Had an inspiration tonight for the first time in my life

[shadow of a soul]

Hello, this is my first post here, i searched google specifically for a Sci-Fi forum, since I don't really know where else to post this.

Here's a link to a pastebin of what my brain cooked up tonight. Please read if you've got a spare moment, I'd love to hear someone's opinion. Seems to me that it would make a scenario for a movie or a videogame. Although maybe I'm just overrating myself. Anyway, any critisism is welcome.

http://pastebin.com/XaeafZQa

 

[Mirelly]

Nice work, mate.

Your scenario would make a nice background for a novel, a movie, or -- indeed -- a game.

Obviously your precis is raw and unrefined, but that doesn't need criticising. Given an SF background, your ideas are perfectly described and I see nothing obvious to criticise. So get to work young man! I suggest that you write it as a novel first (writing movie scripts is highly specialised and not at all easy, and creating games! Oy oy oy!).

Only advice I have to offer is a short list for novelists everywhere.

1. Your main character? Underground, rich, or poor?
2. What is he good at? What's his weakness?
3. Who is the bad guy?
4. Is there any reason why we should feel sorry for him? What is his weakness?

Once you have those items sketched out you can start your novel. You can throw in the sort of problems your hero really should run away from because of his "weakness" ... perhaps he does run away, and that makes the next problem you dump on him even more difficult to deal with.

Of course, in the end, he "mans up" and faces his demons and defeats the bad guys ... and (?) perhaps makes the world a better place as well learning something important about himself.

 

[shadow of a soul]

Well, as I said in the title, it's the first time I ever got any inspiration of this kind. I'd love to make it into something more than just an idea, say, a novel, but I don't think I've got what it takes. Inspiration isn't easy to come by for me, and writing a novel means recreating human relations, which I'm not too knowledgeable of, either.
Anyway, thanks! Maybe sometime in the future I'll "man up" (see what I did there? ) and start working on it.

 

[Mirelly]

Don't sell yourself short. "Human relations" in story form develop through dialogue. The trick is in acting, inside your head. If you have a clear idea of what the person is like (I generally pick someone I know reasonably well, for example an affable uncle, or a dotty aunt, or a misery-guts shopkeeper), you can soon find yourself imagining what they might say. The hard part is switching between two characters to keep a conversation going. The only way to master that is to practice.

I used to be terrible at dialogue, but I've got better after lots of practice. I run a website called Wayward Ink which I started with 4 other aficionados of The Sims because we are all keen writers and found our inspiration coming from our game Sims ... the little guys really do inspire one to tell their story. One of our members has been writing a never-ending epic of vampires, fairies, witches and ghosts for several years, telling the story almost completely with dialogue alone, posting snippets and scenes, which range in length from a few lines to several hundred words, almost every day. We also write non-sims related stuff.

If you are serious about wanting to write, you should consider joining us. We're always pleased to have new friends who want a bit of feedback on their first efforts at writing. We all know how excruciating it is to plop your work down for others to see ... what if they point and laugh! Well we're not like that.