MG's Writing Ideas
Oct. 15th, 2025 05:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
masterghandalfHey, everybody! This is a bit of a different post for me, since it deals with my own creative writing processes instead of commenting on other peoples’, but since some of you indicated in my poll results post that you might be interested in that sort of thing, I thought I might go ahead and share!
Anyway, I’ve long had an interest in creative fiction writing of my own. I wrote a fair bit of fanfic during my undergrad years and a few years afterwards (mostly Avatar: The Last Airbender, but also some other fandoms, including a fic series based on the 2003 Teen Titans cartoon, which I was kind of obsessed with for a few years - the fics were fun to write but ultimately pretty light and disposable – and an oddball of a Star Wars Legends fic that was mostly me working out some of my issues with the directions of certain characters after the New Jedi Order series, but which I was ultimately rather pleased with; I also did my Eberron fics some of my sporkers come from, which I’d like to revisit someday). I’ve also written some original fantasy stuff over the years, starting in my early teens (nothing published, sadly) including doing NaNoWriMo twice (though November, as it happens, tends to actually be a very busy month for me so I was never able to do it as often as I’d have liked) – the first time gave birth to my “genderbent King Arthur in space” saga that I’d always envisioned as the springboard to a longer space fantasy universe – I ended up writing a fair bit of it before Covid hit and kind of derailed a lot of plans. I’d still like to go back, clean these up and try to do something more with them someday. My second time trying NaNo I went for my own take on a “what happens after the epic fantasy story” plot, riffing on some of the ideas from Tolkien’s unpublished and very incomplete “New Shadow” – unfortunately, while I liked some of my ideas here, the story never really came together as a whole and I don’t think it ended up being what I wanted from it. This is probably shelved for good.
Anyway, like I said, between Covid and some other stress in my life going on for the last few years, I ended up not really doing any writing projects of significance for a while (unless you count sporkings and reviews, which I wouldn’t). But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been knocking some ideas around in my head, and recently I’ve decided I really want to get back into the swing of things and actually try writing some of them up. I was wondering if anyone on here might have any interest in following along with any of this process, offering feedback, etc.? Honestly, part of me thinks that having some community for this sort of thing would help a lot, rather than just working away on my computer for an audience of myself and hoping that whatever I come up with might be decent. And is there any material you might be interested in seeing regarding any of these ideas beyond just the actual story? I’ve got a couple of basic ideas that have really grabbed me rattling around in my head at the moment, so I thought I’d go ahead and list some of them by general premise and see what interests people. I’ll note I have tentative titles for all of these, but I’m not really happy with any of them (and I tend to think I’m terrible with titles anyway and hate having to come up with them) so I’m just going to number them for now. I’ll just give a general overview of the premise/plot, but if you want more details on any of them, feel free to ask! In addition to my aforementioned “genderbent King Arthur in space” stuff, I have four main ideas I’ve been toying with.
I. This is probably the most developed of the concepts I have. Epic fantasy novel (intended to come out at circa 150,000 to 200,000 words) set in a renaissance Italy inspired city-state, following a young noblewoman who gets caught up in an elaborate plot involving strange magic, cutthroat politics and her own family’s secrets coming to light, as she finds herself fallen from grace and forced to navigate the city’s dark underbelly, and ultimately to defeat her enemies and stop a tyrant from gaining power – and maybe wrestle with some difficult questions about herself and who she is along the way. Lots of action, intrigue, magic, magical transformations and questions of identity, some unlikely friendships and a touch of romance, and my own take the idea of D&D style tieflings. I envision this story as being largely self-contained, but with opportunities for sequels, and it’s set in a world I’ve been slowly building in the back of my mind as a sort of broad setting where I could play with different kinds of stories in different fantasy subgenres – I’ve also written some scraps of Elric of Melnibone-esque sword and sorcery stories in a different part of the same world, and have even vaguer ideas for a more classic high fantasy saga in yet another part of it.
II. This story is a bit more personal to me in terms of its content, though its ideas are a bit less developed, and is also inspired by some of my frustrations with a certain author I’ve been reading far too much of over the last couple of years. A young slave in an empire ruled by cruel wizard-lords escapes and goes on the run, in possession of tactical intelligence that could change the course of a war. As they try to make their way across a continent to bring this knowledge to the last free nation to stand against the empire and its powerful sorcerer queen, our hero ends up learning some things about themself that they’d have never imagined, and what exactly their role in their former master’s plans was. This one is pretty heavily influenced by some of my own frustrations with a lot of stuff in Ed Greenwood’s books, honestly, in particular the magelords and the Elmara plotline in Making of a Mage and the character of the Simbul and her long war against Thay from the present -day stories, and my own desire to see if I could handle some similar ideas better. Again, this story is mostly envisioned as a standalone, but with the potential for sequels.
III. Probably my least developed idea, but one that’s been kind of grabbing me recently. Basically, I wanted to take some of the basic ideas from the original Mistborn trilogy and some other works I’m fond of – with a world ravaged by some ancient cataclysm, a corrupt society where decadent aristocrats live in decaying splendor while everyone else struggles to survive, a powerful, tyrannical ruler with secrets of their own, a female thief protagonist who gets drawn into a growing rebellion, unconventional magic with fairly hard rules, etc. – and see if I could put my own spin on them and make them stand out from the crowd (because, as it happens, this sort of general outline for a story and setting is more popular than you’d think – I can rattle off several examples other than Mistborn that fit all or most of said criteria, and yet more that don’t fit exactly but are at least adjacent). This is kind of a challenge to myself in a “can I produce the kind of thing I like reading?” kind of way, but I like some of the ideas I’ve got for it and think I can make it feel quite distinct from its inspirations while giving off a somewhat similar vibe and appeal. This, fittingly, is envisioned as a trilogy.
IV. Probably the most complex and ambitious of my ideas, and the one I’ve been toying with for the longest. It actually originally got its start as an idea for a fanfic series based on the tabletop RPG Exalted, of all things, whose setting and basic premise I’ve always found really fascinating, but which has also become rather notorious over the years for its spotty release schedule, convoluted mechanics and (especially in earlier editions) sometimes gratuitous edginess – but I think conceptually remains a fascinating sandbox to play in. In any case, I eventually came to the conclusion that I didn’t really want to be restricted by Exalted’s established lore and worldbuilding and wanted to do more of my own thing with a similar vibe, so I ended up shunting it over into an original setting. This is sort of my take on a Wheel of Time/Song of Ice and Fire/Stormlight Archive type of ongoing hefty epic with lots of characters, plot threads, and high stakes conflicts, in a sprawling high-magic world of larger-than life gods, heroes, nations and powers. This is also one where I feel like I’d be in most need of proper feedback, both to avoid some of the mistakes (ie, lack of focus, excessive bloating and padding, etc.) that the “big epic” type series tend to fall into the longer they go on, and maybe also to help clear out some of the lingering Exalted influences.
Anyway, I know all of those are kind of vague (but you might be able to guess some of my favorite tropes and concepts from some of them, a bit😊), but if any of them sound like the sort of thing you might be interested in hearing more about, or even reading, or if you have any sort of questions about the specific ideas, feel free to let me know! Also, and I apologize if this sounds weird or pushy, but if I wanted to start a Patreon for my writing, would anyone be interested in that? And if so, what sorts of things might you like to see there? Anyway, thank you so much for reading, and do let me know if anything here interests you!
Anyway, I’ve long had an interest in creative fiction writing of my own. I wrote a fair bit of fanfic during my undergrad years and a few years afterwards (mostly Avatar: The Last Airbender, but also some other fandoms, including a fic series based on the 2003 Teen Titans cartoon, which I was kind of obsessed with for a few years - the fics were fun to write but ultimately pretty light and disposable – and an oddball of a Star Wars Legends fic that was mostly me working out some of my issues with the directions of certain characters after the New Jedi Order series, but which I was ultimately rather pleased with; I also did my Eberron fics some of my sporkers come from, which I’d like to revisit someday). I’ve also written some original fantasy stuff over the years, starting in my early teens (nothing published, sadly) including doing NaNoWriMo twice (though November, as it happens, tends to actually be a very busy month for me so I was never able to do it as often as I’d have liked) – the first time gave birth to my “genderbent King Arthur in space” saga that I’d always envisioned as the springboard to a longer space fantasy universe – I ended up writing a fair bit of it before Covid hit and kind of derailed a lot of plans. I’d still like to go back, clean these up and try to do something more with them someday. My second time trying NaNo I went for my own take on a “what happens after the epic fantasy story” plot, riffing on some of the ideas from Tolkien’s unpublished and very incomplete “New Shadow” – unfortunately, while I liked some of my ideas here, the story never really came together as a whole and I don’t think it ended up being what I wanted from it. This is probably shelved for good.
Anyway, like I said, between Covid and some other stress in my life going on for the last few years, I ended up not really doing any writing projects of significance for a while (unless you count sporkings and reviews, which I wouldn’t). But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been knocking some ideas around in my head, and recently I’ve decided I really want to get back into the swing of things and actually try writing some of them up. I was wondering if anyone on here might have any interest in following along with any of this process, offering feedback, etc.? Honestly, part of me thinks that having some community for this sort of thing would help a lot, rather than just working away on my computer for an audience of myself and hoping that whatever I come up with might be decent. And is there any material you might be interested in seeing regarding any of these ideas beyond just the actual story? I’ve got a couple of basic ideas that have really grabbed me rattling around in my head at the moment, so I thought I’d go ahead and list some of them by general premise and see what interests people. I’ll note I have tentative titles for all of these, but I’m not really happy with any of them (and I tend to think I’m terrible with titles anyway and hate having to come up with them) so I’m just going to number them for now. I’ll just give a general overview of the premise/plot, but if you want more details on any of them, feel free to ask! In addition to my aforementioned “genderbent King Arthur in space” stuff, I have four main ideas I’ve been toying with.
I. This is probably the most developed of the concepts I have. Epic fantasy novel (intended to come out at circa 150,000 to 200,000 words) set in a renaissance Italy inspired city-state, following a young noblewoman who gets caught up in an elaborate plot involving strange magic, cutthroat politics and her own family’s secrets coming to light, as she finds herself fallen from grace and forced to navigate the city’s dark underbelly, and ultimately to defeat her enemies and stop a tyrant from gaining power – and maybe wrestle with some difficult questions about herself and who she is along the way. Lots of action, intrigue, magic, magical transformations and questions of identity, some unlikely friendships and a touch of romance, and my own take the idea of D&D style tieflings. I envision this story as being largely self-contained, but with opportunities for sequels, and it’s set in a world I’ve been slowly building in the back of my mind as a sort of broad setting where I could play with different kinds of stories in different fantasy subgenres – I’ve also written some scraps of Elric of Melnibone-esque sword and sorcery stories in a different part of the same world, and have even vaguer ideas for a more classic high fantasy saga in yet another part of it.
II. This story is a bit more personal to me in terms of its content, though its ideas are a bit less developed, and is also inspired by some of my frustrations with a certain author I’ve been reading far too much of over the last couple of years. A young slave in an empire ruled by cruel wizard-lords escapes and goes on the run, in possession of tactical intelligence that could change the course of a war. As they try to make their way across a continent to bring this knowledge to the last free nation to stand against the empire and its powerful sorcerer queen, our hero ends up learning some things about themself that they’d have never imagined, and what exactly their role in their former master’s plans was. This one is pretty heavily influenced by some of my own frustrations with a lot of stuff in Ed Greenwood’s books, honestly, in particular the magelords and the Elmara plotline in Making of a Mage and the character of the Simbul and her long war against Thay from the present -day stories, and my own desire to see if I could handle some similar ideas better. Again, this story is mostly envisioned as a standalone, but with the potential for sequels.
III. Probably my least developed idea, but one that’s been kind of grabbing me recently. Basically, I wanted to take some of the basic ideas from the original Mistborn trilogy and some other works I’m fond of – with a world ravaged by some ancient cataclysm, a corrupt society where decadent aristocrats live in decaying splendor while everyone else struggles to survive, a powerful, tyrannical ruler with secrets of their own, a female thief protagonist who gets drawn into a growing rebellion, unconventional magic with fairly hard rules, etc. – and see if I could put my own spin on them and make them stand out from the crowd (because, as it happens, this sort of general outline for a story and setting is more popular than you’d think – I can rattle off several examples other than Mistborn that fit all or most of said criteria, and yet more that don’t fit exactly but are at least adjacent). This is kind of a challenge to myself in a “can I produce the kind of thing I like reading?” kind of way, but I like some of the ideas I’ve got for it and think I can make it feel quite distinct from its inspirations while giving off a somewhat similar vibe and appeal. This, fittingly, is envisioned as a trilogy.
IV. Probably the most complex and ambitious of my ideas, and the one I’ve been toying with for the longest. It actually originally got its start as an idea for a fanfic series based on the tabletop RPG Exalted, of all things, whose setting and basic premise I’ve always found really fascinating, but which has also become rather notorious over the years for its spotty release schedule, convoluted mechanics and (especially in earlier editions) sometimes gratuitous edginess – but I think conceptually remains a fascinating sandbox to play in. In any case, I eventually came to the conclusion that I didn’t really want to be restricted by Exalted’s established lore and worldbuilding and wanted to do more of my own thing with a similar vibe, so I ended up shunting it over into an original setting. This is sort of my take on a Wheel of Time/Song of Ice and Fire/Stormlight Archive type of ongoing hefty epic with lots of characters, plot threads, and high stakes conflicts, in a sprawling high-magic world of larger-than life gods, heroes, nations and powers. This is also one where I feel like I’d be in most need of proper feedback, both to avoid some of the mistakes (ie, lack of focus, excessive bloating and padding, etc.) that the “big epic” type series tend to fall into the longer they go on, and maybe also to help clear out some of the lingering Exalted influences.
Anyway, I know all of those are kind of vague (but you might be able to guess some of my favorite tropes and concepts from some of them, a bit😊), but if any of them sound like the sort of thing you might be interested in hearing more about, or even reading, or if you have any sort of questions about the specific ideas, feel free to let me know! Also, and I apologize if this sounds weird or pushy, but if I wanted to start a Patreon for my writing, would anyone be interested in that? And if so, what sorts of things might you like to see there? Anyway, thank you so much for reading, and do let me know if anything here interests you!
