A lot of people worldbuild when they daydream and have the bones of a story kicking around in their brain, but have to pay the bills and raise the kids etc so they never flesh it out and write it down. What’s your story’s premise? Fantasy, sci-fi, alternate history, mystery, western, whatever genre.
That’s the hard part. If I had that, I’d be writing.
Just TRY these. At least check them out. Also use character ai for the characters dialog
https://hf.co/chat/assistant/65e722db59ac89b2b6cd0b5b
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.cordes.pluot
I’d finish one of the stories I’d already started:
- Sci-Fi, life on board a converted old interplanetary transport vessel, refitted for interstellar transport, on its way to join a small group of pioneers and colonize a distant planet.
- Fantasy, centered around a crafty dwarf who has built a decent self sufficient for himself independent of the fortress, unaware that his childhood friend caught a curse and caused the fortress to succumb to the goblin invasion.
- A more down to earth story about a struggling early twentysomething, and what sheer desperation does to a person.
…but the common denominator for all three is that I haven’t quite figured out the plot yet.
Was*
Typical dwarvish. Very hierarchical. An industrious proud people, full of skilled craftsmen who pull their weight for the greater good of society. Due to seasonal attacks from a goblin horde nearby, they’ve built fortification that protect them, and during attacks the wall guards are helped by alchemists fire. Unfortunately that last step failed during the most recent attack, which was also unusual in its strength and strategy (the horde got outside help), causing the fortress to fall. While looting, the invaders opened the floodgates that had redirected the river, thus drowning any survivors except one.
Shit. No other dwarven cities? No war of reprisal a la War of Dwarves and Orcs?
I played a fantasy game (on Nintendo 64!) that had a lore waaaay too ridiculously deep for itself, but part of it was that a vaguely dwarvish race had dwindled to a single city via repeated wars and pogroms from other races, and were living under the protection of one of the large human kingdoms at the time. These dwarves were also secretly harboring the last known dragon in the world, who had given magic to humans about a thousand years ago.
I have three things I want to see in a fictional world (either mine or someone else’s):
- Furries, but not in a weird “metaphor for racism” way.
- A nice sophisticated magic system.
- Either a mideaval fantasy or spacefaring sci-fi setting.
The current idea rattling in my head is for a game which will likely never get finished. A spaceship with a small crew gets blown off close while travelling at warp speed or whatever. The heroes need to visit a bunch of planets (and learn secrets within) to find… Elemental crystals or something, I guess, to make their way home. Not sure how I can incorporate magic into it though, or if that would just be scope creep.
I once started writing a story with a “monster universe” setting but in space. Werewolves and vampires always at war with each other. Humans and animal-humanoids caught in the middle. A few eldritch horrors lurking around the void.
I did a self contained short story set in that universe, about an observation station sitting at the edge of the galaxy, monitoring for potential intergalactic information. They detect a large mass of dark matter that only became detectable when it got close enough to reflect light from our galaxy. As they observed, they realized that the string of dark matter was just a tentacle the size of a large star cluster, and they couldn’t see what was on the other end. It swept close and then retracted away.
I will not tell lol I am working on it and really excited about it
Rough outline, a woman loses her husband to violence and takes their young son to a more rural community to get away from the urban environment which has too many ghosts and memories.
Partial inspiration:
She settles into the small town, in an old house that needs work, but she needs the work to put her mind on other things. Lots of quirky locals offer advice, want all up in her business, and she’s polite but shuts them down.
Working on the house, a large, ropy, brown tail dangles from a tree branch outside the window and she’s startled to see a full grown-ass cougar just hanging out. Apparently it liked the place when it was abandoned and sees no need to move on.
She doesn’t know what to do, and throws a home made cheese ball at it, a welcome gift from one of the quirky locals. She didn’t really want the thing, or know what to do with it. The cat bats it out of the air and carries it off.
So now, she didn’t really want to talk to the locals, but has to. She wants to build a fence to keep the cat out.
She has part of it in place, and the cat leaps over it without any trouble at all. The fence wasn’t complete, it could have gone around the fence, it jumped it because it could.
Then, the town erupts. A big cat has been killing livestock at nearby farms, everyone is up in arms and they blame her for moving into the old abandoned house and “stirring up trouble.”
Locals go on a literal torch weilding mob rampage to kill the cat causing all the damage, and they kill one, so everyone thinks the problem is resolved.
But the color on this one isn’t quite… right, is it? And it’s bigger, a male, she’s certain the one by her house was female.
She gets home, pretty much revolted by the mob action, and finds an impossibly small cougar cub, asleep on her porch.
That’s an incredible outline! Got a working title? Maybe “Out of the Bag” or something?
I like the idea that you start with “quirky” locals who are presumably likeable and the main character is probably a bit off putting at first but then later the mob mentality comes out and your sympathies are reversed.
Reminds me of this haunting/terrifying song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OELFgreDw5M&pp=ygUgUGluZSBoaWxsIGhhaW50cyBvbGQgd2hpdGUgdGhhbmc%3D
