Sunandshadow's Novel
I want to help design a "sandpark" MMO. Optional interactive story with quests and deeply characterized NPCs, plus sandbox elements like player-craftable housing and lots of other crafting. If you are starting a design of this type, please PM me. I also love pet-breeding games.
Richard Veysey
quote: Original post by RichardMV
I LOVE IT!!!! I have a question and a few comments though. First off, what genre are you writing, Sci-Fi, Comedy, or Fantasy? Here''s my idea. Instead of having it be a one pronged love story, have the lovers fluxuate, with Merru perhaps eventually falling in love with a female construct, and Lieann becomes angry, as Merru and Lieann were just begining to get close. Lieann then lashes out against Merru, and then Attranath, as Attranath is Lieann''s obvious competition, and the owner of Merru. Lienn''s desire is to take Merru from Attranath and use his intelegence (Merru and Lieann have had conversations) to make Lieann an alpha-male, thereby allowing him full royal privliages. This, however, wouldn''t change his mind, and therefore, his feelings toward Merru would remain the same. Durring this time, however, Attronath has also become close to Merru, although he will not begin to change his mind about how he feels. Perhaps as a humerous twist at the end, Lieann''s plan goes terribly wrong, and Merru gets the injection intended for Lieann. This, for some reason, gives Merru two X chromosomes, and the construct form changes around him. Because he has become so much a part of the dragon''s society, the construct form becomes his true body. Lieann is tried for his crimes of attempted murder, etc., and Merru and Attranath fall in love. Attranath is made general, and Attranath is made king, Merru is made queen, and the story ends. Good luck with your story.
Richard Veysey
Hey, enthusiasm, that''s what I like to hear. ^_^ I''m guessing the book is going to be a fantasy romance novel with military elements. Which is odd because I myself read a lot more science fiction than fantasy, but I wanted a fairly low-tech culture which means they would have to be producing constructs by magic rather than technology. It will have comic elements because everything I write always has comic elements but it won''t be terry pratchett funny. I definitely want the lovers to fluxuate and the readers to be in doubt who''s going to end up with who. Using a female construct would be a problem though. See, normal constructs have the brains of animals, so they''re _stupid_. Whereas Merru is a genius. He''s definitely smarter than Attranath, and one of the things he finds most attractive about Lieann is his intelligence. So he just wouldn''t ever fall in love with a construct - it would seem like beastiality to him. Maybe with a female dragon though. Merru''s Constructor was an alpha female, and I''ve been trying to think of a way to work her in somehow, because she''s like Pygmalion, the sculptor who creates their ideal of beauty and then brings it to life.
I actually was thinking of having Lieann kidnap Merru. I was thinking that Lieann originally is in love with Attranath (not entirely sure _why_... >.<) and he figures out that Merru is the most precious thing in the world to Attranath, so he kidnaps Merru to try to blackmail Attranath. Which puts Merru living with Lieann for a little while, a great opportunity for Merru tobecome sympathetic with Lieann and possibly comfort/seduce him. So that would put Lieann in love with Attranath, Attranath (secretly) in love with Merru, and Merru sleeping with Lieann, nice and messy like a good love triangle should be. ^_~ Also, I like Lieann, so I''m not going to make him suffer at the end of the story - I was thinking it would be an interesting and rare enough twist to have the three of them end up together, as like a permanent threesome.
I suppose that Merru, as a construct, coud be re-constructed to look like something else; but I wouldn''t want to make him a girl. Attranath really is gay and probably wouldn''t be attracted to a woman, and Lieann doesn''t even like beta males, only alpha males. So if Merru got turned into a girl Lieann and Attranath would probably end up together and Merru would be left out, which is exactly what I _don''t_ want to do. As I see it, Merru is really the ingredient that makes this character dynamic special. Without him Lieann and Attranath would have a very typical irresistable force/immovable object dynamic, but Merru is like the monkeywrench in the works, or perhaps lubricant (ahem ^_~ ) - he is the one who isn''t homophobic, isn''t a virgin, is a playa, and likes to seduce and manipulate others (usually for their own good, but of course they don''t see it that way ^_^ ). Kind of like Albus Dumbledore, only young and sexy, if you can imagine that o.O .
Oh, and Attranath can''t be the king or whatever because like I said he''s a natural follower - he either has to follow Merru or some other dominant. Which reminds me about Dominion teams, which I didn''t explain above. Dragons live in little dutchies, basically a clan castle/manor house for the noble family and the village of commoners it overlooks. One of these is called a Domain. The ruler of the Domain is the dominant alpha male of the noble family, and he''s called the Dominion. But dragons have a leadership and family structure something like lions. The alpha males tend to kill each other off as teenagers, so there are more adult females than adult males, and you get polygamy. In order for an alpha male to have political power over alpha males he has to be stronger than them (for modern dragons this would be military/political/monetary strength, but for their primitive ancestors it would have been physical strength.) So it''s a major advantage for an alpha male if he can get another alpha male to be his right hand man. That would give you the Dominion, his Sub (a subordinate or submissive alpha male, occasionally a beta male) and some females, and all together this would be the ruling family of the clan, called a Dominion team. All of the members would refer to each other as mates (in the british or australian sense of the word where it means friends) and would specify which were their lover(s) by referring to these as Ardenmates. The dragon word for a casual lover is Ardens, while a permanent lover is an Ardenmate. So basically your ''mate'' would be your co-husband or co-wife and friend, but only possibly your lover. So a typical dominion team would be the Dominion (alpha male), his two or three wives (probably at least one a beta female), his Sub(s)(alpha and/or beta male), and maybe a wife for the Sub. Basically to the dragon mindset every relationship, sexual or friendly, has a dominant member and a subordinate member, and that''s the way things are supposed to work.
The army is an extension of this Dominion team concept. The leader of a squad is it''s Dom, and all the squad members are his Subs, at least in theory. But naturally some of these squad members want to be Doms too, so you get a constant low-level power struggle between them and the commander which is kept non-violent by military discipline and the promise of eventual promotion to command. You also get some squad members being dominant to others as a natural internal hierarchy (or pecking order) is established. (If anybody reading this knows anything about BDSM these terms undoubtedly seem familiar. Just keep in mind that when one alpha male is the dom of sub of another this is expected by dragon society to be a _non_-sexual relationship.) One of the reasons for giving officer candidate cadets Constructs is to give them somebody to practice ordering around.
Now Attranath, he thinks he''s going to win glory and promotion and become a Dominion or at least the Dom of a small family, but what he really is is a Sub looking for a Dom to be loyal to. He first latches onto his commanding officer Bannis, and then transfers his loyalty to Merru when their friendship becomes closer than his friendship with Bannis. So we have the odd situation where a Construct, who is supposed to be property, is acting as the Dom for his master, who is nobility and thus supposed to be a natural-born leader. Attranath has to learn not to be embarrassed by this, and he has to learn that it''s not wrong or perverted or whatever to want to be sexually involved with his Dom. And then there''s Lieann. Lieann is a beta male, and beta males are culturally expected to be submissive (there''s a proverb that beta males are 1/3 female), but Lieann is also spoiled nobility and impressed with his own intelligence - he would probably be a leader if anyone would follow him. But he doesn''t have great people skills, so nobody wants to (until Merru comes along). Now, Merru''s what you would call a Switch, capable of being either a Dom or a Sub depending on what his partner brings out in him. So he Doms for Attranath, but might Sub for Lieann or any sufficiently aggressive person. He would probably get frustrated from being either a complete Dom or a complete Sub for too long, and be happiest if he has a chance to do both.
I want to help design a "sandpark" MMO. Optional interactive story with quests and deeply characterized NPCs, plus sandbox elements like player-craftable housing and lots of other crafting. If you are starting a design of this type, please PM me. I also love pet-breeding games.
quote: Original post by RichardMV
You have this so well thought out!
Nah, if I had it well though out I would have started writing already. I have some of the pieces thought out, especially the characters, but the plot is giving me fits, and I need to work on the dragons' culture a lot more. That's why I'm posting about my ideas here, because it helps me work them out.
quote:
...when I spoke of Lieann as a villain, I was getting him confused with Kayden, so I therefore thought Lieann and Attronath were brothers, which significantly screwed up my ideas.
Ah, that would be a bit screwed up. Incest is a bit more daring of a subject than I want to tackle in my first novel. o.O The political dynamic of a romance between half-brothers would be fascinating, but you can only ask the readers to swallow so much, and I think a gay threesome with BDSM elements about uses whatever credit I have as a first time author.
quote:
This could be a very interesting literary world, and I agree that you don't want to bring any Terry Pratchet elements into your books (altough he is a great humorist, I've read the Color of Magic and am looking for the Light Fantastic). Hopefully though you have as many sequels as he does . The way you've thought everything out makes me almost certain that this could become a very popular work, and have that ever sought after fan base that demands a sequel. When you start writing, or if you already have, you should leave room for a sequel if you want one, by leaving some things unresolved. These can be minor points if you aren't sure about your desire to continue, but still can have some influence later. If you have some of your novel done, I would love to see perhaps a page or two. Although you want it to be a romantic fantasy, I think the potential for great humorous scenes is great, and you must milk the story for all it is worth to get some great belly laughes out of the reader, without resorting to slapstick or ridiculous elements found in other comedic novels.
I agree that there's a lot of potential for humor - Merru making faux pas until he learns about dragon culture, Attranath finding his own nature working against his plans and getting politically outmanuvered by various people because he's not the sharpest tool in the shed, Lieann plotting and planning and losing his volatile temper, not to mention a whole army troop to play the chorus... oh yes, lots of potential for humor. ^_^ Reminds me I need to think up funny characteristics for the soldiers. I know I want to have one who makes bets all the time, and one who worships women...
Sequels are an interesting question. I don't at the moment have any plans to write a sequal, at least not with the same characters - maybe with their kids or one of the beta males who's a minor character in this book or something like that. Kind of like C. J. Cherryh, where she has lots of books set in the merchanter-alliance universe, but they mostly all have different characters and can be chronologically hundreds of years apart. At the moment I can't imagine writing as many books as pratchett has, but it's supposed to get easier after the first one, so who knows?
[edited by - sunandshadow on November 12, 2003 2:26:44 AM]
I want to help design a "sandpark" MMO. Optional interactive story with quests and deeply characterized NPCs, plus sandbox elements like player-craftable housing and lots of other crafting. If you are starting a design of this type, please PM me. I also love pet-breeding games.
RichardMV - Oh, well if you''re interested in the story I''d be happt to talk more about it. ^_^ Hmm, what haven''t I talked about yet... oh yeah, scent glands!
Okay, the dragon aliens have scent glands behind their cheek bones and at the base of their tails. Males (both kinds) have one type of scent and females (both kinds) have the other type of scent, and then there are smaller differences by which they can determine which individual''s scent it is. Scent-marking is done with a little ritual where the marker touches a fingertip to each of his cheek glands and then rubs the scent on a few particular points on the other dragon. Scent marking reinforces dominance and dominion-teams, e.g. Attranath regularly scent marks Merru because Merru is his personal property, and in the army you always have to mark your stuff (just like stenciling your name on your uniforms and other equipment). The Dominion of a family would regularly scent mark his mates and children, especially before they go to a political function such as a ball.
So naturally scent plays a part in the courting process, like it''s a very important moment when a lover first scent marks another, and it makes illicit liasions complicated because you always have to make sure you scrub the other person''s scent off. A traditional courting gift is a cloth strip (used to make a nest) soaked with the suitor''s scent - the idea is that proto-dragon-aliens used to scent mark their territory, and the nest is the last vestige of territory thus marked by modern dragon aliens. Also, dragon scent (probably harvested from constructs) is sold in bottles, and used to make aphrodesiac desserts (either cupcakes or candy balls, haven''t decided yet). These would be color-coded so people don''t accidentally eat the wrong one. More humor with Merru not knowing what''s up. ^_~
I want to help design a "sandpark" MMO. Optional interactive story with quests and deeply characterized NPCs, plus sandbox elements like player-craftable housing and lots of other crafting. If you are starting a design of this type, please PM me. I also love pet-breeding games.