[Advice req] Starting fresh with a project

[cr47t 7]

Hi everyone - 

So I've been in a bit of a rut recently regarding a writing project I was working on and off for about 2 or so years, then put aside over the past month, and now that I'm revisiting it I'm not sure what to do with it.

For context: My initial main idea that I wanted to write about was a magic system I came up with, where emotions and perspective were just as important an aspect of it as the actual abilities gained. (I'd rather not disclose exactly how it works on the internet.) I thought it was a pretty good expression of what I wanted to share through this story - basically that we need more empathy in the world. I also was intrigued about writing a story w/ an autistic protagonist whose (abundant) empathy would factor heavily into the plot but the plot itself would not center around his autism. (As an autistic person IRL I thought these would go well together, also b/c I haven't been able to find any characters like that in popular fiction...)

(In addition I still intend to use a mountain setting, a la the places I traveled to in the alps this year - that's part of why I went after all, to reuse my experience there into the story.)

I also have/had (more on that later) a lot of moving parts that I included either as 
A. a writing conceit (for example, a team of human antagonist, in this case from far away and intent on seizing the setting) or
B. something I thought would be cool to include without thinking much about how it would affect my workload (e.g. a sympathetic member of that antagonist team w/ redemption arc and some viewpoint chapters, etc.)

But eventually about a month and a week ago I put it aside after 7 chapters (out of an guesstimated 40) over the course of those two or so years, to give myself some distance and see if I would be able to figure out what was railroading my creative process on that story. It worked: I think the problem was that I had a lot of moving parts that I was not willing to let go of, so now I'm trying to simplify the story and cut down heavily on the extraneous ambitions (such as example B above) and focus primarily on those 2 main story ideas in the second paragraph of this post (mainly the magic system, but to a slightly lesser degree the protagonist too, who I was not giving his full due.)

So now I'm trying to figure out some ideas for the central conflict, stakes, and antagonist/character web setup. Generally speaking I feel a part of the stakes should involve the community(s) of the setting, and whether they find/keep common ground or (continue to?) turn on each other. Also a single "team bad" I think would be less than ideal, as I'm not sure that would be earnest anymore coming from me, but a natural intrusion (a la Nausicaa) or a faction setup are things I've been weighing. Like I said before, I'm trying to go with whatever best allows Exchanging and the MC to shine as they should, without over-burdening my workload. (These two ideas I'm keeping might put a lot on my plate already.)

What are some ideas for character setups I could possibly use? (I don't mind borrowing from other works if there's a way I can see to put my own spin on it.)

Edited September 10, 2023 by cr47t
reworded a few things

[Ash 237]

I'm no writer - or really much of a creative these days, but, I think it's sensible to start from a world perspective as to why your villains/characters exist.

Perhaps generate a central problem and thus people who have different ideologies to fix the central problems may clash and thus from that branch your characters might spring.

Someone may have a method to manipulate emotional energy either via an outside energy or something intrinsically linked to the general abilities, perhaps a party find emotions to be too "weak" and effectively cloud that capacity of magic or effect their usage, perhaps theirs a "religious" sect that believes the only way to true enlightenment and unlocking of potential is with emotional energy alone and they've learnt to manipulate it in a way that's effecting outside of their sphere on a grander scale.

idk just spit balling but if you don't have a core character that you go, I want them to exist then you need something to spark ideas off. Hope this helps at all.

[Doigt 7]

have you read character arc theory? Because it sounds like you haven't really researched how to make characters and you'd really benefit from it. There are many books covering your use case. Some youtubers like TotallyNotMark and HelloFutureMe have covered some of the theories that go into world building and character building, although I must warn you are almost guaranteed to want to throw away all your previous work and start again from scratch once you understand the mechanisms and techniques properly; at least, that's what I ended up doing.

An interesting thing you could do too is read up on philosophy like Spinosa and Nietzsche, which can be used to make various and interesting characters.

Edited December 22, 2023 by Doigt

[cr47t 7]

On 12/22/2023 at 10:59 AM, Doigt said:

have you read character arc theory? Because it sounds like you haven't really researched how to make characters and you'd really benefit from it. There are many books covering your use case. Some youtubers like TotallyNotMark and HelloFutureMe have covered some of the theories that go into world building and character building, although I must warn you are almost guaranteed to want to throw away all your previous work and start again from scratch once you understand the mechanisms and techniques properly; at least, that's what I ended up doing.

An interesting thing you could do too is read up on philosophy like Spinosa and Nietzsche, which can be used to make various and interesting characters.

this sounds kind of interesting, could you give a list of their most important videos? i do watch LocalScriptMan because he's easy to understand and I have dabbled in Hello Future Me videos from time to time but I can never decide on where to start for those larget channels. LocalScriptMan won me over because he has like a 3 minute introductiory video pinned to his channel, do HFM or TotallyNotMark have anything like that? Or if not that, something of similar summary for these concepts?
 

EDIT: I should add that in terms of plotting the thing I've got a good deal of the beginning (quarter 1/4) down and I have some ideas for the climax (in quarter 4/4) but besides a sequence in q3/4 to lead into pre-climax q4/4 I don't have much idea of a middle. I have an idea that the primary "antagonist team" stops attacking the setting directly (a decoy conflict) around halfway in so there can be more focused on threats from the inside inticed by said attacks on the setting (the actual primary conflict) in q2/4. but other than that, I don't have a large clue what to do with middles, beside very hypothetically phrased advice. (i try to avoid super-vague or prescriptionist kinds of advice) any tips for that as well?

Edited December 23, 2023 by cr47t

[Doigt 7]

I'm really sorry, I wish I could help you more than that, but it's been too long. I'm not sure where to start either. Especially with TNM who is usually more into character analysis, so you get the theory but in the context of the analysis of a specific dragon ball character and maybe that's not desirable (especially since it's been such a long while that he actually changed his type of content since I last check). In your stead, I'd just pick any video that seems interesting on HelloFutureMe's channel. They are usually self contained and thus, you can't really go in the wrong order.

Of course, you should definitely read up on the basics of character arc theory before delving deeper into the topic.

[cr47t 7]

7 hours ago, Doigt said:

I'm really sorry, I wish I could help you more than that, but it's been too long. I'm not sure where to start either. Especially with TNM who is usually more into character analysis, so you get the theory but in the context of the analysis of a specific dragon ball character and maybe that's not desirable (especially since it's been such a long while that he actually changed his type of content since I last check). In your stead, I'd just pick any video that seems interesting on HelloFutureMe's channel. They are usually self contained and thus, you can't really go in the wrong order.

Of course, you should definitely read up on the basics of character arc theory before delving deeper into the topic.

Do you know where I can find the lattermost? (the basics)

[Doigt 7]

On 12/27/2023 at 8:12 PM, cr47t said:

Do you know where I can find the lattermost? (the basics)

oh, just google around. Plenty of authors have a blog post or two about the subject. Once you feel ready to deep dive, just read a book on the subject.

[cr47t 7]

On 1/17/2024 at 9:04 PM, Doigt said:

oh, just google around. Plenty of authors have a blog post or two about the subject. Once you feel ready to deep dive, just read a book on the subject.

googled around, and i get overwhelmed with the various unrelated results and how densely packed some of the actual posts are, when they aren't preaching universality of hero's journey (debunked) or of enneagram (not into that kind of thing, personal preference) or just of general three acts (easily debunkable once we can actually get a definition down)

but more important than that, i should address the "starting fresh" part of the original post - it was made after about 6 months of going nowhere with an attempt to overhaul a creative idea for a story from a previous version, but i didn't know what i was trying to accomplish. now, in february 2023 (and some time before then, but i;m mentioning it now), i've gone back to those original 7 chapters, realized there wasn't that much wrong with it that i couldn't tailor to my needs/wants i was just feeling insecure. now i've progressed with those seven chapters (now 8 chapters) to a point where i'm content with the original vision that i had put aside before this post and now have gone back to, and i'm making progress with that.

which means i dont know what to do with this thread. maybe leave it be and when i've got a problem with the revitalized story, post about that in a new thread?? i don't know, just wanted to mention where i've gone with it since the OP and how the OP is kind of obsolete now. sorry if this was going somewhere, but if i keep moping about "what ifs" i will never be finished, and i want to have something i can share with others once it's time to publish.

[Hina's Simp 96]

On 9/10/2023 at 8:32 AM, Tormented said:

I'm no writer - or really much of a creative these days, but, I think it's sensible to start from a world perspective as to why your villains/characters exist.

like you ever were to begin with

[Doigt 7]

On 2/4/2024 at 3:11 PM, cr47t said:

googled around, and i get overwhelmed with the various unrelated results and how densely packed some of the actual posts are, when they aren't preaching universality of hero's journey (debunked) or of enneagram (not into that kind of thing, personal preference) or just of general three acts (easily debunkable once we can actually get a definition down)

but more important than that, i should address the "starting fresh" part of the original post - it was made after about 6 months of going nowhere with an attempt to overhaul a creative idea for a story from a previous version, but i didn't know what i was trying to accomplish. now, in february 2023 (and some time before then, but i;m mentioning it now), i've gone back to those original 7 chapters, realized there wasn't that much wrong with it that i couldn't tailor to my needs/wants i was just feeling insecure. now i've progressed with those seven chapters (now 8 chapters) to a point where i'm content with the original vision that i had put aside before this post and now have gone back to, and i'm making progress with that.

which means i dont know what to do with this thread. maybe leave it be and when i've got a problem with the revitalized story, post about that in a new thread?? i don't know, just wanted to mention where i've gone with it since the OP and how the OP is kind of obsolete now. sorry if this was going somewhere, but if i keep moping about "what ifs" i will never be finished, and i want to have something i can share with others once it's time to publish.

I'm setting myself a reminder to reply to this later. I've now seen it and I acknowledge it. Once I have the time, I'll do you a proper response that is unlike my usual lazy/busy ways. Sorry for making you wait.