Thoughts on my world / plot / POVs?

[Argolyth]

I'm still in the very early stages of my WIP, but I just wanted some thoughts and opinions on a few things.

In a nutshell, the story takes place in a world created by six gods/goddesses - one goddess, known as the Mother Goddess, created the foundation of the world, while the other five gods (each of them representing a different element) helped create life and are each the creator of a specific region of the world. So for example, the god of water created the giant sea as well as the island nations located on the sea, and he created the people who live there. Basically there are five different continents/regions in this world.

But over time, a seventh god emerged - an "evil" god - to balance out the forces of good vs. evil in the world. The "evil" god went to war with the other six gods/goddesses who created the world, and as a result the world suffered mass destruction and chaos, and as a result of the battle, all the gods were sealed away in another realm/dimension and were unable to inhabit the physical world anymore.

The WIP story takes place thousands of years later. A prophecy had foretold that each of the six gods, as well as the "evil" god, would create one final "descendant" to inhabit the earth and help finish the battle that had taken place in the beginning of time. The story will follow the lives of these seven descendants. So essentially, there are going to be six heroes and one villain in the story.

My question is - first of all, what do you think of the plotline? Obviously it is just a very rough skeleton of a plot at this point but do you think the idea is at all interesting or unique?

And my second question is - since the six heroes pretty much all have equal importance to fighting the villain, I was hoping to essentially have six POV characters, each of them residing in a different region of the world and having their own lives/stories, but they would eventually meet up to fight the bad guy. I was even considering the villain to be a POV character as well, so we can see the story unfold from their point of view as well. Do you think this would result in too many storylines going on at once, especially considering the storylines would be happening exclusively in different areas of the world?

Thanks in advance for the input!

 

[Ayaka Di'rutia]

It's a classic good vs. evil story, and I like the backdrop of it with the six gods and the one evil god. The idea of an evil god rising against the good ones isn't unique (or the idea of using elements), but you can definitely work with it to create your own unique character/plot developments. I like the idea of several "descendants", each with an important role to play in defeating this evil god (I've used the idea of descendants in my own stories, and even though it isn't unique, I think it's still cool).

If you feel you can handle that many POVs, I say go for it. I had a project where I worked with several POVs like that, with most of the main characters meeting up at a major event near the end of the story. It's hard, but definitely worth it if you can fit them all together.

Would this be a series? Reading your ideas, it made me think of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, and it would be cool if you could make epic plot lines using your several characters.

Hope my input helps.

 

[Argolyth]

Thanks for the input! I haven't decided yet if this will be a series - this is my first major attempt at writing an epic fantasy novel, and if this were a series it would likely have to be six books, one for each major character, and possibly a seventh for when they all meet up against the main villain. That's a lot of books to write in a first attempt. But it's certainly not out of the question.

I've also played with the idea of following just one of the descendants, probably the descendant of the Mother Goddess since she's the most powerful of the good gods, but then I feel that wouldn't leave much room or opportunity to develop the other main characters in my story, since they're all from different regions of the world.

 

[Mason]

You've got a great start Argolyth- some questions to help you figure out what POV you want to take.

Are the six regions varied in climate/geography enough to warrant reader exploration? I.E. do you need to take your reader to those parts of your world? Or is it all pretty standard European Medieval City?

What if one of the main "good-guy" characters turned out to be the "evil character" without ever knowing it? That would certainly make for an intriguing POV.

I wish you luck with your writing!

 

[Jabrosky]

For some reason this concept brings back pleasant memories of the old Black & White computer games, which I like. Like Mason, I hope it's a multicultural world you have here.

 

[Argolyth]

It definitely is a multicultural world. Each continent has very different cultures/peoples.

The continent on the sea is made up of hundreds of different islands. I see this as sort of a Viking-like culture - most of the small islands are made up of fishermen who spend years on end traveling the giant ocean to fish for various different sea creatures. These fishermen also collect a precious metal which can only be found in the ocean, making the ocean continent the richest in the world. The capital of this region is located on the largest island, and is a huge majestic city with very rich people - which provides kind of a stark contrast with the rough fishermen that live on the smaller islands. In the northernmost part of this region, the climate gets very cold and it is home to large glaciers. There are still people who inhabit this part of the region, but they are trying to secede from the rest of the continent because they see themselves as a separate entity and look down upon the people who live in the rich capital.

The forest continent is made up of many small towns and cities. This is the only culture in which women are viewed as more powerful than men - mostly because the god who created this region of the world was female. The region is made up mostly of fierce female hunters - think Amazon women.

There is also a continent located in a huge desert - this is the least populated region due to the harshness of the desert, but the capital city of this region is built around the desert's largest oasis (this city is named Osias, which is just oasis jumbled around), and they provide water to the smaller cities, but at a price. The rulers of Osias are viewed as ruthless and unforgiving, since they put a price on the most important things humans need, which is water. The other desert cities who are unable to pay the price won't survive. The cities that are able to survive mine for precious metals that can be found in the desert to use as payment. This makes Osias another one of the richest cities in the world.

There's a continent located in a giant mountain range, which is home to many savage beasts which can't be found anywhere else in the world. Because of this, the region needs a large army of warriors to help fight off the beasts and keep the lands safe. Every boy who is born in this region must go through a mandatory, vigorous training, from age 5 to 15. At the end of their training, if they are seen as worthy enough, they become a warrior (which is seen as the greatest honor in this region). If not, they are given small jobs such as blacksmiths, cooks, etc.

And finally there is a continent located on islands floating miles above the rest of the world. This is the most religious region of the world, because they believe their physical location of being "closest to the heavens" makes them the superior region in the eyes of the gods, and they view the "lands below" as being inferior to them. The communities here are very tight-knit and family-oriented. They are able to trade with other regions by riding giant eagle-like creatures.


Sorry for the long winded post, but I just wanted to give you guys a better idea of the world I'm working on here. Obviously the cultures of each continent are pretty distinct, and there are many different opportunities to have different storylines going on in each one - I'm just concerned that it will be too many for one novel.

What if one of the main "good-guy" characters turned out to be the "evil character" without ever knowing it? That would certainly make for an intriguing POV.

It's funny you mention this, because I was thinking of having something very similar to this in my story, only in reverse. The guy who everyone believes is the "evil" descendant is in fact the descendant of the Mother Goddess herself, while his wife, who has manipulated him all this time, is the true evil descendant. Makes for a pretty good plot twist I thought.

 

[Jabrosky]

Wow, fierce Amazon huntresses, exactly my kind of thing!

 

[wordwalker]

Certainly intriguing ideas. What I'm most hoping you'll do is explore things like what "evil" and the other six gods mean, and how it plays out in a changing world.

I've always disliked the "balance of good and evil" idea-- it strikes me as making excuses for a story's drama or a real world's imperfections. Mostly it's because "evil" doesn't seem like a cosmic principle or a human motivation in its own right, only a way to describe something or someone that's bad for some other reason. What I have seen and liked are stories that define it more carefully: Mistborn uses Preservation vs Destruction (they might as well be good and evil to us, but we can understand why they fight), the second Dragonlance series showed a people that had gotten too complacent in their goodness (I just wish they hadn't called it just "too good"). And of course, a human character simply "motivated by evil" is considered sloppy writing.

So I hope you dig a bit closer into what kind of "evil" this is that the world simply has within its divine fabric; a more immature or primal god that's destructive? a trickster who goes beyond "testing" the other powers and turns them against each other?

Especially, I hope you go into how the other six gods and their heroes relate to each other too. The evil one being the trickster wife of the supposed evil one is a fine twist, but could it go further? Six books could be each hero's struggle to resist the evil one turning them to the dark side that's part of their own god's essence...

 

[Argolyth]

Thanks for the input, wordwalker!

I agree with you about the good vs. evil thing... and I hadn't really intended for "good" and "evil" to be the primary cosmic forces, as you say. Rather I was going more for a "light vs. dark" type concept - when the six gods originally created the world, they roamed the earth together with the humans/mortals, and this was known as the Age of Light.

But the world couldn't exist forever in a constant Age of Light, because light and shadow go hand-in-hand - one can't exist without the other. So eventually, shadows began to emerge in the world, which caused a seventh god to emerge. He became known as the God of Darkness or the God of Shadows, and his sole purpose was to cast more shadows across the world, thus enhancing his power. He did this by corrupting the hearts of the mortals that inhabited the earth, filling them with sin when the mortals had once been perfect and virtuous. His method of operation involves manipulation, deception, and persuasion - which are three traits that his final "descendant" end up possessing as well.

After the clash between the God of Darkness and the six other gods, they were all banished from the mortal world, thus their power and influence were significantly weakened, but darkness still existed in people's hearts and sin still existed in the world.

I guess you could kind of see it as a loose interpretation of the God vs. Satan story - how everything had once been perfect in the world (like the Garden of Eden) but eventually sin corrupted mankind.

Anyway, I'm still in the early stages of planning this story out, and I'm hoping to somehow intertwine the stories of the six different heroes early enough in the story, instead of having to write out six completely separate storylines only to have them finally converge at the very end when they go up against the evil god's descendant.

 

[Jess A]

I'd like to read this book largely from the 'evil' person's POV - their struggle against turning to the dark side, meaning they also have a good side (i.e. compassion, empathy). In the end maybe they triumph and become 'good'. Or sacrifices him or herself to keep the balance going (how dramatic...). It could question the notion of what evil is, exactly, and what good is. Wordwalker raised some valid points up there.

But that's just my musings! I like your plot twist. I say go for it.

 

[Argolyth]

Thanks, Jess A! I have definitely considered making the primary villain of the story be a POV character as well, but that I feel would just be way too many POVs.

I have been contemplating though how the story would end - after the final battle between the descendants of the six gods vs. the descendant of the Shadow God, what exactly happens? Either evil is defeated and the world becomes a happy land full of sunshine and rainbows, or good is defeated causing mass chaos and destruction in the world. Neither of them seem to be very satisfying endings to me.

I guess that's sort of my next question. Did I dig myself into a hole here, having the primary "conflict" essentially being between gods? I mean, technically the battle is fought between the mortal counterparts of these gods, but still, there has to be some kind of monumental outcome of this battle, either way, because we're dealing with gods here that help maintain balance and order in the world. If one side is destroyed then that would upset the balance between light and dark.

 

[Jess A]

I have a book in my series where the angry gods are starting to destroy the world, it will be fun. It sounds a bit like Secret of Mana's ending but it's more complicated. There's no good or evil in mine as such. I don't know how to approach 'good' and 'evil' so I might not be helpful here but I can try.

You could do something similar:

There is an epic battle. The world is falling apart, because the balance is out of whack (either good is too good or bad is too bad). Good and dark have to make some sort of deal, perhaps between the husband and wife mentioned. Or they could have a child and the child is a mix of both energies.

I suspect this will mean diving into the meaning of light and dark and how it affects the world. As mentioned above, people grow up to become good or bad due to context/influences, they aren't born that way, but yours might be more to do with dark and light energy personified? I'm very tired so I might not make a lot of sense.

Either way, for me personally, what would make this sort of story interesting is the characters and their very 'human' reactions to what they are, or what they must do, their relationship to each other, the trials they go through (etc).

 

[Argolyth]

Thanks Jess A, those sound like some really cool ideas. I've actually been sort of playing around with the idea of the husband and wife I mentioned before having a child. In my story, the final 'descendants' of the gods don't yet realize that the power of the gods is infused in them - they need to go through sort of an "awakening" process to find it out. So before either the husband or wife realize that they are descendants of the Mother Goddess and the Shadow God, respectively, they have a child, who essentially ends up playing the most important role in the story - he is the physical representation of the balance between light and dark which helps keep the world in check.

I know this sounds kind of drastic, and I don't usually like to give away possible endings to my stories, but I think if I gave the husband and wife a child, and had the rest of the "descendants" go to battle, it would only make sense for all of them to die in the process - while it may seem like the best ending to this story would be to have the six "good" descendants to defeat the one "evil" descendant, it would only upset the balance between light and dark in the world. Too much light can be just as bad as having too much dark. So really the only way to maintain the balance is for the "descendants" to essentially cancel each other out, leaving the child as the only human in the world to have both the Mother Goddess and the Shadow God infused in him. Maybe he could end up becoming king of the world and finally unifying it once more (since, after the initial battle between the gods thousands of years ago, each of the regions became very divided).

I don't know though if it's a good idea to basically kill off all my main characters. But it could make for an interesting twist.

 

[Jess A]

In any case, it sounds interesting. Best of luck, maybe you'll share some of the story in the Showcase thread