[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 266 KB, 412x700, greatest book in history.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1298053 No.1298053 [Reply] [Original]

How does this sound (sorry if it's vague) for a novel?

-takes place in a late bronze age fantasy world, war and strife among various races and across continents
-a very powerful man plans to purge the entire planet of all life and discovers an artifact to recreate his own race of beings build his own civilization
-throughout the story, entire villages are burned to the ground, men, women, and children and slaughtered, entire races wiped out, more struggle to survive
-protagonist is a man with stubs for arms, who miraculously survived intense torture and has a traumatizing past
-dark comedy genre

I swear to god I'm going to fucking write this regardless of what you say. So give me an honest answer.

>> No.1298058

sounds gay like ur face

>> No.1298070

So guy gets stubs for arms and shenanigans ensue?

>> No.1298073

Okay idea but if you really want to be a successful novelist, write "Some Old Guy and His Fucking Beard."

>> No.1298075

>>1298073
I agree with this.

>> No.1298096

The main character sounds really, really boring. Everything else sounds good but a gimp (for lack of a better term) doesn't sound good for a black comedy without it being very, very, contrite/dull.

Though nobody will care, it's also a touchy subject probably easily prone to aimlessly offending people and trivializing the actual material (though arguably this makes dark comedy); I wouldn't read it on that basis alone.

It seems like the gimp would make a good companion to a protagonist though. Good luck in writing.

>> No.1298098

>came here for The Giver
>was dissapointed

>> No.1298104

Okay, what are the themes? Yes, it's dark comedy, but that doesn't mean shit by itself. How is the plot going to be comic? Is it going to be irreverent towards death and sadness? Irreverent-seeming but not really? Is it going to be reverent, but in a way that exposes the ridiculousness of the human condition? Is it going to be simple cripple humor? Darkly ironic situational humor (e.g. he orders everyone's ears stabbed through and then enslaves a village, before his arms became stubs, so he can't use sign language on them and gets sick of communicating with them through intermediaries, so ends up killing them)?

>> No.1298112
File: 32 KB, 320x240, 070527_amputee_med_student.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1298112

>>1298096
>implying amputees aren't awesome

>> No.1298115

As long as it stays a dark comedy, and depending how you do it, then it sounds like it could be good.

Too many HURR DARK AND EDGY SERIOS novels are old.

>> No.1298127

>>1298104
Most themes are realized after writing. It's very hard to plan such things out while writing and not edit them in or realize them after it's a finalized draft.

>> No.1298138

>I swear to god I'm going to fucking write this regardless of what you say.
>fantasy
Its going to be shit.

>> No.1298143

>>1298138
Anything in a first draft with rough concepts will be shit. Even fantasy/scifi. I trust if he has any modicum of skill or worth to ever be published/a popular writer; he'll realize that this is not a perfect idea as he starts writing it.

Dark comedy is an incredibly hard thing to pull off especially, a fair amount of editing is always required.

>> No.1298148

>>1298127

Yeah, but like...you should be convinced that the characters have a good story that is meaningful to other people, and that is kind of what I was asking for. Why are your characters important, and how are you going to translate that to good comedy?