[Sticktator]

Hello, writers.

I am 15 years old, and I'm looking to write a novel. I've written a few short stories, nothing major.

I have an idea which I've never seen before, and it's fantasy. Based on elemental magic in a world ruled by four beings; the Magus Fire, the Magus Water, the Magus Air and the Magus Earth. Each of these beings has a massive empire, and their army and citizens consist of humans using their respective elemental magics; for instance, followers of the Magus Fire fight using fire spells.

Then, a new Magus, the Magus Black, rises from the shadows and war breaks out. For the moment, the four original Magi are allied as the Magus Black and his followers attempt to take over as much land as they possibly can.
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 telekenesis. 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.
Vaynor, a 17-year-old male Earth Wizard whose only emotion seems to be anger or indifference.

Jakkor is completely made up.
Aruthas is based on one of my friends.
Losira is based on myself.
Vaynor 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.

Is this original? Is it interesting? More importantly, would you read it?

[James Carmack]

The world of Fushigi Yuugi was divided into four empires representing each of the Four Beast Gods. Not quite the same, but the basic conceit is a lot alike. Now, if you had middle schoolers from our world becoming priestesses of the Magi, I might have to tell you to give Yuu Watase a percentage of your royalties. :P

Of course the whole young man losing his parents and going on a grand adventure becoming a great hero capable of facing the even greater villain is hardly unfamiliar to us, but before you start fretting, I have a magic spell for you. Repeat it after me: "Nihil novum sub solis." There is nothing new under the sun.

Originality doesn't lie in the broad overarching aspects of a piece. It's all about the execution. You've got to make Jakkor interesting enough for us to want to follow his journey and not just say, "I'll see you at the end credits after the boss battle, okay?" There's got to be something compelling about him. Yes, the supporting cast can shore up some of the weaknesses of a main, but there's not much excuse for pushing a bland and/or flimsy protagonist on us (unless that blandness and/or flimsiness is all part of the grand scheme of things, which'll take some slick moves on your part to pull it off). You've got to bring this world of yours alive or we'll just file the setting under "Generic Fantasy" and run on autopilot. And, of course, the standard "good guys band together to beat the big baddie" plotline is going to need something special about it to make it feel worthwhile once it's all said and done.

You see, the what isn't nearly as important as the how. It's all about execution.

For free, I'd gladly give your story a looksie. Now, if you want me or anyone else to pay money for it, it's going to need something special. Execution, my boy. It's where it's at.

[JamesL]

Hello, writers.

Hi, welcome to sffworld. :)


I have an idea which I've never seen before, and it's fantasy. Based on elemental magic in a world ruled by four beings; the Magus Fire, the Magus Water, the Magus Air and the Magus Earth. Each of these beings has a massive empire, and their army and citizens consist of humans using their respective elemental magics; for instance, followers of the Magus Fire fight using fire spells.

Then, a new Magus, the Magus Black, rises from the shadows and war breaks out. For the moment, the four original Magi are allied as the Magus Black and his followers attempt to take over as much land as they possibly can.

My main character, 16-year-old Jakkor, has just finished his training as a Wizard of the Magus Fire. He loses his parents as the new Magus rises, and goes on an epic adventure, making friends with followers of the other factions.

The climax is when Jakkor and his mini army, with followers of each faction, even followers of the Magus Black, meet the Magus Black face-to-face.

Is this original?

In fantasy literature? Not sure, don't think I've read anything particularly similar. However it reminds me of the computer game Ultima VIII: Pagan, in which the player character has to unlock the power of the four elemental titans. The titans, centuries before united to defeat the 'Destroyer.' The mythology and history of Pagan is similar to your idea.

The premise of your story also reminds me of the video game 'Lords of Magic' in which BALKOTH THE LORD OF DARKNESS *sigh* tries to take over the land of Urak. There are 8 races/faiths in the game, four of which are elemental ones and have their own followers, magic, etc. This again bears a resemblance to your own idea.

Is it interesting?

Could be. There's enough scope for some decent world-building there and you could write a good story around this idea.

would you read it?

You mean if I walked into the fantasy section of my local bookstore and saw your novel sitting there, all glossy-covered with recommendations on the front cover? Possibly.

To be honest this last one is a hard question to answer without knowing more about the story.

In any case, best of luck with the writing. Make sure you stick around, there is a wealth of information to be found on this forum. ;)

[Shane]

Don't worry about whether or not your idea is original or even good. The fact of the matter is, you're fifteen years old and new to the world of serious writing, which means that everything you write for the next five years or so is going to be garbage. This isn't a bad thing. I started writing when I was in fifth grade, and I kept writing daily for years. When I was fifteen (which is roughly five years after I started) I wound up writing a trilogy of novels in about a year, and I was extremely impressed with my work on them at the time.

I'm twenty-three now, and I can tell you right now that those stories are so completely awful burning them would be so polluting to the environment they'd cut a hole right through the ozone layer.

This isn't a big deal though. But the bottom line is, you need to be working on your craft. It's easy to get excited about an idea and write your guts out, and assume it's going to be a best seller because you're simply just so enthusiastic about it. But that's just not how it works. You shouldn't even be concerned with writing a great novel right now, you should just be focused on writing itself.

Read and write, every day, no exceptions. If you do, you'll go places. And who knows, maybe you will be one of those lucky one-in-a-billion kids who's able to publish his first book while still in your teens. It's always worthwhile to try.

But ultimately, your story doesn't matter. Nobody can tell you if your story is good based on a two paragraph summary from you. It sounds pretty lame to me, but it's going to because I'm not big on magick. The best you can hope for asking people if they think this is a worthwhile idea is people will tell you it is, which might make you feel good about yourself. But if everyone says it's a stupid idea, are you not going to write it? If that's the case then you probably weren't going to anyway.

So trust me, no BS, writing is what's important. When you've got some finished material, shoot it out over the forums and we'll critique the hell out of it for you. You'll improve. Such is life.

[Phellim]

Overall, it's not very original, but it is high fantasy, and most run of the mill high fantasy is basically the same story with names changed (I'm being very blunt, and not talking about all high fantasy, don't mind me). You did, however, think up some fairly creative ideas that I haven't seen done before.

Interesting? I'm not greatly interested yet, because it hasn't been written, so what twists are there to pull me in? If you get some more ideas, you can come back and post in this thread. My curiousity just might get the better of me.

But, would I read it? If i was sent a copy for free, yes. If I saw it on the shelf at some bookshop, no, because I haven't really seen it, I'm looking for a famous or well-recommended novel by that new up and coming author. Don't worry though, maybe you are that new author, whom everyone is beginning to take notice of! If so, then the extremely unfair percentage your publishers gave their new first-time author is already money in your pocket.

[Jessica Strider]

These comments are all rather brutal but unfortunately true. I started my first novel when I was 14. It was a lame rip off of the Sword of Shannara. I spent the next 12 years working on it and editing it. It's a much better novel then it would have been had I finished it at, say 15. It's still not published (I'm working on that), but the older you get the better your writing becomes (surprise, surprise) and the more you learn about life. Now, I'm not saying to give up, just keep writing and eventually you'll have something worthwhile. Besides, you learn a lot by going through the actual process of world building, character building and plot building. You'll probably find that the more work you do on it the more ideas you have and the more original those ideas will become. That's what happened with me. If you want some concrete advice, go and read Orson Scott Card's book How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. It goes over some basics and some not so basics specific to this field. Some of it you'll agree with and some of it you'll ignore. It's all a part of the writing life. Good luck.

[James Carmack]

Hopefully Card isn't advocating the rampant use of comma splices I see I his books. (I'm a fan of the man, but I can't help feeling a lot of his prose could use another round on the editor's desk.) Of course, I guess that should encourage up and comers. You can still be a widely respected and successful author even if you play a little loose with mechanics. (Maybe I'm just too nitpicky as an editor. Who knows?)

[Jessica Strider]

He doesn't really comment on grammar or writing style at all. It's pretty specific about how to create a world (you need rules to govern magic & science, history, government, etc), you should keep a notebook to help you remember details you'll otherwise mess up on, readers will picture the protagonist as looking like them unless you give them a physical description, stuff like that. Very good for a beginner, but stuff you'll eventually grow past as you learn more.

And on a more positive note than my post above, don't assume that everything you write right now will be lousy. Sure, it will need editing, but you'll probably find theres some writing you do that is extremely good, otherwise you'd be less likely to continue. Looking back at some stuff I wrote as a teen there is a lot that, once properly reedited, was very good indeed.

[James Carmack]

This is just me being bitter, but I feel one chapter should be him saying: "Read Children of the Mind. This is what not to do." ^_^;

[KatG]

Elemental magic is fairly common in fantasy fiction. Weiss & Hickman had a bestselling series featuring whole kingdoms made from elemental magic. Mercedes Lackey has a historical fantasy series in which the mages are elemental based, and James Barclay's Newborn series features a group of kids whose powers are somewhat elementally-focused.

That doesn't mean the concept of dividing the world into four parts can't be further mined. Rather than ask if a concept is original or interesting -- to which the answer usually is "maybe" -- as a writer it's often more about asking "what do I find interesting in this idea" and "what do I want to do with it, how would I tackle it." You may find, in doing that, that you give it a spin that is very interesting to others, or develop characters who resonate even if the story they are in is familiar.

That doesn't mean that you can't strive for originality. If that was your main reason for being interested in the idea, then perhaps this one is not for you. But if you have other reasons, it may be worth experimenting.