Forums » Writing Workshop » Read Thread

I'm writing and am wanting to get some pointers. I haven't gotten very far so there may still be some wholes in the plot. But as I've witnessed you guys are good at spotting and plugging plot holes.

The protagonist is Tresor, a pirate/treasure hunter. Tresor builds a ship that is the sturdiest ship to ever sail the Twin Dragon Sea. The ship is called The Resilient, thanks again for helping with the name EndMaster. The reason he built the ship is because he wants to sail to the Isle of the Damned, and island mired in myth and legend.Now you're probably wondering why the ship has to be so sturdy, well I'm glad you asked. The island is surrounded by unending storms that thrash and sink any ship that tries to get anywhere near. Now the reason he wants to get to the island so badly is because of those myths and legends I mentioned earlier. They say that the heart of the mountain, at the center of the island, is chock full of treasure. As is the case with most of these stories, however, that is not entirely accurate. So armed with a ship, and old stories, our adventurer sets sets sail for the island. Unfortunately, the moment he enters the storms his entire ship is destroyed, and almost everyone is killed. Through either divine providence, or fool luck, our protagonist washes ashore alive on the island. Now our protagonist is very persistent, and still hopes to find the treasure at the center of the island, so he sets of on a "run through the jungle," yes that's a reference to the difficulty rating. The rest of the story is his adventures in the jungle. I haven't figured out what takes place there yet because I haven't gotten that far, and now I'm forced to start over because my computer crashed and I had to factory reset, and lost everything I had typed up already in notepad. So that's the plot so far, I already know what I plan to happen in the endings, but I'm not going to put that here. No one likes people who spoil the ending.

So tell me what you think, is it good, crap, or somewhere in between? Let me know, and let me know where I need to improve.

First of all, I doubt that making the ship "the sturdiest to ever sail the Twin Dragon Sea" (cool name by the way) is useful to the story if it's going to get destroyed anyway. Maybe, you should include some rival ships (pirates, marines, etc.) to prove just how superior The Resilient is in comparison to the rest, and then have it destroyed to show how dangerous (hard) the rest of the journey (game) is.

Since the MC's main motivation seems to be fame and glory for getting a legendary treasure, and these wishes could be attributed to whoever's heard of the island, it would make sense for him not to be the first to wash ashore, and instead have bandits or something like that who also came to the island by accident to fight the MC in land.

Also, it seems to me that the main attributes of the MC are that he is very perseverant and had the sturdiest ship ever, but if you're taking away the ship at the beginning, then maybe give the ship something, like a magical engine of sorts, that could be fundamental to surviving in the jungle (because it creates some sort of barrier, shoots fire, or something else). That could give the player the objective of exploring the jungle to seek such important item, that gave him the chance in the first place of getting the treasure. It makes no sense to have a ship that can survive anything, if then you can't use it anymore and you lose that edge, if you can plan for the sea, you should be able to plan for land. Maybe the plan was to carry this special item in the ship as protection, and unload it on land to advance.

I'm not really all that good of a writer, but these are just some ideas I had after reading about your game.

The fact that the boat is extremely sturdy is used to show the strength of the storms. The enemy Pirates is a good idea, however. I was thinking of something along those lines myself, but have it be bounty hunters.

The bandit idea would be good, but no one could survive that long on the island. The story is called "Myth Resurrected" and the myth tends to get very hungry being on the island by himself, if you catch my meaning.

The magic engine is a bit problematic. The story is set in an age where magic is almost completely forgotten. What few pieces of it that are left would be to expensive for a pirate to get his hands on, even one as wealthy as Tresor. They would also be locked away and guarded, it would take an army to get to them. That leads to your last part about being prepared for being on the island. No one has been on the island for thousands of years, at least none that returned to tell about it. The only thing they have to go on are stories that are not accurate, so no one knows what is on the island to be prepared.

Wait, is the myth a living being?

Yes it is.

From that, I think you could have survivors, turned into a sort of cult that breeds humans just to feed the myth and keep it at bay. On the other hand, you make a pretty good point about magic and preparation, though I assume you will have weapons or something. Although... barenaked (inventory) adventuring seems fun.

I'll be going into this more when I write the second story in the series, but the myth doesn't want to be worshiped by humans, he wants to destroy them.

Is he going to be the only enemy on the island then? Or will he/she/ze/apache-helicopter have minions

It'll just be him. But trust me he will be a good enemy. And it will be possible to beat him so he isn't an all powerful being.

Actually, this isn't entirely accurate. The myth willl be the only physical enemy, but Tresor will also be his own enemy in a sense. Every choice will be him at war with his nature, and will effect how much is revealed at the end to help you make the final choice. Its going to be difficult to pull off but I can be done.

So this is a psychological thing then? BTW, I'd love to proof read this. Seems more interesting this way.

Seto pmed me a good question.

?From: Seto
To: DaCaRi
Date: 2/17/2017 9:14:26 AM

Plot seems okay.
"What happens in the jungle" obviously needs to be filled in xD
I'm assuming the guy is rich from treasure hunting, so that's why he's able to build the sturdiest ship.
Why is he the only survivor, though?

I thought of a way to fix that as well. I've decided to make it so at least a few of the other crew makes it ashore. Then they set out in the jungle together, and the myth that is on the jungle kills them off one by one until its just Tresor left. now I just need to come up with a verity of ways for someone to die in a jungle infested with a mythological being. Maybe some of the deaths will give hints about what the myth is.

Also Tresor is a successful enough pirate/treasure hunter that he is wealthy enough to build the ship. Like most pirates, however, his lust for money is insatiable.

@seto By the way thank you. You've provided me a solution to a problem I had with a different part of the plot I didn't put here. But you've also given me another issue. I have to turn some of the crew of The Resilient from faceless nobodies, into actual characters.

You can always model them off of people you know :)

That could work, Thank you.

No problem ^_^

Is Tresor a good fighter?

What does the myth look like?

What structures and ecology are on the island?

What kinds of treasure are there on the island? Magic swords? Piles of gold? Massive jewels? Ancient artifacts of ancient power?

Tresor is a successful pirate.... so yes he can fight. The only structure, so to speak, on the island is the cave in the mountain where the "treasure" is. To answer the rest of your questions would give too much of the endings away, the myth won't be revealed until you get to one of the endings. And what the "treasure" is is important to the end of the ending as well. Like I said in the op, I won't be spoiling the ending.

I started going into shock there as Lance started giving decent advice, but then he started babbling about magical ship engines that shot for so things are OK and back to normal now.

DaCari, I'm glad you're working on this again, I'll send you. PM when I get home if you want to chat about the setting. So far the main thing that feels off to me is that no one's been to the island for thousands of years, yet its location is known and the character has enough reason to believe the treasure is real to put lots of money into this project, go on what almost anyone would think of as a suicide mission, and find a crew willing to do the same.

I have some ideas to address this, but it'll be a few hours.

That would be awesome seeing as your one of the few people who know the full plot. At least you seem to have a better memory than EndMaster. I still can't believe he forgot who I was. I think the whole undead thing is really starting to effect his head, kind of like dementia for lich lords.

It's good to have you back Mizal. Just so you know, I got a little inspired by this for the latter part of my rant.

The location part is known, because its kind of hard to miss several miles of super hurricane. I'm talking catagory 5 on magic steroids kind of storms. And although everyone used to know what was on the island, as is the case with most myths, it got twisted over the years to the point that the only thing people remember is that there is a great treasure on the island. Now I never said that our protagonist wasn't a fool. I actually stated the opposite when I stated that he maid it ashore either through Devine providence or fool luck. All he cares about is the gold. He has grown up on stories of the vast treasure on the island, I mean everyone knows that the island is real, so as far as he is concerned that is proof that the treasure is real. And on the issue of no one setting foot on the island, I was trying to imply that there was no record of anyone making it to the island and back. Everyone who has attempted it has died, either drowned when their ships sunk, or killed by the myth.

Also if you want a good example of a pirate who believes in a myth? Look at Edward Kenway from Blackflag. He is told of the observatory by a few men who are searching for it, and automatically believes them and starts looking for it. Everyone thinks that he is crazy, but that doesn't stop him from sinking thousands into making his ship the deadliest in the Caribbean, so he can beat the templars to it.

Greed can turn even the most sane of men into blind fools.

I was going to recommend your main character have a little pinch of the crazy to make his level of obsession believable (and just to keep him interesting) but looks like you're ahead of me there.

The most difficult thing here is going to be coming up with a reason the crew would go along with this.

One option of course, is maybe they don't. Maybe a mutiny is brewing when the story opens because a lot of them think the trip is suicide, and it comes to a head right before the worst of the storm hits and breaks apart the ship. (That kind of conflict is one way to give personality to both the crew and the protagonist, get rid of some of the excess crew before you reach the island.)

I'd recommend not spending too much time covering the voyage if the island itself is where the main action and point of the story is, but I actually agree with Lance on the fact you can't have the guy be a pirate with some super ship without having a few scenes on board it before it's destroyed.

If you did want to include magic, an alternate idea could be that the protagonist is in possession of some item that points him directly to the island. (It being hard to navigate by the usual means through a massive storm.) This would give them all just enough of an edge they might think risking the storm itself was worthwhile.

A magic compass is the obvious thing here, even though that's obviously been used before. It just makes the most sense on this kind of scenario though.

@mizal your idea about the mutiny isn't completely unfounded. I was doing some research about pirate hierarchy to get some ideas of who everyone is and who I want to make it to the island. Captains of pirate ships are not the same as captains of naval vessels. They are democratically elected by the crew, and if the crew didn't like how he was running the ship they could vote him out. Just a little side information, first mates don't actually have power. They are not the seconds in command, Quartermasters are.

Here is the link where I found the information. http://www.thepirateking.com/historical/ship_roles.htm

?if the link looks weird its because it is the first time ive attempted it

can someone tell me how to do the one word link instead of the entire web address?

I'm assuming you're using the RTE, so just highlight a word and then click the create link button and put in the URL as normal.

link yay it worked. thankyou.

Do you have the MC's ambitions and personality completely mapped out? One thing that could be fleshed out and expanded upon is the crew. How close is Tresor to his crew? Does he value the lives of his crew as well or is he solely focused on the treasure? Has the crew been with Tresor for a long time or are they fresh recruits? How big is the ship, and consequently the crew? Has Tresor ever lost any crewmates, either by death or by them leaving? How does Tresor react to death and the loss of someone he cares about?

How close Tresor is to his crew and how much he values their lives will determine how emotionally impacted he is when most/all of them die, as well as his personality and how he reacts to death. Additionally, how big the crew is will determine how tight-knit the crew is. If the crew is small, then Tresor would most likely care more for his crewmates. If the crew is large, then it's less likely that Tresor will be attached to most of the crewmates. Tresor is greedy enough to persevere through a jungle for treasure despite his crew dying and possible dangers, but what does he think of his crew dying? Also, it's probably good for you to give some of the crew who die discernible personalities. You don't have to go in detail, but flesh out the crew members just enough for the reader to feel shock when they die.

Also, if the island is surrounded by almost unpenetrable storms, how will Tresor get off the island once he finds the treasure? Also, I'd think that a smarter course of action would be to find a way off the island first before getting the treasure.

The way he escapes is part of one of the endings. And is no one paying attention to my not so subtle hints that maybe there isn't a giant pile of gold waiting for him in the center of the mountain? The rest of it does make sense, however and I will bear that in mind when I'm writing the story.

The character himself needs to know or at least believe he'd have a way off the island before going there on.the first place though. Otherwise it really is a suicide mission. He wouldn't make a plan hinging entirely on some miraculous stroke of luck or one in a thousand opportunity just happening to pop up at the right time.

(And if you're making a big deal of keeping the plot a secret I wouldn't recommend making *hint hint nudge nudge* type posts here in the thread...)