I have an idea ...

[scottle2010]

In my brain, I encountered multiple strands of creativity that release wonderful ideas. Haha. At least that's what I think. Anyway, let's get to the point. I already had written "book one" of my story and am currently writing book two. I allow my English Teacher and another friend (total of two people) to read it. They really liked the story and the plotline, but the only thing I have to work on is the grammar (which i can have trouble with sometimes, but then again that may be the case because I write too fast and don't go back to check for those errors).

(please DO NOT take my story and plagirize it, I DO plan to get it published it one day):

A teenage boy, Shaun, had no idea what he was about to face once he moved from New York to Florida. In the closet of his home home, a strange treasure box with a Ruby Necklace was placed in there. After wearing the valuable jewelry, the boy now come to realize demons are real. A (former) demon king, Asmodeus, had been secured to the necklace and magically transferred over inside Shaun's body. {Hence the name: My Alter Ego is a Demon} This begins a chain of events that occur between the Human and Demon World and where fantasy becomes reality.


There's more that goes on and definetly there is more. I'm the type of guy who loves books with complicated plotlines that all eventually go together in the end. My teacher loves my book and I was wondering what you guys thought of the plot. I have more ideas for book two and book three, but if you guys have any suggestions. I would be grateful to take those in consideration.

What did you guys thought of my idea? (This is my first post though)

[Terri]

First off, I want to just point out that nobody on AW will steal your story--and if they did want to, asking them not to wouldn't change a thing. We're all writers, and we support other writers. Whippee. =]

What I see in your idea is just that--an idea. It's a common sort of thing in shows like, uhm, Stargate, and other sci-fi stuff. It's a little bit vague at the moment--we have backstory, we know the main character's name, but that's about it.

What I don't see in your brief summary (I'm sure you've included it in your book, but it's missing here) is the main character's motivation. Why would he put on the necklace? Does he like shiny things? What is his ultimate goal--save the world, get the girl, become a jewelry dealer, banish the demons to the innermost circle of hell?

We also don't know what you mean by 'demon.' Why are they bad? Do they eat people? Turn them into fish? Turn them into lawyers? Or are they good demons--have sworn to survive on tofu rather than the flesh of unborn infants?

I like where you're going with this, and I'm certainly impressed that you've finished an entire book (look at me with all my fancy talk, can't even get past the first few chapters! :P). Tell us a bit more about your story and we may be able to offer more insight. :)

Also, welcome to AW! <3

[scottle2010]

Yeah that's why I went to this forum - to get all the support I can get. Haha. Yeah the summary is really brief as possible. I just didn't want to spoil the book for anybody that planned to read it. Yes the summary was vague!

Well Shaun is a character I based off of myself. He's just a regular kid who goes to school and obey his parents and etc. The cause that made Shaun wore the necklace, was when his younger sister knocked on his door which shook him a little and he somehow just putted on (Simple). Before he put the necklace on, he didn't know anything about demons and whether or not their existence was true. His goal? He just a kid whose kind of a goody-good two shoe. He obey his parents no matter what and he can't put himself to make his own choices. And the demon that he gets pair up with is the total opposite of Shaun. The demon tends to be aggresive (but has good intentions, that will be later on mention), but at least he stands up for what believes in and because of him. Shaun learns to become an assertive person. And of course to somehow remove the demon out of his body. Haha wouldn't want to live with a demon inside of you the rest of your life.

The demons in my book are neither pure good/evil. Some demons do have cruel intentions and some want to save their world from those vile ones. Asmodeus, although yes he may be the tough guy, wants to direct the pathway for demons on a good path. But of course there's a villian that hates him and wanted to kill him. And ya-da yada, I can't say anymore ... Oh but these demons look humanlike and not vicious looking half bull/half eagle stuff. Haha

Thanks for welcoming me
If there's something you like to still know then please ask.
It's just there so much that I put in my stories that it can be a little hard for me to pick out. I'm only 16 and there's lots to learn about.

[Terri]

I know what you mean about there being a lot to learn. :) I'm only fifteen, and joined this forum a few weeks ago. Make sure you check out Uncle Jim's Writing Thread; (http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8754) it helped me a lot. It's great for grammar, pacing, everything. <3

So Shaun's main objective is to get rid of the demon, right? That's coo.'

Make sure you're careful with basing your characters off of yourself--'ordinary kid does ordinary stuff and is ordinary until something happens' isn't always the best way to go. I used to have huge, massive problems with character development--the Universal Mary Sue Litmus Test (http://www.springhole.net/quizzes/marysue.htm) was like dumping cold water on my head. :P

[Mr. Anonymous]

Terri + Scottle - Nice to see other young writers around here. :)

Scottle - First of all, welcome to Absolute Write. Please stick around. You'll learn a heck of a lot, and we're glad to have you.

As for your story? Honestly? I'm not a big fan of the regular kid + magical item = adventure formula myself. Just because it's been done so often before, and it's a little cliche. Now that's not necessarily a bad thing (Star Wars, for instance, is your typical heroes journey tale.) Almost everything has been done before, and a great writer can always make something new out of an old story. The idea is only 50%, really. The other half is execution.

Now, that's not to imply that you haven't built an interesting story around this initial plot catalyst. But... And here's the but... It's not going to be the most pleasant thing you'll ever read, and you probably won't fully believe me, and that's fine. Because I still feel it needs to be said.

I don't subscribe to the notion that teens can't write worthwhile books, that they don't have enough life experience, etc. However, I do subscribe to the notion that a lot of times, the first book doesn't get published. Most times, in fact. To give you an idea of what I mean - Stephen King's first three novels were rejected. As in, they will never see the light of day.

There's a good chance that you won't get published on your first book either, which is okay. If you decide to keep writing, you can always return to this story. Rewrite, make it better.

I'm not saying this to deflate your hopes, but I do want you to have a realistic outlook on the business.

Getting published (traditionally published, that is) is not easy. And sometimes it doesn't happen for a while. Or in some cases, ever. These are possibilities that you need to be prepared for.

I mentioned that most first novels don't get published. But it's very easy to say, "Well I'll be one of the few that breaks the mold." And you could. But statistically, chances are better that you won't.

It's not a bad thing. Most writers who sit down to write the first novel haven't done anything of the sort before. Writing is very much a learning process, and just like anything else, you get better and better with practice. Even the greatest athletes - Babe Ruth, Roger Federer, Tiger Woods, etc, had to learn the game, and practice practice practice till they got it down. And for every Tiger Woods, there are a hundreds of golfers that average joes like me never hear about.

Which is to say, if you have your heart set on becoming the next Rowling... Hope is good, but it should be tethered down with realism. Even for those who get published, most don't make enough money from sales to be able to write full time/quit their day jobs. A typical advance can be around 5,000 dollars. Sometimes you earn that out and start raking in royalties. Sometimes you don't.

Anyway, I'm glad you found your way over here. Best of luck to you.

[Stunted]

I'm going to be frank. This sounds a lot a lot like the plot of yugioh. (Not that I'd know.)

[Madican]

Not that I'd know.

You say while having Kamina as your avatar.

Listen to Terri. Basing a main character off yourself is going to affect your story. You will get attached, you will not want to casually push him off cliffs, and he will not grow. That is very, very bad.

And the idea does sound like Yu-Gi-Oh somewhat. In America.

[RoseColoredSkies]

Scottie,

I know you say you have problems with grammar (which you attribute to writing too fast and not going back to proofread). Perhaps it would be prudent to actually go back and proofread. Do you hand in assignmnts for school without reading them over first? Probably not (or I'd imagine your English teacher would dock you some serious points). So treat your creative writing the same way.

Editting can be a pain in the butt (trust me its the bane of my existence) but it is an absolutley necessary part of writing. It will make your work sound much more polished.

As for the story, I'm going to have to agree with some of the previous posters. Basing a character on yourself, very dangerous. You do get too attached and then may take offense (when none is intended) when others critique the character. Additionally, the plotline does sound kind of like Yu-Gi-Oh. Yes, it's an anime and a completely different medium than a novel but you need to work at keeping your story original. Nothing worse than people running about proclaiming "This is a rip-off of such-and-such!" (and I'm in no way saying that your story is.)

Last point I'll make, you should really focus on book one, making it as good as it can be. It's great you have ideas for more books but honestly (looking ahead to the attempt to get an agent) it is much easier to get an agent by presenting a book as a stand alone work.

[scottle2010]

Wow really? I haven't seen that Yu-Gi-Oh in a long time. I mean I seen the new one called 5D's or w/e but wow? I mean when I came up with this I never thought about Yu-Gi-Oh. So? I mean is it still original? Or not? Because I swear, I never thought about that when i was writing my story. I was thinking demons and alter egos. Lol

As for editing, yeah I understand what you mean. Now I do edit, which is why there are much less mistakes/corrections my teacher has to correct/catch.

I can see how you guys may think I would get attached. But I know I'm not attached. I already planned that out so it be kinda weird to change my main character. He's not an exact clone of me so it's alright. And my character is growing. But thanks for the suggestion.

Thanks for welcoming me here.

Can I still kept that plot? I mean there's way more to it. And there's definetly no "Dueling Cards" crap in my story. I mean I hate to change it.

(now looking at plot to Yu-Gi-Oh)

ok well the demon of my story he actually knows his identity and his purpose and sort of about how he got secured in the necklace. I think some stories/books/anime may seem to have something that's alike but it's not the same.

Oh Terri. Yes Shaun does want to get rid of the demon (as in like free him), but not all demons (as in not destroying them). He likes to help Asmodeus get out of his own body and so that Asmodeus can rule as Demon King again.

[Terri]

I mean I hate to change it.

That's something you're gonna have to get over right now. I know that it's frustrating to have your perfect masterpiece tampered with, but I /guarantee/ there are things in your manuscript that need changing. Don't be scared to rewrite. Rewriting is fun. I love rewriting. Yay. <3

Well, I actually hate rewriting. But I still do it, ' cause it's necessary.

[kaitlin008]

That's something you're gonna have to get over right now. I know that it's frustrating to have your perfect masterpiece tampered with, but I /guarantee/ there are things in your manuscript that need changing. Don't be scared to rewrite. Rewriting is fun. I love rewriting. Yay. <3

Well, I actually hate rewriting. But I still do it, ' cause it's necessary.

Yeah, I agree. And I actually DO love rewriting. If you allow yourself to let go of some pieces, you'll find out you're much happier with the end product. No one writes a perfect first draft!

[Sage]

I've never seen Yu-Gi-Oh, though I am a fan of anime. So I don't know how closely this resembles the plot to it.

There are certainly plot elements that can be shared between works of fiction. You can't say that, for example, you can never have a cheerleader find out demons are real and start hunting them just because Buffy did it so famously. Or, oh my god, what if you wanted to strand a group of people on a deserted island--could be associated with Lost (could also be associated with several classic novels and movies with the similar premise)? Does that mean that the novel is derivative of that other work?

Anyway, I thought the demon being trapped in his body sounded great. While I was iffy on the whole necklace-gives-him-a-power thing, it doesn't seem like the necklace does anything but transfer the demon to his body, which is cool. It sounds like you go more into the politics of demons and humans and whether they can coexist or not, just as your MC is trying to figure out how to coexist with his demon alter ego.

Complicated plotlines, btw = :Thumbs:

Most characters we write have some elements of us. What you want to watch out for, regarding Mary Sues (I just had this conversation), is inserting an idealized version of yourself. Having certain character traits that are similar to yours, especially ones that can seem bad (for example, being socially awkward or being stubborn), does not make the character a Mary Sue. If the character is someone who is just a hundred levels of awesome above any other character, that's when you have to watch out for a Mary Sue.

Scottle, keep your plot. Maybe check out Yu-Gi-Oh again just to make sure they're not too similar. Make the book the best you can, learn how to edit it yourself. If you go to someone else for editing, try to figure out why they made the changes they did. Maybe put the first chapter or first few pages in Share Your Work to see what experienced critters think about it. Get ready for crits that will be blunt, ones that will be nitpicky, ones that will be general, and hopefully ones that will be complimentary :) Take what you want from those crits, you don't have to change everything that's ever mentioned, but if many people are giving you the same critique on that section, it's probably something that needs changing.

Then I suggest finding beta readers (there's a subforum here for that) that are not people you know and see what they think. I would be really surprised if any of them came out saying "That was exactly like Yu-Gi-Oh," even if they mentioned "Oh, this element here is like Yu-Gi-Oh." But they might find other important things--plot holes, inconsistencies, or things that are cliche, for example--that you might have missed. And they'll do it from a writer's perspective.

And you will probably have to change many things--some minor, some huge--but not the entire plot of the book, which almost seems like what people are suggesting here.

[Norligh]

Can I still kept that plot? I mean there's way more to it. And there's definetly no "Dueling Cards" crap in my story. I mean I hate to change it.

(now looking at plot to Yu-Gi-Oh)



Scott,

I'm no pro but I'm a writer with a great imagination and tons of passion. Don't ever ask "Can I still keep the plot?" Please. If you wrote this book and you love it, then run with it, don't ask for permission. No idea is new- I don't care what anyone says. It's total postmodernism at its best. The old is redone with new spins... so please don't worry because someone out there said your a-few-sentences-long very vague summary sounds like yugio (or however it's spelled.) If you worry about that then you'll go crazy.

The people here have tons of great advice and opinions to offer you. There are professionals here as well as people like you and me... and they all have different life experiences and knowledge to offer. Take what works for you, be thankful and offer what you can back to the Writer Cooler Community. BUT- don't think you have to believe/accept/follow everything that is said to you.

Good luck. I think your idea sounds great!!! It's awesome to see a youngish person with such passion for the written word!!!

ETD~ commenting on Sage's last bit of her post... I posted my query here and was told my book sounded exactly like at least five other works. I was disheartened at first, and then I was offered some wonderful advice- to work on making my MC unique. I conjured up and idea and gave my MC a "special power" that made her stand out from the rest. I DID have to rewrite about 1/3 of my book, but the main storyling stayed exactly the same. And know what? It is 100% better book for it!

[scottle2010]

Well thanks for the advice and criticism that has been offer. Well my friend showed me the Mary Sue thing and well I got that my character was not a Mary Sue and well that's obviously good thing. I'm kinda shock I got much feedback, but it's not a bad thing. Idk if this thread/post (or however you call it) should be ended since the point of this was to show my idea. But I may post a couple of chapters to ask for your feedback.

The thing is I already written Book One (I planned this to be a trilogy) and planned what are the main points for each book. I'm working on Book Two now. I plan to somehow lengthen my chapters a bit with extra details. The plotline is fine but having details where they belong could intensify and interest readers. I hope to achieve that.

Oh let's see. Shaun does not have any magical powers. He's still "regular" in a way. The demon that's inside of him does have powers.

[adarkfox]

I'm going to be frank. This sounds a lot a lot like the plot of yugioh. (Not that I'd know.)

I read the summary and thought the EXACT same thing, LoL. Spared me from having to say it though I guess LoL