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Hello to all who read this! I am currently piecing together my very first storygame on here and needed inspiration and ideas. I know where I want to go with most of the plot, but I wanted to hear other ideas that I could maybe add. This is going to be a well thought out story set in a medieval fantasy world, so it will take some time to actually complete, but I'm determined to finish! I love the idea so far and want to role with it. Also, this is for EndMaster's August 1st 2024 Crisis Contest, which is why I have to finish it lol. Otherwise, it's the SHAME pit for me! Lol. XD Help....! :,) Anyway, here is the title and the plot:

Title: I'll Send You A Postcard From The Other World

Plot: A girl named (Name WIP), is on vacation in Florida when she stumbles upon an under water cave. In this cave she finds a magical artifact that transports her into a fantasy world set in a medieval era. Upon arriving, she meets the royal prince of one of the three major kingdoms of that world. When she realizes that the artifact didn't travel with her, thus leaving her stuck in that world, she humbly askes if his majesty would help her return home, which he does. However, it seems that the entire world is against her wishes to return home. Can (Name WIP) make it back to her world? Or will she chose to give in to the pull of the world around her?

Basically, lining up with the challenge specifications (I hope), the large, huge, gigantic problem the protagonist will face is, not only finding a way home, but the people. No one will want her to leave and her goal is to navigate the world around her and not only escape the world itself but also the people who are around her. She will have to be smart and cunning while using her feminin tallents to find a way home.

What I need are name ideas for basically everyone in the book. If you what to come up with a character, with a full on backstory and personality who will appear (depending on how detailed the backstory is will determine if they are met once or more than once. Also if they fit well with what I have going for the story. Example: Say you come up with a maid or butler. Depending how detailed you made them, they could be just a onetime appearance or they couls become one of the people who the MC interacts with often.), I will mention you if you want me to. If you want to remain anonymous, let me know and I will add an Anonymous section. Just names will be a great help too! The names I need the most right now are the mc's and the three princes mentioned. They are key figures as of now. 

Other Things That Need Names:

The three kingdoms
The artifact
Nitty gritty things like inns, bars, side characters, places

(Note: This is set in a made-up world, apart from the brief time in Florida at the beginning. Thus, if you want to give a character suggestion or idea, that character doesn't have to be human. You want to see elves? Go ahead. Maybe some dragons? What's stopping you? "I wanna pet cat names Mr Snuggleton Von Snickers the Third!", hey, I won't judge! All ideas are welcome! If your character doesn't make it in this story idea, it might in a future one!)

Can't wait to see what everyone comes up with! :D

 

 

Thanks, I was having trouble coming up with an idea for the contest myself.

I'd say the idea fits the contest theme -- protagonist dealing with a crisis is a pretty broad one. I'll add it depends on how you write it, since when I hear 'crisis' I expect more immediate threat, and you didn't specify how / why the people don't want her going back. As long as you put in the effort I wouldn't worry about it tho.

For coming up with names, I like using google translate (romance languages generally work easiest -- but you can always swap letters and change things around for any language). Plenty of actual name generators around as well. In your case, if the three kingdoms are sufficiently different, I'd use a different language for each group of people. Boom, now they have distinct name groups!

Writing wise, the artifact might not need a name. Heck, the Kingdoms too! Could just be the First Kingdom, the Second Kingdom, etc. Alternatively, going with colours is also popular enough: Red Kingdom, Blue Kingdom, etc.

I bring this up because your pitch currently reads as very ambitious. General advice is to start small, because boy does branching allow for a ballooning of scope. The reason I say these big setting elements don't necessarily need names is because you might want to focus on the characters instead, while relegating the world to the background.

That's not to say you can't do both, just that fleshing out a setting with three kingdoms AND working in a bunch of community characters (if people end up submitting any) might lead to a bit of a . . . mishmash. Writing varied character interactions will be hard enough, after all, even without trying to tie it all into a well-defined world. But, again, I'm sure it can be done, I just worry if it'll be too hard to accomplish for a first storygame.

I'll also say you might find more success harvesting community ideas once you've established yourself in the community. New user + ambitious pitch + asking for ideas = I'm not expecting a high response rate. Happy to be proven wrong tho!

Depending on how you structure the story, I strongly encourage the use of early endings (deaths even) to both make the threat of escape clearer (tying into the immediate threat I mentioned at the start -- that I associate with 'crisis') but also to help keep the story scope from ballooning out of hand. But that's just my advice.

Good luck and have fun writing!

This was super helpful feedback! Sadly, it's too late to turn back now seeing as I am fully committed to doing this. Lol. Is it too much for a newbie? Yes. Am I a newbie when it comes to writing stories? No. Am I confident I'll finish before the deadline? Ok, not really, but if this turns out to be a really good read, then who cares if I get tossed into the SHAME pit? The whole purpose of writing to me is to create something people will enjoy and will want to reread later. Something so thrilling, breathtaking, and full of twists that it will leave them on the edge of their seat waiting to see what's next. 

As for the deaths, I was planning on having plenty of those along the way. Not just main character deaths, but also deaths of other characters you as the reader will come across. I'm going to make it fairly hard to survive while also dropping in some epic endings, rare endings, uncommon endings, common endings, and unseen/dramatic endings. I want to make it hard to survive, so there won't be many good endings. The bad endings are you either die, you are forced to stay, or, in slightly rarer cases, you comit suicide. (I do need to know how mature to rate it at the end for that, but I'll get there later.) 

I really appreciate your advise and will do a smaller story next time! :D

For the love of god, please let your first story game be short and complete. You're not Endmaster and you don't have the time to put together an epic. Use your time and word count towards crisis and developed characters. Ambition is a noob-killer. I get it, you want to put together something awesome and maybe people will stop calling you a fag but you don't have the time for a huge world expanding story. Develop your characters, have a decent plot line with REALISTIC choices and you'll do fine. My first WIP has been under development for like 5+ years and 20K+ words because I was way too ambitious at the time and it is EASY to blow a choose your own adventure game out of proportion. My only published story game (besides my short stories) is sitting at ~15k words and was rushed and missing alot. Its sitting at a 5.5/8 rating. Don't focus on entire word building, but important details relevant to what the MC is experiencing. 

TLDR; Dire is drunk and you need to focus on the basic before you become to ambitious.

Forgot to mention:
Fuck you, you're a fag.

Love you too, Dire.

And take some pain killers for that hang-over you're gonna undoubtedly get. 

Also, thanks for the advice. :)

Update!!!

I have changed my story idea for the contest to something else. HOWEVER! I am still planning on writing this one eventually, so ideas are still appreciated! :D

I would also appreciate ideas for my new story! I started it and you can view the description on my profile for a better understanding of what it is! :)

Can't wait for more amazing feed back! (Even Dire's drunk ones. Lol XD)

Scope seems much more manageable, but it still won't write itself, so be sure to put in the time.

It can be interesting to see how folk interpret site lore -- and it is ironic that the people who didn't give character ideas freely will now become story characters instead -- I say, have fun with it!

One page is not much to judge, but even this early I can say that the writing itself is not making me want to die, so if you finish the story I imagine you'll avoid the SHAME pit. (Let's pretend matching Malk is totally optional).

I do question if you picked the best starting point, since the description mentions AshenArc (should this be two words?), but instead you're starting with [Order] and [Chaos]. I'm just worried you'll go on introducing all these Gods and it'll come across like heavy handed exposition (getting the reader invested first tends to work best for making exposition interesting).

If you're just introducing the two it's probably fine. That's enough judging for only one page.

Oh, do consider reading some of End Master's stories (if you've got the time). Being his contest, it isn't a horrible idea to see what he wrote, even if writing to a judge's taste is not mandatory (but even then, it can still give you ideas, and the stories are worth reading regardless).

Good luck!