Is my plotline okay? How do I fix it?

[Clover Heart 978]

I'm trying to write a story. I intend for it to be a comic, eventually. Graphic novel style. The problem is that the story kinda sucks. It's basically just a fetch quest. And it's not really interesting. I was hoping for a lot of interesting lore and subplots, which I have in my head, but the actual story itself is linear and boring.

 

 

So, here's what I have. There are 8 kingdoms in a land yet to be named. (Yeah, I know I gotta name more things, but this is still heavily in development.) Each kingdom controls a certain property of all the land and different kingdoms' properties affect others. The 8 properties are Time, Life/Death, Weather, Seasons, Growth, Night/Day, Water and Atmosphere. For example, time affects night and day and seasons. Seasons are affected by weather affect growth. Weather is affected by water and so on. Having effects on each other, I didn't plan to go into too much detail, except when conflict arises.

 

Each of these kingdoms possess relics with allow them to control these properties. All relics are adorned with a magical gemstone which reacts with the blood of the royal family. However, if the relics cannot be controlled or someone else attempts to wield them, the property the relic affects will be thrown into chaos.

 

Many years in the past, the land was unified under the ruler of a queen. Her royal court were knights and dames able to control one of the relics. One knight, Xyrvane (possible Zyrvane?) wanted to wield all of the relics in order to gain power and admiration. But he was stopped by the queen and was suspended in a magical case. From there, the land became divided into kingdoms, as the balance was upset and much fighting began to occur.

 

As the queen had been gone for many years, her magic spell on Xyrvane gradually weakened until he was able to break free from the magic keeping him bound. However, he was in a weakened state, and unable to escape from the cave where he had been left. Two outcast sorceresses, Verzys and Berdyn, came across him. Xyrvane had yet one magical item left with him: a moonstone. He broke the moonstone in two, which then turned to the Onix Drop and the Hematite Drop. (Yeah, I know that's not how gemstones work. Just roll with it.) His command was for them to gather the relics so he could rise to power once again and seek vengeance upon the land. For this, the promised great power to Verzys and Berdyn for doing his bidding.

 

The focus is on the princess of the kingdom of Dzerynzen named Lanmyre. Dzerynzen being the kingdom representing time, the relic of their kingdom is the Amethyst Hourglass. The hourglass passes sand at a rate of 50 years. At the Semicentennial Hourglass Festival, where the hourglass is turned in front of the entire kingdom by a member of the royal family, Verzys and Berdyn attempt to sabotage the festival and steal the Amethyst Hourglass. As they approach the hourglass, the necklace Lanmyre's mother gave to her as a memento begins to react with the hourglass and they're unable to touch it. The sorceresses leave.

 

Everyone in the land possesses the ability to use at least some magic. The base level of that magic and whether or not it's honed affect how useful and powerful one's magic is. Magic is based around the emotions of the user. At that time, Lanmyre wanted to stop the sorceresses, so her magical will was to do something to prevent them from taking the hourglass. Her mother's moonstone linked her magical will to the amethyst of the hourglass and put a powerful protective magic around it.

 

Lanmyre is the only one linked to the moonstone and the moonstone is the only object linked to all of the relics. In order to prevent the world from being thrown into chaos, Lanmyre must visit each of the other kingdoms in order to place a protective spell on the relics to prevent them from being stolen. 

 

And along the way, she meets an outcast fairy named Zrid, a fire mage (whose name has done nothing but frustrate me from day one) who isn't confident in her abilities since she isn't happy about the nature of them, and a troll named Yarmid who's misunderstood because... he's a troll...

 

And this is where I run into problems. From there, it just becomes a fetch quest. A race to get to the end. To get to each place to cast her spell on each relic. I suppose the end I was thinking of had to do with Xyrvane trying to destroy Lanmyre's moonstone or kill Lanmyre in order to destroy the bond to the relics and take control of them. I haven't figured out that much. But the main problem, I think, is that it just becomes too linear, too predictable and not really that interesting.

 

I had a few thoughts about this. One was that perhaps it's more about revealing the story of how things came to be as the characters move forward, as the back story seems to be more interesting than the present story. I'd always planned the story to start at the Semicentennial Hourglass Festival, so that could actually work out, potentially. I'd just have to figure out how to make it more interesting and less like exposition. My other thought was that maybe it could function more as a "journey, not destination" sort of story. Like, the going through things is what the reader reads for, not so much the ending or the individual goals. Because I did intend to incorporate individual problems for each sort of chunk of the story, including areas with environmental obstacles as well as societal problems. But I don't know if it's all interesting enough to work out like either of those scenarios.

 

I also have to figure out a lot more world building, but I'm not entirely sure how to go about everything. I definitely have ideas, but I don't know if I have enough ideas. 

 

So, I guess, is this story okay or do I need to fix it? If I do, how can I make it more interesting and less fetch-questy? And what can I do to build more of the world?

 

Also, I was wondering about a place to post once I get to the actual drawing stage? In the past, I've used Comic Genesis, Drunk Duck and Smack Jeeves. I didn't like Smack Jeeves at all. Drunk Duck was okay, but I didn't like the lack of customization. And Comic Genesis, while I liked the freedom of being able to design pages as I saw fit, I didn't like just about anything else about it. Does anyone have any suggestions for a place where the comic could be hosted?

 

Your thoughts and comments are appreciated. Thanks!

 

PS, sorry for posting this weirdly in limbo, for whatever reason. Huge thanks to whomever moved it to the correct location!

Edited June 24, 2015 by Clover Heart

[LordSwinton 759]

I suppose the queen casing up the bad guy is a bit of lore itself. I'm not sure about the characters, they sound kinda...predictable? But I don't really know much about them so I can't say much. But the crew does sound like any generic fantasy quest team. I like the setting with the kingdoms, they sound interesting and there's loads of potential for lore and world building. The plot itself does sound rather generic of the genre but I'm sure you'll put a good spin to it. It looks promising but I can't say I'm captured and hooked just yet.