After Amelia

[TanaNari]

*Slow breath*. Yeah. Amelia's over, and now I have to think about what to do next and how to do it. I feel confident enough in my writing now to start my own, original, fiction.

Amelia was always meant to be a learning experience- the learning experience- for me. A playground where I was allowed to screw around, make mistakes, and just generally enjoy myself for the sake of enjoying myself while testing the limits of my abilities and skill.

I've found those limits, tested them, kicked them in the nuts, and found much more lofty limits to test myself against.

Of course, now there's a matter of what comes next and how to do it. Setting up Patreon account is obvious, paypal too probably- maybe some kind of subscriber incentive program. Because Original Fiction! means I can attempt to make money off of my works!

Gotta figure out where to host a story. Yadda Yadda. Tips and ideas will be greatly appreciated- and will undoubtedly speed up when I get to my next project.

Which brings us to which project...

Spoiler: Path Magic

Fans of Amelia's transhumanist themes will probably like this one.

Meet Amanda, a teenage girl who is the unfortunate target of an honest to goodness human sacrifice cult. She is rescued by Liam, a powerful Green Path mage. He's mysterious, powerful, and has answers to the questions that haunt her nightmares. He's also jaded, inhuman, and possibly a far greater threat to her than the people who were minutes from murdering her could ever be.

The story follows her as she explores an ancient and often times disturbing culture of sorcerers, evolving from a complete newbie to an accomplished young magic user... although, to be clear, she'll NEVER be in the big leagues during the story. Knowledge is easy enough to acquire, if you can convince someone to share... real power takes centuries.

The advantage to this one is a lot of it writes itself. The main characters are easy for me to find the "language" of. The setting is varied and complex and set in the modern world, giving me a lot of room to work with. Those fans of Amelia's soap opera and political stylings will enjoy this one.

If Amelia was 'TanaNari attempts Worm', then this is 'TanaNari attempts American Gods'.

Spoiler: Second Nature

Another modern magical setting. This time with faeries! Although the way fae work in this, there's plenty of variety. Fae have animalistic forms that in part define their nature. The "typical" faerie imagery are the "royal" type, born of the earliest forms of life. Insects. Where you get your "tinkerbell" type faeries. Then you move on to "lesser" courts. Fishlike fae tend to be the occultists. Amphibians usually fall in that group as well. Reptiles tend to be the scholars and historians. Birds the merchant castes.

Mammals are the commoner classes. The soldiers and the builders. Yes, this means you can have straight up "werewolves" from a "wolf fae warriors". Woo.

Fae who operate on earth bond with a mortal. This process is of varying significance depending on many factors, and usually is done with young children, most of whom eventually stop believing. The birth of the 'imaginary friend'. A rare few retain their potential into their teen years. These Gifted are important (for plot reasons).

Meet Shura and Micheal. Shura's a Genki Girl gremlin (technology and sabotage faerie), based off a Sugar Glider. Micheal's a fairly typical geeky kid of sixteen. Who is in no way equipped to deal with a magical action girl who has a five seater hoverjet that runs on the laughter of children. That she stores in her pants.

.... It's a rather silly premise. It has its drama, but it's very "anime inspired" by its nature, with elements of the shonen and slice of life genres and a relatively flimsy (but at least acknowledged) excuses for how this setting can exist the way it does. Naturally, it takes place in a highschool. American highschool, mind you.

TanaNari does Kill la Kill- but without all the sex offenders- if that makes any sense.

Spoiler: Midara

Then there's the Midara setting. Oh where do I start? Fantasy setting (instead of treating fantasy as a genre unto itself). I have a thousand years of history for this setting. Cataclysm. Rebuilding. Wars. Another freakin' cataclysm. More rebuilding. More wars. A third freakin' cataclysm (this planet has shit luck, seriously... its own fault for letting me create it...), some more rebuilding. And then finally a fourth cataclysm that would be the end of the series.


.... I could spend the next two decades on this setting before its conclusion, at the rates which I wrote Amelia. And that's without any new inspiration.

The titles are as follows, in chronological order in the setting. Keep in mind that "chronological order" will NOT mean "publishing order". And there are often centuries and continents between one story and the next, so very little can be spoiled by reading them out of order.

Except the ones in the Paradox cluster. The ones in bold are options as initial stories in the setting.


Monsters: A story focused on the restoration of a war torn nation against the chaos beyond, in the aftermath of the first cataclysm. Very politicky by nature. Meet Malchael and Eris, who are entirely horrible people and clearly the antagonists, even if much of the story focuses on them. No. Seriously. It's a romance story between a necromancer and what passes for a demon in the setting. My readers who enjoy Amelia's WAFF moments... will probably feel horribly conflicted...

Void Goddess: This one focuses on the second Cataclysm. Meet Sira and Kesh, childhood friends and on again/off again lovers who rediscover an ancient sorcery. Also, the phrase "Undead Dragon God" might come up at some point in this story.

Reclamation: The story of the rise of an empire. Again, fairly political story. This one focuses on Tyr, Azes and Lynd, a pair of brothers (and a sister) who establish themselves and try to bring peace and civilization to a world greatly lacking in both.

Memories: This story follows an amnesiac, his servitude to a powerful lord, and the many secrets of his past. Pushes into "psych thriller, fantasy setting". Not doing this as a starter. But it's definitely a story that deserves told eventually.

Karana: The story follows Dusk, a young demihuman trying to achieve freedom for her people in the midst of a brutal war between two foreign empires that spend most of their efforts fighting in her homeland instead of theirs.

Heritage: More a companion prequel to Paradox than its own keystone story. Meet Rana, a young woman whose ancestry gives her unusual and unwanted powers and responsibilities. Celeste, her best friend. And Ral, a street urchin who aids her in her rebellion against hundreds of years of tradition.

Paradox: Meet Lal- a princess on a diplomatic mission. And Arakash, her guardian. Her enslaved quasi-incubus guardian who's quite displeased with the whole chain of events. There is travel and adventure and collecting the usual cast of misfits. Also, again with the damn Undead Dragon Gods. This one's finish will then involve the writing of Heritage and Echoes, in that order.

Echoes: The companion sequel to Paradox. This one explores the aftermath of Paradox and sets the stage for Dust and a couple as-yet-unnamed ideas that aren't yet enough to apply to books.

Dust: This one's not an option for the starter story. Meet Elruin, a child with frightening powers and a troubled mind, in her misadventures. Mister Clackybones, her faithful undead steed. And a sadistic ghost with a mysterious past and that does its best to protect her. Mostly from herself.

Spoiler: Price

I expect this one to get the most votes.

Price is the supers setting Amelia eventually inspired me to write. A lot of the favored (and less favored) OCs in Amelia will show up, either as heroes or villains. Zach will be a lead character for a while, oscillating between moods much the way Amelia did. Only without all the World Scale Events stuff. I did that in Amelia. I'll do it in other stories as well. Not this one.

Where I loved Amelia most- aside the ending itself- were the "street level" storylines and the character interactions. And that's all Price will have in it. Price will be legitimately darker than Amelia on a lot of levels. Themes of abuse, self destruction, crime and cruelty that were either avoided or dealt with cleanly and quickly in Amelia (because seriously... the Worm setting is Easy Mode compared to Price) will be explored here.

Remember Baal and Dream Girl? Instead of being characters that matter for three or four chapters each and otherwise only exist to develop other characters, those two will be incredibly major villains that do a lot of damage, kill major characters, and keep on being horrific for book length story arcs each.

The Indiana arc could also be made to take an extended period of time, without Amelia's "fuck you, we have Zerg and incredible tinker tech" button.

The theme of power at a cost is right there in the name. Gain power, lose something important. Characters like Emma, Zach, Akaihana, Genius Loci and Anima will be the rule. Stronger your powers, more it costs you.

There will also be a stronger focus on the Pairbonding as seen in mid to late game Amelia. It will be a very common phenomena in Price- and it, too, will be part of the blending of Dark and Light that my readers have come to love so well. Or want to murder me for. I'm not sure yet.

And there will be no "epic" heroes or villains. The best of them might be a match for a tank in terms of destructive and defensive potential. But that's upper limits.

Now, over the course of the next couple days / a week I'll be introducing snippets or even entire chapters from some of the above, to give the readers a taste of what each story is going to "feel" like when completed. I'll create an index page to run with that.

The Midara supercluster will not be fully represented, though I'll give chunks away for Paradox, Monsters, and probably Karana or Reclamation and Memories. Although I'm less than eager to do Monsters or Memories first. They're both good story ideas... but they don't really fit the tone that the other books do, generally speaking. I'm worried they'd create the wrong impression of what Midara's going to (generally) be like.

 

[evildice]

If Amelia was 'TanaNari attempts Worm', then this is 'TanaNari attempts American Gods'.

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This one.

It's ambitious as hell, as you'll be trying to meet or exceed Gaiman.

 

[dasstan]

Agreeing with evildice. As interesting as Price sounds, it almost seems like the easy option after having just finished a story that focuses heavily on pairbonds and the cost of power. And as much as I like Zach, I think that sticking with the easy option won't challenge you nearly as much as the other options would.

 

[PineTreeq]

Is path the one where magic comes from ideas? So there's baseball team spirits and car spirits and all that?

 

[Peanuckle]

Path Magic sounds really good. Thrown into the deep end of a very strange world with an... imperfect guide.

Price seems too close to Worm, especially if you intend to monetize it. It'd probably draw flak for making money on Wildbow's work.

 

[LuridThrone]

As promised, Price gets my vote

Though i also voted for Path Magic, in the hope you do something really cool with it ^^. Dark occultic primal magic isnt done nearly often enough. I'd kill for a proper druidy type in any story. (nature isnt about balance, is about conflict, get it right people!). Or atleased, thats what my brain gets out of 'green path'

 

[Spetz N9ne]

Put my vote down for Path Magic, but only because you said you were less interested in doing Monsters first.

Seriously though, Monsters sounds like something I'd really enjoy

 

[namelis]

Based on the descriptions id probably start reading any of them whether id continue I can't say until it reaches the end

If they were all completed now and i had to pick one to read first it would be a close tie between second nature and path I'd probably flip a coin

As to which one I think you shuld do first I think you should do the one you think would be the most fun for you to do because people who enjoy what they are doing are generally the most productive and seriously if you don't enjoy something why choose to do it

 

[wayne82444]

I think all of those sound great, possibly aside from Price, but then I'm not much for supers either. I think Marvel and DC comics just killed the Genre fr me given their constant reboots, and interweaving everything they do together so you have to start a new series just to figure out who that new guy who just showed up is. I actually didn't read Amelia because of that, I've heard enough of it to know you are a good author though, so I'd actually like to read your other work. I would read Amelia if I could actually get into Worm, but like I just said, I think Marvel and DC just killed my interest in Superheros entirely. Anyway I voted for Second Nature since it sounds funny as hell, and Path Magic which also sounds great. Can't really decide between those two.

 

[cyberswordsmen]

Both Path and Price sound epic.

 

[Leonidas333]

I would probably read any of them, though I voted to Path Magic and Midara. Are you planning on sticking with the online formula, or were you planning to move to self published or even submitting to a publisher eventually?

 

[Hexed999]

Putting my vote in for Midra and Path magic. I have to agree with the others' concern that Price is too close to Worm to do right after Amelia. Maybe after you finished one or two other stories? As for where to post, both of the web serials I'm currently reading (twisted cogs and twig) are hosted on WordPress so you may want to check that out.

 

[gatewaewanderer]

All of these ideas sound awesome, and I'd love to see TanaNari write them all. But if he's asking us to only vote for one... Honestly, and mind you these are only my opinons,

Midara sounds like the kind of story that he could etching at for a decade or more, and maybe never be completely do with, so I'd say that's something to aim for, not with as the first original work he writes.

Path Magic... I'm not sure what to make of the description here, if it takes centuries to gather any real power and the main protagonist is young that that's a long way away. She'd have to hang in there on her wits, skill, and the aid of her allies. If done right I could see it being a good story, but from the description given in TanaNari's post alone I'm not sure if it's the kind of story I'd want to read.

Second Nature and Price...

Second Nature sounds interesting enough that I'd really be willing to read either or. I'm not sure what kind of plot Second Nature would have from the description given, but it sounds as if it would be almost entirely the kind slice-of-life goodness Amelia was well-known for (when TanaNari wasn't burying us in GrimDark, Unfortunate Implications, and well, everything else Amelia was well-known for and aptly given title 'Darkest Fixfic' for,) in a comedic fantasy flavor and I have to admit, while comedy isn't normally something I like to read, and still uncommon in my watching habits, I TanaNari could still pull it off in a way I'd love to read.

And if Price is everything we love in Amelia when it still at street-level, with familiar characters where possible, well, I'd love to read it for sure.

So, yeah. Second Nature and Price have my votes.

 

[tordg]

I said in the other thread that I'd like to see Path Magic and Second Nature in that order, and I still feel that way.

 

[TanaNari]

This one.

It's ambitious as hell, as you'll be trying to meet or exceed Gaiman.

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You just wanna see me fail, you asshole.

Is path the one where magic comes from ideas? So there's baseball team spirits and car spirits and all that?

Click to shrink...

Not ideas alone, but yeah.

As to which one I think you shuld do first I think you should do the one you think would be the most fun for you to do because people who enjoy what they are doing are generally the most productive and seriously if you don't enjoy something why choose to do it

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... If I didn't like the idea, it wouldn't be up there for voting.

I would read Amelia if I could actually get into Worm, but like I just said, I think Marvel and DC just killed my interest in Superheros entirely. Anyway I voted for Second Nature since it sounds funny as hell, and Path Magic which also sounds great. Can't really decide between those two.

Click to shrink...

Huh. There's a way to look at it.

I would probably read any of them, though I voted to Path Magic and Midara. Are you planning on sticking with the online formula, or were you planning to move to self published or even submitting to a publisher eventually?

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Sticking to online. But don't get me wrong, I am SO not opposed to physical publications. If I find an interested publisher... I'll take it.

Building a fanbase, possibly doing Kickstarter later on, as means to set up for printing out some books... those are things that are quite likely to happen some day.

I have to agree with the others' concern that Price is too close to Worm to do right after Amelia. Maybe after you finished one or two other stories? As for where to post, both of the web serials I'm currently reading (twisted cogs and twig) are hosted on WordPress so you may want to check that out.

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I was looking at Wordpress. Seems to have a good rep.

All of these ideas sound awesome, and I'd love to see TanaNari write them all. But if he's asking us to only vote for one... Honestly, and mind you these are only my opinons,

Midara sounds like the kind of story that he could etching at for a decade or more, and maybe never be completely do with, so I'd say that's something to aim for, not with as the first original work he writes.

Path Magic... I'm not sure what to make of the description here, if it takes centuries to gather any real power and the main protagonist is young that that's a long way away. She'd have to hang in there on her wits, skill, and the aid of her allies. If done right I could see it being a good story, but from the description given in TanaNari's post alone I'm not sure if it's the kind of story I'd want to read.

Click to shrink...

Midara is a big setting. Kinda like Worm, part of why I like it as an option. I can do a series of books with it.

Path is not that kind of "action adventure" story thing like you saw from me in Amelia. It's better to think of it as Survival Horror where a certain minority of the eldritch abominations are on your side. Although whether or not that's a good thing remains up in the air.

Second Nature and Price...

Second Nature sounds interesting enough that I'd really be willing to read either or. I'm not sure what kind of plot Second Nature would have from the description given, but it sounds as if it would be almost entirely the kind slice-of-life goodness Amelia was well-known for (when TanaNari wasn't burying us in GrimDark, Unfortunate Implications, and well, everything else Amelia was well-known for and aptly given title 'Darkest Fixfic' for,) in a comedic fantasy flavor and I have to admit, while comedy isn't normally something I like to read, and still uncommon in my watching habits, I TanaNari could still pull it off in a way I'd love to read.

And if Price is everything we love in Amelia when it still at street-level, with familiar characters where possible, well, I'd love to read it for sure.

So, yeah. Second Nature and Price have my votes.

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Price is the one most would be familiar with.

And the more I look at Second Nature and really try to figure out how I want to *write* it. The more I wonder if I picked the wrong medium. I'm beginning to think it would be better served as a graphic novel or web comic than a text only story. Just based on the sheer difficulty I'm having at writing a chapter that works right.

 

[Snake/Eater]

are we allowed to give story ideas?

 

[TanaNari]

May as well?

 

[gatewaewanderer]

And the more I look at Second Nature and really try to figure out how I want to *write* it. The more I wonder if I picked the wrong medium. I'm beginning to think it would be better served as a graphic novel or web comic than a text only story. Just based on the sheer difficulty I'm having at writing a chapter that works right.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I think I can see where you're coming from. It's a neat idea, but it does seem like it would work better in a format similar to what inspired it (anime or manga.)

Edit: Just had a thought; do you think you'd be able to convey at least a portion of what you want for each 'chapter' in Second Nature if you used stock royalty free images scavenged from the net? There's dozens of sites that have huge photo collections that you allowed browse and use for free, the problem is finding the good ones (the photos and the sites.) Just an idea, not really sure it'd be feasible in the long run, but it's something anyway.

 

[Snake/Eater]

What about a story set in a world,where time travail is used in every facet of society,from transportation,to food,entertainment,economics and vacationing,a world like that would look like a utopia at first glance, but looks could be deceiving.

 

[Ack]

What about a story set in a world,where time travail is used in every facet of society,from transportation,to food,entertainment,economics and vacationing,a world like that would look like a utopia at first glance, but looks could be deceiving.

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I actually had an idea for something like that. Not a full story idea, just a tiny fragment of one.

Imagine time travel applied as literal 'time management' in a supermarket.
Customers walk in, browse the shelves, pick out their purchases. As per normal, right?
Then they go to the checkout. Whereupon they are stepped backward through time to a point where there were no customers going through, so that they get to front up to the checkout immediately. Get their goods through, pay up, then they're automatically stepped forward to the point ten seconds after they walked in the front door. Each checkout person gets thirty seconds after each customer to take a breath, there are no lineups to get out of the store, and the carpark is never overcrowded because people are walking out of the store literally ten seconds after they walked in.

Walk into a fast food shop, get skipped to a point where there was no-one at the counter, give your order, it gets sent back five minutes to the kitchen, by the time you finish paying it's ready, you walk out again.

 

[Projectile]

most of whom eventually stop believing.

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I really shouldn't be questioning this rather than the hoverjet in the pants, but people "growing up" and no longer believing in magic when they have all the evidence that it does is one of my pet peeves. Unless there's some bizarre doublethink going on; if you would believe it without proof, then you can see the proof? Eh.

That aside, I voted for Path Magic. Liam doesn't really spark my interest, but the "soap opera and political stylings" were my favorite parts of Amelia. The theme of "real power takes centuries" is also particularly appealing. I do love reading about characters' struggles for power, but I'm sick to death of reading fanfics where the MC becomes a god after a few years.

The main reason I chose Path rather than Midara is because of the repeated disasters. This is honestly more of a personal failing of mine rather than a legitimate criticism, but that completely wrecks any sense of progress/purpose/stability in a series. I had the same problem with Tolkien. I would totally read the shit out of Reclamation, though.

In the interests of completeness, I might as well talk about my feelings about Price, too. I can't really be objective coming off of Amelia, but I'm a bit habituated to superheroes right now. Ask me again in a few days. Setting aside my low tolerance for darkness, I have been absolutely craving a superhero series without some kind of cosmic-scale threat in-universe. When they exist, they really overshadow any other potential conflict even if they're never mentioned. it's hard for me to care about some random mugging when the idea of the planet being destroyed is lurking in the depths of my mind, you know?

tl;dr: You rock, please write cool stuff.

 

[Coruscant Knave]

So, I voted for everything but Midara.

I may be a little jaded versus fantasy settings at this point. Each of the Midara stories looked interesting, especially Monsters and the Paradox series, and I would read them for sure if you wrote them.

But another original fantasy setting would likely be the hardest thing to get traction with when striking out on your own, while the urban fantasy and superhero stuff is a bit less saturated (this opinion may not reflect reality; I know that stuff has been on an upswing for a while and also I'm a bit out of touch with the current book trends).

So the Butcher Maneuver may be best: Make your name with something a tad more unique, then bust out the fantasy epic.

Good luck in whatever you pursue, I'm sure I'll be there.

 

[fmriver]

I really like Price, but you will need to be very careful in untangling your characters from the WORM world setting.
I don't like purely magic settings, and would rather there be a sci-fi explanation for 'magic' in my stories.

I disagree with the others, in that I feel the post-apocalyptic settings are the ones with the least potential growth. They're overdone so much, and having "centuries" between books means that they're sequels in name only. On a more selfish note, there is less incentive for people to get emotionally invested since they are different enough that they wouldn't tie in.

I think Zach is a very interesting character, and a modern urban setting is more in tune with what I'd like to read.

 

[evildice]

You just wanna see me fail, you asshole.

Click to shrink...

Serious answer: I'd rather see you fail at something ambitions than succeed at something easy, yeah. I suspect you learned a lot more from your failures than your successes in Amelia.

Tongue in cheeks answer: You haven't failed my asshole yet. Keep at it.

 

[ArnaudB]

Serious answer: I'd rather see you fail at something ambitions than succeed at something easy, yeah. I suspect you learned a lot more from your failures than your successes in Amelia.

Tongue in cheeks answer: You haven't failed my asshole yet. Keep at it.

Click to shrink...

That.... feel like bad advice for a first original work actually. For someone who wants to be a writer the most important thing for the first original book is to finish it. Because afterward you're going to write another, then another, then another...

*****

Now onto the stories that TanaNari wants to write : I'd say Price as my first choice, Path as a quite possible alternative, Karana from the Midara setting also deserve a mention.

The first thing that compel me in Price and Path is the street-level scale. It's a lot easier to relate to characters dealing with personal, easily imagined and understood issues, than with 'End of the World' and 'Apocalypse if not' plot-lines.

Then I get split between Price and path. The fact that Price's brief summary is more expanded than Path is certainly helping a lot Price over Path.


I think the others things that make Path less attractive is the presence of uber-powerful beings with one being mentor of the heroine. Liam saving Amanda edge into the "romantic supernatural man/girl" plot-line and the jaded/inhuman reminds of ageless edgy!not-SI that infest fanfiction and sadly fiction. The other point might be that Amanda not becoming high-tier isn't something you can easily fit into a summary... so reading the story might easily let me expect Deus Ex Machina power-ups at any moment.
Overall, I'd say Path might send very mixed signals depending on the readerships and I wouldn't take it as a first original work.

Price, I would say, might feel... more right as a supernatural setting that happens to have traits from superheroes settings than a taken superhero setting.
You do make a very good point in saying that Worm was an easy mode : criminals could be found easily rather than hiding behind disguises and inside buildings. Traps, blackmail and advanced social-fu weren't used against parahumans. Money too, how I laughed at the countless fanfictions where the answer to Taylor financial's problems was to rob gang-members...
Anyway my point was that in such a setting, why use costumes? Fake identities and masks would most certainly be common, notably to shield families, but the true terror of super-powered people for everyone is when they can hide (As countless stealth games demonstrated : Deus Ex and Crysis anyone?)
I also approve of greater powers having greater costs. It feels far more right when characters earns their power-ups rather than win the lottery... and keep winning it.

On Second Nature, I'd tend to avoid the story as a first work because : it seems that a lot would need to be explained for the reader, and it could easily end up too silly. The explanation problem is concerning because it meant limiting both events and explanations to what is actually relevant... with theoretically much greater length restriction for the story than for Amelia. The silliness problem is one I had myself and was noted in Amelia with the difficulty to juggle between fluff horror and fluffy fluff.
I think Second Nature is a different kind of story than Amelia with a different structure that might make it difficult to use the experience gathered by writing Amelia. Thus it's, for me, a story to breach once you know you can keep a story focused on a part of a setting and a plot-line for 90,000 and calling it done.

Miranda, it feels like a very ambitious project that make me leery of it for a first book. Notably because in the (most miraculous) proposition where your work bring editorial attention... having the setting already published in an online website might create some complicated legal troubles.
Otherwise, well, the sheer multiple-centuries spanning tales feel a lot like what amateur writers proposes only to come really short of what they promise. The many political-oriented stories makes it even harder to take seriously, like it's announcing to be the next Game of Thrones or whatever (I haven't read them and I believe you didn't either, but it does gives a similar feel scale-wise.)

I suppose to weight in more, we'll need snippet. At the moment the fact that Price is the most described of all stories help it a lot over the others. We'll see if the favorites change when we get more details.

Anyway, good luck in your venture in original fiction!

 

[evildice]

That.... feel like bad advice for a first original work actually. For someone who wants to be a writer the most important thing for the first original book is to finish it. Because afterward you're going to write another, then another, then another...

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I think it depends on your economics.

Are you dependent on a commercial establishment for publication and marketing of your works until such time as you are so famous you can give them the finger? If so, go for safety first. This is what Heinlein did, building a brand name until such time as he could give his editors the finger and write a book about going back in time for the specific purpose of fucking his own mother. It took a while, and a lot of commercial success, for him to finally breach the Motherfucker Barrier -- and honestly I don't think that doing so improved his work.

If you're NOT dependent on a commercial establishment, and you DON'T need to show quarterly numbers to some pointy-haired manager, then IMHO your focus ought to be on improving your writing as fast as possible. That includes taking risks, and one of those risks is project failure. I don't think that project failure is a huge risk for TanaNari, specifically because I've seen him deal with risk-failures during Amelia.

Changing genre is also a risk, and it's one which I think TanaNari ought to embrace. Even if you don't do magic next, I highly recommend doing something other than super heroes. This is both for personal growth, and also for branding: you don't want to be "that supers author" -- well, unless you do want to be a genre author. In that case, go supers and never look back.

 

[dasstan]

Changing genre is also a risk, and it's one which I think TanaNari ought to embrace. Even if you don't do magic next, I highly recommend doing something other than super heroes. This is both for personal growth, and also for branding: you don't want to be "that supers author" -- well, unless you do want to be a genre author. In that case, go supers and never look back.

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From everything he's said during the writing of Amelia, it was all about growing as an author, finding his limits, breaching them, and looking for more. Assuming that that quality of self improvement is a consistent thing, sticking with one genre could work just fine, really. There are lots of things that can be explored through nuanced expression within the superhero genre itself.

That said, the super-setting that's been detailed here is already pretty damn close to the themes explored in Amelia. If TanaNari wants to challenge himself, sticking to something he knows works doesn't really do that. Price will surely be popular, and I trust him to write an engaging story, but I don't think he'll get the kind of returns he got from Amelia.

 

[TanaNari]

I really shouldn't be questioning this rather than the hoverjet in the pants, but people "growing up" and no longer believing in magic when they have all the evidence that it does is one of my pet peeves. Unless there's some bizarre doublethink going on; if you would believe it without proof, then you can see the proof? Eh.

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It's magic, I don't have to explain shit?

Seriously, though. It's pretty much World of Darkness logic. Faeries comes with a Somebody-Else's-Problem field. Which allows Shura to do all those crazy things that anime does that make no goddamn sense.

That aside, I voted for Path Magic. Liam doesn't really spark my interest, but the "soap opera and political stylings" were my favorite parts of Amelia. The theme of "real power takes centuries" is also particularly appealing. I do love reading about characters' struggles for power, but I'm sick to death of reading fanfics where the MC becomes a god after a few years.

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Luckily, don't have to worry about that. The mechanics of the setting will allow an apprentice like Amanda to actually fight a master like Liam in physical combat. There's a cap on what magic can do to improve upon the human body, so if they stick to mere super martial arts, she will be able to fight... for about five minutes... against things that, if they used that kind of strategy, could fight each other for hours.

Masters do NOT use that kind of strategy, however.

The main reason I chose Path rather than Midara is because of the repeated disasters. This is honestly more of a personal failing of mine rather than a legitimate criticism, but that completely wrecks any sense of progress/purpose/stability in a series. I had the same problem with Tolkien. I would totally read the shit out of Reclamation, though.

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Continuity doesn't happen in real life, either. I can't justify a legitimate continuity between the modern USA and even as recent as the Second World War.

Midara's closer to what Pratchett did in Discworld, before he started reusing characters. Independent settings, independent stories, independent themes. With a handful of exceptions.

Or, for a much less egotistical comparison. The Fire Emblem series. And/or Might and Magic. Same world (sort of?) different everything else.

I'm not about to compare myself to Pratchett in any serious sense. But I think I can do better than Fire Emblem and the Might and Magic series.

In the interests of completeness, I might as well talk about my feelings about Price, too. I can't really be objective coming off of Amelia, but I'm a bit habituated to superheroes right now. Ask me again in a few days. Setting aside my low tolerance for darkness, I have been absolutely craving a superhero series without some kind of cosmic-scale threat in-universe. When they exist, they really overshadow any other potential conflict even if they're never mentioned. it's hard for me to care about some random mugging when the idea of the planet being destroyed is lurking in the depths of my mind, you know?

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Yeah. Honestly, that was the part of Worm I hated most. The Endbringers. Scion. I'd have been much happier writing my 'fic without those coming into play.

tl;dr: You rock, please write cool stuff.

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Don't worry. I will.

I really like Price, but you will need to be very careful in untangling your characters from the WORM world setting.

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Price doesn't function like Worm. For starters, it's a "the earliest records of supers are drawn on cave walls" type setting.

I will draw parallels, "phases" of pop culture referencing heroes through history- both actual supers settings (re: the 90s grunge look heroes, the silver age heroes, so on) as well as before-they-were-called-supers, like the ancient gods/goddesses, somewhat more modern saints and holy men, and the much more modern folk tales types like Paul Bunyon and the like.

Then comes actual superheroes that called themselves as such, born mainly out of the meatgrinder that were the two World Wars forcing more superhumans to be created than had ever happened before in history.

I don't like purely magic settings, and would rather there be a sci-fi explanation for 'magic' in my stories.

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Heh. Then you'd probably like Midara and Path better than you'll like Price. The first two at least take time to study their magic and treat the harnessing of power as a science unto itself. It's closer to Full Metal Alchemist in its approach than, say, D&D.

Price... is along the lines of "we've been studying this in some form or another since the beginning of history, and all we've managed to do is rule out everything that can be tested".

I disagree with the others, in that I feel the post-apocalyptic settings are the ones with the least potential growth. They're overdone so much, and having "centuries" between books means that they're sequels in name only. On a more selfish note, there is less incentive for people to get emotionally invested since they are different enough that they wouldn't tie in.

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Luckily, there's only one post-apoc in the Midara setting. All the others are somewhere between "dark ages" and "renaissance" and a couple are "disaster/action" where it's set right in the middle of said apocalypse.

I think Zach is a very interesting character, and a modern urban setting is more in tune with what I'd like to read.

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He is fun. I never did get to explore his character as much as I'd like. Really, I went out of my way to avoid letting the OCs dominate the story, knowing full well I'd one day unzip them and create my own story from them.

Serious answer: I'd rather see you fail at something ambitions than succeed at something easy, yeah. I suspect you learned a lot more from your failures than your successes in Amelia.

Tongue in cheeks answer: You haven't failed my asshole yet. Keep at it.

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Valid points.

I think the others things that make Path less attractive is the presence of uber-powerful beings with one being mentor of the heroine. Liam saving Amanda edge into the "romantic supernatural man/girl" plot-line and the jaded/inhuman reminds of ageless edgy!not-SI that infest fanfiction and sadly fiction. The other point might be that Amanda not becoming high-tier isn't something you can easily fit into a summary... so reading the story might easily let me expect Deus Ex Machina power-ups at any moment.

Overall, I'd say Path might send very mixed signals depending on the readerships and I wouldn't take it as a first original work.

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Fair enough. To be clear, there will be no romantic anything between those two. Masters getting involved with apprentices is viewed as pedophilia. In a world where a mage's powers can be stripped by the same forces that grant them powers if they break the wrong rule.

Besides. Liam already has an on again/off again girlfriend. And an on again/off again boyfriend. And very stable fuck buddy. All amongst other masters.

And Amanda has a boyfriend. So I can poke at them and cause DRAMA!... because god knows I can't cause that kind of drama in Liam's life.

Amanda: Sorry, I had a sudden change of plans. I have to go on a trip for a few days.
B/F: This is the third time in as many months, Amanda. What's really going on?
Amanda: *suffers*
B/F: *Rightfully unhappy*

Liam's G/F: So, I was thinking of having a gangbang this weekend, wanna come?
Liam: Sorry... I managed to track down this werewolf, and I'm thinking it's right around the proper strength to give Amanda a good challenge.
Liam's G/F: Ah, want me to put it off for next weekend, then?
Liam: Nah, go have fun. I have a feeling I'll busy then, too. You know how new apprentices are. Speaking of, how's yours doing?

Price, I would say, might feel... more right as a supernatural setting that happens to have traits from superheroes settings than a taken superhero setting.

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It basically is. Powers go unexplained in the setting, in the "why and how" sense, at least. Plenty of knowledge about "what" out there. It's mostly out in the open. Phrases like "the Mark of Cain" are used to justify the 'why supers don't kill' trope.

You do make a very good point in saying that Worm was an easy mode : criminals could be found easily rather than hiding behind disguises and inside buildings. Traps, blackmail and advanced social-fu weren't used against parahumans. Money too, how I laughed at the countless fanfictions where the answer to Taylor financial's problems was to rob gang-members...

Anyway my point was that in such a setting, why use costumes? Fake identities and masks would most certainly be common, notably to shield families, but the true terror of super-powered people for everyone is when they can hide (As countless stealth games demonstrated : Deus Ex and Crysis anyone?)

I also approve of greater powers having greater costs. It feels far more right when characters earns their power-ups rather than win the lottery... and keep winning it.

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Yeah. You'd be amazed at how many times I wanted to explore plotlines in Amelia only to be stopped by "fuck, that's too dark for this setting".

On Second Nature, I'd tend to avoid the story as a first work because : it seems that a lot would need to be explained for the reader, and it could easily end up too silly. The explanation problem is concerning because it meant limiting both events and explanations to what is actually relevant... with theoretically much greater length restriction for the story than for Amelia. The silliness problem is one I had myself and was noted in Amelia with the difficulty to juggle between fluff horror and fluffy fluff.

I think Second Nature is a different kind of story than Amelia with a different structure that might make it difficult to use the experience gathered by writing Amelia. Thus it's, for me, a story to breach once you know you can keep a story focused on a part of a setting and a plot-line for 90,000 and calling it done.

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Well, it's *meant* to be silly... so... but, yeah, this is the kind of thing I'd rather do as a webcomic. I'll focus on something else and maybe stumble across an artist that'd be interested in working with me after I get a little better known.

 

[Beyogi]

Path magic. I'm not sure if that's because the other settings don't appeal to me or because I'm curious what you're going to do with a mysterious Liam that sounds like every female erotica urban fantasy male fuck-toy/main character ever.

 

[LuridThrone]

I was wondering if we could get more details about the magic system your planning to use in Path?