I want to write a Light Novel (and I want your help!)

daniel_gudman · Dec 16, 2015

So I've been working on a big long fanfiction project recently: Fate Revelation Online.

It's huge and I'm happy working on it.

But.

I would like to work on something tighter, with a clear narrative arc, and that I can get into a "complete" form and then edit down into something coherent and contained, in the 50-80k word range. I think it would be interesting to have that change of pace.

I'm a fan of "plan the work, work the plan" though, so I want to put together solid character designs and think out a plot and setting details before hand.

So I figured I might as well make this a forum game!

I'm soliciting ideas, based on two directions:

1) What would be popular.
(Not just what would you personally like to read, but what do you think lots of other people would like to read).

2) What plays to my strengths.
What do you think would be something I'd be good at writing?
Conversely, maybe even more importantly, what do you think I'd be bad at, or struggle with?
I'm kind of interested to hear what kind of author you all think I am.

From there,
By default I need three characters:
1) The Hero (stereotypically a normal teenaged boy but not always)
2) The Love Interest
3) The Villain

As for setting,
The biggest question is whether to make it fantasy or not.
I'd kind of like to do hard scifi but I've literally never seen real a hard SF light novel. The medium is driven by characters and their relationships with each other, not setting.

seitora · Dec 16, 2015

Daniel, you have lots of delicious, twisted ideas.

Follow up on your post from this topic and I think you'll be golden.

H-Man · Dec 16, 2015

Rule #1 of a Light Novel: Write Poorly.

Okay not THAT badly, but quality won't matter. The traditional translations are full of some bad sentences, excessive tell don't show, and occasional periods where the things that are just said are restated by the narrator.

Still, let me throw some ideas for those three points specific.

1) A teenage boy who has spent the last year attached to a fad of sorts, so much so he didn't even realize how weird he was until around the turn of the year. If this were a modern timeline, think of someone who was obsessed with Duel Monsters and Yu-Gi-Oh!. Although he is trying to adjust to his current lifestyle, seeing as how he just moved schools or joined the Knights of Lore or whatever, he's still prone to making internal comparisons between that fad and whatever he's dealing with, and usually complains about how reality isn't good enough.

2) NOT A TSUNDERE LESBIAN IMOUTO.

Okay, that one was harsh, but the point is, two of these points are what sell of sorts - tsunderes are always popular among the Japanese, and so is the 'imouto' character - but you might actually benefit from using a different character archetype and using these as side characters, if you must. Actually, it's best if the 'imouto' is someone else's and not interested in the protagonist that way, I don't think I've ever seen that, even if you're not going to do a harem story.

So for a proper heroine idea, take a White Mage archetype and mess it around some. Maybe she's a healer but she can only do that by sharing her life force. Maybe she's a nun but she has never loved the idea and wants Our Hero to be more proactive so she can get out. Maybe the healers in this world need to use swords and axes rather than staves and rods because they channel magic better. Play with it.

3) The villain could have sort of a tangible connection to our hero. Assuming you're doing a Sauron thing, the idea of the villain destroying the hometown or being their father is kind of so common nobody will be that surprised when you do. So perhaps what you should do is set two evils up, with one of them being the legit villain and the other being more like a greedy king who'd actually do that kind of destruction, with the legit villain seeming like a more reasonable option until you play the plot twist and it becomes clear that neither is a good option to have, but the main villain's much worse.

Just some thoughts since, well, there's not enough there yet.

Revlid · Dec 18, 2015

I find a decent way to come up with ideas I like is to take a sledgehammer to a story I almost like, then see what happens when I put it back together.

Like, I enjoyed the first half of Naruto, more or less. It made very little sense, and made even less in the second half when even the plot and characters were visibly falling apart, but it was fun. I'm not sure I'd say I like it, though, so it's a simple task to smash up the setting, sieve out the bits that don't make sense, rearrange and repaint the rest to compensate, and see how the characters respond to this brave new world.

e.g. the Hidden Villages make fuck-all sense as far as I can tell... so why not just make them literal rival PMCs or security companies in a cyberpunk setting? Include fantastical elements a la Shadowrun (or provide some babble to justify it - CHAKRA, SON), or strip them out and refit it. I've now immediately got a very different story about intrigue and superhuman combat in an urban future, starring a kid loaded up with experimental tech by his parents, who teams up with a brooding child soldier on the hunt for his brother, a former agent who bloodily defected to the very same terrorist group that murdered the main character's parents through industrial sabotage and now seek his own inheritance.

Or tug at the thread of "how the fuck do all these former child soldiers (raising child soldiers, raised by child soldiers) function enough to have a whole village - which by the way looks a lot more like a city to me - with a meaningful economy in what is ostensibly peacetime", and imagine a world where all the superpowered heroes from a world-shaking fantasy war... don't really have much demand for their skills, either because of circumstance or obsolescence. Probably a comedy, since in reality a guy who can run on water and spear gods is always going to be in demand from someone, and taking it seriously leads down darker roads than I'd probably be happy taking on in a light novel.

Well, whatever, these are just examples of places where new settings can easily spring from. De/reconstruction with a fresh coat of paint is easier than making stuff out of wholecloth, especially as far as character dynamics go - for me, at least.

Watashiwa · Dec 18, 2015

Now there's an idea, daniel. Here are my answers to your questions, hope they help.

1.) What's popular: Superheroes. Between the Marvel movies, the CW's Arrowverse in paid media, Hero Academia in Japan, and Worm in the online scene, it's clear that the Capes and Cowls are big again.

Alternatively, light science fiction is going to be big for the next few years thanks to Star Wars.

2. What you'd be good at: Between the two? Superheroes. There's a much wider field for that, and a wider variety of archetypes to draw from.

Why is that important? Because your STRENGTH is in taking premises that would be cliché and making it awesome. You're one of the fanfiction-writing proofs that there are no bad ideas, only bad writers. The Naruto story you wrote? Hilarious and clever, despite taking on one of the most rehashed events in Naruto fanfiction. Your current work is a simple crossover that has how many hundreds of thousands of views, again?

As for negatives... unfortunately I'm not following FSN/SAO so I can't comment on where your writing is now. I will point out that you're asking a bunch of randos to help you decide on a project that could take up several years of your life. That's pretty bad. (I'll skim through that story and talk about your weaknesses when I have a basis to.)

As for character stuff... well, same deal. I'm actually seeing Star Wars tonight so I'll have to finish the second half of your questions when I get back.

daniel_gudman · Dec 18, 2015

seitora said:

You know I had honestly forgotten I had even said that until you brought it up?

Now that I think about it, I could also rip off my response to Dumbles' Ranma 1/2 at Magical Girl School thread.

Revlid said:

Actually I always thought the Hidden Village System in Naruto was intuitively believable, given the way Ninja Magic worked. You just, like, needed to look at it as an ultra-super-dark setting. You just have to remember the Magic completely negates the need for industrialization to gain competitive advantage.

I mean, the Villages are basically Deep State capture of the economy by a pseudo-separate military caste, similar to what exists in, say, Myanmar (although they're getting better), Egypt, but especially Eritrea and the DPRK. Combine that with the Village being a transition from Ethnic Tribalism to Nation State Nationalism and a the particular artifact of Japanese history where the Emperor has been a figurehead for a thousand years, and I can visualize how their government works pretty well. Comparatively, the transition from Clans to Villages was something like a colonial expansion as the continent was carved up into a couple super-powers in a cycle of zero-sum territory wars, like happened across Eurasia around 1900 or so.

(Although the movies muddy those waters up because they're clearly not working from the same premise at all).

Well, the problem is, that's way too complicated of a setting for a shounen magazine or a light novel. It's not just alternate history, it's alternate cultural development pushed even further away because their physiology means tech is less important to war. Way too much background for a Light Novel, that's more like a Heavy Novel.

Watashiwa said:

It's not like I'm gonna put a thumbprint in blood on the outcomes of this. I'm soliciting help for brainstorming, to be honest.

linkhyrule5 · Dec 18, 2015

(...Thiiis came out way more pretentious than I meant it to be. And maybe a little "duh." But, well, you asked, so here's my answer, and maybe I said something non-obvious somewhere.)

1) Popularity:

There are two ways you can go about this, the easy way and the hard way.

The easy way is, well, the classic lowest-common-denominator stuff. I'm going to be honest here: I actually don't have a problem with this. It is entirely possible to write a good, immersive, interesting story about an overpowered male teenager and his harem of almost-as-OP girlfriends, if you're careful to keep everyone onscreen and useful and use sources of tension that aren't nullified by their power. I'm quite willing to call even a work like Twilight a "good book," because ultimately people do enjoy it and do immerse themselves in that world.

But it is entirely possible to write a more classically interesting, creative story and still attract these readers - even the lowest common denominator readers can be attracted without... I don't want to say "pandering," it feels too elitist to me, but it's basically the word to use here. Pandering to their interests. One only needs to look at the wild success of Madoka for examples.

To get that kind of popularity, you want to bypass the attractive surface elements to get at the fundamental drives that are easiest satisfied by "OP, harem, male teen in another world." As I see it, there are five-ish major reasons people like a book:

Identification: Immersion is hard, even for a reader. Sure, the writer has given you the world on a slate, but it's not assembled: to immerse yourself in a world you have to do all the assembly yourself, give the world color and voice in your mind - and then react to it as you update it. This is a lot of work. It's a lot easier if there's someone on the inside that already "looks like you," so you can just trust their reactions instead of having to think for yourself. Even if you can't quite manage it, having someone similar to your point of view lets you get away with less thinking - and if you're reading for fun, this is a good thing.

The logical extreme of this is "perverted dumb teenage male," as that is the biggest audience for LNs in either Japan or America at the moment. This is also the advantage of the "Watson" character: you can have someone drab and normal in the story, without having to sacrifice...
Magnification: Funnily enough, all these great social critiques and historical novels that get labeled as "classics" and taught in schools... most of them just aren't as explosively popular as books like Holmes or LotR. At the end of the day, most people have no interest in ordinary humans; despite the desire for identification, there's just not much point in reading about someone just like us - if we want to do that we can just watch the news.

The logical extreme of this is "the reincarnation cheat": the undeserved ability randomly granted to a normal person. Removing the "undeserved" bit is what gets you the sort of thing that inspires power levels debates - the great powers and insights possed by those larger than life. If you have a Watson, then you don't need to balance "ordinary" with "extraordinary," but the downside is that you don't get as much insight into the extraordinary character, which sacrifices...
Curiosity and Surprise: At the lowest level, this is simply "what happens next," but we also have, of course, what fundamentally boils down to the old questions of philosophy and science: "how does this world work?" How does the world respond to the alien, larger-than-life elements? How do ordinary people react to the wonders of the world? And also - how does that extraordinary character think, what do they want and how do they go about getting it? How does someone so separate from our reality live their life?

This is the downside of a Watson, but also the downside of setting your story on Earth: because you give up so many easy opportunities to make the readers ask "But how does this world/this mind work? What else is in this story?" The call of the unmarked places is even more alluring when you might actually find a dragon.

Taken to the logical extreme, set the world somewhere entirely alien - a world that works on entirely different mechanics, through laws completely divorced from ours, and whose governments and processes are entirely unfamiliar to our daily lives. Trying to do this without actually having to do a lot of your own worldbuilding is what get us the classic "faux-medieval life in a gamelike magic world" that's so popular recently. Of course, you can create even more interest if even the social systems are alien, and the systems of magic are entirely original.
Wish Fulfillment: I place this separate from Magnification because it is, fundamentally, orthogonal. Where magnification is about the character, the king that is larger than life and greater than reality, wish fulfillment is about the ultimate fate of the character. Hope for the future, inspiration, the desire to reach the stars. Everyone has different wishes, of course - but some are particularly popular. At the most basic level, meaning - the ability to change the world at all. Bigger wishes are proportionally more exciting, for the most part - whether it's the relatively easy "a harem of pretty girls," or the truly grand "end all suffering" or "save the world" that can't be well portrayed without looking deeply into the way real-world problems actually work. (Unless, of course, you just create a Demon Lord to take the fall...)

To some extent, superpowers fall in this category as well, especially the undeserved kind. This is why you can to some extent get away with writing a story where someone gets a superpower at the beginning and just uses it for a bit to stomp people. Usually, though, wishes are fulfilled at the end, which is where our Western focus on the primacy of conflict comes from.
Emotion: Speaking as someone with chronic depression, apathy sucks huge donkey balls. Feeling anything is better than being totally numb to the world.

Unfortunately... the real world is pretty damn boring most days. Unless you actively go looking for it, the most common emotions are going to be petty things like "frustration". Inspiring any emotion, whether it's hope or despair or simple laughter... well, it doesn't necessarily attract people (especially people just looking for a no-brain simple read), but it does tend to make people into advertising - the things that readers talk about and remember to recommend are going to be the ones that give them that spark of color.

So looking at these things... well, look at how many points "OP harem teenage male hero in another world" hits, and you start to see why there are so damn many of the things.

But we still come away from them feeling unsatisfied, and that's mostly because of the lack of the last pillar - emotion. Precisely because you can churn out such a story without thinking much about it, the result is unpolished, without introspection and consideration - which means that the work feels shallow and casual, and there aren't any "hooks" that sink deep enough to evoke that sort of cathartic response. At best, you can go for comedy, cheap or otherwise - which, let's be fair, making people laugh is a genuinely noble endeavor. But running a story entirely on comedy... there's a limit to how far you can go with that without starting to repeat the same old tired jokes and turning into an endless story without progression like, say, Ranma 1/2.

Whereas, breaking down a story like Madoka:

Identification: Believe it or not, girls and boys don't actually think that differently. Madoka and Sayaka, in particular, are very relatable - the tension between "being entirely ordinary" and the childish (though admirable) dream of being a true hero, an ally of justice - regardless of gender. (Even if people do get annoyed at them, because for much of the show they lack ...)
Magnification: Homura. Akemi goddamn Homura. But also Mami's glory in the first few episodes, Madoka and Sayaka's moments of glory, and Madoka's sheer benevolence and kindness. Really, any time someone shows agency - because, let's be honest, most of us? Do not usually act on our desires. "It's not so bad as to be worth changing" is a very, very common state of mind - see apathy. This is part of why agency is so incredibly important - it's a superpower, the most basic superpower that all well-written characters have, the ability to actually do something in a banal world.
Curiosity: It's a world where miracles and magic exist, and teenager girls occasionally fight and die to save the world. Enough said, even before we get into "what could possibly drive Homura to be this dedicated" and "how is Madoka going to get out of this?"
Wish Fulfillment: Um. Aside from the literal... Madoka saves the world and rewrites the entire universe with her wish.
Emotion: Part of what makes Madoka impressive as a show is that it manages to create so much empathy and ... well, trauma in such a short amount of time. Most of this comes from Sayaka, who neatly straddles the line between identifiably foolish and admirably noble, and her rather undeserved fate - the advantage of building a character out of a few readily identifiable stereotypes.

Net result is an intensely popular story that sticks in people's minds and changes the entire genre it was written in, inspiring outright ripoffs of its own (Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de aru, anyone?)

.... yeesh. So, 1.5k word dissertations aside...

2) What are you strong at? Characters. Your characters are strong and interesting; they keep their own interests in mind and don't ignore them for the sake of the plot. You can go a long way just by bouncing characters off each other. Similarly, believable villains create interesting plot even with balance-breaking characters - you probably could get away with writing Blando McBlanderson, the OP harem protag, into a story and make it look good.

What are you weak at? I'd say ... brevity. Writing in the light novel mode is going to require you to take a lot of that characterization, justification, interaction, and compress it down short enough that they'd fit in 20,000 words. To put that in perspective: right now, each chapter of F/RO clocks in at an average of 25,000 words. Eyeballing it, every two or three of your chapters is enough for a light novel, though you're going to end up with a habit of leaving your readers with cliffhangers

. Somehow you're going to have to write two or three times denser, without giving up quality or depth of character.

Also, depending on what you do... magic, the high-magic conceptual kind that we see in Nasu and Exalted and the high end of Naruto. Your magic seems to be very... precise, technological, even-handed - it seems more appropriate for the Technocracy than a magus. I'd recommend that you either change that, or build a Nanoha-like system that looks like normal physics with a few crucial steps (like "medium of transfer" and "proximate causes") taken out.

So, to answer the actual question:

1) The Hero/Focus character: Teenage girl, just 'cause we don't have enough female protagonists in fiction. Distorted. Has a dream - maybe selfish, maybe altruistic - and drives the plot by acting on it. Should be genuinely skilled at something, because if we're going to be looking at her mind the whole time it had better be an interesting/wondrous place.
2) The Love Interest: Totally Not Kyon. Someone to serve as a reader-substitute, and provide an external, "sane" perspective to the MC's madness. Ultimately caught up in her orbit, but occasionally brings her back down to earth and serves as an ambassador to the rest of humanity. Should be good at something else, ideally something that looks cool from the outside - even if it's just Speedsheets.
3) The Villain: ... Like a few people have mentioned already, I think you've got this covered. Someone gray, someone with a conflicting goal that isn't one of the fifty-one stock villain speeches. For bonus points, set them up with a Kyon and turn them into a foil for the protagonist - "sometimes being comically distorted can end up with a continent or three on fire."

... I kind of accidentally wrote "Final Fantasy: Endless Eight Edition," didn't I. Oops.

zerohour · Dec 18, 2015

I always assumed the Hidden aspect of the Villages was grandfathered in. Before they became a major force, they were hidden, but as they got more and more clients, and more and more tertiary positions they needed filled, it just grew to the point where hiding from enemies was either impractical or ore harmful to them. They just ended up keeping the name because it was what they were known by.

For what you should write, I think you should go with something you enjoy. Popularity should be a secondary factor, if it is one at all. If this is a long term project, you should make sure you're going to have fun with it.

It's been awhile since I read FRO, but your strength seems to be taking a situation, and making it interesting. Not just the main story, but all the side details and factors that can arise. You like to explore, and you make exploring enjoyable for the readers.
With that in mind, something that involves a lo0t of traveling seems like a good place to start. you can show a large number of aspects of both the world and the factions living in it. Might not be present in light novels very often, if ever, but I think you could pull it off.

As for main characters, the core three seems like a good starting place, but don't be afraid to mix things up. Maybe the hero and his love interest start out as rivals, and keep that rivalry up, even when they start making out halfway through their fights. Make the villain personable, someone whose goals seems noble, or perhaps are noble, taking a darker path because it's safer, or more practical than the typical shonen answer. Maybe he is the hero, returned from a dark future, intent on keeping that future from happening, or perhaps preparing himself to face the threats that will soon arise. Whatever you choose, make sure it makes you happy with where the story goes.

Azure · Dec 19, 2015

Mmm, I think that maybe a good exercise is to take a LN series you like and maybe try to brainstorm your own take on it, to see how you could improve on the idea. Like one of the translators I read from wrote his own take on ZnT in his free time, trying to fix a lot of the problems with the series and it was pretty good. Thinking about it, you could try doing something like that and base your setting at the start on something you like but feel you could improve.

On terms of your strengths, I think that you would do best with a fantasy (either classic or modern) setting, since you have a good feeling for world building expansive worlds with cool magic and lots of interesting characters. Light Novels by their nature really can't focus on too many things at once since they are meant to be short, but I think you might be able to make it work if you focus on a small section of what you do.

Before thinking about characters like the heroes or villains, I think you should first focus on what sort of story you want to tell, the setting you like and the themes you might want to explore. Light Novels are short by nature, but that doesn't mean you can make them good or use them to explore interesting themes.

Goldenfalls · Dec 21, 2015

I agree with a lot of what linkhyrule5 says. I think your greatest strength is in your characters and how you use their differences to milk the reader's curiosity. I can't wait for Shirou and Illya to be revealed as actually able to do magic in real life in FRO! I especially want to see Diabel's reaction and how that will fit into his plans. It's that interest, and the interesting setting/worldbuilding in between character interactions that keeps me rereading the story even when there hasn't been an update in a while.

Because of your awesome character interactions, I don't think you need a love interest. To be honest, most love interests seem like a crutch: when an author doesn't know how to create tension or curiosity between characters, they can always default to romantic/sexual tension because there's so much of it that it's basically just pattern-matching to write. Then authors who can right good character interactions include a romance because it's expected, and that overdone interaction takes over space that could be filled with more unique (and thus more interesting) character interactions. I'm kind of biased against reading romance in everything because I'm ace, but I think other people would still find it interesting without one. If you have to include one, do it like you handle Illya's pursuit of Shirou—she's not just crushing on him because she thought he was cute/nice/etc., she's doing it because of other reasons related to her background, mainly that she's possessive and doesn't want to leave any avenue open for someone else to get super close to her brother Shirou. That's at least more interesting and ties into other parts of the love interest's character.

Anyway, what I was getting at before I got derailed by romance was that your strengths are making characters and creating situations where they interact with each other while all trying to follow a different goal or path. That gets you the curiosity, as long as you have enough different characters everyone will be able to relate to someone, the grandness/magnification can come from the setting, wish fulfillment could be achieved by making many of your characters friends (who doesn't want close friends?) and I might be forgetting one but that should be enough to net you a great story! I think as long as you keep that in mind it'll be a great story no matter what setting you use. I do prefer magic, though. :3

What you're bad at…I've never really found your writing that interesting. I read it kind of like a summary, I don't get a ton of emotion from it nor is it very great with timing. Maybe play up your descriptions? You come up with good scenery/ideas. IDK, a ton of stories get really popular without great writing so you should be fine.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

daniel_gudman · Dec 28, 2015

Azure said:

This feels a little backwards to my strategy: I'd rather think up interesting characters, bounce them off each other, and let the themes shake out naturally.

linkhyrule5 said:

I like the idea of a female viewpoint character, actually, but it might be a relatively hard sell.

Goldenfalls said:

Romance is practically mandatory, and I want to have it; but at the same time, I like it best when it adds complexity to an existing relationship, rather than taking over the story.

Anyway, since Light Novels tend to start with a strong conflict scene and then skip back to fill in the setting, here are some brainstorming treatments that are like those teaser openings.

So what if I reincarnated from a magical world

"Die, Hero!" A minotaur wielding a huge axe roared, stepping forward and winding up.

Recently, I've been having strange dreams.

"Heavenly roar of light." Rather than answering, the lightly armored Hero swung the Holy Sword, and a curtain of shining light poured out.

The clash between good and evil, where the Hero steps forward to defeat the Demon Lord.

"Darksider!" The minotaur swung the axe, as shadows converged on them like they were being sucked in, but they were simply overwritten by the holy light.

And that's when I woke up.

Ah, by the way, my dreams are always from the perspective of that minotaur.

The minotaur is the Lowest Seat of the Four Great Generals who serve the Demon Lord, but other than the lucid dreaming, I'm just a normal Japanese schoolgirl.

I I I

Notes

Reverse Reincarnation Cheat. Struggling from the mud and becoming a Great General, only to die at the hand of the Hero he had honourably spared in previous duels. That's what she regains as memories of her past life. It's extremely vivid and lucid, but in terms of impact, it's no different then a regular Chuuni delusion. Well, the fighting skills are still distressingly accurate though.

Of course, she meets the other Great Generals, who are also normal humans at her school.

Do they revive the Demon Lord? Or should they not bother? Living as citizens of a modern First-world country is pretty great, and it's not like they can actually use magic either.

I I I

This Great Sorcerer is uninterested in your problems

"Don't worry, I'll protect you."

She said something cool as she flipped her hair over her shoulder. Around her, embers danced from the fireball that had smashed harmlessly against the shield she conjured.

No, I don't need your protection.

Beyond her, the witch that had suddenly attacked me clicked her teeth in annoyance.

But it bothers me.

I've been carefully keeping my existence secret ever since I reincarnated here, so why was I randomly targeted by that witch?

I I I

Notes

A dreadful and powerful sorcerer, who has mastered the Spell of Transmigration. Just wanting to continue his research without getting involved in troublesome things, like getting hassled by people who decide which magics are "forbidden." He's sworn off at getting involved in politics anymore, since it's always a catastrophe.

A girl, who belongs to the Mage Association. Earth is without native magic users; they are all refugees who fled here through Planar Gates. As such, they are forbidden from using their spells to interfere with native magic. So the boy in her class with the immense internal mana but is 100% native born has a complicated position.

They butt heads.

I I I

The Sad Girl and the Ghost

"Hey, if you're done using your body, loan it to me."

She jerked, stepping back form the edge of the train platform, glancing back and forth wildly.

"Down here." The whispering voice sounded like it came from right over her shoulder, but she couldn't tell which shoulder.

Following the command, she looked down.

Her long evening shadow was cast on the edge of the platform at her feet. And her shadow was moving separately from her body. The shadow had confident, upright posture, and waved cheerily instead of standing slumped over gripping her schoolbag in both hands.

"So what do you say?" The voice repeated.

She paused, and the train pulled into the station right in front of her.

"Um." She whispered.

"Like I said." The voice repeated, as her shadow's head cocked to the side. "I've finally found someone that can hear me, and there's still things I need to do in this world, so let me possess your body if you're just going to commit suicide."

I I I

Notes

A somewhat normal girl, with a cold homelife and bullying problems, who is more spiritually perceptive than average. And the ghost that clawed out of the netherworld, a muggle (a professor of entomology, specifically) who got caught up in magic bullshit and died helplessly; who happened to find her. After she lends him her body for a few errands, he helps her out, or rather, he attempts to with his over-the-top advice.

Simultaneously, get involved in the Supernatural World. Since she was completely ignorant and he barely knew anything, it's the one-eyed leading the blind.

linkhyrule5 · Dec 28, 2015

Maybe I just like the idea of the body-sharing (I always felt that it implied a really adorable degree of trust), but "The Sad Girl and the Ghost" is definitely the most interesting of those to me.

"So what if I reincarnated from a magical world" reminds me a lot of Hataraku Maou-sama, which, yannow, isn't a bad thing - heavens knows it's hilarious - but a lot of the humor is probably going to be similar. "This Great Sorcerer is uninterested in your problems"... enh, I'm really not much of a fan of misunderstanding comedies, especially if they're at all drawn out.

So, I guess I had other reasons after all?

(And like I mentioned - while "female protag" might be a hard sell to editors, in terms of fanbase I strongly suspect you're not going to see a difference. I mean, just look at the Brony crowd for starters. I'm pretty sure that that sort of gender-sells logic is a unicorn.)

Goldenfalls · Dec 28, 2015

I also like "The Sad Girl and the Ghost" best. With the other two, I'm having a hard time thinking of possible endings, which makes it harder for me to be invested, but it's obvious that we want the girl to grow or change in a way so she's no longer suicidal. Even from just the teaser I want to see how she ends up.

zerohour · Dec 30, 2015

I'm partial to "So what if I reincarnated from a magical world" myself. Seems liek you would have a lot more freedom to develop the story in whatever direction you want to go without having to get too involved in how it formed, because magic. I can see a few different directions that it could evolve in right off the bat.
-Finding the other generals and Demon Lord: Could be done right off the bat or happen
-Reincarnated heroes: Heroes probably died at some point, so why not have them around. Could lead to them forming a rival team, or forming some sort of a support group.
-Old vs. New: Maybe the normal world has magic as well, just hidden away. once the generals start unlocking their power, they have to deal with the wizard council or whatever.

Of course, you could always just combine those three ideas into one. I don't see any inherent contradiction between them, and i think trying to manage it all properly could be an interesting chance to stretch your writing muscles and see what happens. I would think that the Sad Girl would probably be the primary protagonist, since it lets you introduce new aspects of the world without saying "as you all already know..." Depending on how it develops, like her making friends with the more supernatural students, you could deal with her short term problems (bullies,) giving us a sense of her slowing improving her life, while still having the long term problems (home life) to deal with, without anything convenient to simply solve it. Except magic, but brainwashing the family doesn't seem like it would end well...

LORD_ARM · Jan 3, 2016

And the Ghost could be the guy form the other world.

Leidolf · Jan 3, 2016

The thing to remember here is that you are writing for (presumably) an English speaking audience. There's a reason a lot of LNs are hard to read when fan-translated.

1) What would be popular.
- Paranormal and Urban Fantasy

2) What plays to my strengths.
- Taking existing systems and then refining it into something that we can relate to and understand. I mean, going by FRO, you managed to take a system that, while somewhat well-defined, refined it into something that is feasible.
- Expansive character development.

Characters
1) The Hero: An experienced protagonist. Break the mold and go with someone who doesn't use a sword or build a harem. I'm not kidding, that gets repetitive. Instead of someone who has ultimate destructive magic, have them be a Red Mage who's good at maximizing their ability or non-offensive spells and laying traps.
2) The Love Interest: If you got to include a love interest, have one with a life outside of the Hero, competent in their field. Good example: Shirayuki from Akagami no Shirayukihime.
3) The Villain: Someone who isn't stereotypical. Give them a purpose that makes sense, like Kayaba from FRO compared to canon. I want to feel bitter when you eventually have them defeated, but not reformed.

As for setting:
Always go fantasy. You can either build up a magical world, or use Urban Fantasy where this stuff happens right out of view: See Pact Web-serial.

zerohour · Jan 4, 2016

I agree with you on mixing things up, but those types of things are generally expected to pop up in light novels. I think it would be better if you had it start stereotypically, and then evolve it from there.

Examples:
Have the protagonist start as the stereotypical shone hero, but quickly realizes that blasting everything to bits isn't his strong point. While he can be successful at it if he sets it up right, he still needs to do the setup, leading him to be more of a guile hero than a super wizard.

The love interest is completely obsessed over the hero at first, but that's just because she puts everythign into whatever catches her fancy at the moment. Once she gets his attention, or finds somethign else, like magic, that seems way more interesting, she all put abandons her love interest, meaning the hero has to find soem way to regain her affections, or just wait until whatever interests her changes back to him. Likewise, if he saves a damsel, if he doesn't return her affections, or the hero worship starts to wear off as it always does, he's going to have to make an effort to keep the relattionship going or they'll drift away and start doing their own thing. Might still be friends with him, but romance is probably out if he doesn't prove to be decent boyfriend material.

The villain does seem to be doing evil just for the evil, but that's because he's involved in a war with other forces, and being blatant about it only puts him on the radar and make him a bigger target. Instead he has to be more circumspect about it, coming at things from odd angles to avoid drawing the wrong sort of attenion. That candy store he robbed and then blew up when the hero tried to stop him? It was right next to a safe house of the other force, which they had to shut down during the mundane investigation and rebuilding. That orphanage he attacked? One of the kids was in danger because of their hidden power or because they saw something. By disappearing them for the eviluz, he secures a valuable ally or protects a potential resource without revealing himself. It has a purpose, but for those not in the know, it looks like a stereotypical villain, kind of like FRO's Kayaba. We know he has a purpose, but for those who aren't aware of magic, it seems like he's doing it for the lulz.

seitora · Jan 4, 2016

The rebels win against the evil empire.

However, once the Dark Emperor is dead and cremated and his ashes doused in holy water and then buried in sacred ground where the divine powers will keep him from reincarnating, they actually have to run an entire country, a task infinitely more difficult than fighting the evil empire.

Leidolf · Jan 5, 2016

zerohour said:

Ouch, I don't know about this. It feels like one of those stories where you have to ask what's the point of trying to hold onto the relationship if she's not going to make some of the effort. More so if another suitable candidate pops up. Why did he take an interest in her enough to do the chasing after she stopped chasing him?

zerohour · Jan 5, 2016

Meant it only as an example, but I think it could work. She's nice to him, makes him lunches, helps him out learning the ropes of (plot device,) and all she gets is a quick thanks. Finally, she realizes that he's not all that interested in her, and moves on. Only then does he realizes that she was probably one of his closest friends, the school lunch is terrible, and he has no real idea how to work the (plot device) without her assistance. What follows is an attempt to win her back, probably beating a major foe to save her from (random kidnapping attempt.) When he finally gets to her, and admits that he really can't manage without her, she looks at him, and says

"Fine, but don't think you're out of the doghouse yet."

What follows is them trying to find an equilibrium between their own desires and their relationship, like actual adults do. Still could have secondary love interests trying to break them up, and possibly succeeding, for a time, but I think it would make for a more satisfying and realistic story than your typical Light Novel.

Leidolf · Jan 5, 2016

Beating a major foe to try and win her back makes it seem like she's a prize to be won though.

Goldenfalls · Jan 6, 2016

Daniel, how open are you to story ideas that other people come up with? I ask because it seems like that's what's happening in this thread and I want to know if that's a direction the thread should keep going, or if we should stick with discussion of the base stories you posted.

daniel_gudman · Jan 6, 2016

Don't worry about it, this is a brainstorming thread, so haring off into the woods is fine.

Tyrantviewer · Jan 7, 2016

Going back to what you said about making up characters before the setting Daniel- that's fine- do what works for you, but don't forget to flesh out the background mechanics- if you think up a character's abilities and quirks (or what they may have in the future) work out how they work in the greater setting-how they interact with everything- have an solid Idea for how any science or supernatural elements work in the greater setting as well as the specifics of the character. Even if it is bare bones having a solid idea of how your setting works makes it easier to figure out where other characters will fit in and how you want the charater's abilites to work.

In fact it might be better to have the charater's abilities be generic in that context. Instead of doing what Nasu does and have the protagonists have unique powers with their own rules for how they break the other rules (shirou, shiki, the fate/extra protagonist) have the uniqueness come from application rather than from being special in some strange way (I don't mind shirou because his own OPness was par for the course with all the antics of the servants, in fact Nasu avoided the issue by overdoing it- all the big threats are a big deal (hero or villian) because they break the mold in some way) for example in your sorcerer snip, rather than his state being some random reincarnation or unique power (like so many reincarnation stories have with little justification) it happened because he did it- with magic he studied and learned- he isn't amazing because he did what would be impossible for anyone else, it is because he did something that he came up with himself- the magic looks like to be something he worked out within the logic of the setting- figuring out how to do it is the amazing thing. In any case having the mechanisms of the character's powers be more universal or understandable and the applications they come up with being the uniqueness always felt like it made the settings and characters more interesting to me-I was more willing to bet invested.

On another note- these mechanics don't ever have to be explained- they can be and it would make sense to do so depending on where you go with the story- but only when so relevant- it is more important to have the whole system be coherent and consistent for you, because if you write well it will be apparent that is it does make sense and is consistent. For example harry potter never went into detail about many of the generalities of magic but they were revealed or crooped up at points. those books did a good job by keeping magic magical by explaining the bare minimum, you always wondered what would happen next, but often it felt that there was no real internal consistency, like J. K. just made up things to fit the story, but when it worked, when foreshadowed mechanics became relevant (the diary in the second book and the vanishing cabinent appearing in the same book but becoming relevant many books later) then it made the whole setting seem richer.

No doubt J. K. wanted to keep the books from getting bogged down in any explainations of magic and so on so her personal idea of how the system worked was rather bare bones, the same preservation of mystery can be maintained with a much more in depth and complicated system if you are selective of when and what you reveal.

In FRO the mechanics are all explicit because an important part of the journey is the characters learning and using them to progress but depending on what you decide to go with that might seem intrusive if you give more info than seems reasonable or have the story devolve into info-dumping (thankfully you have avoided that for the most part in FRO so far).

All in all keep doing what you are doing, all you really need are to sort out the tools you are going to use and have at it, your writing speaks for itself so far. Also remember tropes are tools, dont be afraid to check out tv tropes or other media for ideas and inspiration- You have my full confidence that you will manage to pull together something uniquely yours.

zerohour · Jan 12, 2016

So Daniel, where are you at with styory development? Settle on an aspect you want to work with, or are you still thinking it over?

I want to write a Light Novel (and I want your help!)

KING (In Land of Blind)

Well-Known Member

Random phantom.

Well-Known Member

Administrator

KING (In Land of Blind)

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Fic till you drop

KING (In Land of Blind)

Well-Known Member

Fic till you drop

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Fic till you drop

KING (In Land of Blind)

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member