Would you give your honest opinion on a high-end science fiction concept ?

[chazus]

Third part of the ''blurb''. The nazis, the audience knows stuff, and elves,

OOookay. Um.

Okay first, I think you need to circle back and find out what your story is ACTUALLY ABOUT. Like, what is the story.

I feel like you A) Want to write and publish something but also B) Have no idea what you want yet.

It seems like you've watched a bunch of stuff, have a bunch of ideas, no actual story, but you're waving your hands and trying to shove all these completely unrelated ideas together. Any sense of story or plot I had briefly was just utterly destroyed. It honestly reminded me of the trailer of Two Brothers from Rick and Morty.

Are the elves even relevant? Are they critical to the story? I think you really need to drill down what you want to write about. If you want to write about Nazis in an alternate universe, do it! If you want to do a modern war opera that parallels the events leading up to WWII, t hat's fine too. But DO. THAT. Don't... add all this other unrelated stuff, especially if it's not relevant. And if it is relevant, why has it taken two pages of discussion to even mention?

[sarahtasher]

While there are vague attempts to find weapons in Elven ruins, it's explicitly mentioned that being far away from the front is the key component of those jobs. The ''Elves'' serves two purpose in the story : give serious hints that this a space colony and introduce subtly to the reader the absolutely crucial concept of the said ''blank canvass'', which is critical for the plot.

To do an aphorism for all matter and purposes, the Elves THEMSELVESare irrelevant for the plot. Cultural depictions of Elves however serves a purpose, despite how widely innacurate they are (it's like Candide being taken at face value by French readers about Germany....which it was to some degree)

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Whatever you do, don't quit a good job to become a "writer" like my sister did, only to sit around and bitch about the pay gap because she makes no money as a writer. Also, I just read the other thread with your concept on the other thread. Nobody wants to read work from an unabashed self-described SJW. That was one of the most tedious things I've put myself through recently. I think I need to upgrade my Rx for my glasses from the amount of eye rolling I did through the whole thing. If you want to write for the mentally ill, I'm sure you can find plenty of work bitching about the non-existent patriarchy and laughable wage gap for Salon or HuffPo.

First, I have a job. I keep that job. I know I will never make a dime out of this (writing, not job). Second, I hate to tell you that, but movies about killing thinly veiled expies of Nazis tend to be very popular.

[chazus]

Okay, yeah. Again. I think you really need to start at the foundation of your story and establish what it's about.

1) Why do you need to 'hint' that it's a space colony? Why can't that just be the story?

2) Why is this 'blank canvas' crucial and critical? HOW is it crucial and critical when up until now it wasn't even mentioned.

This is what I'm seeing:
You: "I want to do THIS."
Audience: "Okay."
You: "And THIS."
Audience: "Alright."
You: "And THIS THING HERE."
Audience: "I sort of follow"
You: "And thats GREAT, I think, except thats not even what the story is about"
Audience: "What WHAT?"

Lets say you want to pitch a story to a publisher. What is the story about. You've got like, 2-4 sentences to do so. Make it an elevator pitch, whatever. Doesn't need to be the entire book, just, who are the characters, what is the plot, WHY is it interesting?

[sarahtasher]

Okay, yeah. Again. I think you really need to start at the foundation of your story and establish what it's about.

1) Why do you need to 'hint' that it's a space colony? Why can't that just be the story?

2) Why is this 'blank canvas' crucial and critical? HOW is it crucial and critical when up until now it wasn't even mentioned.

This is what I'm seeing:
You: "I want to do THIS."
Audience: "Okay."
You: "And THIS."
Audience: "Alright."
You: "And THIS THING HERE."
Audience: "I sort of follow"
You: "And thats GREAT, I think, except thats not even what the story is about"
Audience: "What WHAT?"

Lets say you want to pitch a story to a publisher. What is the story about. You've got like, 2-4 sentences to do so. Make it an elevator pitch, whatever. Doesn't need to be the entire book, just, who are the characters, what is the plot, WHY is it interesting?

The blank canvass means simply that the Humans that don't really understand what are Elves, that are completely lost at what their civilization, tried to reconstruct it in a way that made sense to them. Which is what was done to Humans too.

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That's not untrue, but most of the ones I'm sure we're both thinking of didn't have a ridiculous SJW slant, and they weren't made in times where political correctness was the cancer that it is today. I hate to tell you, but all of the movies in recent memory that've been made with a forced SJW narrative have failed miserably.

Yeah, Rogue One and Forces Awakens were flop...

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As an attempt to streamline the issue, before the big concept (AI...) is introduced, I will try to sum up the Elves, using the concept of ''elventalism'' (made up word based on orientalism) to explain.

''Orientalism'' is the depiction of ''the near East'' in European art of the 19th century. It had at times a very tenuous connection with reality. Most paintings for the purpose of showing what was a typical orientalist work would get an insta-ban here (hint : fanservice)

''Elventalism'' is shown in the text in two different way, one quite snarky and the other dead serious.

Fist, as in Terran orientalism, there is a vast array of cultural works (plays, paintings, sculptures) with a supposedly Elven theme. For an inexplicable reason, totally unlike Terran orientalism, a lot of those cultural work features Elven ladies that look suspiciously like Human ladies with slightly shaped ears, doing presumably typically Elven activities, such as ritually cleansing themselves, making ablutions, bathing, swimming in sacred lakes, and so forth. You might notice that there is a sort of theme implied in such works. The stock character in many works, the Elven sorceress, have usually an attire that is not markedly different than the one for the first set of activities.

Humans thus excepting long-eared, big-breasted and wide-eyed Elven girls are in for a major disappointment, as they comically miss the point about the GENUINE critical importance for Elven religion of « sacred » waters and « priestresses ». (Hint: Giger. Oh GOD, Giger.)

Second ,more akin to concept like the « good savage », there is a marked tendency to give to Elves attributes judged desirable amongst society. In a way more elaborate approach than the above LULZ BOOBIES, Damaskians are fascinated by a discernable aspect of the Elven civilization, that would be labelled on Earth « hydraulic despotism » (they completely miss the reason for the gigantic dams and canals built by servile manpower, however). For a culture so sure about how they are fit to rule as lords over other humans (and being increasingly shown about how wrong they are) there is something deeply enthralling there (pun intended). It’s worth nothing however that it’s far less about « dig up eldritch abominations » than ''write treatises on racial hierarchy and put the previously mentioned naked Elven girls to make it more palatable by pretending it's translated ancient Elven lore ''

[chazus]

I no longer have any idea what the story is about. I'm not sure I can help until you pare the concepts down to something recognizable and coherent.

[sarahtasher]

Yes sir.

Coherently, this is proto-industrial world torn appart by war. It's actually a lost colony, in which the native sentients were dubbed sarcastically ''Elves'' by colonists. Elves, while utterly irrelevant to the global plot, are used by the different factions as a narrative device in their propaganda works.

Like, for instance, ''The Last of the Mohicans'' : a work that have countless qualities, but is certainly not depicting very accurately Mohicans.

[sarahtasher]

I mean, a franchise that rides the coattails of the original source material isn't what I'd call original, and their theme doesn't have SJW forcefully interjected into them. Unless, you mean that diversifying the cast for the sake of diversification is an SJW theme, then, yes, I'd agree.

You mean the movie in which, five minutes in, well trained shock troops are shot death by a female in heavy robes and vision impairing hairdo ?

[Coombs]

The only explanation for this is DRUGS.

[LMuhlen]

At least you don't freak out with all the harsh criticism... that's a good start.

[sarahtasher]

The only explanation for this is DRUGS.

I hate to tell you that, but a lot of high concept science fiction is a little on the audacious side.

[Coombs]

I hate to tell you that, but a lot of high concept science fiction is a little on the audacious side.

I wouldn't consider Star Wars with a new skin, less lightsabers, more emphasis on Nazis to be high concept lol.

[sarahtasher]

It would be somewhat innovative if the Imperial stromtroopers expies could actually hit a bantha and the entire plot was not about girding the tremendous triad with plot armour,,,

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Just going to comment on a pet peeve of mine: using "complicated" words not because they're needed to make the story more rich and provide flow to it - but because they sound fancy.

Not saying that's the intent, that's just how it comes across to me. English isn't my first language, but I read most books in English (don't like translations), and no good fiction-writer I've read writes like that. Makes it jarring to read, imo.

Maybe it's different to native English speakers who are well read.

I assume your talking about technobabble that you usually hear in science fiction, like "flux capacitor" or "psychofield" or "tetryon pulse" or "anti-proton generator" which are made up on the spot half the time (Star Trek is especially guilty of this, where a random "term" is brought up every other episode to explain the plot and is never referenced again, and the other half of the time the "term" is never used consistently. Apparently "tetryons" can do everything from inhibited warp drive to acting as a better form of beam weaponry). Yes, it gets grating/unintelligable at times, which is why you see (in my opinion) expert writers keep the fictionary physics down to a minimum and clearly explain it, like Minovsky Particles, the rules of which are rigidly adhered to.

[sarahtasher]

Actually, of all the sins I committed, everyone use normal French terms of the 19th and 20th century. There are no made up words.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

It would be somewhat innovative if the Imperial stromtroopers expies could actually hit a bantha and the entire plot was not about girding the tremendous triad with plot armour,,,

A simple solution to this is to justify the plot armor in universe: Kamille doesn't die during the bloodbath that is Zeta Gundam because he was lucky; he survives because whenever he went out to a fight, he was protected by the confines of the Gundam, the most powerful and durable mobile suit in existence. The suspense of the story doesn't stem from whether or not Kamille will survive, but whether or not Kamille will be able to complete the objective and save his friends from dying, who continue to drop dead like flies (this is a UC Gundam story ofcourse, so this is to be expected). Another form of this is Gut's magic armor in Berserk, which makes him effectively invulnerable to mortals, so he's only actually in danger when he fights to big bads. In Ghost in the Shell, there's an insurance-investment agency that grows replacement organs in pigs, so if any other human characters are injured, they can get prosthetics and an organ replacement, justifying their survival. The main character being a cyborg helps too.

[sarahtasher]

As you said, Gundam did a commendable effort to make it's setting believable or at the very least consistent.

But what I mean is that unlike Star Wars (and/or most works except maybe GOT) characters don't get constantly in firefights with the enemy.

[Tijuana]

Achieving a modicum of originality in 2017 is hard in this era of reboots and reinventing.

My hobbies (in addition of getting in fights with troll Nazis on the net) involve amateur writing (in French-my French is much better than my English) which surprisingly mostly revolves about killing thinly veiled expies of Nazis (don't say you were not warned about the general tone of the work). Unfortunately, as I have at times the attention span of a goldfish, I keep changing, shall we say, the high end concept, the original plot line (cause space-Nazi fortresses blowing up with and/or space-Nazis brutally dying, is not exactly super original) following the latest anime/videogame I played, unshamedly trying to use clever ideas, or at least refuge in audacity ones (as mentioned in another post, the whole thing aims to be at the same time quite intellectual and inspired by Final Fantasy VI and Star Wars...)

It's quite a wall of text, even if edited, so I will wait to see if someone is vaguely interested (Disclaimer : I'm perfectly aware that this is awful prose. It was writing or farming AP for my third toon...)

I think your focus on Nazis is about 60 years late to the (former) party. There are no actual Nazis anymore. Therefore they make a poor villain, imho.

[Halicia]

I would highly suggest getting an editor and/or writing it in French, and then getting an actual translator if the story's success merits it.

[sarahtasher]

It's written in French.

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I think your focus on Nazis is about 60 years late to the (former) party. There are no actual Nazis anymore. Therefore they make a poor villain, imho.

Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Star Wars say hi.

Plus, as mentioned, I made at least the effort of making the Nazis not wear German uniforms or helms.

[Tijuana]

It's written in French.

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Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Star Wars say hi.

Plus, as mentioned, I made at least the effort of making the Nazis not wear German uniforms or helms.

Good point. I like the idea of Nazis, ala Star Wars, more than specifically using their name and flags, etc. I like the sort of high fantasy ultimate evil side, but I think realistically, invoking actual Nazis can be more complicated today, than it was for Indiana. People are obviously touchy af.