've seen good men do bad things and bad men do good things" and applies to characters with flaws. Memento told a great story, but told it in a way that was different. You can do the same with any of your own writing, change the format.
A young man goes on a quest to save his friends from the evil wizard in his dark tower, could easily be an old man sitting by the fire, telling his story of heroism as a youth to the young children. Tell it backwards, much like the Hobbit is: Bilbo telling Frodo of his exploits with the Dwarves of Erebor.
Keep writing, keep applying, keep improving, and definitely keep developing it every day!
i understand medea was a wronged woman and all, but she could be wandering around with a damaged conscience after what she did. she runs a bar on a questionable outpost, martinis, all you can eat breakfast buffet. a guest or two hasn't come down yet --