[Fruitonica]

Actually the concept sounds very similar to the Avatar cartoons. Of course the plot could be radically different, I'm just talking about the setting.

[Abby]

Welcome, Sticktator. :)

I've found that many people who've been writing novels since childhood stick with it. Most people who complete a novel at age 12 to 18 are my kind of people. I have nothing to add here, except best wishes, good luck, and keep writing!

[virangelus]

As they've probably already told you, don't fret. Nothing is new anymore.. but execution and style can set you apart from the rest.

What is execution and style? Fraid' you have to find that out on your own, I don't even know what it is yet.

Oh, the first thing that comes to mind when I read your general plot, is Nickelodeon's "Avatar." Course... Magus Black just sounds too cool.

Good luck, don't give up.

[Sticktator]

Wow, thanks guys, I didn't anticipate the support. ^_^

Well, I've drawn up a list of countries, cities, and characters I want to add to my story.

And although it's not too original, I can see that it's [hopefully] original enough.

I've also made quite a few major changes to the storyline.

For instance, I've changed Jakkor's character. He's now an Air wizard. I've decided that Air wizards won't have any directly offensive powers, but they will be able to move the air around objects, which is essentially telepathy. This should make it more interesting, as Jakkor now has to think and use his environment to his advantage rather than just fling a fireball in his opponent's direction.

The main characters are as follows;

Jakkor, an orphaned male Air Wizard, 16.
Aruthas, a fickle, beautiful female Fire Wizard, 16.
Losira, an almost boring 17-year-old male Water Wizard who turns out to have excellent leadership skills and is very intelligent.
[Nameless], a 17-year-old male Earth Wizard whose only emotion seems to be anger.

Jakkor is completely made up.
Aruthas is based on one of my friends.
Losira is based on myself.
[Nameless] is completely made up.

And now I have a reason for the existence of the new, Black faction.

You see, all humans at the age of 10 go through a rigorous test of Courage, Balance, Strength, Intelligence and Resilience. Those that pass, and most do, start their training as a Wizard of their faction. Those that don't are usually exiled by their family and sent to live in a non-magic country.

There are about 15 countries, and 8 of them are "magic" countries, which means their inhabitants are magic-users. All countries are governed by one of the elemental Magi and some are still contested for even while the current ceasefire between the warring factions is in place.

Of course, the exiled feel intense jealousy and hatred towards the "magicals" [magic-users], and, delving into the ancient secrets of how magic itself was created, one man rises to become as powerful as the other Magi. The Magus Black's rising gives great hope and spirit to the exiled, as they call themselves, and what gives them even greater hope is that the new Magus continues to grow more powerful and gain many new followers, and the other Magi are too busy being vain to even realise it.

When the Magus Black's faction is twice the size of any other Magus' army, they merge with the shadows, becoming effectively invisible, and walk right into the magicals' capital cities, which is where the initial invasion is. There, they walk out of the shadows and wreak havoc on the population. As you can imagine, there is confusion on a huge scale, and the Black Wizards have the element of surprise.

But remember, the Black Wizards are the ones who failed the test. They're not as smart, strong, or courageous as the magicals. So the world is thrown into war, and the four original Magi are allied to defend their nations.

Any good? And don't worry, I don't expect it to be a bestseller.

[James Carmack]

I'm sure you meant telekinesis and not telepathy. Telepathy is communication between minds. Telekinesis (or psychokinesis) is the power to move objects with the mind.

As long as Jakkor isn't the last Air Wizard, nor particularly flexible (certainly not enough to be called a "bender"), you should be okay.

You've got an interesting enough world and there might just be a good yarn spun out of it.

I take it your four primaries don't have personalities that reflect their respective elements. Otherwise a perpetually angry fellow seems misplaced with the earth element (then again there's always "Our Angry Earth").

Do you mean to say that the Magi Nigri (sorry, couldn't help using full Latin for the name) necessarily fail all four parts of the test or only that on the whole they can be wound lacking in the four virtues of a successful Magus? And if most people who take the test pass, how can the failures outnumber them two-to-one? (And if the failures are also the exiles, who place hope in the big Magus Black, are they not the very people who form his army, or are they assembled over the course of the story?)

[Sticktator]

I'm sure you meant telekinesis and not telepathy. Telepathy is communication between minds. Telekinesis (or psychokinesis) is the power to move objects with the mind.

As long as Jakkor isn't the last Air Wizard, nor particularly flexible (certainly not enough to be called a "bender"), you should be okay.

You've got an interesting enough world and there might just be a good yarn spun out of it.

I take it your four primaries don't have personalities that reflect their respective elements. Otherwise a perpetually angry fellow seems misplaced with the earth element (then again there's always "Our Angry Earth").

Do you mean to say that the Magi Nigri (sorry, couldn't help using full Latin for the name) necessarily fail all four parts of the test or only that on the whole they can be wound lacking in the four virtues of a successful Magus? And if most people who take the test pass, how can the failures outnumber them two-to-one? (And if the failures are also the exiles, who place hope in the big Magus Black, are they not the very people who form his army, or are they assembled over the course of the story?)Ah. Whoops. Yes, telekinesis, that's what I meant, sorry for the confusion.

No, the four mains don't represent their elements. That would be too cheesy. The only resemblance is that Aruthas will have a fiery personality, but I didn't mean for that to happen.

No, I mean to say that the Magi Nigri (by the way, I didn't know about the word Nigri. Can I take that idea and use it as a title please?) have grown vain over the years of being so powerful that they lose interest and awareness in the world around them and prefer instead to party and feast. But there is still nobility and good in them, but because it hasn't had a good reason to emerge for years, it retreats into the Magi, lurking in the shadows for a chance to prevail. This is the chance, now, as the Magus Black attacks, to show how good they are.

And the Black Army will be partly assembled (using the exiled as Black Wizards) when the book begins, but will also grow in strength as more of the exiled hear stories of how victorious the first invasion was.

By the way, is this the right forum to post this thread in? Or is Collaborative Stories a better place for it?

[James Carmack]

"Nigri" is just the plural form of "niger", the Latin word for black. You see, in Latin the adjectives have to match the gender and declension of the nouns they're paired with. And as I don't hold any copyrights on the Latin language, use away. ^_^

As for the MNs, when you speak of their power, do you mean to say that they're on par or even superior to the normal elemental Magi in spite of failing the test? (This could actual lead to an interesting social element where both sides claim to be more powerful, one because they passed and the other because they weren't shackled into the system.)

I would say this is the right place for the thread. I don't visit that section of the site, but I'm pretty sure Collaborative Stories is where people are looking for co-authors. I'm sure the mods would let you know if you were in the wrong territory.

[Sticktator]

"Nigri" is just the plural form of "niger", the Latin word for black. You see, in Latin the adjectives have to match the gender and declension of the nouns they're paired with. And as I don't hold any copyrights on the Latin language, use away. ^_^

As for the MNs, when you speak of their power, do you mean to say that they're on par or even superior to the normal elemental Magi in spite of failing the test? (This could actual lead to an interesting social element where both sides claim to be more powerful, one because they passed and the other because they weren't shackled into the system.)

I would say this is the right place for the thread. I don't visit that section of the site, but I'm pretty sure Collaborative Stories is where people are looking for co-authors. I'm sure the mods would let you know if you were in the wrong territory.Oh good. I didn't answer this question last time, by the way, but no, not all the exiled (but some of them) failed all four parts of the test. If you fail one part, you still pass, but if you fail two or more, you fail.

And I agree. It would end up in that sort of way. The Black Army has strength in numbers, while the other Magi have strength in superiority.

[Kreschyboy]

Welcome to sffworld sticktator.

As a young writer myself, i believe i have a better insight into the hardships of beginning novel writing. Hah, i'm in an odd mood today. Prepare yourself, cuz ur about to get... drum roll please. "Tyler's Original List of 15 Year Old Author's Flaws and Advice to Overcome Them" now as a disclaimer, i'm not trying to be a jerk if it comes across that way. and i'm not going to deal too much with avioding the cliches, there are a million pages out there about that. now, to the lsit...

1. As a young adult, we are easily influenced by the things around us, weather we are conscious of it or not. Movies, television shows, novels we like, video games all tend to come through in our writing or our ideas in small, or in some cases large, amounts.

2. That's okay! I'm sure you've heard that original ideas are hard to come by, some even say everything's been done before. When borrowing ideas, many say "simply put your own spin on it" I say BS. If you borrow something, just remember that your not creating a spin-off, your creating something new that just so happens to include something from somewhere else.

3. Young authors tend to write about young protagonists. and that's okay. we have better insight into their minds than old people. A word of caution however: it's best not to base your Main Character on yourself. You'll have a really hard time doing bad things to him/her if its yourself you're harming. and not having bad things happen to your MC makes for a rather boring linear story.

4. A continuation of #3. When writing with your MC based on yourself, you're going to want him to be very powerful. Excuse me if this sounds childish, but that's my point: So you're going to give him the "best" power so he can win. You're going to want him to gain superior knowledge so he can best the bad guy with his awesome abilities.

I decided I'm not going to number them anymore, because this has become more of a rant than a list.

HARDSHIP is what makes a story interesting. An Anecdote: Countless times i would "Play Pretend" with my younger brother. we would make up a fantasy setting and go on an adventure to beat the bad guy. The problem with that was, though it was loads of fun in the beginning, we never finished. do you know why? its because we would achieve supreme power about 20 minutes into the game, and then its boring. If we did finish, we would then, knowing that its pointless to beat a level 10 bad guy with a level 1203247 character, (excuse the video-game reference) we would run around the pool really fast, swinging our imaginary swords, "beating" all the dungeons in about a minute and a half, then face the boss. we would then beat him together, game over.
If your character has a hard time gaining power, knowledge, or whatever he needs, then it makes for an interesting story. Gaining the tools you need is the fun part. once you have everything you need, there's not much to do. Conflict generates suspense which generates interest. Personally, i couldn't care less weather a fully qualified fire-mage gathers an army to beat the bad guy. but what if an apprentice fire-mage does it? or a fully qualified fire-mage has a crisis of faith, losing his connection to the holy flame, and therefore his power? making a character helpless and having him overcome it is much more interesting that making a character powerful and then making him more powerful.
It is important also to explore the human aspect of a story, not just the "power" struggle. This is where people start to CARE. Now if i write much more, nobody's going to bother to read it (i wouldn't) so good luck in all your ventures, and hit me up from time to time with progress posted. its more fun for me to talk with someone closer to my age and situation than to be constantly berated by 25+ year olds for my feeble attempts at writing.

-Kreschyboy

[Sticktator]

Welcome to sffworld sticktator.

As a young writer myself, i believe i have a better insight into the hardships of beginning novel writing. Hah, i'm in an odd mood today. Prepare yourself, cuz ur about to get... drum roll please. "Tyler's Original List of 15 Year Old Author's Flaws and Advice to Overcome Them" now as a disclaimer, i'm not trying to be a jerk if it comes across that way. and i'm not going to deal too much with avioding the cliches, there are a million pages out there about that. now, to the lsit...

1. As a young adult, we are easily influenced by the things around us, weather we are conscious of it or not. Movies, television shows, novels we like, video games all tend to come through in our writing or our ideas in small, or in some cases large, amounts.

2. That's okay! I'm sure you've heard that original ideas are hard to come by, some even say everything's been done before. When borrowing ideas, many say "simply put your own spin on it" I say BS. If you borrow something, just remember that your not creating a spin-off, your creating something new that just so happens to include something from somewhere else.

3. Young authors tend to write about young protagonists. and that's okay. we have better insight into their minds than old people. A word of caution however: it's best not to base your Main Character on yourself. You'll have a really hard time doing bad things to him/her if its yourself you're harming. and not having bad things happen to your MC makes for a rather boring linear story.

4. A continuation of #3. When writing with your MC based on yourself, you're going to want him to be very powerful. Excuse me if this sounds childish, but that's my point: So you're going to give him the "best" power so he can win. You're going to want him to gain superior knowledge so he can best the bad guy with his awesome abilities.

I decided I'm not going to number them anymore, because this has become more of a rant than a list.

HARDSHIP is what makes a story interesting. An Anecdote: Countless times i would "Play Pretend" with my younger brother. we would make up a fantasy setting and go on an adventure to beat the bad guy. The problem with that was, though it was loads of fun in the beginning, we never finished. do you know why? its because we would achieve supreme power about 20 minutes into the game, and then its boring. If we did finish, we would then, knowing that its pointless to beat a level 10 bad guy with a level 1203247 character, (excuse the video-game reference) we would run around the pool really fast, swinging our imaginary swords, "beating" all the dungeons in about a minute and a half, then face the boss. we would then beat him together, game over.
If your character has a hard time gaining power, knowledge, or whatever he needs, then it makes for an interesting story. Gaining the tools you need is the fun part. once you have everything you need, there's not much to do. Conflict generates suspense which generates interest. Personally, i couldn't care less weather a fully qualified fire-mage gathers an army to beat the bad guy. but what if an apprentice fire-mage does it? or a fully qualified fire-mage has a crisis of faith, losing his connection to the holy flame, and therefore his power? making a character helpless and having him overcome it is much more interesting that making a character powerful and then making him more powerful.
It is important also to explore the human aspect of a story, not just the "power" struggle. This is where people start to CARE. Now if i write much more, nobody's going to bother to read it (i wouldn't) so good luck in all your ventures, and hit me up from time to time with progress posted. its more fun for me to talk with someone closer to my age and situation than to be constantly berated by 25+ year olds for my feeble attempts at writing.

-KreschyboyThank you, very much, for taking the time and effort to write that, because you have now inspired me.

I was worrying about having an empty storyline; I couldn't think of anything to make it interesting. Now I know why: because he has all his powers, all through the story.

As I see you haven't read my update, Jakkor is now an Air Wizard who can use a spell equivalent to telekenesis. So he has to use his environment to help him overcome his enemy.

What if the Shadow corrupts him and he is left powerless [and very tempted to go to the dark side] until a point in the story? I need to think about how Jakkor will get rid of this corruption though.

Again, I thank you.