A genderless wizard and a crystallizing girl---anyone interested in my new ideas?

[TheCrystallineEntity]

I have a whole bunch of ideas for a new book, but I'm not sure what to do with them. Is anyone interested in hearing the ideas?

--A mysterious, genderless wizard
--A girl who is slowly and painfully crystallizing, with no memories of any identity or even the world she is in
--A winged cat, because of course there is

I am interested in finding out more, though. Maybe there's a story here somewhere.

 

[Vaporo]

How about a winged genderless cat wizard who is slowly crystallizing with no memory of their identity or the world they are in?

In all seriousness, what do you mean by "crystallizing?"

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

I mean that their body is turning to crystal, like Crystal Stasis in Final Fantasy 13: [I basically 'borrowed' the idea...]

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

 

[visually_alert]

Is this wizard keeping her held somewhere? Did he crystallize her? Or was she maybe traveling with the winded cat and got trapped somehow and started to crystallize after an accident? Is the cat her familiar?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Winged cat as in domestic cat or lion? Because if the latter it could be either a griffin or a winged lion - both are found in Greek mythology.

As for your girl with no memory you might want to read Soldier In The Mist. Really good read about an ancient soldier suffering from ongoing amnesia.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

^Probably a domestic cat.
Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[staiger95]

The crux of the gender-less character is to decide if it is to be truly without gender—such as a thing, a cosmic entity, or from a race with no masculine-feminine dichotomy—or if its primarily androgynous, possessing qualities from both male and female aspects. With the latter, the real trick is to avoid pronouns at all cost, and to do so without being obvious. Use an interchange of masculine and feminine characteristics and description throughout, without ever landing on a definitive word choice (such as oracle, as opposed to priest or priestess). If you never say what the character is, but give plenty of frustratingly close allusions to both, you leave the reader in a necessary limbo the assignment of gender becomes irrelevant.

 

[staiger95]

I love the poor crystallizing girl concept (so much that I may have to flesh it out in some cobwebbed corner of my mind). How elegantly it plays upon thematic elements of life and death: coming from some unknown, altering through time towards an inevitable transformation into something equally unknown. The dynamic truly lends itself to so much. My immediate conceptual thought just off the cuff would be that she is not a person at all, but a mystic artifact (a statue maybe??) that has been transformed into a person for whatever reason. Think The Last Unicorn or something similar. However you look at it, there is primary protagonist potential all over it: discovering one's identity, learning what it means to be human, self-sacrifice for the greater good. All great stuff.

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

^I was thinking about The Last Unicorn, too, actually. The movie sits proudly on my shelf, along with a whole bunch of Studio Ghibli movies.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

When I was like 10 I wrote a story with winged cats called Eagle-Cats. They were large enough to be ridden by people, though.

 

[skip.knox]

The story? Or the eagle-cats? ;-)

 

[Svrtnsse]

I needed a big flying predator for a story I was writing a few years back, and ended up creating the wind bear species (here).

In the end I never actually used them in the story, but they do still exist in the setting I'm working on. None of my characters ever met one though.

 

[Bandicoot]

What was the girl before she began to crystalise? Was she an ordinary girl? Does the cat belong to her or to the wizard?

The three concepts are interesting. But everything would depend on how you weave them together, make them relate to each other.

Here is my suggestion. An ordinary girl is enspelled/cursed and begins to crystalise. Her cat - who was a magical creature with wings who had been sent by somebody to protect her - goes in search of the genderless wizard to find a cure.

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

^That's a neat idea. Knowing me, the end result will likely be much weirder and crazier.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

The main character should be the winged cat.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Also, this thread should probably be in Brainstorming and Planning.

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

^^Yes and ^ Yes.

My cast of characters so far [the story takes place in a realm called Nowhere]:

Ii: a warping wizarding detective and owner of the Bookstore Inn Between Nowhere who is fond of long scarves and random non sequiturs.
N'chen: Ii's partner, a werefox--wereraven who bakes and cooks and also is a florist in his spare time.
Noul: N'chen's older brother, a quiet and soft-spoken werewolf-werefruitbat who is a dancer and a singer.
Chaena: Ii and N'chen's 'daughter', a hermaphrodite who was made out of flowers and leaves by N'chen; she has the unfortunate side effect of erasing a person's memory of her if they lock gazes, so she wears sunglasses.
Anny: The author [me] travelling in disguise with a league of cats all named after anime and video game characters, searching for the Seven Impossible Things: the Same Difference, the Hot Blizzard, the Gelid Sunshine, the Silent Scream, the Bright Shadows, the Dark Light, and the White Darkness.

Here's a small excerpt:

“Wait, Ii, are you in the room with the cherry blossoms that N’chen painted, or the room with the dragon tapestry and the giant snail shell we found on that beach?” Chaena calls.
“The cherry blossom room...maybe.” Ii replies dubiously.
“What do you mean, ‘maybe’? You are either in it or not!” Noul exclaims.
“Well, which room are you in, then?” Ii calls back.
“...I have no idea. Why did you have to add so many rooms?” Chaena answers, her voice echoing as if she is in the basement.
“What is this…? Oh! The trans-warping mirror! Maybe it still works.” Ii remarks absently.
“Is there a teapot in there?” N’chen suddenly called from the other end of the store.
“This room is a mess--wait, what?! Why would there be teapot inside a mirror?” Ii exclaims incredulously.
“What are you rambling on about now? I thought you were in the kitchen.” N’chen replies in amusement.
“I have no idea where I am. You might have to form a search party to rescue me. Oh, a crystal ball.” Ii, knee-deep in old cloaks and bizarre costumes, stares into the crystal ball intently for a moment, but then tosses it aside.
“Why are we even keeping any of that stuff?” Noul asks.
“Well, what do we need to keep?” Chaena calls down, now somehow up in the attic.
“Books, food, beds, bags, cloaks, books, cats, crystals…” N’chen lists loudly.


See, I told you it was weird and crazy. This is going to be my funniest and most bizarre book yet.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

^^Yes and ^ Yes.

My cast of characters so far [the story takes place in a realm called Nowhere]:

Ii: a warping wizarding detective and owner of the Bookstore Inn Between Nowhere who is fond of long scarves and random non sequiturs.
N'chen: Ii's partner, a werefox--wereraven who bakes and cooks and also is a florist in his spare time.
Noul: N'chen's older brother, a quiet and soft-spoken werewolf-werefruitbat who is a dancer and a singer.
Chaena: Ii and N'chen's 'daughter', a hermaphrodite who was made out of flowers and leaves by N'chen; she has the unfortunate side effect of erasing a person's memory of her if they lock gazes, so she wears sunglasses.
Anny: The author [me] travelling in disguise with a league of cats all named after anime and video game characters, searching for the Seven Impossible Things: the Same Difference, the Hot Blizzard, the Gelid Sunshine, the Silent Scream, the Bright Shadows, the Dark Light, and the White Darkness.

Here's a small excerpt:

“Wait, Ii, are you in the room with the cherry blossoms that N’chen painted, or the room with the dragon tapestry and the giant snail shell we found on that beach?” Chaena calls.
“The cherry blossom room...maybe.” Ii replies dubiously.
“What do you mean, ‘maybe’? You are either in it or not!” Noul exclaims.
“Well, which room are you in, then?” Ii calls back.
“...I have no idea. Why did you have to add so many rooms?” Chaena answers, her voice echoing as if she is in the basement.
“What is this…? Oh! The trans-warping mirror! Maybe it still works.” Ii remarks absently.
“Is there a teapot in there?” N’chen suddenly called from the other end of the store.
“This room is a mess--wait, what?! Why would there be teapot inside a mirror?” Ii exclaims incredulously.
“What are you rambling on about now? I thought you were in the kitchen.” N’chen replies in amusement.
“I have no idea where I am. You might have to form a search party to rescue me. Oh, a crystal ball.” Ii, knee-deep in old cloaks and bizarre costumes, stares into the crystal ball intently for a moment, but then tosses it aside.
“Why are we even keeping any of that stuff?” Noul asks.
“Well, what do we need to keep?” Chaena calls down, now somehow up in the attic.
“Books, food, beds, bags, cloaks, books, cats, crystals…” N’chen lists loudly.


See, I told you it was weird and crazy. This is going to be my funniest and most bizarre book yet.

Super weird and crazy. I love it. Y'all know how much I love weirdness.

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

I was greatly inspired by the Fourth Doctor and Eleventh Doctor on Doctor Who, along with some of the more bizarre humor from many Diana Wynne Jones books [my favourite author], and Brandon Sanderson's Alcatraz VS The Evil Librarians series.