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Post by Floyd Looney on Mar 2, 2010 18:29:24 GMT -5
I spent hours and hours last night trying to come up with story ideas and they all stunk.
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Post by Attero Dominatus on Mar 3, 2010 2:04:51 GMT -5
I suggest focusing on the existing projects you like the most. You can probably salvage concepts from the failed new ideas and place them into your existing story. I have taken an entire class of villains from a previous story I wrote that went nowhere and put them in Vigilance.
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Post by Floyd Looney on Mar 3, 2010 15:06:50 GMT -5
Thats a good idea. Maybe I'll go over the first 3 chapters again. I might also need a better title.
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Post by Attero Dominatus on Mar 3, 2010 16:34:50 GMT -5
A better title for Solaris? Solaris itself sounds good to me, but if you want suggestions, then Sovereignty might be a good alternative.
The chapters you posted were good too, especially the detail on how they manage to have order without a government. I would at least keep the detail on that.
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Post by Floyd Looney on Mar 3, 2010 18:40:31 GMT -5
I think I made the planet sound too Earth-like and colonization too easy. I think in a re-write I should make it clear they got a little help from the other independent worlds. The environment needs better explanation I think too, to make it sound less like Earth.
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Post by Attero Dominatus on Mar 4, 2010 2:31:48 GMT -5
It can be difficult to make a realistic otherworldly biosphere (I know first hand from making my aliens realistically alien!). That goes double for one capable of sustaining human life without major changes to either the humans or the biosphere.
The native life on Solaris should be carbon based (or else human plants and livestock would not be able to grow and humans would not be able to eat the native plants or animals) but the genetics and traits of lifeforms should be different. You can even make up theories as to why this place has carbon base life too (maybe both Solaris and Earth were 'seeded' by the same mysterious source, which could be made more intriguing if this planet or its neighbors has hills carved into faces like Mars is said to).
If the place is warmer than earth and has a lot of deserts, expect to see creatures who conserve water inside their bodies and flying things that ride thermal updrafts and trade winds.
If it is cold and has much larger arctic areas, then the creatures would be large to store lots of energy and heat to survive the cold and would have a lot of fur.
If it has a lot of tropical zones, then reptilian creatures would dominate.
But I would suggest mixing all three and more. A planet will have several different climates. As for the look and size of the creatures and the plantlife, make it as weird as possible.
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Post by Floyd Looney on Mar 4, 2010 14:18:19 GMT -5
Did you like the Spider-Beetle; Speetle? heh
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Post by Attero Dominatus on Mar 4, 2010 15:48:28 GMT -5
Yes, the Speetle is a good starting point. I think you should make the other animal and plants as weird as possible though. It does not matter how outlandish it may sound. Strange and outlandish is what we would think of otherworldly life.
What I would not recommend doing is making any creatures larger than an elephant (unless it is a sea creature since buoyancy can support large masses as seen in whales). An ant can survive a fall from several meters while a drop of a single meter would break an elephant's legs. Of course, if the gravity is less, then the creatures can become bigger.
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Post by Floyd Looney on Mar 4, 2010 20:44:45 GMT -5
hhmmm... so the Polar WolfBear is out. heh.
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