Creating a story in which the hero(es) lose
So I am still in the primitive stages of creating my own world and story, if I even do it that is. I am still trying to get a feel for where I want to go with it. The biggest issue would be that, my world would be heavily influenced from novels like Lord of The Rings, Redwall (children's series similar to Lord of the Rings with personification of animals), Shannara series, and so on. These are stories I grew up with and loved. This would also mean that, my story would be very cookie cutter fantasy. You can apply various elements from across literature works, but they will have a familiar feel due to the fact that the story wouldn't be "original" as the influence would be pretty evident.
1) Would having a cookie cutter story be okay? We see this recipe often repeated in anime where the story has a similar feel and an expected outcome with similar character personalities. It seems to work in anime as many of these shows are popular.
2) Because stories and books for that matter seem to be on the decline as more and more visual media becomes available, would I need surprise elements or twists that are otherwise unexpected from the said genre in hopes that the story would be read and not passed over as "another one of these"?
3) Would creating a story that ends with the enemy winning be something interesting to others? Let's face it, if a more realistic version of LOTR was created, chances are, middle earth would be ruled by Sauron right now. I for one, would love to read a follow up novel about a world ruled by orcs. Would a story that ended with the "bad side" winning be a desirable fresh outcome that people would read? The anime Attack on Titan is heavily popular. This story is depressing, hopeless, many main characters die, and humanity is losing the fight.
I hope these questions are not too opinion based as I am more interested to see if such a world would be desirable by an audience. What literature works would fall into a dark fantasy? Game of Thrones would be the closest body of work, however it still isn't quite the tone I am looking for. Would this be too niche?
I wonder if I would alienate the fantasy reader because it would be a different expected outcome. Take Star Wars for example. I personally was kind of put off with Rogue One for deviating too far from the Star Wars theme and plot. Many people do not feel this way, but I personally did.
EDIT: "If you yourself aren't going to buy into the world you're creating, you can cast-iron guarantee no-one else will." Let me clarify something that I have been seeing popping up in responses. It isn't that I am not passionate enough about my idea or that I am not 100% sold on the idea, it's that I am writing for others and not myself. You can be 100% passionate about the earth being flat and you believe it to your core, but that doesn't mean I am going to listen to you just because you are passionate.
I just wanted to say WOW. The feedback and offering of help and good research materials (books to read) has been more than I ever hoped to have received. I really appreciate everyone's positive critique that gave me a TON of thoughts to ponder over. It probably is pretty evident that this is my first attempt at writing a non academic piece of work so that is also why I am a bit nervous/hesitant. So thank you to everyone who offered advice and will provide any future insight after this edit. It is greatly appreciated and it gives me more confidence that I should further pursue this.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/26282. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
3 answers
I for one, would love to read a follow up novel about a world ruled by orcs.
So let me ask you this: Why not write that book instead?
In fact, why not make the orcs the heroes of your story?
- Could the orcs be in rebellion against your Sauron character? Could they be done with the entire thing and just want to wrap up the war so they can go home to their orc families? Could they be bored and just want to go home and watch Dancing with the Nazgûl?
- Are there band-geek orcs and slacker orcs and intellectual orcs and middle-manager orcs? Are there anal-retentive orcs and messy eater orcs and orcs who have an allergy to bonefish?
- Is there a rivalry between different tribes of orcs like sports team fans? Is there a racial rivalry which is more serious? Is there a rivalry between orcs and Uruk-Hai?
Figure out what fascinates you here. Is it that the Good Guys always win and you're curious about what happens if the Bad Guys win? Have you read any of the myriad post-apocalyptic dystopian YA series currently in vogue? Are those not appealing because the Good Guys still find a way to win? Do you think that exploring the other side of the story is inherently more interesting?
I agree entirely with @Werrf that Downer Endings Suck for the most part, so don't do that. If your orcs are the bad guys and they lose at the end, that's okay, because you can show that even though they are rounded characters, they are still the bad guys and they should lose. Or reverse it and the Good Guys lose because they are in fact not as Good as Tolkien would have it.
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In fiction there are protagonists, the characters that the writer wants the readers to identify with, and antagonists, the characters who have opposing goals and seek to stop the protagonists from achieving their goals.
There are also heroes and villains in many works of fiction. Heroes tend to be noble and heroic and good and villains tend to be evil. And there are many variations of heroes and villains.
Imagine a story here a child tries to get cookies from the cookie jar without permission and the mother tries to prevent it. It would be equally easy to write a version with the child the protagonist and the mother the antagonist or the mother the protagonist and the child the antagonist. But it would be kind of hard to convince most audiences that either was a hero or a villain.
Now imagine a history book or article written by a modern professional historian. It might describe a conflict of some sort between different leaders and/or groups. But according to the dispassionate tone of most modern historical works it would try to determine causes and effects and motivations and describe the events accurately but not describe anyone as being a hero or a villain. Most modern history works can have protagonists or antagonists but rarely have heroes and villains.
Of course if someone has an ethical code and reads a modern history they can form opinions about where on the scale between total good and total evil various historical characters were based on their actions. If good and evil are real, certainly every person who ever lived had some type of good/evil score, even though we might not have enough information to estimate that score very well.
Of course historical fiction based on historical events is quite common. And it is common for the protagonists and antagonists to be depicted as noble heroes and evil villains in historical fiction. And in different orks of historical fiction different sides in a historical conflict are depicted as the heroes or the villains. In one version of history side A are the heroes and side B are the villains and in another version side A are the villains and side B are the heroes.
Since there are only about three possible outcomes in a conflict, a victory for side A and defeat for side B, or a draw, or a victory for side B and defeat for Side A, and since people disagree about whether side A or side B was the heroes, there are many people who claim that the losing side in various historical conflicts were the heroes and the winners were the villains.
Almost everybody believes that in real life the villains sometimes win and the heroes sometimes lose, and can point to historical examples where in their opinion the villains won and the heroes lost.
So it certainly shouldn't be hard for you to find historical models for fictional fantasy stories were the heroes lose and the villains win.
I may point out that The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have more or less happy endings - though marred by various losses - but in most of Tolkien's other Middle-earth stories the heroes and/or protagonists lose.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/26290. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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Well, consider the term cookie cutter. Now imagine that you love cookies and you want to go into the cookie business. Which do you think would be the best strategy:
Bring out a totally original line of rhubarb and pickle cookies.
Bring out a line of exceptionally well made chocolate chip cookies.
Like you, there are millions or readers who grew up reading these stories and want to read more. At the same time, of course, there are thousands of people trying to write these stories. So, there is a definite demand for these types of stories. And there are a lot of, frankly, pretty lousy attempts to write them. So if you want to be in this market, learn to write this sort of story really well so you stand out above the crowd.
Either way, you need to learn to be really good. Because frankly, if you want to sell rhubarb and pickle cookies, you are going to have to make them really really good rhubarb and pickle cookies, because no one want a mediocre rhubarb and pickle cookie. But lots of people want a really good chocolate chip cookie.
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