|
I am about to start on what will be my first book once I finally get around to writing it. I've set up a bunch of exposition and characters for reference and inspiration, got most of my macro ideas on paper, so to speak. But upon reading some of the ideas my drunk friends decided they were expert fiction critics and pointed out some flaws that might just be legitimate problems with my infrastructure. Without going into too many specifics, my protagonist and another important character(and many others, but we'll ignore them for now) have apparent super powers. I'm concerned about two things; Is the protagonist's power too boring/dull to write a full length novel with him at the center, and are the two powers listed too similar where it will be noticed by the majority of readers? The protagonist is capable of creating a sphere around his body that imparts any object inside the field with kinetic energy away from his own center of gravity, forcing things away from him or stopping bullets, what have you. The secondary character's power is that she can explode her own body as if it were made entirely of TNT, then regenerate from the largest remaining chunk of her flesh left.(She accomplishes this safely by storing vials of her blood in predetermined safe locations.) At their core these two powers are both basically explosions, as an explosion imparts kinetic energy into whatever is around away from the center as well, however in writing the powers are extremely different as the protagonist's is used mainly defensively, while the offensive capabilities are very limited. Help put my mind at ease/critique me to hell and back, thanks in advance.
|
#
¿
Feb 15, 2013 11:54
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 17, 2024 01:23 |
|
|
Nycticeius posted:I think everything depends on the presentation. If you believe them to be similar (for instance, I find them different enough to be able to tell them apart), then write it as such and make it part of some ideological approach (two sides of the same coin, an offensive and a defensive power). Just my two cents. You don't know how disturbingly on the money you are. Despite that I've never thought of the two characters that way, when I thought about it that way it is extremely close to the truth. Good insight senor. Martello posted:Words words words These particular characters were originally from a text based roleplay, the owners of those two characters, me and a close friend, were the ones who created it. Had something like 80 unique players and 200+ characters over 7 years of story. I'd like to think they are pretty drat fleshed out and believable at this point, obviously I will be taking plenty of creative liberty since I will be writing all of the parts instead of just some of them. While I will probably share with you all parts of my writing when I begin to actually write the story, for now I am just looking for barebones discussion on whether or not these two powers are too similar to be put together, or if the protagonist's power might be a bit too dull/inflexible. I did use him in the roleplay for seven years worth of writing, and you can believe that I exhausted every avenue to make his power unique and interesting based on the context and situation, but thinking back on it, it really does boil down to 'Oh boy I'm in trouble, better make everyone/thing/this particular object go away.' And while that is not bad in and of itself it might invite a certain laziness into my work, or at the very least project it. (Thank you for your feedback.)
|
|
#
¿
Feb 15, 2013 12:25
|
|
|
Well that escalated quickly. I meant no disrespect by editing the quote, just thought it would make my post longer than it needed to be. I also didn't mean to offend you, I honestly meant I appreciated your feedback because I don't really know how things go in this here thread and what you've said it very useful information to me. When I begin writing the first draft I will come back and share my work to get more detailed critique, but in the mean time I have no work to show you and being that it's six in the morning I have very little time left awake to write some up. It also happens that this is the first post I've made in a long time of lurking, and more specifically the first time I've even asked for critique so excuse me if I'm a little hesitant. It's a bit nervewracking sharing your ideas with people who are apparently fiction buffs. Edit: I also did not actually see the thread you referenced until you linked it so thank you, I will probably be back relatively soon with a snippet of my work. Blarggy fucked around with this message at 12:45 on Feb 15, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Feb 15, 2013 12:40
|
|