Book Idea, Looking For Opinions

**Lord Snibb** · January 13, 2006, 04:51 PM

I have gotten an idea for a book. That sounds stupid but it's proper English. The story (in short) is this (for those who do not like fantasty, do not read on): Countless years ago the sun elves descended from a montian in the center of the world to the surface. They settled there an lived in peace for many years. The world was perfectly flat then. Under the montain was a tunnel that lead deep into the earth, but it was blocked off by a rock. A powerful sun elf wizard broke the rock to see what was under it. When he did this, the mountian collasped and formed the hills and other mountains of the world. From the tunnel emerged all of the other creatures of the world. The few surviving sun elfs were forced to live in isolation out of their fear for the strange new creatures. Slowly they died off, but some of their blood avialed in survival. At first all of the creatures off the world were good. Nymphs, Styars, Dryads, and Elfs inhabited the earth, among many other creatures. Then creatures that were both good an evil came into the world: Men, Dwarves, and Lizardmen are most worthy of mention. Finaly, the evil creatures came. Orcs, Goblins, Orges, and other vile creatures. After thousands of years of peace came thousands of years of war. During the war the Dark Lords rose and lead evil armies with an iron fist. Almost all the good races were destroyed. When the scale was tipped badly in evil's favor, the good races formed a group of leaders called the Lords of the Four Realms and the Four Winds. They had the last blood of the sun elves in them. The sun gave life to the world, and so, after centuries of fighting, so did its sons and daughters. The Dark Lords were defeated and the world was in peace for many years. But one thing was left. A Lich's Staff. After thousands of years, people began to forget the Lords that had saved them. They lost their respect for their saviors. Slowly, to heroes of old lost their power. It was then the the Lich's Staff raised its owner. The first to find out about him were two children exploring in a forest. The next was a 300 year old elf (still a boy for his kind). He was far more experianced than any human, and he was the last with the blood of the sun elves. Even the normal elves were slowly degrading from the ones of Norse tales to nightime shoemakers. He now had to stop the Lich's army of 10,000 as it grew, protect to children he had stumbled upon and slowly come to love, and prevent the Lich from bringed back the Dark Lords. The story basicly revolves around the Lord (unfitting title, he has almost no power in the begining) trying to fight a horrible one-sided war and regain power at the same time.

I would like to hear peoples opinions about this. It is only the tip of the iceburg (I feel like I spelled that word wrong) though. I don't want to go on and on and on and on and on.

**Savage_Swede** · January 13, 2006, 04:56 PM

It sounds alot like The Lord of the Rings

**Badnercalabrese** · January 13, 2006, 05:02 PM

i think that's great!

i've actually been planning my own fantasy for a while...but i won't start writing it until i'm much older...The thing taht seperates my ideas are that i'm basing more on actual ancient history...and instead of the medieval style fantasy...it's more ancient warfare...ah and i thought i was the only one being unique with putting in the lizardmen! haha

anyway i really like your idea, just try not to get too much into a LOTR direction!
good luck

**Lord Snibb** · January 13, 2006, 05:11 PM

Originally Posted by Savage_Swede

It sounds alot like The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the _____. There is no ring involved. I do find the Dark Lords very Tolkienesque, but I can't think of a better name and the whole idea of a group of evil tyrants is very common. I can see similiarites with Aragon and the Lord, but the latter a) doesn't know he has sun elf blood b) wants to return to power c) is facing an enemy with no allies (unlike Sauron) and uses totaly different tactics. I didn't see all the similarities between it an the Lord of the Rings when I first came up with the idea. I have had a number of friends read a draft of the first chapter (starts with the kids running from a detachment of Skeleton warriors) and they mostly liked it, but it has typos. I'll post it if desired, but it has footnotes with addition tidbits of data and I'm not sure if they'll show up.

**Hub'ite** · January 13, 2006, 06:15 PM

Lich's staff=One Ring.

**Lord Snibb** · January 13, 2006, 07:44 PM

Originally Posted by Hub'ite

Lich's staff=One Ring.

Ouch. Didn't intialy click. The similiarities (Brings back villian, item of power) are greater than the diffencea (kill enemy by depriving of item instead of destroy it). I suppose I could just say the Lich went into hiding and the Staff is merely a complication to destroying him. I didn't want to seem too similiar to the Lord of the Rings since it really isn't the feel I had in mind when I started writing it. The good thing is it doesn't involve Orcs that much. In fact, the only time the characters interact with them is in a brief battle to allow fleeing civilians to escape a larger main force. Babbleing (Can't spell) again, aren't I. This is on of the reasons I posted this thread: To make sure the story isn't to similiar to others I haven't read/aren't familiar with. Thanks so far!

**Hub'ite** · January 13, 2006, 07:53 PM

It'll be kind of hard to write a fantasy novel without people relating it to LOTR. I liked what I read so far though. Good job.

**Lord Snibb** · January 13, 2006, 08:25 PM

Agreed. Tolkien basicly difined the fantasty genre. Writing a fanstay with 0 Tolkien referrences is like fighting a war without soldiers or weapons. I've worked on refining the last true Lord (the title is often cut to just Lord of the Four). His name is Odda Acimov. Actually, it isn't. But he is called this throughout the story. His true name is kept a secret to aviod having his ancestory traced. He is my favorite character, but at the same time I don't like him much. Most people who have read what I've started of the story have mixed feelings about him.

He has a very shrewd sense of humor.
He never lies but often tells the truth in a confusing way.
He always does what he's told but often intentional misinterprets the requests of people he doesn't like to upset them.
He seems mericiless when really he is doing many of his foes a favor by killing them.
He fights in a berserk, no-sense-of-self-preservation way that doesn't get him killed do to his extensive experiance with it.
He has a very grim outlook on life because he has been fighting evil for a good he has never seen.
He feels he has to be cruel to everyone under him or they will be insubordinate to their deaths in times of crisis.
He assumes everyone is willing to die for the greater good and often causes this to happen to people indirectly without their direct consent.
There was a brief incindent of him killing civilians, but it was in self-defense so it doesn't count.
If he were in charge of our goverment, the penalty for severe crimes and war-crimes (murder, rape, homocide, auto-theft, treason) would involve to phrase 'fully-automatic.'

**Handsome Huss** · January 13, 2006, 08:54 PM

It really does sound way too much like the opening segment of Lord of the Rings. Like Hub'ite said, its hard to write a fantasy novel without people relating it to LOTR. LOTR was just the all encompassing uber, so to write something that doesn't sound like it, is very hard. The great novels manage to do it though.

Lets break down what you have ->
General:
-Unlikely hero with mysterious parentage.
-A single item with the power to save or destroy the world.
-A plot involving a young character who comes of age, becomes super powerful, and defeats the evil villain.
Lord of the Rings:
-Lords of Good races vs. Lords of Dark races (thats not too bad though, except that the races are also pretty generic themselves.)
-Lich's staff.
-Two children in the forest.
-Not sure what you meant by 'Norse tales,' but try not to derive too much from Norse mythology (Tolkien's bit right?) or for that matter, any other popular mythos.
-Lord and two children = Aragorn and Frodo/Sam

Theres probably more but thats what it looks like from the description you wrote. Its just such a bloody blatant rip-off of Lord of the Rings, I'm sorry. Here, look at this website (the points listed there are all meant as a joke, but entirely true) - http://rinkworks.com/fnovel/ .
Its so generic..put some effort in and think up something original.

You're probably thinking "Who is this ******* bad-mouthing my story?"...Well, Im just the regular averager joe who likes to read fantasy novels, that you'd be trying to sell this to. These days, we find far too many clones on bookshelves. Just do something original.

**Lord Snibb** · January 13, 2006, 09:20 PM

I answered yes to only one of those questions. Includes elves, orcs, dwarves, etc. I consider that acceptable because if it's a huge deal I could just give them psuedo-names. The Lich is a lesser character. If I had taken time to discribe the sheer size of this world, you would realise he is only a threat in that he is very hard to kill. The begining of the story is based of 'smite the little bugger before he brings back bigger enemies.' As it happens, that is a failed mission. The main character is a Prince. He knows it, the world knows it. I wouldn't call that mysterious. The last word you would use to discribe him is farmhand. I wouldn't call a battle-hardened vetran an unlikely hero. I would call him the best man for the job. If you consider 300 years old (and elves no longer live very long) and consider a king super-powerful, than point three is partly correct. But in a world that you cannot sail from on end to the other of in 500 years is not going to be saved by one hero. Point two is basicly dead. The Staff isn't an all powerful item. It's a keep the lesser villian alive for a bit longer item. And it doesn't really work because the Lich gets chopped up without really dying, so it can't help him much. I only listed races people would be familiar with. If I said Devourers (basicly regulars in evil armies, not getting into great detail) everybody would not understand what I meant. And they were created from mud and suffer, they didn't come out of the earth. Lich's Staff. Already finished that one off. 'Two children in a forest.' We are talking frontier land were this is going on. Scattered cities ruled by a few metropoli scattered about. Kingdom so big if you somehow got all the soldiers in one place you'd have 200,000, even though there are about 100 per village and said villages are miles apart. Perfect place to slowly build up and army of undead. Also, everthing that happens happens in a forest. Norse tales meaning Tolkien elves. They went from Tolkien elves to Santa's elves. Last point: If Aragorn met Odda, it would end in a very close fight to the death which I could not predict the winner of. Aragorn and the Hobbits are nothing like the characters in my story, especialy because the children don't directly influence the story. Breath in, breath out. It's a good thing I didn't have to say that whole thing out loud. They need a :sighing_loudly_after_long_winded_post: smilely.

Comment on exam: A number of the questions are for people who do not know about the time period they are writing in and also don't apply to other time periods. For instance, the one about it taking more than one arrow to kill a man. In the dawn of the days of bows, it might take two arrows to kill a well-build man. To take him out of action is an entirely different thing. Stabbing with a scimitar is possible if your sword bends back in such a way that you can ajust the angle of the blade as you drive in into its target. But that's way more effort than its worth and any character skilled enough to do that would know. So while it is possible, unless your master swordsman got bashed in the head with a shield, don't write in.

**Darkragnar** · January 14, 2006, 01:25 AM

have u thought about a name of ur book?

**Lord Snibb** · January 14, 2006, 09:32 AM

Darkragnar, I suppose I could answer that with one word. No. I haven't thought of a good name yet. It is my intent to name the book after the world I created, but finding a good name for the world will be very hard. I will likely pick a person's name, take the litteral meaning of that name (most names mean something), translate the litteral meaning into another langauge, and swap the letters around. I'll get to take and post it in this reply.

About 20 minutes latter:

I got Negives. 'Ne' like negative, 'gi' like guy. The 'ves' is a bit hard to explain. The e is pronouned like 'a'. Like you would if you were saying to alphabet. I hope the name sounds good. Whoever figures out what name it came from first wins a metaphorical pat on the back. :wink:

**macro** · January 19, 2006, 10:32 PM

It sounds good man!! you could try to make it creative and a lot more different than the ring, but it'd be good anyway.

REMEMBER THIS: Don't worry if it sounds and feels cliche when writing, your expectation should not a bestseller!! Your biggest enemy in writing the first draft of the novel is THE INNER SELF EDITOR! Don't even revise the stuff you have until you are completely done. Also, unless you've got absolute confidence, don't post any of your draft here because a little criticism which is meant to help you might actually discourage you from finishing!! Finish first, make perfect later!!

hope that helped!