Need help with my urban fantasy story about martial arts

[luriantimetraveler]

I might suggest that, if you don't already, now is a great time to start a writing-journaling practice, where you can play out all these possibilities — let yourself "try on" different iterations of the story (with and without the animal spirits, etc) — what will that mean for the characters, the plot, etc? You can ask yourself questions and then answer those questions yourself (I often try to answer any question at least two different ways and often discover lots of interesting things when I don't go with my initial answer).

 

[Fire&Light65]

Okay thank you. I'll plan them out and see how it all works in the end and which one I choose. I'm just curious about one thing that you mentioned earlier if the initial theme was overcoming an abusive mentor and getting in touch with the animal spirits would call for a totally different kind of protagonist. What kind of proragonist would that be?

 

[Fire&Light65]

Is this whole premise and concept very bad? If it is I might have to consider rewriting it

 

[The Judge]

Are you enthused by the premise and concept? If so, it really doesn't matter what we think -- it's your story.

Though we can offer suggestions and advice on plot and characters etc, it really is for you to decide what you want to do with the story and how it should develop -- we can't make any decisions for you, and you shouldn't rely on anyone else to tell you what you can or can't use or whether you should continue along the lines you currently envisage. And, of course, as you start writing it may be both plot and characters diverge radically from what you're planning at present, so anything we say now may well turn out to be irrelevant.

The details you've given sound too cliched for my personal taste -- but then I'm undoubtedly not among your proposed readership -- and if you're aiming to be traditionally published there's a risk that agents and trad publishers might agree with me, which might mean you have an uphill battle to persuade them to take you on. But it's always the case that a tired trope can be made to look good with stellar writing, in the same way that a brilliant original idea can be failed by poor writing. What's important is the writing itself.

So my advice is that rather than second guess yourself now, just start writing and see where the story takes you.

 

[Fire&Light65]

Thanks. I really appreciate the feedback. I know it's true that any ideas can change at anytime as I write along.

Can I ask you which part seems to be the most cliche? Is it the animal spirits? The drug company? Or the protagonist overcoming having a bad mentor and facing him in the end? Then I'll come up with ways how I can revert the trope a bit.

 

[The Judge]

To be honest, virtually the only thing I didn't think cliched was the animals spirits part. I've not come across that a great deal in the novels I've read so I don't know if it is in fact a common trope, but if it is, then it may well be the easiest to subvert eg by looking at the animals in a different light or how they affect the protagonist. For instance in his series Shadows of the Apt, Adrian Tchaikovsky gives the people insect characteristics, whereas in his Echoes of the Fall the people have the ability to shapeshift into specific animals and they build communities/tribes around that ability -- so two sets of novels by the same person both dealing with animal spirits/characteristics, but how they're handled is very different.

For me, the evil teacher/superior who is cruel and abusive simply because he's evil is as trope-ish as the kind mentor who helps out simply because he's good -- no one is entirely bad or entirely angelic -- and I do fear they run the risk of being seen as cardboard characters. Much the same applies to the evil Big Pharma corporation. The MC's character arc is similarly somewhat hackneyed to my mind notwithstanding that it's based on a true story.

But I do think that rather than spend more time worrying about the plot at this stage, you might be better off actually getting down to writing the story. See how it develops and then when you've done stand back, get some feedback from a writing group, and examine what works and what doesn't.

 

[Fire&Light65]

For instance in his series Shadows of the Apt, Adrian Tchaikovsky gives the people insect characteristics, whereas in his Echoes of the Fall the people have the ability to shapeshift into specific animals

This seems interesting, I'll give these a read but my idea is closer to these animal spirits being more within like an energy source.

For me, the evil teacher/superior who is cruel and abusive simply because he's evil is as trope-ish as the kind mentor who helps out simply because he's good

The evil teacher would've been a nerdy guy that was picked on back in high school and got into school fights, then joined the military at 19 years old during the early 80's thinking it would be a cool change of life, where he was trained by an abusive commander who was Korean War vet and specialist in Vietnam, which further changed the young evil mentor to the true evil mentor he has become and also the effects he suffered from being on certain missions, which showed him the ugly side of war. The good mentor back when he was a preteen, would've lost his older brother in the Vietnam war, his family killed and ends up as a homeless young boy getting into fights in the streets ending up adopted by some biker gangs and fighting with other teens in an underground tournament for money. With nowhere else to go, he then traveled with some hippies and along his travels he met his master mentor that trained him into a new discipline. Everyone will have a backstory and purpose, morally-grey in some areas. And fully corrupted in other ways.

Much the same applies to the evil Big Pharma corporation. The MC's character arc is similarly somewhat hackneyed to my mind notwithstanding that it's based on a true story.

I plan on giving the pharma companies their reasons, which actually helps bring back that excitement that was missing in tournament competitions, which helps raise more fans. And the MC may not be all based on a real person, with only some inspiration, with some being added fiction of course to keep the story going.

 

[Wayne Mack]

It sounds like you have a bunch of ideas, so I think it is best to start to get them down on paper to see how they shape up. Things look drastically different once they are committed to paper as compared to how they look in one's imagination. Dive in and start writing. I think later you will have quite different questions to ask and we can have quite different conversations. Best of luck!