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Addict
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Portland, OR
Gender: Female
Posts: 146
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A Fantasy Idea I Gave Up On - Worth Writing?
So, I made this awesome idea. It was so cool, and probably the best idea I've ever had. I worked on it for like a month, and when I found NaNo I decided I'd try to write it. Until I noticed there would be a lot more planning to do, and this idea would take a long time to develope. Like Tolkien took ten years writing LOTR, and Rowling took five years just planning the Harry Potter series. But I guess that if someone wants the idea written, I'm up for the game. Here's what I got so far:
Setting: On Earth 500 million years ago (or something like that - just a really long time ago, and it's easier to picture the whole thing). There were originally seven continents created by the Creation Magic, but given the fact that they were made to 'float' on the water, some have crashed together and others have hit vocanoes/whatnot rising up from the water. There are now four continents.
Background History: (note: The history of the world is sort of science-fiction, but then again fantasy and science-fiction usually mix-up at some point) Earth was hit by an asteriod 300 million years ago that killed all life on Earth and pushed it from its course around the sun. Ten million years after that, Earth collided with Mars. For about 2 million years they were stuck together until the greater gravity on Earth broke Mar's atmosphere. Gradually, the water from Mars rained onto Earth, and filled the giant crater created by the asteriod.
Life on Mars (which was all water and no land) had to follow the water to survive. No all the animals made it, however, and died on Mars once the water was too shallow. Most of this life was the mermaids, Mars's people. They brought as much life as they could, and many died of disease after using up their magic source to travel to the crater on Earth. About three million years after that, the mermaids has settled, but another asteroid collided from the opposite side of Earth, and pushed it gradually back into its orbit.
(note: I have no idea if this would be possible, but hey - it's fantasy, right? P: )
On Mars, all the mermaids had the same type of fin: One that constantly changed color. After millions of years, with living in their own groups in areas far from each other, the fins began to change. On Mars the entire environment was the same so that it didn't matter where you were, you could find all the existing plants within a few square miles, but on Earth it was different - and so the mermaids adapted to their new surroundings, separating them from each other.
Eventually the Black mermaids used their magic to create beings with legs, like they saw that other water creatures had, and after finding that the creatures couldn't breathe underwater, also created a dry area in the ocean for them to live. We now refer to this place as Atlantis, though many people believe that it never existed. The legged were taught the mermaid magic and the mermaid language (which was also the same for all groups, though each region had it's own group of new words and slang and things like that.) Eventually the mermaids of the other groups realized that in a dry area there would be plants that the mermaids could use but otherwise would not have. The groups started to have a market/festival once a year that would bring them all together and also with the humans. After a time the mermaids found the languages had changed drastically and were nearly completely different from group to group, so they decided to have each group let it have it's own language. The Old Language be what they would speak during the festival, and they had the humans do the same.
Soon the humans had populated such a number that they needed several more areas in the ocean. The mermaids all met, then decided to use their magic together to make areas that would be above water, but to save space in their own homes the new areas would float, so therefore move around. They made the areas, though they were far from each other, which everybody understood was a way to develop the legged further, as they were so far behind in development even though they had been taught all the languages and the magics of the mer people. The separation created new languages and plants and types of people (aka white/black/red/yellow, etc.).
Gradually, the mermaids realized that with the rate that they were reproducing, they would also need more space and making more space for them would be much more difficult than it had been to give the humans more space. They checked on the humans for the first time in nearly 10 000 years and realized that the world above water could be a lot harsher than they thought. The population was down to under half the size it had been. Three out of seven areas for the leggeds had crashed together onto one of the underwater mountains, created a large, still area, and many of the plants the leggeds needed died out with the areas no longer constantly moving. The mermaids decided to send many of their own people up onto the areas to help them and the leggeds.
Millions of years passed this way, with mermaids every now and then checking on the leggeds. Eventually descendants of the mermaids that had become leggeds starting going through the problem that they had so much mer in their genes that once they were past a certain age, they started to become a mermaid themselves. The humans found a way to change this, but many decided to just become a mermaid.
Actual Story Plot: The story is set almost exactly 300 million years after Earth was hit by the asteriod. The first main character introduced is a girl (I call her Raven, but this name would probably change if I started writing this idea out) that had her entire family killed in different battles during the current war. She now lives in a sort of orphanage like home in the town neighboring the city she lived in with her family. She's almost 15 - just a few days from her birthday, actually - and her friend Mar is freaking out because of her birthday and upcoming ritual that happens.
The ritual Raven goes through is to find out which magic she possesses. It's really more of a test, and people are not aware of it until a week before their birthday (Mar is already 16, so she knows) and are sworn to secrecy about the test. The only thing she's allowed to know is that afterwards you receive a unique mark that says your main magic and your secondary magic. The problem is that after the test, Raven receives a plain oval for a mark.
The people are unsure about what to do about her, and the 'leader' of the town, the most respected citizen, declares that she should be kicked out, because something unknown is bad luck. Raven is taken when she is sleeping, and left in the woods with a note telling her to stay away from the town, or else. She was also left a book that tells you how to survive when lost in the woods, which Raven uses it to the letter, and after a lucky couple of months has built a small house out of logs and sticks and rope from grass. The animals around the area are getting used to her, and she's found a few sources of water, and the ocean is not too far away, the beach giving her seafood.
Raven, having always been sort of a solitary person, doesn't take long to adapt to the idea of being alone until the war is over, but she does worry and miss her friend Mar and wonders about the happenings of the war, and every now and then thinks about the idea that the town she had lived in might not be there anymore.
After about half a year living in the woods, she starts to travel a bit more, and is becoming familiar with the plants and such. Raven finds a house during one of her travels, something that she never thought she would find in her woods, which are a total no man's land, being set between two major cities from opposite sides of the war.
She stays there for a week, finding the house empty and nearly barren, but one morning when she wakes up she finds the house comfortable and furnished and a woman sitting by a fire outside.
The woman has been waiting for her, and looks about mid-age, and sometimes when Raven looks at her from the corner of her eye her skin shimmers in an odd way.
But the most curious thing of all is that this lady also has an oval mark, and was kicked out of her own city, and her son was taken away from her.
After a bit Raven goes back home to make sure nothing terrible has happened to it, and about a month later she finds a man sleeping at her doorstep. He also has an oval mark, and looks ragged as though he hasn't seen another living person for years.
Raven takes him to the Lady of the Woods and on mistake that all realize that they all have different main magics, the only missing one being air.
The three of them all move into Raven's home (which is the biggest and closest to all handy resources) and try to find this air person, and it ends up being Raven who finds him.
This last one is a mermaid, to all their surprise, who has an oval birthmark.
And so yeah... You get the point, I guess. I have a more detailed plot description and have decided what I would put in the first few chapters (what I have described here would be like the first 4-5 chapters or something like that, maybe even only three.)
So do you think I should keep up with this idea, or just give up on it? There's some other things I would appreciate you giving your opinion about.
-Do you think I should make a mermaid language? I was thinking it might make the story more interesting if I had some book/clue/whatever or something that's in mermish.
-Should I just go full out and get to know this world and its people so well I could write a book just on the world without any characters? I think it's pretty cool when a writer knows everything and anything about characters and worlds and whatnot.
-Do you have any ideas yourself for the plot to add here, and what do you think seems a little cliche?
Thanks for any help! I really appreciate it.
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"Er... no? Unless cold water is hiding some odd stimulant that I'm not aware of."
Last edited by kalrarii : 01-06-2006 at 08:07 AM.
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Story Idea
