Help for Story writing

[sirocco]

Hi! I'm a newbie and I want to write a series of story in a Fantasy/SciFi universe...
Yeah I am still struggling with some notions.
Let me start with the basic story :

Place : Our universe / MW galaxy / Orion Arm / "Vicinity" of the solar system.
Time : 4 main timeline or Era

1- Atlantis Era

Long Ago, on a planet named Gaia, a species known as human evolved. In their natural migration, they reach a large continent full of magical stones they called orichalcum. Using the magical power of those stones they start on submitting their planet.
Politics : 1 main civilized nation that wants to bring light to all Gaia.
Tech : Based on orichalcum stones that can magically master "all forces of nature" : lightstones, firestones, lightningstones, flyingstones and so on

2- Olympus Era

Atlantis started a war it couldn't win and suffered the dire consequences of their arrogance. From the rubbles of that first civilization, rose free thinkers that wanted to create a better world. But against the barbarians an open mind is harmless. Those that long for a human culture finally destroyed their own dream in their quest of strength. They have become Gods revered by all those that wish to live.
Politics : several kingdoms and nations under the godly power of the Olympians.
Tech : Orichalcum stones are being slowly replaced by other materials, less powerful but able to be shaped into common devices : magical lamps, flaming armor, lightning rod, flying cars and so on

3- Tartarus Era

Olympus disappeared just like Atlantis did millennia ago. Yet it was not destroyed just fathom out of Earth. Its inhabitants ended on a planet far away from their home and just can't come back despite their numerous attempts. Compared to the idyllic Earth, Tartarus is an untamed world they have to leave.
From now on, they will wander across the galaxy, disturbing by their sole presence the natural flow of evolution. From now on, their name are cursed wherever they have been.
Politics : many worlds with different sentient species either collaborating or fighting the Humans...when they have not already been eradicated
Tech : Some humans chose to keep on developing "magic" and others prefered the "industrial" path.

4- Current Era

For the first time in MW history, Humans from Earth managed to cross the void between their planet and the one their ancestors were unwillingly send to. Unfortunately they were also unwilling to go. How will it turn out if alien people discover that they are related to the Humans that destroyed their way of living? Is it the fate of Humanity to destroy everything they touch or will they be able to repair the damages done by other? Why have they been sent to this new world?
Politics : Lots of "One World-One Species" planets and very few with human-alien cohabitation
Tech : Mixed Magical-Industrial tech with different levels of technology

So currently before giving you more elements I would want to know :
1- which Era is more interesting for story telling?
2- how would you see those Eras? or rather how do you picture people way of living?
3- what kind of characters/aliens would you expect?
4- is there something that seems wrong in the way I described the whole thing?

Note : From the name of the Era, I am sure you understood that I will tell the story from Humans point of view. And I won't be fair towards the aliens.

[Bounty]

Right now this is so generic as to be meaningless.

[sirocco]

Well about that Magic thing :
It is based on 3 principles : Intent - Power - Shape

- Intent :

only living beings are able to use it. Machines can't. Trees neither. Yet thay can be used -under certain circumstances- as vessels for magic or storage.

- Power :

nearly everyone can use magic. Magic respects so far regular science laws. It's more like an unknown force (I sweared I would never use that word!) that can only be used by living beings.
The little trick is that if you want to start a bonfire of 300 kJ you have to provide 300 kJ of "magical" energy +/- additional energy needed to maintain it in whatever environment you are (Thus it is easier around an active volcano and quite difficult underwater).
You just have to learn it. And it is the body that channels the magic. Hence everyone has a limit to how much magic it can handle. Too much and you may end in a grave.
So the main difference between industrial way and magical way, is that you specifically need people in active control to perform a magical task.

Note : One of the main concern about magic is that it gives individuals access to a great deal of power. That is why my main plot revolves around how do you build a united nation with some people able to blow you up at anytime just by rubbing their noses.

- Shape :

Since humans always try to build society and transmit knowledge to their offspring, it was necessary that magic follow some proper laws. I then thought about Runes : basic signs that each have a meaning. Why not have some basic magic spells being represented by those runes. Spells are the vocabulary of magic and runes are its alphabet.

Concerning the Shape, it is the basis for magical technology and also the type of society you can have.
- People that use devices with runes already implanted : common and easy use of magic
- People that exactly need to know the form and meaning of each rune : only some rare people can perform certain tasks.
- People that just look around them, see some elements that can be partially used in a rune and then complete it using their own way : you do magic where you have proper conditions for performing, which make some places more strategic for a given nation.

Note : Magical research is actually a science in my universe, since you try to understand how Magic works and how profitable it can be to its users.

Note : Magic is the generic term for my handwavium. If you have a better name I'll consider it. But please not the Force!

[Covenant]

Some Greek names and vague moral conceits are not a solid enough basis for criticism, unless this kind of "you haven't thought of anything yet" criticism is what you're going for. In which case: If you want to write a story series based nearly entirely on examining the impact of the setting on human-type people, but don't even know what you want your setting to be like, then you're not qualified yet to write a story series.

And it is ridiculously generic. Newbie Advice: a setting is not interesting enough to be the basis of the story unless the setting is incredibly strange. It's storytelling and characters that makes things stand out. Star Wars was really not that far from a generic science fiction/fantasy universe in terms of 'setting,' and it was how the characters and story developed that setting which made it more than just "young boy fights an evil empire and gains mystical powers" like some terrible Eragon In Space would have been. Spend less time trying to invent a universe that nobody will give a shit about and tailor it to the needs of the story. If you protest that the story is about "what happens as a result of this setting" but your setting is generic, then you've created a Moebius Shit and you've got to break that cycle somewhere.

[Feil]

A story is about people, their problems, and how they try to solve them. You will find that figuring out those three elements can give you a workable setting, whereas trying to build a setting without people, and then jam a story into it, results in something "so generic as to be meaningless" - a setting with no ties to the characters or plot. Even writing in an established universe (our own, for instance, or historical fiction, or sequels, or franchise fiction) works this way.

Example:

Jane and Steve are in love but they can't be together because of political pressures. Furthermore, society is going straight to hell and survival - for them, their culture, and the people they care about - is seriously at issue. They struggle to resolve these issues, making difficult choices, succeeding in some areas and failing in others.

Now we shape it to a setting.

Jane, the daughter of the big shaman, is in love with Steve, the chief's nephew. But when their tribe of hunter-gatherers crosses over a winter land bridge to a new continent, the tribe begins to find strange, glowing rocks with magical powers. The shamans say that the rocks are evil, and that the tribe should throw them away and return home, but the chief and his warriors want their power. The newfound stones destroy the fabric of the tribe, changing dynamics of social order, overturning traditions, threatening the old religion, and creating greed and strife because of their rarity and power. Through all this, Jane and Steve struggle to stay alive and save their families and each other.

Voila.

[Formless]

Rather than just echo what everyone else has already said...

Since you seem to be good at thinking about setting, think about it this way: every setting has a history. In every history there are people who helped shape the setting into its present form. Think about who those people were? what did they do? what did they accomplish, and how did it affected them? Who was Winston Churchill, the historical figure? And who was Winston Churchill, the man, and why did he do the things we remember him for? That's the interesting part that readers want to hear about. Otherwise, you've got a decent campaign setting for a role playing game, and that's about it.

[sirocco]

My main hero is far from the hero icon -strong and goody-goody- rather the scheming type. Well he is one of those people that ended on Tartarus from Earth in my Current Era.
He doesn't know why he is there. He has unresolved issue on Earth and don't even know if he will ever be able to go back.
His first concern is survival then achieving a somewhat decent life on a world where nearly everyone hates its guts.

1- he start as a slave whose only concern is to not get whipped for being to lenient (I wanted to start on a grim tone)
2- he make a special encounter that shows him how pitiful he was and for the first time he does something that has no benefit for him (some kind of suicidal mission, if you want). (Un)fortunately he survives but trigger disastrous events (he wanted to do a good thing but that didn't work out very well for all his former friends)
3- he flees from that first place and is rescued by a group of mercenaries. Considering his situation, he has to show some loyalty to his new friends which means dirtying his hands for the greater good. (I want to explore propaganda and mind manipulation techniques here.
4- His first hope of salvation comes when he encountered other survivors from Earth and starts to wonder what kind of life he wants to have
5- He makes the choice to just join the humans (and particularly a certain woman) and leave those that helped him (Haven't yet thought about that). He marries the girl, has a kid and a relatively nice life.
6- He loses his kid (haven't thought of a better way to show that peaceful life cannot work out for him) an his wife.
7- He just stays among the humans protecting them from any harm and gradually turning into some kind of prophet for them (the usual Promising Land stuff). Until they realize that in fact he has completely lost it and decide to just get rid of him (survival of the group is more important than individuals).
8- Once again he survives and meet one of his former mercenary friend that tries to get him back on his feet.
9- They work together again but no longer for the same reason. This time our hero realize that what happened to him happened also to a lot of people and that he can no longer just let it happen. Yet helping one person at a time won't solve the problem.
10- Long plot on how he tries to create the perfect country of peace and love and etc.

So far I thought he would be the kind of guy to say :

Life leads to Hell or Heaven.
No one can tell you how it ends. But they all know that you have only two choice : the road or the cliff

The other people plots just revolved around his own. But well it still seems to me like a rpg story. Your thoughts?

[Simon_Jester]

You need multiple interacting characters- major ones.

For practical purposes, a "major" character is one whose behavior cannot simply be defined in terms of another character. In the Star Wars movies, for example, Chewbacca is not a major character. You can define Chewbacca quite simply as "Han Solo's big hairy violent sidekick," and that's about it. It doesn't help that he doesn't have any lines, either.

Whereas, say, Princess Leia is a major character. She's got significant properties that cannot be defined solely in terms of another character, such as "is a leadership figure in the Rebel Alliance." And she's got distinct personality traits that lead her to act in certain ways, to say and do things that some Generic Damsel in Distress would not do, which is where awesome lines like "aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?" come from. She is not just an accessory to someone else in the story.

You need several major characters (Leia-grade), not just one or two with a surrounding cast of minor characters.

Also, note the difference between character properties and character traits: your properties define what you do, your personality defines who you are. You need both: a character with properties but no interesting traits is at best a useful machine for making events happen, and is therefore not a major character. A character with traits but no interesting properties is useless to the plot and therefore likely to be seen as a waste of time by the reader.
_______

So having a hero with a distinct personality is not enough. Defining what happens to that hero is not nearly enough. A plot summary of "The Adventures of Bob the Hero" is going to be boring as hell, and if your entire story is about the adventures themselves, not about Bob and his interactions with assorted friends and rivals, it's going to be just as boring as the plot summary. Because there won't be any interplay of traits, only of properties.

You need a cast of characters. Not all of them will be viewpoint characters, and thus some of them must be considered both in terms of who they really are (as shown by what they do) and in terms of what your viewpoint characters think of them. But the major characters need to make sense in both contexts. That should draw the majority of your attention, not a summary of what's happening to them.

[Covenant]

Aww dude, you're killin' us here.

My main hero is far from the hero icon -strong and goody-goody- rather the scheming type. Well he is one of those people that ended on Tartarus from Earth in my Current Era.
He doesn't know why he is there. He has unresolved issue on Earth and don't even know if he will ever be able to go back.
His first concern is survival then achieving a somewhat decent life on a world where nearly everyone hates its guts.

None of this means anything. The whole goddamn world is obsessed with dark and gritty anti-heroes that saying he's not strong and nice is just like saying "he's kinda like all those dudes in all those video games and movies, only it's my idea, so he's cool." At the moment, having a "strong goody-goody" guy would be the least overdone archetype, so don't think you're winning and special points by focusing on Dirk McNasty here.

1- he start as a slave whose only concern is to not get whipped for being to lenient (I wanted to start on a grim tone)
2- he make a special encounter that shows him how pitiful he was and for the first time he does something that has no benefit for him (some kind of suicidal mission, if you want). (Un)fortunately he survives but trigger disastrous events (he wanted to do a good thing but that didn't work out very well for all his former friends)

This is so bad. So his first good deed is a suicide mission or something similarly absurd--what? Imagine someone you know who actually only thinks of himself--now try to imagine him going on a suicide mission for someone else, does that work? Plus, didn't he start off as being "too lenient" or something? Is he a slave that whips other slaves? Who are his friends in this situation? The oppressive slave-owners? The guys he's whipping? So after this magical revelation he decides to engage in heroic redemptive suicide, but there are Unforseen Consequences, and now people are sad. This isn't dark, it's just somewhat childish. If you really want to make things grim, don't make it so cartoonishly evil, since it sounds more like he's intellectually lazy and cowardly than anything else.

3- he flees from that first place and is rescued by a group of mercenaries. Considering his situation, he has to show some loyalty to his new friends which means dirtying his hands for the greater good. (I want to explore propaganda and mind manipulation techniques here.

Mercenaries don't fight for the greater good, you realize, they're mercenaries--they fight for a paycheck. Nor do they generally do a lot of rescuing unless they're mercs hired by the other side (is there an other side) and they're being told to pick up worthless stragglers. I'm not being overly hostile here, or saying that all mercs are evil bastards, but all of this stuff is so very cliche so far and all you've done up to this point is establish that he's a bit of an evil self-absorbed douche who had a moment of clarity and decided he doesn't want to be so evil anymore. There's a lot of better ways to do this than kinda do a half-baked version of the Conan movie's intro.

4- His first hope of salvation comes when he encountered other survivors from Earth and starts to wonder what kind of life he wants to have
5- He makes the choice to just join the humans (and particularly a certain woman) and leave those that helped him (Haven't yet thought about that). He marries the girl, has a kid and a relatively nice life.

Interest... evaporating...

Please, no romance sub-plot yet. We don't even like this son-of-a-whore yet, since he's basically done nothing of value nor redeemed himself nor even deserved anything good. He's just decided to join his own species (oh wow, big sacrifice there) and leave someone who helped him (who is... non human? And who you haven't thought about yet?) and settle down? That's it? Why? So much for a greater good eh?

6- He loses his kid (haven't thought of a better way to show that peaceful life cannot work out for him) an his wife.

Cliche and terrible. All you've done is stuff his family into the refrigerator in order to make him feel bad, which is just a cheap and easy gut-shot which probably won't even work since how long have we even known these two for? How is this a demonstration that a peaceful life won't work for him? Maybe he should have been more peaceful, and moved to some place nice and quiet, unless you're designing a setting in which murdering bands simply rampage around and stab families no matter where you are. If I moved out to Afghanistan and I got shot at, my first thought wouldn't be "A peaceful life will never work for me!" but "Holy shit maybe I shouldn't be in fucking Afghanistan!" You don't need to shove the hero into conflict by burning down his life. Also, none of this benefits from the bullshit 1-5 entries. You could frankly start right here, Seven Samurai style.

7- He just stays among the humans protecting them from any harm and gradually turning into some kind of prophet for them (the usual Promising Land stuff). Until they realize that in fact he has completely lost it and decide to just get rid of him (survival of the group is more important than individuals).

Wallbanger material. Hero has gone from being uninteresting to actively offensive to the reader, and at this point we'd rather be reading about the peasentfolk than this dumbass. Please do not do this. This is a bad plot development unless you're doing it to someone we do not have to read much about. A similar transformation happened to Lancelot after his fall from grace, but we were mercifully spared much of it. Furthermore, this doesn't jive with number 6.

8- Once again he survives and meet one of his former mercenary friend that tries to get him back on his feet.
9- They work together again but no longer for the same reason. This time our hero realize that what happened to him happened also to a lot of people and that he can no longer just let it happen. Yet helping one person at a time won't solve the problem.
10- Long plot on how he tries to create the perfect country of peace and love and etc.

This is awful, terrible, very bad plot. Basically, stick with your core concepts and throw the rest of this out. What you're doing is making your character yo-yo back and forth between incompatible mental states, which just makes him look insane. Plus, why the hell are these mercenaries showing up again as a force for the Greater Good? Does the Greater Good pay for their monthly stipend of rum and whores? Not only do you need like 4 more characters, but you need to stop focusing on what happens to him and more about what he's feeling during these times. What you've done is cram a lot of 'stuff' into the story without there being any impact whatsoever. Look at Unforgiven--you don't need a million bad things to happen to a character to give them a bit of an edge. If you made a book out of Unforgiven your character would feel harder, grimmer, sadder and more sympathetic than this guy ever will. The reader will catch on pretty fast that you keep dropping a refrigerator on every source of happiness or normalcy, which isn't a story as much as a string of events with some narration.

So far I thought he would be the kind of guy to say :

Life leads to Hell or Heaven.
No one can tell you how it ends. But they all know that you have only two choice : the road or the cliff

The other people plots just revolved around his own. But well it still seems to me like a rpg story. Your thoughts?

This is also a terrible quote. Not only does it not make sense, but it doesn't make him look grim--it just makes him look angsty, like some dumbass teen vampire. If you want him to be weary and grim, don't make him such an idiot. If he's buried his wife and child, seen good men die because he tried to help them, dragged his ass across the fields of perdition because nothing but meanness and desperation had any hold left on him only to end up going mad from it all and seeing a blazing trail to a promised land... and then back again to nothing, he's not going to be so melodramatic about death and life. And if he is, then he's going to have to be that kind of a big-mouthed jackass the whole way through, and will be entirely insufferable.

I think you need to do what actors do when they test out a character--write down some lines, or a scene, make him interact. Think out some conversations, some stuff he'd do and say, at points in his life, and establish the growth of the character. If that kind of trite, off-the-shelf philosophy is the best he can come up with after that, then he's really not deep enough to be a main character at all. Either way, he sure as hell ain't no hero.

[sirocco]

From all this interesting (?) and nicely(?) written post, I've decided to rewrite some part of the story.

Some concept :
Tartarus is made of cities and nomad communities.
- Cities are big-brother like megalopolis. They are the equivalent of nations in this world
- Communities is made of people who just couldn't fit in cities (willingly or not).

My hero starts in a mining community where he is incorporated in one of the teams (prelude to learning alien language, basics of magical power). He slowly bonds with members of the team until he discovered that they are staging some sort of coup. Their plan is daring yet dangerous but he is going to join them because they are the only people he knows on this world. But he keeps on trying to stop them but fails to do so.
Finally the plan just backfire and only two people manage to get out alive, the hero being one of those two. He follows the other guy into a mercs community. Since he needs to earn his living, he'll start dirtying his hands. When he meets the other human survivors, he convinced them to join the community (at first it's because they need to lay low for a little time). Then comes the romance sub-plot.

I kept the romance because at some point the humans survivors have to consider the future of their group. Hence heterosexual relations are actively encouraged as well as pregnancy... But I'll forget the kid's death (I don't even need a kid). I'll replace it with a sudden attack on the whole community and rewrite it from there.

About the characters :

the main character is the archetype of the guy who doesn't like being alone. He always seeks the company of other people.

the mercs community has the usual guys : "I think ahead" boss, "If you are not happy deal with it" second in command, "I look nice" guy, "I don't like humans" guy, "I'm here for the thrill" guy, "I just want enough money to buy a condo uptown" guy. I am currently working on their specific traits.

You need several major characters (Leia-grade), not just one or two with a surrounding cast of minor characters.

When I read that I thought : "Damn! I don't even have one! I need to work on that!". Thanks for the post

Aww dude, you're killin' us here. (...)

This is also a terrible quote. Not only does it not make sense, but it doesn't make him look grim--it just makes him look angsty, like some dumbass teen vampire. If you want him to be weary and grim, don't make him such an idiot. If he's buried his wife and child, seen good men die because he tried to help them, dragged his ass across the fields of perdition because nothing but meanness and desperation had any hold left on him only to end up going mad from it all and seeing a blazing trail to a promised land... and then back again to nothing, he's not going to be so melodramatic about death and life. And if he is, then he's going to have to be that kind of a big-mouthed jackass the whole way through, and will be entirely insufferable.

I think you need to do what actors do when they test out a character--write down some lines, or a scene, make him interact. Think out some conversations, some stuff he'd do and say, at points in his life, and establish the growth of the character. If that kind of trite, off-the-shelf philosophy is the best he can come up with after that, then he's really not deep enough to be a main character at all. Either way, he sure as hell ain't no hero.

I kept the best part of it...

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

From all this interesting (?) and nicely(?) written post, I've decided to rewrite some part of the story.

Some concept :
Tartarus is made of cities and nomad communities.
- Cities are big-brother like megalopolis. They are the equivalent of nations in this world
- Communities is made of people who just couldn't fit in cities (willingly or not).

This, we care not about. It's not only cliche, but it's a not very well thought-out cliche. People who don't really "fit in" in cities . . . tend to end up in slums in the middle or hovels on the outskirts. Not out in rogue bands wandering the countryside filled with Interesting NPCs waiting for a player party to join.

My hero starts in a mining community where he is incorporated in one of the teams (prelude to learning alien language, basics of magical power). He slowly bonds with members of the team until he discovered that they are staging some sort of coup. Their plan is daring yet dangerous but he is going to join them because they are the only people he knows on this world. But he keeps on trying to stop them but fails to do so.
Finally the plan just backfire and only two people manage to get out alive, the hero being one of those two. He follows the other guy into a mercs community. Since he needs to earn his living, he'll start dirtying his hands. When he meets the other human survivors, he convinced them to join the community (at first it's because they need to lay low for a little time). Then comes the romance sub-plot.

I kept the romance because at some point the humans survivors have to consider the future of their group. Hence heterosexual relations are actively encouraged as well as pregnancy... But I'll forget the kid's death (I don't even need a kid). I'll replace it with a sudden attack on the whole community and rewrite it from there.

Better than what you had before. At least The Hero has a plausible reason to run with mercenaries now. I'm still not sure we, as the readers, will give a shit about the romance. Especially if it reads like a TV Tropes entry and the girl ends up Being Put on a Bus/Having a Bridge Dropped on Her to advance the story.

About the characters :

the main character is the archetype of the guy who doesn't like being alone. He always seeks the company of other people.

Okay, he seems to be an improvement over his last incarnation. Just beware of going so far away from Dirk McNasty that you end up with Lonesome McAngstalot.

the mercs community has the usual guys : "I think ahead" boss, "If you are not happy deal with it" second in command, "I look nice" guy, "I don't like humans" guy, "I'm here for the thrill" guy, "I just want enough money to buy a condo uptown" guy. I am currently working on their specific traits.

Do put some though into these characters. Show us that they're more than just cookie-cutter Beefcake McHardass types. Especially since it seems they're going to be vitally important later on.

Aww dude, you're killin' us here. (...)

This is also a terrible quote. Not only does it not make sense, but it doesn't make him look grim--it just makes him look angsty, like some dumbass teen vampire. If you want him to be weary and grim, don't make him such an idiot. If he's buried his wife and child, seen good men die because he tried to help them, dragged his ass across the fields of perdition because nothing but meanness and desperation had any hold left on him only to end up going mad from it all and seeing a blazing trail to a promised land... and then back again to nothing, he's not going to be so melodramatic about death and life. And if he is, then he's going to have to be that kind of a big-mouthed jackass the whole way through, and will be entirely insufferable.

I think you need to do what actors do when they test out a character--write down some lines, or a scene, make him interact. Think out some conversations, some stuff he'd do and say, at points in his life, and establish the growth of the character. If that kind of trite, off-the-shelf philosophy is the best he can come up with after that, then he's really not deep enough to be a main character at all. Either way, he sure as hell ain't no hero.

I kept the best part of it...

If that was the best part, you need to think of a better one. As the man suggested, do write out some scenes and conversations to get a better feel of how The Hero will interact with the world, and (most importantly) how the world interacts with The Hero.

[Covenant]

Some concept :
Tartarus is made of cities and nomad communities.
- Cities are big-brother like megalopolis. They are the equivalent of nations in this world
- Communities is made of people who just couldn't fit in cities (willingly or not).

Better concepts--you shouldn't make them all uniformly big-brother superstates though, there's really no need for that, and you'll end up with a Planet Of Hats. It's quite possible that there's nicer, less dualistic places around, but they're so physically distant that it might as well be a different world. If you ended up in Sparta, it's a non-trivial walk to Athens. 150 miles at walking speed is quite a distance, and those are pretty much adjacent.

Basically, whenever possible never have all of something be the same--and don't make there just be one or two non-similar ones. A big-brother state is hard to maintain, and there are plenty of cities between the size of Megalopolis and Squatter Community. He could be living in the suburbs afterall.

It shouldn't be the SIZE of the community that makes it controlled or not by Big Brother. Why not have every town with a Big-Brother version of a Tax Collector/Political Officer, regardless of size, but the smaller ones get a less competent one with less enforcement power. Then you could examine HIS motivations too. Might be interesting. It also gives you someone to stage a coup against, rather than just saying "We of this small, tiny mining community are going to Fight The Man!" They'd be better off forming a union, wouldn't they? I mean, how can they POSSIBLY have any chance of success? You'll make them seem totally crazy and unsympathetic.

My hero starts in a mining community where he is incorporated in one of the teams (prelude to learning alien language, basics of magical power). He slowly bonds with members of the team until he discovered that they are staging some sort of coup. Their plan is daring yet dangerous but he is going to join them because they are the only people he knows on this world. But he keeps on trying to stop them but fails to do so.
Finally the plan just backfire and only two people manage to get out alive, the hero being one of those two. He follows the other guy into a mercs community. Since he needs to earn his living, he'll start dirtying his hands. When he meets the other human survivors, he convinced them to join the community (at first it's because they need to lay low for a little time). Then comes the romance sub-plot.

Who are they staging a coup against, how will it succeed, what are their goals, why are they doing this, etc... if they're insane freedom fighters then they'll look kinda like domestic terrorists. Having a 'big brother' state isn't automatically evil, so unless we have a reason to feel that violent demolishing of the social order to be replaced by an Oligarchy of this Mining Town's terrorist elders, we're just going to think they're violent madmen. Maybe they are though, maybe that's part of the ethical gray-area of this situation. It's better, since now he's got a reason to do this.

I kept the romance because at some point the humans survivors have to consider the future of their group. Hence heterosexual relations are actively encouraged as well as pregnancy... But I'll forget the kid's death (I don't even need a kid). I'll replace it with a sudden attack on the whole community and rewrite it from there.

You know, if it's really about reproduction, gay people aren't causing problems. Heterosexual doesn't mean Monogamous. You could touch on this--you only need a few heterosexual males for X number of females. Just so long as your community isn't entirely staffed by lesbians who aren't interested in any form of insemination your town shouldn't have issues generating children. Besides, a single small town won't be a large enough genepool to support a growing population, so they're just tilting at windmills and hand-wringing about heterosexuality just makes it look bigoted. It hasn't really slowed the species down so far.

the main character is the archetype of the guy who doesn't like being alone. He always seeks the company of other people.

That's more interesting. Thank you for reconsidering his motivation. You don't want to make him depressy or angsty, but most people pine for the company of others, and maybe he's a bit of a follower and likes the company of strong leadership to give himself a feeling of security in this turned-upside-down world he's in now. So long as you make it clear that he's not a total loser, but perhaps has trust issues and doesn't like to have to decide all these things on his own, you make it more believable, and lay a foundation for character maturation later.

the mercs community has the usual guys : "I think ahead" boss, "If you are not happy deal with it" second in command, "I look nice" guy, "I don't like humans" guy, "I'm here for the thrill" guy, "I just want enough money to buy a condo uptown" guy. I am currently working on their specific traits.

You should avoid 'usual guys' for what's going to be a large portion of the novel. You can have lots of filler characters, but if we're going to be stuck reading about these guys, there should actually be some reason to. You don't actually need them, and excising that entire chapter might make the story stronger. If it's just there to advance the plot, take it out. You haven't written the plot in stone yet, right? So if you've got a kinda dull, poorly thought-out section of the story existing there simply to advance the plot, write the plot so you don't need it. Why even bother with that mercenary middleman section? Maybe his only tie to this community was safety and a feeling of non-lonelyness, but after the Evil Badpeople attack, and his quasi-wife dies, he actually Gives A Shit and decides to step into the power void left by the attackers. He could then move on towards the latter half of his story arc without all that madness, mercenaries, and so forth.

So instead of mercs, you'd develop several townspeople. Some of these would die during the attack, giving you a Life Has Consequences sadness, and letting you demonstrate character growth over time rather than needing to invent a ton of extra characters for no reason. Then if you want a 'blast from the past' character to set him a-right on his path, or weird him out or whatever, let it be some people from his first town. The town of crazyass psychos who wanted to Row Row Fight The Powa.

[Zixinus]

sirocco, how old are you?

Because a lot of this seems like a draft notes of a teenager. I know because I was such a teenager, I still have the files from that period.

You need to know more about how stories are written. To start, your grammar is a bit confusing.
Then you need to understand that stories follow a classical line of this: introduction, conflict, escalation, climax and aftermath.

All fiction follows this crescendo, movies and fiction included. Your plot does not. It wavers around escalation and climax and aftermath, going back and forth.

Also, you need to re-think his motivations. People don't do heroic stuff for no reason. They do it because they feel guilty, they feel worthless, they feel stupid, they feel invincible or sometimes simply because it's their job (in which case, usually they're not really recognised as heroes for some reason).
Either present these traits or traits like these or tone-down the hero thing. Since we follow this guy and is told what he feels, its vital more than not that we understand him and relate to him. His motivations has to be clear.

The miner storyline is definitely improved. He now has some motivation and reasons of his own.

However: Where is he from? What did he do? What does he want to do with his life? What is his primary traits? What are his negative aspects of his personality? Does he have insecurities or strongly-held beliefs? How does he relate to strangers? What does he think of non-humans (and please make an effort for them to be really non-humans: elves who are semi-superhumans who are inexplicitly beautiful and have pointy ears does not qualify as "non-human") when he first meets them? What attitudes does he have to life, to people, to work? What did he do in his free time on Earth?

And so on. Slavery does not give much space for introspection, because he comes to realize that all that he was before is irrelevant.

Also, you will have to justify why the mercenaries are willing to take in an escaped slave and what is likely some kind of alien. Mercenaries, in human culture at least, usually are professional soldiers and soldiers don't like to take in people that are not soldiers like them.

[Zixinus]

Oh, and ghetto edit (I think that it is that): here's an important lesson.

Always try to put trough your story into a logical line. Don't leave holes: try to make as few plot-lines as possible and mercilessly hack away anything that can only cause a glitch. Don't be afraid to take out an idea: copy them out and save them. Ideas can be recycled very effectively, sometimes becoming better the older they are.

[sirocco]

Sorry for the delay I have been incredibly busy until todayy.

Some concept :
Tartarus is made of cities and nomad communities.
- Cities are big-brother like megalopolis. They are the equivalent of nations in this world
- Communities is made of people who just couldn't fit in cities (willingly or not).

This, we care not about. It's not only cliche, but it's a not very well thought-out cliche. People who don't really "fit in" in cities . . . tend to end up in slums in the middle or hovels on the outskirts. Not out in rogue bands wandering the countryside filled with Interesting NPCs waiting for a player party to join.

Better concepts--you shouldn't make them all uniformly big-brother superstates though, there's really no need for that, and you'll end up with a Planet Of Hats. It's quite possible that there's nicer, less dualistic places around, but they're so physically distant that it might as well be a different world. If you ended up in Sparta, it's a non-trivial walk to Athens. 150 miles at walking speed is quite a distance, and those are pretty much adjacent.

Basically, whenever possible never have all of something be the same--and don't make there just be one or two non-similar ones. A big-brother state is hard to maintain, and there are plenty of cities between the size of Megalopolis and Squatter Community. He could be living in the suburbs afterall.

It shouldn't be the SIZE of the community that makes it controlled or not by Big Brother. Why not have every town with a Big-Brother version of a Tax Collector/Political Officer, regardless of size, but the smaller ones get a less competent one with less enforcement power. Then you could examine HIS motivations too. Might be interesting. It also gives you someone to stage a coup against, rather than just saying "We of this small, tiny mining community are going to Fight The Man!" They'd be better off forming a union, wouldn't they? I mean, how can they POSSIBLY have any chance of success? You'll make them seem totally crazy and unsympathetic.

A little more background to my original concept :
- the Tartarus region where the main character landed is a really advanced capitalistic world where nearly everyone motto is "I must be better, faster, smarter? ... than everyone"

- Hence, they have a cult of hyper-efficiency and hyper-mobility which led to the creation of Communities which were nothing more than an organized entity which travels from region to region to fuel their activity. Later they became larger and assumed more responsibilities because of the sheer number of people joining them. It's not really that people who don't fit in a city go to a community, it's rather that communities are a real alternative to cities in term of jobs, education, services and so on

- The Big Brother like Cities refer to magic and the ability of anyone powerful enough to challenge the current government. Don't worry it is not as extreme as in 1984 but cities are nevertheless enclosed space with strict laws. And above all there is such a sense of competition between cities themselves than they can't afford to have Judge Dredd-like policeman and drive every valuable tax payer out. I'm not into Big is Evil and Small is Good but rather There are lots of People with different point of views and way of achieving their goal (= "Today, you are with me or against me? have you thought about tomorrow?" )

- I plan to make a multi-cultural society on Tartarus (all the members of an alien species can't look and think the same especially on such a big planet). I started to look at Earth cultures (thanks wikipedia) then will later elaborate on truly alien ways of thinking. It will take some time but that would make the story more interesting.

Who are they staging a coup against, how will it succeed, what are their goals, why are they doing this, etc... if they're insane freedom fighters then they'll look kinda like domestic terrorists. Having a 'big brother' state isn't automatically evil, so unless we have a reason to feel that violent demolishing of the social order to be replaced by an Oligarchy of this Mining Town's terrorist elders, we're just going to think they're violent madmen. Maybe they are though, maybe that's part of the ethical gray-area of this situation. It's better, since now he's got a reason to do this.

Couldn't have said it better.

You know, if it's really about reproduction, gay people aren't causing problems. Heterosexual doesn't mean Monogamous. You could touch on this--you only need a few heterosexual males for X number of females. Just so long as your community isn't entirely staffed by lesbians who aren't interested in any form of insemination your town shouldn't have issues generating children. Besides, a single small town won't be a large enough genepool to support a growing population, so they're just tilting at windmills and hand-wringing about heterosexuality just makes it look bigoted. It hasn't really slowed the species down so far.

But on the other hand you have a group made of people that didn't know each other before their arrival on Tartarus. They all have their own cultural background and personal history. there obviously be clans and internal fight to claim leadership but the main point is that they need to exist as a sole entity. Making families is the best way they know. Some people will complain that they can't just get married to anyone (Palestinian and Israeli maybe not at first) and that neither marriage nor mutual love are necessary for reproduction. Other will respond that it is because of the positive effect that wedding ceremonies have on people that they should keep that tradition. Over the years different forms of union will arise and some sad truth (like "we may indeed never be able to get back to Earth") will make other issues more important than this one.

I keep the romance.

Note : on Tartarus, genetically helped homosexual reproduction does exist but unfortunately the human physiology is not very well known. So forget about lesbian relationship you pervert!

Note2 : How much people do you think I need to have initially to ensure a "good" genepool?

You should avoid 'usual guys' for what's going to be a large portion of the novel. You can have lots of filler characters, but if we're going to be stuck reading about these guys, there should actually be some reason to. You don't actually need them, and excising that entire chapter might make the story stronger. If it's just there to advance the plot, take it out. You haven't written the plot in stone yet, right? So if you've got a kinda dull, poorly thought-out section of the story existing there simply to advance the plot, write the plot so you don't need it. Why even bother with that mercenary middleman section? Maybe his only tie to this community was safety and a feeling of non-lonelyness, but after the Evil Badpeople attack, and his quasi-wife dies, he actually Gives A Shit and decides to step into the power void left by the attackers. He could then move on towards the latter half of his story arc without all that madness, mercenaries, and so forth.

So instead of mercs, you'd develop several townspeople. Some of these would die during the attack, giving you a Life Has Consequences sadness, and letting you demonstrate character growth over time rather than needing to invent a ton of extra characters for no reason. Then if you want a 'blast from the past' character to set him a-right on his path, or weird him out or whatever, let it be some people from his first town. The town of crazyass psychos who wanted to Row Row Fight The Powa.

The "usual guys" is just the way the main character do see other characters. Sometimes he's right but not always. He needs to learn more about people and interacting with them. And remember that I'm talking about an alien world with alien people. They have the right to look utterly boring, really weird and/or totally crazy.

About the mercs I've just work on the most important ones : the mentor, the doctor and the rival.
And how did you know about the return of the crazyass psychos !?

Oh, and ghetto edit (I think that it is that): here's an important lesson.

Always try to put trough your story into a logical line. Don't leave holes: try to make as few plot-lines as possible and mercilessly hack away anything that can only cause a glitch. Don't be afraid to take out an idea: copy them out and save them. Ideas can be recycled very effectively, sometimes becoming better the older they are.

Thank you for the advice.
Sorry for my grammar but I'm a french speaking person, so I tend to just copy-paste what I think and not what I mean. But I'm working on that.

Then you need to understand that stories follow a classical line of this: introduction, conflict, escalation, climax and aftermath.
All fiction follows this crescendo, movies and fiction included. Your plot does not. It wavers around escalation and climax and aftermath, going back and forth.

The truth is that I planned on doing several plots revolving around my human community and all those stories sometimex bump into each other. I'm just that kind of writer.
But I have a solution : 1 general plot supported by several little stories. Like a tv show, you need each episode to understand the whole season.

What do you think?

[Broomstick]

I think you want to be a writer but need to learn more about the technical parts of the craft. You say you're a French speaker, which makes me wonder if part of your problem in this thread is related to having to express yourself in English. Are you planning to write in English or in French? Of course, many things would apply equally to either language.

You have grand ideas, but I'm not sure you have a story here. I encourage you to keep working on these ideas and playing around with them, but look into resources that discuss how to write as well as continuing to work at writing.

[Broomstick]

Tartarus is made of cities and nomad communities.
- Cities are big-brother like megalopolis. They are the equivalent of nations in this world

I wish to clarify - do you mean they are authoritarian governments rather than inclusive democracies? This may mean a ruling body of a number of people making "democratic" decisions, but most of the population not having a say in governing matters. Authoritarian governments range from highly controlled police states to enlightened liberal monarchies. They can be rigidly intolerant or quite tolerant

Note2 : How much people do you think I need to have initially to ensure a "good" genepool?

That's a debatable question, but I'd say 5,000 if you're taking samplings of Earth's population and they're mostly healthy young adults (say, 15-30). You'll need more if you're starting with a truly random cross-section of the population and wind up with some very old and very young people. Even then, after a dozen or so generations you'll still have problems with recessives cropping up. How do these people handle birth defects and genetic disease? Assuming a true multi-cultural planet that could range from tolerance to infanticide depending on where you are. Such things might also have an effect on cultures. You might, somewhere, have ruling families with hereditary traits and/or diseases - hell, Europe had that with a MUCH larger population base to start, see "Hapsburg chin" and "hemophilia".

There is some evidence that Earth's human population went through a bottleneck about 70,000 years ago which may have dropped the population as low as 15,000 total, or, calculated in other ways, down to 1,000 breeding pairs of humans. Since, clearly, humanity can recover from such a bottleneck that might be a reasonable number to start with. Higher technology might allow you to get away with a lower initial population as you might have fewer losses due to accidents and illness.

[sirocco]

Tartarus is made of cities and nomad communities.
- Cities are big-brother like megalopolis. They are the equivalent of nations in this world

I wish to clarify - do you mean they are authoritarian governments rather than inclusive democracies? This may mean a ruling body of a number of people making "democratic" decisions, but most of the population not having a say in governing matters. Authoritarian governments range from highly controlled police states to enlightened liberal monarchies. They can be rigidly intolerant or quite tolerant

You have both kind of cities :
- those that consider that the good way to manage people is by letting them decide what they (think they) want. the cool old democracy...
- those that believed that in such a harsh and competitive world, the average citizen doesn't have the time to worry about politics and elections. for them a city is just like a big company with economical and social goals that must be reached to ensure peace and prosperity. They rely heavily on poll and local democratically elected councils.

The tolerance thing is another matter. Even though advanced, Tartarus is a world with various alien races and a long history of inter and intra-racial war. Let's say that depending on what you are and the city you want to be accepted in, you will face complete jerks or really nice fellas.

That's a debatable question, but I'd say 5,000 if you're taking samplings of Earth's population and they're mostly healthy young adults (say, 15-30). You'll need more if you're starting with a truly random cross-section of the population and wind up with some very old and very young people. Even then, after a dozen or so generations you'll still have problems with recessives cropping up. How do these people handle birth defects and genetic disease? Assuming a true multi-cultural planet that could range from tolerance to infanticide depending on where you are. Such things might also have an effect on cultures. You might, somewhere, have ruling families with hereditary traits and/or diseases - hell, Europe had that with a MUCH larger population base to start, see "Hapsburg chin" and "hemophilia".

There is some evidence that Earth's human population went through a bottleneck about 70,000 years ago which may have dropped the population as low as 15,000 total, or, calculated in other ways, down to 1,000 breeding pairs of humans. Since, clearly, humanity can recover from such a bottleneck that might be a reasonable number to start with. Higher technology might allow you to get away with a lower initial population as you might have fewer losses due to accidents and illness.

So between 2000 and 5000 people with the usual cha-cha-ching and less with some advanced technology. What about a 1000 healthy young adults and 3-400 really old and really young ?

My main plot revolves around the fact that there were no longer any human on Tartarus before the Earth came. And being an endangered species, would it be easier to defend themselves as one colony of thousands of individuals or several small colonies dispersed over all the planet ?

[Broomstick]

So between 2000 and 5000 people with the usual cha-cha-ching and less with some advanced technology. What about a 1000 healthy young adults and 3-400 really old and really young ?

1000 healthy adults will only give you around 500 breeding pairs. IF you have a society tolerant of swapping partners around that might mitigate some of the inbreeding (though not all of it), but that's a really low number. A natural catastrophe or epidemic could plunge such a small group into extinction quite easily. It doesn't mean it WILL happen, but such a group will need to produce a LOT of babies to ensure survival.

My main plot revolves around the fact that there were no longer any human on Tartarus before the Earth came. And being an endangered species, would it be easier to defend themselves as one colony of thousands of individuals or several small colonies dispersed over all the planet ?

Small colonies are better in that one disaster will not wipe everyone out - an important consideration if there are alien competitors about - but each such colony would need to be around 1,000 "breeding pairs" and something like 5,000 individuals over all age spans, unless there is a LOT of regular communication and population swapping between the communities. A LOT. And lots of marrying people in other communities rather than your own.

[sirocco]

That population problem and their desire for returning Earth may eventually lead my human characters to start exploring other planets later in the story.
Another question : how do you imagine the communities' means of transportation ?

Some facts :
- size : 1 000 to 1 000 000 people from different cultures and race
- area : Australia wide territories
- vehicles : any kind (animal, machine, air-borne, whatever) and size (some people come with their whole family, other are just looking for opportunities (i.e single))

Thanks for your participation