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So I've been planning (something I dislike and am bad at) my entry as if I will enter while I battle hormone-fuelled teenage uncertainty and inner conflict about entering. Just thought I'd post to see peoples' thoughts. So far, this is what I've got:

Sequel to current WIP in fantasy setting, following a great past conflict that very few people know/willing to talk about. Magic used to be fairly common before this blip in history, but now for reasons unknown, only those who have suffered can use magic, and even then undergo rotting of the body when they do. A blackness spreads and eventually kills the person the more they use. More suffering allows for reduced decomposition. Government have banned magic as a result and execute anyone who uses it.

Probably would be a bit darker than WIP seeing as MC (unnamed) starts out being tortured by mother, who has two distinct personalities. There is 'Mother'- psychotic, consumed by need for vengeance against MC's father. Mother imprisons and sets routines of suffering for MC to induce the awakening- a manifestation of magical ability with reduced rot. She is obsessed by the idea of using her child to burn her husband alive. She's bitter because he left when he began to notice her psychological abnormalities.

Her other side is just normal mother (also unnamed- I'll get around to it), who is unhealthily protective, regretful, but still adversary to the father. She cradles and sings to MC after Mother is done and tries to post rationalise the torture. Naturally, MC would be a pretty messed up person, starting off very quiet, unable to interact properly and form relationships. Need to put more thought into exactly how they would act but probably pretty resentful too given Oedipal/crazy mother.

Without too much detail MC awakens power, escapes, and encounters some companions, currently thinking an apothecar and a swordsman with mysterious pasts. Government sets very high bounty on MC's head, and MC can seek father (who happens to work for government possibly? Unsure) to find out what's going on/potentially kill him if you're a freak who wants to follow Mother's wishes.

That's most of what I've planned so far, with some vague endings in mind. In fact, the whole thing's a bit fucking vague, but I've been coming up with ideas here and there. Unsure how much game I want because I really want to do some turn by turn combat stuff and dungeon maps as well, but might take way too long to draw and script. Also unsure how much artwork I'd do, as again very time consuming.

Reasons for aspects of story (mother's insanity, need for suffering to use magic and the rot that comes with its use) are explained in my current WIP, which won't be out until long after this story, assuming I enter.

Indeed, sounds pretty dark. Some of the "unknown" things might need some explanation -- not necessarily in the story itself, though. For example, when you say, "Reasons unknown," as long as you, the author, know why, that should be okay. If you don't know, then you might leave holes and conflicting accounts in your story.

Good luck!

Yeah, the unknowns will either be important developments in the plot that I'd like to keep hidden or consequences of one path from my main project that just expand on the story and aren't really important to the plot of this one.

Dang, this is pretty dark. One of the more interesting ways to handle magic I've seen in a setting, good luck with this.

This sounds really cool, reminds me of Harlow's studies of dependancy in monkeys - that fucked up idea of good mum bad mum.
Keen to read your story anyway!

Okay here's what I've got for my first page. Things will probably get less dark from here on:

She pushes the blade further into your stomach and twists it. She always starts with the stomach, maybe it's her favourite. Maybe it's just easy to start with because it's soft.

"Say it again," she whispers, deathly low. Through lank strings of draped hair your eyes meet her own- shaking, moving in her precious nexus. That pattern- the infinity symbol she rolls her pupils into, it's important to her. Why else would it be scratched into every surface of the boat?

Bars of light stream through nail holes in the boarded windows. Nobody will hear; you've been trying to scream louder than the sea for as long as this nightmare began.

"SAY IT."

You mumble something and she stalks close enough to feel fetid breath. It seems enough to satisfy her. "Yes, yes... we'll make him burn, won't we? Yes, yes you worthless little SHIT. Yes..."

The knife turns again, opening fresh scars to weeping wounds. You scream and beg her to stop, but begging never works. She's being especially violent today- something must've tipped her over the edge. What's it today? Probably an 8.5, yeah, 8.5 feels about right.

"You know I can't stop, how far we've already... how much... but tonight! TONIGHT!" She explodes, jabbing the knife erratically at your curled fingertips. Just as quickly she stops and freezes, hair heaving over chest as the breaths come ragged and excited. "I can feel it. We have work to do."

Words don't come easily. "15, too late..."

"IT. IS. NOT. TOO. LATE." Her hand strikes hard against your cheek. The points of light blotch as her figure fills the world. You work your jaw and say nothing. After a few seconds, she calms down again and pulls your face towards her. "Right," she huffs. "Let's try something else, shall we? How about the vice, hmm? You will awaken for me tonight, oh I'll make sure of that."

"Not the vice." That never works either. What was the point in trying? It's best just to get through the sessions in determined silence, concentrate on the fibres twisting in the ropes. "Not the vice." And there it is again, the attempt. Is it hope, or just instinct?

A smile curls on her thin lips. "You will awaken."

"..."

********************

The light streaming through the holes is fiery orange by the time she washes the blood from her hands and leaves to prepare food. You slump in the bindings, exhausted from hurting and willing sleep. Over time, sleep in pain got easier, but it's still difficult not to close your eyes and expect agony. The rocking of the ancient boat helps, the gentle creaks too. It feels familiar, comforting.

How long has this been going on for? At first it was just punishment any child might expect- a belt here and there, a stick across the back. Then what happened? That's right, she started lashing out for no reason, when you'd done nothing wrong, or even when you did the right thing. The right thing...

Punishment and praise started to become indiscriminate.

Slowly, day by day, she became what she is now- obsessed with the awakening, doing everything and anything to damage your body to achieve it, and all for what? It must be too late- she said it herself.

Footsteps. You groan, softening the noise as the door parts again and fading light creeps into the cabin. You're not sure if this part is worse or better. The woman that enters holds herself in a slumped, hunched posture, so different to the last it's almost believable she's a different person. If only.

"Sweetums..." she sobs, tears gushing down her cheeks. "M-My little sweetums, I... did she do this to you?"

You nod, numb.

Her hand goes to her mouth, shaking with a frailty impossible for the woman with a knife there two hours prior. "I'm so... I- I'm sorry precious, she's under a lo- a lot of stress recently, you know that don't you?" She looks searchingly, bottom lip bitten back as she nods encouragingly.

"..."

"You know we need you to wake, after everything he's done, everything he did to you, to me, to... to poor baby..." She sniffs. "Let's not talk about him, hmm? Hey, shh shh. Don't cry, we'll find him baby. We'll hurt him." The wine is heavy on her breath.

"I'm not crying."

"Shh shh, it's okay." It reeks.

"No, don't. Don't." She hobbles over and caresses your cheek, scratching softly at a rivulet of blood dried brown. You struggle a little, but she pulls your head onto her lap and begins to stroke your hair, singing soft and tuneless songs.

"I don't want her to hurt you, you know? You're my sweet little baby and I'll never let you go- never. Do you understand me? You're going to live here with me until she gets what she wants, hmm? Live with mummy? Wouldn't that be nice sweetums?"

"..."

"Aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Say it. You know I want you to say it why aren't you saying it?"

Your voice comes out in a flat, versed rehearsal. "I will live with you forever... mummy."

She breaks into a wide smile of pure euphoria and plants a delicate kiss on your forehead, wiping the last of her tears away. "That's my good little boy, now we just have to get you to awaken, don't we? Yes we do. Here, I made your favourite stew, oh don't get up. I'll feed it to you. No no, I insist. No, I will feed my baby boy. You need to save your strength, sweetums, for what's coming tonight."

"Tonight?" It's hard to think clearly, the pain now a dull ache.

"She's certain it will be tonight, certain! Now open wide..."

You hate this food, you hate this cabin, and most of all you despise this woman and the man who did this to her.

Mother.

Yikes. Well that's an attention getting start, anyway.

Yeah, that's something. I'm probably not going to read past that first section, but hey, the main character (me) is dead anyway, what with the knife turning in my gut and all.

I'll forget to do Update 2 if I don't do it now.

My poor ability to plan has affected the characters and directions of my story fairly dramatically. Specifically, I didn't think through characters that would be close to the MC enough, but I have a few I like now. A big concern is the transition between, it's safe to say, a fairly horrific beginning to a story with lighter environment characters. I really don't know how badly this clashes, if at all. This was a criticism from my story 'Robin' as well, although I feel much less rushed to do this story and only accomplished a third of what I wanted from Robin. Maybe I'll recruit a proof reader if someone is willing, unsure.

My word count is not what I want it to be. I have been going through big changes in my personal life and it had affected the quantity and quality of my writing, as well as my passion to create this story. It's difficult for me to remain motivated at the moment, but I'm trying to grit my teeth and just get words down at the moment.

Another issue is I'm still unsure how stat driven and turn-by-turn combat based I want this story to be. I am at the point where I should create my first fight if I want to do this at all, but have resolved to try to make it a part of the game. This means I will have to spend quite a bit of time scripting, but that's okay.

Despite some issues, I can see where this story will unravel if I can just halt my obsession with adding increasingly convoluted details into the main plot. Side paths are currently uncertain but for a few vague notions. I don't know if I'll like what I write- I sort of hated Frameshift and Robin, but that's okay because they needed and still need a lot if work. I am hopeful I can still create something I like.

For novelists, a lot of the time, the first draft of the story hardly resembles the finished product. Unless you plot out every single thing down to the paragraph like Follett. But that's incredibly hardcore.

For some reason, I never really looked at your story until just now. It looks fucking great. Would be happy to proofread. ;-)

Been very busy so my update is a little late, but here's update 3:

I have made almost no progress since the last update. Barely been thinking about my story, barely written anything, but starting today things will change. I know that sounds like I'm trying to convince myself, but I quit my job yesterday so I have a lot of free time on my hands.

What I like about my story is some of the mystery that ties in with past events I'm planning on writing about in my main story. My grammar, spelling, and dialogue are also strong points in my opinion, and I really enjoy writing dialogue between different characters.

My combat system, while not particularly innovative, is a little more immersive than any type I've seen done on the site. Once I've expanded it a little more, I think it will be an interesting feature for my storygame.

h5, quitting jobs feels great.

I've been suffering from this inexplicable loss of interest in my story and in the site itself the last three weeks too but now that I got my little promotion I feel awesome and being able to finally get in the zone again for a bit yesterday and write was great.

60k is far from being impossible to hit even if you were starting from scratch today. Other entrants have had difficulty staying focused lately too so you're far from being alone in having to play catch up all of a sudden. I just hope we don't get too many rushed stories making for grumpy judges, that is a lot of reading to commit to even if we only have a handful of people make the finish line.

Update 4:

Jfc I feel no motivation to create anything and I'm going to a festival for 5 days so I'm not too sure how much of my mental capacity will dissolve from the delicate concoction of absinthe and vodka

You'll care less about your internal editor though.

Instead of being pushed I voltunarily fall into the pit of SHAME and get it over and done with, consider me out of the contest and I probably won’t we around for a while

Good luck everyone else!

Shame!

Whew that's a relief. Hopefully others will follow your example and when it happens to me it can just be because everyone else was doing it...

Anything major going on IRL or is this just the usual lack of discipline? I hope you do pick this story up again someday though, I was genuinely interested in this one based on the intro you posted.

Doesn’t adminhood make you feel the need to at least slightly hide any wishes for the rest of the community to fail spectacularly?

I’m travelling around Europe very soon and want to snap up the last dregs of responsibility-free adolescence before being chained down to the loose approximation of the real world university is for the next 5 years

To be fair, if I’d really tried I could have gotten it done before going travelling or uni, but for some strange reason I’ve been really struggling to create anything recently. Can’t draw, can’t write, can’t paint- maybe I just need to force myself back into it

E: I think I will finish it at some point but first I really need to finish Frameshift and Robin

First you need to change your tampon. And then you need to buy EndMaster's favorite brand of coffee. Finally, drink some whiskey and become a man. Or preferably an American. Or at least a Texan or something.