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Story Idea 1: King of the Junkyard
🕑 Added 2020-07-19 18:23:45 +0000 UTC
WARNING! POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD!
A while ago I said I had four ideas for the next story I intended to write, and that I would eventually ask my patrons what thoughts they had on each. Well, I’ve made an outline for each of the four ideas. Here is one of them. If you have time, please take a look and tell me what you think. Does this look interesting to you? Do you have any ideas or concerns you wish to raise? This isn’t a popularity vote, and I reserve the right to do whatever I want regardless of the reception each idea gets, but I do care what you think. That’s why I’m asking.
Oh yeah, just to reiterate the warning at the top of the post and clarify it – the following is a fairly detailed look at the story idea I may eventually write. If I do, some of the information may constitute mild spoilers for that story. There is nothing really crucial here, but obviously I cannot discuss the story without revealing some surface-level details about it. You have been warned.
Story Idea 1: King of the Junkyard
The basic premise is that the story is following a guy with healing/repairing powers as he lives his life in an urban fantasy world that has everything from aliens, supernatural martial artists, government conspiracies, underground magical communities, etc. The protagonist is already a capable person and in his twenties by the time plot starts, so the story doesn't slowly ramp up so much as immediately jump into action. The story structure is episodic, with self-contained little arcs connected by a loose meta-plot and some recurring support characters.
The Setting:
The world is Earth, but not our Earth. Twenty years before the plot begins, two alien gods fought above the Earth and one of them ended up being killed and torn apart. Pieces of the dead gods (sparks of divinity) sought out compatible children and bonded to their souls, giving them superpowers. Unfortunately for them, said superpowers start very weak, come with serious downsides, and are very specialized in how they work. Sparks, as they call themselves, wield broken powers with significant downsides against established supernatural forces that consider them a nuisance at best and a resource to exploit at worst. Like newborn turtles making a run for the sea, these ‘sparks’ were mostly hunted down to extinction, both by their own fallen kind and by the other supernaturals.
But that’s old news by the time of the story itself. The godfall had more far-reaching consequences that a bunch of people getting weak, limited magic powers. By now, they have mostly been forgotten. Life goes on, and the majority of supernatural attention these days is directed at the rapidly developing crisis: the masquerade keeping the mundane ignorant of the supernatural is rapidly starting to fray…
The Protagonist:
Jack Vinsky (working name) is a 23-year-old spark with a healing/repairing power. His non-combat power is the main tool he uses to take on the various supernatural elements that surround him, but that’s okay because he has become pretty good at it. At the start of the story he is just moving to another city hoping to start a new life for himself, far from his old enemies and problems.
Yeah. We all know how that is going to end…
Anyway, Jack is meant to be somewhat paradoxical in behavior. He deliberately pokes his head into anomalous things he encounters as he goes about living his life, tacking dangerous and incomprehensible issues with his own limited powers and mundane resourcefulness… yet at the same time he is very laid-back and often appears apathetic to what is happening around him. He tries to pass it off as ‘been there, done that’ kind of attitude, a product of a great deal of experience with Weird Things™ he has under his belt, but anyone who hangs out around him for a while will realize there is something subtly off about his attitude and responses…
For those interested in more information and unfraid of spoilers, here’s the document detailing the exact mechanics of his power. Since this is Jack’s main way tackling problems and remaining relevant, I’ve gone into considerable detail how his powers work.
Other Notes:
One of the reasons I like the idea is the episodic format of the plot, combined with the somewhat lighthearted urban fantasy setting. It lightens the planning load on me by a considerable margin and should make the chapters way easier to write than MoL, which had story threads running from beginning to the end and lots of details to keep track of. If I want to have the protagonist deal with genetically engineered cyborgs, I can just have them arrive into town one day, fleeing from a shadowy government agency that created them. No need to worry too much about how they fit into the wider setting or plot.
I was thinking of perhaps writing this story as basically a side-project while I mainly focus on something else. The idea occurred to me mainly because writing a story like MoL can be really exhausting at times, because it's not very spontaneous and requires endless second-guessing and revisions. I do write a lot of snippets and concept chapters all the time, but their short nature makes them rather unsatisfying. Sometimes I really find myself wishing to write something simpler that isn't a snippet or a beginning of a new story that will never go anywhere.
Example of mini-arcs/episodes:
>The first arc is pretty much decided in my mind, and involves Jack moving to another city only to realize that the house he bought for cheap has a ghost infestation he didn't know about.
>He's contected by crash-landed aliens that need his help in order to fix their spaceship.
>A group of magical girls mistakes Jack for a a civilian identity of the villain they had been fighting.
>A mad scientist dumps a broken android girl at the junkyard next to Jack’s house.
>Jack is accidentally summoned to a fantasy world to defeat the demon world, but he wants nothing to do with it and instead seeks out the quickest way back home.
As you can see, the plots are meant to be a little humorous and tongue-in-cheek... but I don't intend to make the story into an absurdist comedy. There is supposed to be a humorous aspect to the story, but the plot takes itself relatively seriously. Ridiculous things happen to Jack, but he doesn’t treat them as a joke. Not entirely, in any case.
Comments
Domagoj Kurmaic
1) The sparks can migrate easily enough. They aren't usually destroyed when their hosts die. 2) Sparks replace a part of the host's soul as part of their symbiosis. So everything with a soul is a valid target, though sparks prefer sapient beings over animals, young over old, and mundane over supernatural. Inanimate objects are generally not a valid target, unless they have a soul for some reason, but animals are sometimes chosen by sparks... which tends to be disastrous, as they are highly unlikely to resist the hunger.
mant06
The sparks here are interesting as they start out weak but can potentially become extremely potent and can clearly grow more versatile. More over while the mc's power has clearly been developed quite far there exist still potential for instance the mc could learn to 'repair' enemies out of a space that he had scanned before hand (or something similar to the target space). A more far out (likely too far out) possibility would be a 'all for one' type application where the mc would use his ability to take and store another's spark(in his ideal world) when scanning and repairing them, and then either give them to another or use them (while constantly repairing himself), or just give them to another.To finish I'd like to ask a few questions, 1) Are the sparks destroyed when their 'host' dies or can they migrate? 2) Are Humans the only hosts of the sparks or can the sparks be hosted by other lifeforms, or even inanimate objects?
mant06
The sparks here are interesting as they start out weak but can potentially become extremely potent and can clearly grow more versatile. More over while the mc's power has clearly been developed quite far there exist still potential for instance the mc could learn to 'repair' enemies out of a space that he had scanned before hand (or something similar to the target space). A more far out (likely too far out) possibility would be a 'all for one' type application where the mc would use his ability to take and store another's spark(in his ideal world) when scanning and repairing them, and then either give them to another or use them (while constantly repairing himself), or just give them to another. To finish I'd like to ask a few questions, 1) Are the sparks destroyed when their 'host' dies or can they migrate? 2) Are Humans the only hosts of the sparks or can the sparks be hosted by other lifeforms, or even inanimate objects?
Light, episodic fun with a few arcs thrown in can be a joy to read (e.g. https://everything2.com/node/category/The+New+York+Magician) and doesn't require that dynamic of a principal character. If you need a palate cleanser and a place to experiment with ideas then I'm happy to join you on this ride. The setting is a bit too Wildbow for me, a bit too loose. Feeling like anything can happen is a bit too overwhelming (personally speaking, you lose me around ghost wizards fighting Dracula) and scoping it would generate a more plausible feeling setting.
DiabolicalGenius
Thanks for the recommendation, I'll take a look.
Darker
> Urban fantasy with the boundary getting frayed You might want to check out the Pax Arcana series then while we wait for Domagoj to start putting out content again :Ü™
DiabolicalGenius
Order of preference, ideas 2, 3, 1, 4. To be fair, I think all the ideas are interesting and this one is still pretty close despite being third in my order. I'd love to see all of them written in truth, though I'm aware that's a bit beyond all but the most prolific and overworking of authors. Specifically, I do enjoy the urban fantasy setting with supernatural everywhere with the boundary recently becoming frayed. It's just that I have a preference for stories like MoL over the episodic kind, along with liking to feel like the story is going somewhere and building up to something. Still, I'd recommend writing this one if you're planning top focus on possibily publishing MoL at the same time and may intend it as an interim work before considering a MoL sequel. In which case it would be a good choice for you to keep writing and keep in practise while also being able to relax and focus on other things at the same time. I'm sure I'll enjoy reading it regardless.
Ben Veltri
The episodic/mini-arc structure of King of the Junkyard appeals to me, because I like the idea of your incredible urge to plan and detail being tempered–I think it would force you to pour that love into different aspects of writing. I similarly imagine that this kind of structure, along with the setting, would make you focus more on tone, theme, morals, etc., which could be an interesting and challenging change of pace. Mother of Learning felt like a perpetual description of things happening. Slowing down, focusing on the present could therefore be nice. To paraphrase Nietzsche "that which is light is beautiful and that which is holy treads on tender feet." You know? This is my predilection, of course, but I'm seeing this as a kind of Mushishi (less serious, I imagine) with our modern menagerie of tropes (magical girls, aliens, fantasy, etc) instead of spirits, demons. I like that the world changes, but it isn't necessarily a race against time like MoL: the changing world could make for an excellent foil to the episodic structure, making changes feel less like plot necessity and more like a living, breathing world (kind of like the world changes in Berserk: just kinda happens). As an aside, having read your ideas, I'm a bit worried that structure and planning could make your next project, whatever it be, so focused on systems, powers and plot that it will become rote. I watched Zorian grow powerful, but why should I care about the Archmage or Marcus getting powerful? I guess I just don't want to read a skinner's box, though MoL typically avoided that, so this complaint could be unfounded: you're good at writing this stuff, obviously (but at the same time, I wouldn't recommend staying in your comfort zone to better live up to expectations: live!). Nonetheless, personally I don't think fantasy is about magic powers or strange races. It's about the evocations of grandeur. wonder and longing and so forth. What kind of men founded the chivalric age? What was the glint in Alexander the Great's eye? Feeling intensely and living vividly, that's what I'd like to see and feel and breathe. Getting back on topic, writing a main character like Jack–with nonchalant competence–can be a difficult balancing act between too-mysterious-for-school and silly-and-larger-than-life, if you should care to avoid those, anyways. I'd be interested in knowing if you planned to write this in first or third person: I immediately imagined it in third, but I could see both. Sorry for a long post and undoubtedly misinterpreting your intentions.
I like the general idea of this story, and I do want you do do something you find easier to write. I guess my worry is that part of what I loved about MoL so much was all of the interconnections of the world, and the time line of the story, and I don't think that would be as much of a focus for this. I would say this is probably my third favorite of the options.
Domagoj Kurmaic
Although I'm familiar with World of Darkness, I don't know enough about it to make comparisons. I'd say WoD seems more... structured? Everyone sems organized into tightly defined organizations and factions there, and the Technocracy is kind of the king that everyone wants to overthrow. This setting is more fragmented (especially after the Godfall), with small powers and loosely affiliated supernatural individuals everywhere. And there is no Technocracy equivalent. But it's definitely more goofy than WoD in tone, I'll admit to that. Hopefully not too goofy, though.
Mikhail Gorodetskiy
This and the Refuge in Void are the one I'd wanted to read the most, at least based on descriptions. Strange and slightly off character, episodic arc structure with a gradual world-building and main character secrets revealing. Sane men in bizarre circumstances is a cherry on the top of the cake.
Mr R
Pacing issues might be a problem if it goes on too long without getting anywhere. Which raises the question of how often you think you'll be writing chapters. A solution to the pacing problem could be to have regular inerludes following other characters in a self containted mini arc. It could just be a chapter. Maybe once every four Jack chapters? I'm curious, will the world be like World of Darkness but a little more goofy?
Terry Stevens
Hey mate. Personally, whilst at first I didn’t think much of this premise, I did give it more thought whilst reading the other plots. This one, while being the most underwhelming of the lot, feels like it has the most potential to be an epic story, like Mother Of Learning. Pick this one matey, please!
This one's my favorite of the 4. I very much like the idea of the "imperfect narrator" where the protagonist makes decisions that are reasonable within his mind, but not necessarily objectively reasonable.
PaperMache7
I think this story is the most interesting out of the four, I'm not sure I like the idea of things being very episodic, but the world and the protagonist power seems very interesting.
David Otis
Vote for poll. Love junkyard the most. Sounds very interesting.
mallix
I like the Junkyard idea the most out of the four. You should probably do a poll.
thebishop8
In order of how interesting each idea sounds: 1>4>3>2
Keifru
Could easily get silly but seems the most solid of the four and nothing really gives me pause about other than 'everything-and-the-kitchen-sink' setting (as it seems to me) but for a more light hearted affair, I think thats far easier to work with than in a super serious work
wanderer117
Cool, the main character doesn't speak to me but everything else sounds interesting.
Domagoj Kurmaic
Never heard of Dungeon Crawler Carl, but the summary is very off-putting to me. I never liked the end of the world, post-apocalyptic theme that many of the modern LitRPG stories push. But that's just me and my tastes - not saying the story is bad, just that I never heard of it and it clearly isn't in line with my tastes.
Also I should say that I'm really happy to hear you are motivated to work on new stories. MoL is a great story and I really want you to continue as a writer and get rewarded for your work.
Also... Some of the episodes you mention have the potential to be part of a transition to a multi-verse narrative. That transition could be aligned with a transition to more emphasis on a coherent meta-narrative. So even if you start with an episodic approach you can grow into an epic.
The 49th Khan
After glancing through these I feel like I would like story 1 and 2 the most. I can't talk for any one else but this is just me. Story 1 seems like it would be best, generic enough to appeal to most and unique enough to keep people reading. Story 2 however seems quite generic, a sudden dungeon in modern times setting has been done multiple times. That being said, I am a complete sucker for litrpg systems and if they are competently done, are almost guaranteed to hold my attention. But reading your overview I could not help but feel a resemblance to s story called Dungeon Crawler Carl. The premises seem different but I think your character description kinda nailed it.
I like this one the best of the four but others have interesting features that may be worth mining as well. I like the inherent tension in the Spark powers -- the danger of overuse, plus the inherent limits that may require ingenuity. I like the episodic structure -- in addition to being easier on you it gives you the ability to refresh the narrative. You can of course craft any amount of meta-narrative, potentially with major consequences, but don't have to plan that in advance. The outline so far gives you plenty of resources to do that plus many points that could turn retrospectively into clues or hooks for big meta-narrative facts.
Young Youghurt
I don't know. I like the sound of Fixer from cyberpunk but just healer or repairman seems underwhelming (unless he can give them cancer (sorry didn't look into specifics)). The episodic format is no big deal if chapters are similar in length to MoL because then its a treat.
Rex Schrader
I read through all 4 posted story ideas and this one is, by far, my favorite. I like the underdog protagonist. It feels like he has someplace to go. The only thing I would argue for is a stronger overall plot. While a "slice of life" story could be interesting, I don't know if it would continue to be without growth or an overall goal. Does he have family or friends he cares about? Maybe he finds some in this new city, or a group which needs his help or protection? It just seems like a waste to have him to nothing more than exist.
this story concept is awesome! Although i dont like the episode style thing... if like you say it will be a side project while you work on somthing else (somthing big and epic like MoL) than it is great but i would prefer to read a linear long epic storyline ,even if the episode will come in a long intervals sorry for bad english
esteban albo
I like the idea ,but mostly i am happy to see your work again!
Domagoj Kurmaic
That is basically what the concept calls for, yes. I don't want to make an Eternal Status Quo story, but but the idea is that while consequences transfer over it's still episodic at the end of the day.
David Tawater
Good mechanic of shrinking the arc's. I watched you for years plow away at the mammoth story of MoL. This should be something to help you stay fresh and creative without the stress of a several year old storyline. I agree that you using a storytelling mechanic of sudden appearance of characters is beautiful as it makes the world richer in content without you having to create an entire universe before the story can begin. What I also recommend is something that was used in Rick and Morty. There are portals and spaceships so everything can be based off his new house as a home base with the adventures mostly elsewhere. The ghosts can be used as a story mechanic to mute or camouflage his house. What I mean by that is his home base needs to be a general secret otherwise once he starts making adventures to the level that grabs attention, he needs a hideout in plain sight. In all episodic story's that I have read there is usually a "fortress of solitude". Its mysterious and rich in lore that takes dozens of episodes to delve into it's depths. Think Superman's fortress or voltrons universal hub....a lair to exhibit before and after action breakdowns....but anecdotal humor to take jabs at the protagonist by allies or just to use that part of the storyline to setup this episodes premise. I love your work and cannot wait to read everything you publish!
Darker
Hm, well I've already gotten a little invested in Jack by now but I just can't deal with purely episodic content. That said I can very much enjoy pseudo-episodic content like Princess Connect! Re:Dive and Gravity Falls which while every episode is self contained also leaves behind a changed status quo and has an overarching plot :Ü™
>Jack is accidentally summoned to a fantasy world to defeat the demon world, but he wants nothing to do with it and instead seeks out the quickest way back home. I just imagine him speedrunning through an epic plot by deliberately avoiding or invoking common fantasy tropes, while everyone else aren't even sure what the heck is happening. :)
Gohengrin
Thats very good.
Armo
Noice! I like it!
