I need help...BOOK HELP!

[TechnoScrabble]

So...I write a lot.
And a lot.
And A LOT.
And then some.
The problem is, I often get writer's block, go read a book by one of the great authors (Terry Pratchett, Dave Abnett, Lynn Fakename) and come back suddenly hating my work. Despite this, I can usually finish my work.
The thing is, I need to type it up afterwords, so I can send it to a publisher, and it seems I'm physically incapable of doing that before something happens to the notebook I wrote in. So this time, I'm going to type it first. It'll take longer, but hey.
I've thought up a few ideas, because I really want to get into this, and I want to know what you guys think of the following possible stories. And please, don't be dinks and try to steal my ideas. I've got this post here saying I came up with them first, and my lawyer is an eager, and rather effective woman. She's also scary. She made my ex wet herself.
Like, seriously, this woman could make boiling water freeze in the desert by giving it a disapproving look.

So, anyways, the ideas:

Sewer Rats: This one I did a bit of work on, then I realized I could change the setting from fantasy to science fiction if need be. Basically, there are monsters in the sewers, and people who hunt them down getting caught up in a conspiracy. If in a fantasy setting, it would involved magic and whatnot and take place in a city of mages. If science fiction, there would be no magic, it would take place in a large city where a group of agents sort of fail to keep the whole thing a secret but try anyways.

Beyond the Veil: Set in modern times, a man gets some brain damage that reveals a second world beyond the first to him for just a few hours, and his obsession with that affects his daughter, who later on discovers that there is a 'Veil', a magical hiding system of sorts, protecting the supernatural from human view.

Haven't thought of a title for it yet: A hard science fiction/action story where a scientist who seems to have discovered a sort of fusion powered immortality gets fed up with the people hiring him and 'kidnaps' himself, forcing several soldiers and a spacer captain to get caught up along in the ride and accidentally revealing that things are much darker than they seem in one of the most widely trusted governments in the universe.

The Laughing Man: Fantasy/horror where a group of adventurers lost in a volcanic desert slowly loses their sanity and their lives to an entity in the desert that seems to have devoured everyone in the outpost they were heading to.

The Harlequin Society/The Harlequin Horror: Horror/Intrigue and possibly fantasy if it doesn't take place in a steampunk setting. A group of criminals in jester outfits ups their crime from robberies to kidnappings and murders, and an all-too-likely group of 'heroes' (read: dumbarse and his psychiatrist and a butler) try to stop them and solve the mystery as to...well...why?

Boad Hoignar's Son: The tales of a famed dwarven hero. I don't know whether to start with one where there's a town where people have been disappearing, the one with a giant fiendish dragon and an army of undead monsters, the one where it all starts out, or the one where he travels north to fight Brograr the Conqueror.

The Replacement Hero: The Problem: The evil beings of the world have finally realized they can accomplish much more by working together, and seem to be drawing on a single focal point. The Solution: A prophesied hero who will unite all the greatest warriors both dead and alive under a single banner.
Oh wait, what's that? He's dead? Oh well, time to find another hero!


EDIT:
@V It takes me longer because I don't have much computer time that I don't spend here or working. Damn jobs, nobody told me I would ever need one!

[Lady Moreta]

The thing is, I need to type it up afterwords

Best typo ever :smallbiggrin:


So this time, I'm going to type it first. It'll take longer, but hey.

I wonder, why do you think it'll take longer to type and then send, rather than write, type and send? Surely cutting out one stage will make it shorter rather than longer? I ask because I used to do the same with writing essays. I would write freehand then type them up. One day I was running out of time before the due date so started typing from scratch, was surprised to realise just how much faster it is.



Sewer Rats: This one I did a bit of work on, then I realized I could change the setting from fantasy to science fiction if need be. Basically, there are monsters in the sewers, and people who hunt them down getting caught up in a conspiracy. If in a fantasy setting, it would involved magic and whatnot and take place in a city of mages. If science fiction, there would be no magic, it would take place in a large city where a group of agents sort of fail to keep the whole thing a secret but try anyways.

Haven't thought of a title for it yet: A hard science fiction/action story where a scientist who seems to have discovered a sort of fusion powered immortality gets fed up with the people hiring him and 'kidnaps' himself, forcing several soldiers and a spacer captain to get caught up along in the ride and accidentally revealing that things are much darker than they seem in one of the most widely trusted governments in the universe.

The Replacement Hero: The Problem: The evil beings of the world have finally realized they can accomplish much more by working together, and seem to be drawing on a single focal point. The Solution: A prophesied hero who will unite all the greatest warriors both dead and alive under a single banner.
Oh wait, what's that? He's dead? Oh well, time to find another hero!

These are the ones I like best... not really sure why exactly, just that on first read through, these are the ones that jumped out at me and went 'yeah I'd read that'. The others made me go 'meh' to be honest.

[Savannah]

Honestly, I think all of them could be good, but it will depend on your skill as a writer. If I like the way an author writes and how their characters are portrayed, I'll read most any plot. On the other hand, I'll pass on a really interesting storyline if the writing sucks and I don't care about the characters. So I'd say go with whichever one is the most interesting to you, as that's likely to end up the best written one.
Perhaps not the response you were looking for, but I really can't point at any of them and say 'this will turn out to be a more interesting book than that'.

[Lord Loss]

My favorite is The laughing man. Maybe it's just cause that's my sort of thing, but that,s the kind of book I would buy just from that description. As long as it's somewhat Lovecraftian.

[Nameless Ghost]

Sewer Rats, Beyond the Veil and Haven't Thought Of A Title For It Yet stand out to me as the types of story I would enjoy reading most. Is a general idea of the most popular plot all you're asking for? Your post seemed a little vague in that regard.

[TechnoScrabble]

Yeah. I can never decide what to write next.

[Lady Moreta]

Do what I do... just pick one and get started. If you find yourself struggling for inspiration, then start something else and keep going on that for a while. I find that I have a bunch of stories all going at the same time and I switch from one to the other as inspiration strikes me or leaves me.

[Icewalker]

Yeah, it doesn't really matter enormously which you do: just get doing! I need to do more writing myself, for a larger project I'm working on.

These would be short stories I assume? They seem too simple to be novels, although some could definitely be jumping off points for larger stories with elements we don't know yet. They could be novellas?

If they are short stories, I know of a pulp fiction serial magazine you should send them to to potentially be published. By which I mean, I am producing a pulp fiction serial magazine, and your stories sound interesting, and we would love to have you submit them. And we pay our authors. :smallwink:

[TechnoScrabble]

Well, they're basic ideas for novels.
I do often write short stories though, mainly science fiction. I could send you some.

[Icewalker]

Do so! :smallbiggrin:

Keep an eye on the Arts and Crafts section, I'll set up a thread within a week or so for Tales from the Menagerie. General pulp fiction, with a slight steampunk bent, but not exclusively.

I must say, I particularly like your harlequin story idea. Could be quite excellent.

[Kislath]

I'd been working on a story similar in nature to your Beyond the Veil, so I tend to lean toward that one. I think it has the most commercial potential. I will never finish it, though; you want some ideas?
I also think that posting these here was a huge mistake. I wrote what eventually got perverted and distorted into the abyssmal "Good Luck Chuck" only to have it stolen that way.

[Muffin?]

I'm surprised a lot of people haven't shown interest in Boad Hoignar's Son. Personally that would be the one i would read first. I mean who doesn't like a good adventure? Since The Hobbit has been one of my favorite stories, this is probably why i like this one. It also could be because i just finished reading The Odyssey. If you could steer away from Tolkein's ideas and add your own bit of twist then please send me a copy. Also, if you're going to include magic and such, please limit it. But seriously, if you do this i really would like to see it.

Oh yeah.. one more thing..Good Luck. Writing can be a pain in the ass. :smallsmile:

[Anxe]

Post a sample of your fiction writing and I can decide which piece will best fit your style. Also, what exactly do you want me to say about the ideas? They're ideas. Each of them could work. I don't know which one will work best until you start writing them.

Finally, you can't copyright a story idea. Thinking you can do so is laughable. If I stole your idea I could defend myself in court with a piece of paper saying I wrote the story independently of you. I wouldn't even need to pay a legal fee. Perhaps, if you want to be a professional writer you should consider getting a publisher/editor instead of a lawyer.

[LaZodiac]

The only advice I really have is for the Veil one, which I like the most.

1: Maybe change the name from Veil to something else. People might compare it to Dragon Age and stuff. Again, this is a maybe.

2: Don't mention that he saw it because of brain damage. Let it be implied that he may or may not of suffered some kind of brain trauma, or had to be put on some sort of medication. Leave it open if wheter or not what he saw is real or not. Fully commit to wheter it is, but never show us 100% evidence of either side.

That aside, they all seem pretty good concepts, as long as you can write it good.

EDIT: Ok, Kislash, that requires some elaboration. Piqued my interest.

[Anxe]

The only advice I really have is for the Veil one, which I like the most.

1: Maybe change the name from Veil to something else. People might compare it to Dragon Age and stuff. Again, this is a maybe.

2: Don't mention that he saw it because of brain damage. Let it be implied that he may or may not of suffered some kind of brain trauma, or had to be put on some sort of medication. Leave it open if wheter or not what he saw is real or not. Fully commit to wheter it is, but never show us 100% evidence of either side.

That aside, they all seem pretty good concepts, as long as you can write it good.

EDIT: Ok, Kislash, that requires some elaboration. Piqued my interest.

Unless the brain damage is related somehow. Kind of like in Buffy how only insane people can see what the Key really is.

[LaZodiac]

Buffy is action slock, what he suggested seems more mental, questioning, that type of thing.

[Anxe]

Buffy is action slock, what he suggested seems more mental, questioning, that type of thing.

Slock?

Also, what he outlined doesn't really have a theme at all. What I've got from it is that there's magical things that most people don't know about. A lot like Buffy. Whether it ends up being an action/horror/comedy is up to him. I was more pointing out a similarity in plot device with the insane people seeing more clearly than anything about the actual genre/theme of the piece. As of now it doesn't have one.

[LaZodiac]

Sorry, I likely spelt that word wrong. Basically I'm saying I don't like Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Anyway, the way I read that concept he wrote, it felt like it would be more of a "thinking" type of book to me. Eh, whatever.

[Kislath]

There's not much to elaborate on, really; I wrote a story, asked for a wee bit of help on a writer's forum on a certain sticking point, and about a year later the guy who helped me excitedly announced that he just sold a script. It turned out to be a corruption of my own story. Now if I publish mine, I'll be seen as the copycat.:smallfurious:
Mine is a lot better, though, I can assure you.

[Sarco_Phage]

Good writing's about more than plot, bro.

Show me how you write, and I will tell you who you are*.

*or maybe nod in approbation, if your writing is good