There are threads for fanfiction, fanfiction you haven’t posted, plot bunnies, original plot bunnies, but none for original works you’re working on right now.

Let’s rectify that. The purpose of this thread is for people to say what they’re working on, how it’s coming, and maybe some plot details. As long as it’s original fiction, whether it's novels, short stories, or screenplays, I want to hear it.

I’m working on Overworld. It’s about a boy who makes a deal with a mysterious, magical, and malicious humanoid race, putting him at odds with his Orwellian and tyrannical society. The book is set in the future of a fantasy world where technology is rampant and magic has been disowned by the human race.

I’ve made several attempts to write it in the past, only to fail due to hazy plot details and dissatisfaction with my writing. This time I’m writing it as I would a fanfiction. I write a chapter and, instead of going to the next one and leaving half-written scenes, I edit the chapter until it’s complete and release it to my small audience of two.

I’m editing chapter four right now and it’s going great. The story is all plotted out and I expect it to be fifteen chapters by the end, depending on word count.

So, what are you guys writing?

 

1. I have plotted out a tale of a man who plans his revenge against Death personified for a betrayal hundreds of years old, willing to throw the entire world into chaos for his own ends.

Revealing more would be too spoilerific, but if anyone wants to be a wall for me to bounce ideas off of, PM me.

2. This is less developed, due to it being fantasy set in an original world. Number one is altered history Earth, btw.

At this point I have a rough idea for a protagonist, something to awesomize him, a conflict of sorts and I'm trying to design the world wherein to let my guy loose.

EDIT: 3. Aaand I suppose there's that one short story that I'm not sure should ever see the light of day. But I work on it from time to time.

 

Oh, boy. So many things - so little time!

I just finished CRYSTAL FORCE, the sequel to THE RIG, and that's off to the publisher. The next novel in that series, tentatively titled HAVEN, needs a first draft by end of May.

I'm closing in on the finish line for LOST GRACE, another Declan Hale adventure.

And next week I'm writing my chapter for the original novel Little Chicago and I are co-authoring! Going to be a good one. LC, if you see this, sorry on the delay! Words, man, fucking words.

I've also a little side project I throw a few thousand words at every week - GHOSTHUSTLERS. About a teenage conman that can see spirits, both good and somewhat evil spirits, but instead of helping them or trying to save the day, he exploits his ability for financial gain. Also to bang chicks. It will be my magnum opus!

 

Let's see...

Got a novel on the go with Joe (eventually), a novella-sized idea about a pair of time-manipulating siblings, a zombie short story because everyone has one of those, a non-fantastical short about a guy who lost his wife and falls for an Amish girl on rumspriga, and a mostly roughed out novel about a fellow who can travel between 7 different worlds and the equivalent different magic systems he has to master to survive.

On top of that, a few of us here just started roughing out a shared universe project, which I'm hoping will come to something really cool, just as soon as we figure out what the hell our rules are... there is something to be said about the simplcity of not deciding by committee. That being said, if anyone is interested, its under the social groups tab. Can't do a link because my tablet is old.

 

I've got several I'm prodding at now and again and slowly getting no where really new.

1. Dragon Rider yarn. Weird rebirth system in place, needs heavy revision, may scrap.

2. Elemental Magic epic, planned to be a four part series. Got the backstory, the mechanics, some of the characters, the land, and the plot charted out to the most degree of any.

3. Wizard Detective v Necromancer story. School-banished hedgewizard spends days visiting murder scenes for the government, contends with asshole Necromancer brutally raising said victims ahead of him and torturing the answers needed out of said souls. Tries to make a living while raising handful of journeymen too poor to go to Wizarding School. Has neat super-magic tool, does not utilize to full potential in traditional sense.

4. Cyberpunk thing that may or may not have Fantasy aspects by the time I'm done writing and rewriting the concept to death. Cyberspace, A.I.(under a different, functionally identical term), people accessing the VEYL(Internet Version 2.0), corrupt megacorporation(or several, with military interest building), down-on-his-luck protagonist that prefers building viruses for quick cash than working with an A.I. to further the VEYL. In one iteration, the Fantasy aspect comes from the A.I.'s being mythological creatures, and a super-A.I. breed a renegade faction at megacorporation is working on is sabotaged. I dunno.

 

Lets see:

1) A story about traveling in space and exploring the galaxy only a few years after the development of Faster Than Light travel. Basically everyone is rushing to space to the first to claim whatever is found out there.

2) A very 1984-esque story about a girl who wants to destroy the state (or maybe get revenge against it) because the propaganda and conditioning led her to turning in her best friend to the secret police for a minor transgression that led to his and his family's deportation to the camps.

3) I posted it over in "Are you interested in this?", but the story is basically a world without adults. It's going to be very violent and dark.

 

I have managed to outline a general makeup of a SciFi world in which humans developed artificial intelligence, but that did not lead to a skynet type Armageddon or any such thing. However, the social and humanitarian consequences of AI are huge, and exploring a universe in which man and robot try to coexist peacefully but fringe elements like terrorist groups, traditionalists etc are a constant threat is intriguing. The universe is on the drawing board as of now, I'm typing up my notes and stuff. Once that's done and I have a functional chronology of what happened in the place, I'll be trying to write short stories, novellas etc in that same universe. All set in the same timeline and all, so that the stories are pretty much interlinked.

 

Project Xanter - sci-fi, in which it turns out that the human race as such is an experiment started by people who created them after their image to play large-scale strategy games. Problem for the 'original' race is that they can't survive on earth and their planet is pretty much a shithole. That's a lot of resentment there. In those strategy games, to steer the 'nations', they pick one person and control them or inject persons with great ideas (Einstein, Newton, etc.).

Well, you don't want to meet the one who played Hitler I guess. Anyway, half-breeds between human and the originals are very rare, but they exist. And they can actually move around on Earth without dying like the originals, so they're the enforcers, mostly.

The Stormsinger of Mahamoth - fantasy, in which the search for the City of the Architects drives whole nations to war. You got your fledgling empire that conquers with blood and steel, sending out expeditions to find it; your fallen nation that tries to regain what it has lost under a young prodigious leader; tribes that seek it to appease their gods; etc. In the middle of that you'll find young scribe Kasper who only wanted his own 'office' at the conquering imperium's newspaper factory (not really a factory, magic is at work), but instead got sent to accompany an expedition. On the road he learns that imperial propaganda is rather strong and that the way his nation's been doing things doesn't look pretty at all.

I got a few ideas for that story, some characters, a small part of the setting, a map, and the first scenes written out. Over the next months I'll finish up my fanfictions, and then begin with the Stormsinger of Mahamoth. Haven't decided yet though, whether I'm writing that one in German or English.

 

1- A High Fantasy world, in the early stages, heavily inspired by Michael Moorcock ideas, Earthsea and Mythologies, specifically Norse and Celtic, with tentative bits from Chinese, Indian and Native American. I want to build a world with many nations and races, without using standards types, no ever evil races, no High Elves or European humans. Still thinking about the races and geography.

2- A Steampunk/Urban fantasy, inspired by the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Hellboy and Dresden Files. MI7, for Paranormal and Extraordinary Situatiions. Heavy use of demonology and outer dimensions. Just a bunny for now.

 

The first is tentatively titled The Abyss

It's a tale of two men searching for The Abyss, the end of the earth, the gateway to God where legend states that their one wish will come true. The Main Character feels indebted to his companion after he saved his life, how they meet and how they decided to travel together gets revealed in small pieces throughout the novel. Little sections at the beginning of each chapter, culminating in the beginning of their journey just as the novel ends. Throughout it the MC is slowly warped by the companion as his views and values continually change playing a big part in the novel's conclusion.

The Other I started thinking of today, ironically as I started re-reading HP

I'm contemplating playing on the idea of a prophecy and having two MCs be the respectively prophesied people but rather than set out a good/bad character have the two flashback to the past as they walk to the final battle, hopefully making both sympathetic and deliberately leaving vague who the savior and who the destroyer is, so the reader has the freedom of choice to get behind one or the other.

 

I've had a high fantasy concept in mind for ages, and I've just now started working on it. It's primarily inspired by the Elder Scrolls series, but I'll be endeavoring to make it unique. At the moment I'm focusing on world-building, which includes creating new languages, maps, genealogies, histories, pantheons, philosophies, and all sorts of minutiae. Elder Scrolls is lore-heavy, and that's the way I'm going about this project, too.

At the moment I've only got two work-in-progress maps to show for my troubles, but I rather like them both:

Artayol, Urheimat of Men (and Giants before them). Artayol is partially inspired by the lore about Atmora from the Elder Scrolls, and Skyrim itself to a lesser extent. This map is currently fully translated into its native language, though I'll also be doing a version with English place names. Location markers aren't yet done, and I may even remake the entire map in the style of the following one, since it's coming along nicely:

The Shattered Isles, home of Dark Elves and Naga. Haven't quite settled on these two races for the inhabitants of this region yet, but they (or something new but similar) seem the likely choices. This region was inspired by Vvardenfell's Molag Amur from Morrowind, and Shakuras, the Dark Templar world from StarCraft. The actual map is somewhat bigger, but imgur was reducing its quality, so I cropped it down and reduced the size somewhat.

These maps will both see a lot of editing in the future, so this is nothing close to final. The latter map is especially bare bones. Just gives you a good sense of the environment at the moment. I will be adding in cities and such soon.

Later I'll also probably make a post to ask for some advice on the magic system/s I'm intending to implement into this world.

 

So, attempting to write an original novel is fucken tough. I've revised my plans recently. The thing I want to do the most right now is to establish an original universe in some actual literary form instead of just notes.

Short stories! Introducing one aspect of the verse at a time, yeeeeah.

Most of it is just drivel that will never see the light of day, but it's amazing what a "Day in Life of a Fisherman of the Crumbling Island" does for one's confidence. I have created a living, breathing character! I could insert him into the background somewhere in the main story, or just use the descriptions of places, whatever. Feelin' good.

On another note, maps are equal parts fun and frustrating to make.

 

I just wish there was some easy software that you could use to make maps.

 

I use MSPaint. *badum tsss*

 

there's some pretty amazing things you can do with paint

 

There's a few things I've been tossing around, but at the moment I'm writing a novel about a Police Officer who is addicted to drugs.

He comes from a rather iffy childhood with both parents being drug users, but adopted a very clean cut lifestyle to try and distance himself from his parents' downfalls.

Unfortunately while working undercover he gets put in to some situations where he doesn't really have a choice in the matter of using or not, and ends up becoming heavily reliant on them.

It's been a little difficult, but I want to get the story finished and start revising/rewriting it. I figure if I can get the whole thing put down I'll have more to work with, and even if it turns out to be something I don't like I'll at least have been writing, and have started honing my skills and getting the creative juices flowing.


Is any one else writing? I'm a little disappointed there aren't more replies, their are a bunch of worthwhile authors on the site who could most likely churn out some good original fiction.

 

I'd imagine there's a few people who don't want to share their ideas for fear of plagiarism, especially given recent troubles with WbA. That said, I've got a fair few stories I want to tell (I've reckoned it up, including sequels, at around fifteen).

The two I'm working on at the moment - very, very slowly - are:

A series set in the present day, about a lowly member of the Knights of the Round Table, who are now somewhat equivalent to the Men in Black, but dealing with supernatural issues rather than aliens.

A late Victorian/early Edwardian story about an expedition to find Atlantis. Either fantasy adventure or SF (like historical Doctor Who level), haven't decided yet.

 

I've had two ideas knocking around for a while. One's a superhero story I came up with after being disappointed with Worm, and the other's a fantasy story.

Yeah, it doesn't seem wise to share a lot of details before you've actually made a good deal of progress in writing your story. Not just on DLP but anywhere really.