Nagash
Sage
Hey guys !
Alright, I'll dive right away into the topic : when attempting to write a story toying with multiple threats (and therefore many big antagonists), how do you keep it from morphing into a video-game tale, with many levels with a big boss at the end of it ? This might be a little to abstract to understand upon reading, so i'll give an example from my own story...
In my eschatological series, one of the many big threats to the world of Zael is its very core: the void-well (a gate to the void) which gave it birth starts to collapse upon itself, unleashing untamable flows of energy. Since it falls apart progressively, it slowly spawns threats bigger than the last. At first, creatures of the void start to materialize in the world and spread chaos; then, natural catastrophes occur across the world, as elementals wake up and start to threaten civilizations; as things turn extremely bad, an outlandish deity comes to Zael in order to eradicate it before the void-well collapses and threatens the entire universe; once the deity is vanquished at a great price, it is revealed the real threat lies within the void and starts to break through the void-well. One of the heroes finally has to sacrifice himself by joining the void in order to seal the well and imprison the creatures that wanted out of the void, and battle it for eternity.
The feeling I get is that layering your story in different levels the hero has to go through, constantly battling a threat bigger than the last, doesn't seem like great storytelling. I should point out that this supernatural/magic story-line is one among many others - the remaining story-lines mainly focus on politics, wars and relations between mortals (revolutions, civil wars, etc) which happen as the same time as the apocalyptic chain of events. Said story-lines really don't have the same vibe, since they do not have clear antagonists until their ending, while the eschatological story-line just piles on threatening villains.
How do you feel about your story being a succession of bad guys ever stronger being defeated by your hero(s) ? Do you have any idea how to avoid this video-game conception of story ? Or maybe you think it isn't such a bad thing ?
I hope that makes some sense !
Cheers
Alright, I'll dive right away into the topic : when attempting to write a story toying with multiple threats (and therefore many big antagonists), how do you keep it from morphing into a video-game tale, with many levels with a big boss at the end of it ? This might be a little to abstract to understand upon reading, so i'll give an example from my own story...
In my eschatological series, one of the many big threats to the world of Zael is its very core: the void-well (a gate to the void) which gave it birth starts to collapse upon itself, unleashing untamable flows of energy. Since it falls apart progressively, it slowly spawns threats bigger than the last. At first, creatures of the void start to materialize in the world and spread chaos; then, natural catastrophes occur across the world, as elementals wake up and start to threaten civilizations; as things turn extremely bad, an outlandish deity comes to Zael in order to eradicate it before the void-well collapses and threatens the entire universe; once the deity is vanquished at a great price, it is revealed the real threat lies within the void and starts to break through the void-well. One of the heroes finally has to sacrifice himself by joining the void in order to seal the well and imprison the creatures that wanted out of the void, and battle it for eternity.
The feeling I get is that layering your story in different levels the hero has to go through, constantly battling a threat bigger than the last, doesn't seem like great storytelling. I should point out that this supernatural/magic story-line is one among many others - the remaining story-lines mainly focus on politics, wars and relations between mortals (revolutions, civil wars, etc) which happen as the same time as the apocalyptic chain of events. Said story-lines really don't have the same vibe, since they do not have clear antagonists until their ending, while the eschatological story-line just piles on threatening villains.
How do you feel about your story being a succession of bad guys ever stronger being defeated by your hero(s) ? Do you have any idea how to avoid this video-game conception of story ? Or maybe you think it isn't such a bad thing ?
I hope that makes some sense !
Cheers