How do you keep the Power Creep down? "All of imagination" is a pretty wide spectrum. For instance, one of the characters in my story has access to tens of thousands of years of supertechnology and advanced knowledge, (the appropriate metaphor would be solving Xanatos Speed Chess) but that would be entirely defeated by, say, the Phlebotinum in Doctor Who. (And that's only one genre)
edited 15th Nov '10 12:56:28 PM by Yej
They'd probably get trapped by recursiveness in something like Thursday Next or Godel Escher Bach.
Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's PlayThanks for bringing that up. It's a hard question to answer, and I can see from the various entries that a lot of the time it’s hard to come up with a satisfying solution. It’s, I dunno, sometimes a story just gives you something and you go with it, even if that something falls apart under closer scrutiny.
Like how, if Superman is a living god and the Flash is the fastest thing alive, how come there is still any kind of petty crime in the DC world. Or how Batman sometimes gets hung up on ordinary criminals but can still punch Darkseid into the sun with enough time and proper equipment. Or how Reed Richards, if he’s the smartest human alive and even outstrips advanced aliens, how come he can’t just make a machine that makes food out of nothing AND cures AIDS, and solve all of Africa’s problems.
Maybe I should go more in depth about how this story works. This is a meta-narrative, so I’m working off a concept I call the Narrative or the Plot. It’s like, I dunno, the Force from Star Wars. The Narrative forms the worlds the characters live in, it IS the characters themselves. It is the essence of everything in this fictional realm.
Now how do I explain this… the characters, if left alone in their native planes of reality, do the exact same thing they always do. But if they fully awaken, they become Genre Savvy. And if they travel to a new world whose genre conventions are unfamiliar to them, they can just “download” the information from somewhere to figure out how that reality’s rules work. Since the characters know they are in a story, tropes like the ones on this site are an actual force, and they can invoke certain tropes to give themselves additional power or swing the pendulum of battle back in their favor.
Characters have literal Plot Armor that protects them from death so long as they remain important to the story. Mooks of all kinds across various franchises will vary in their level of competence, but their accuracy always drops to near zero when shooting at a character with Plot Armor.
The main villain, let’s call him Strider for now, is extremely dangerous because he no longer obeys any genre conventions. He often attempts to subvert the Narrative by attacking the heroes with real world logic. For example… he can literally talk a Mary Sue to death by pointing out how it is unrealistically perfect in every way. The Narrative recognizes this when attention is called to it, and the Mary Sue is rejected, like an immune reaction. The Mary Sue literally implodes on itself. Strider can also do things like invoke the Square Cube Law, causing huge mechs to collapse because they can no longer support their own weight.
But breaking suspension of disbelief has its limits. If that something is cool enough, funny enough or insane enough to work, it will. Gundams are badass and cool, thus they don’t collapse if Striders attempts BSOD. The Narrative wants to tell a good story, so it will ignore realism if it means telling a more exciting story. Even if the bad guys have the heroes dead to rights, falling over a cliff, trapped in a burning building or exploding base, or riddled full of bullets… if the Narrative demands that the hero lives, the hero lives.
I hope that sheds more light on how I want this story to work… or maybe I just confused everyone even more.
I can write up character bios for some of the major original characters later, if anyone likes.
If you've ever the read The Pendragon Adventure, that sort of follows the premise of a hero tracking a villain across various worlds (though it doesn't add the "aware they're fictional characters" bit). I'd recommend reading that for some ideas on how to format this. Also, you should probably head over to Trapped in TV Land and No Fourth Wall for some examples of what you're thinking of.
Edit: Oh, you're talking about Narrative being the driving force of your universe? Okay, in that case, you should read Discworld books to see how Terry Pratchett handles the same thing (though it's not as comprehensive as yours will be). He's the guy (I think) who thought up the concept of Theory of Narrative Causality. Like, for example, the people in his books try to make the odds of success exactly a Million to One Chance, because nine times out of ten million-to-one chances work.
edited 16th Nov '10 5:56:54 PM by OnTheOtherHandle
"War doesn't prove who's right, only who's left." "Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future."Thank you for the tip. I will see if I can pick up and read some of the Discworld. Never read them before, but they seem like good reference material.
Another thing. The way I want this story to work out, is kind of similar to American Gods (which I haven’t read in a while). Where we have the old gods of mythology who have manifested in America, but are slowly declining because no one believes in them anymore, and the modern consciousness has given birth to the new gods of Television and Internet, etc.
In other words, the fictional characters are created and sustained in their world by the imagination and faith of their fans. The world of Marvel was created over decades by various writers and is sustained by the power of millions of fans, while a world derived from a fan fic would only be powered by the author and maybe a few dedicated fans.
This also applies to specific characters. Batman, who is an iconic hero and powered by the belief of millions of fans, will probably be one of the most powerful and important characters in this story despite ostensibly being an ordinary human. Cause, you know, he’s Batman. It’s like Popularity Power, basically.
I will try to get started on a few character sketches and post them in the next couple of days, see if anyone likes them.
So in this case one of your characters' major goals would be to get as popular as possible. This could lead to some very interesting plotlines, like pretending to be Bad Ass or staging a Crowning Moment Of Awesome. This would be really great.
"War doesn't prove who's right, only who's left." "Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future."That’s certainly an idea. Especially since the four brothers are born from the mind of one person (me), so they would need to get more fans if they hope to punch out living gods.
I’m going to start work on the character bios, see if I’m on the right track and if anyone likes them. Some general notes first:
All the brothers have varying levels of superhuman strength and durability, but Nathan (the one who commands earth) is by far the most physically formidable.
All the brothers have fairly generic names; Jack, Adam, Nate, and Sam (not sure about Sam). It’s probably not appropriate, as their home world will at best be only superficially similar to the real world, but I’ve never called them by anything else.
Their powers are mystical in nature, so they can do things with their elements that would not make sense in a real life context.
It’s very, very important to me that the brothers are always presented as a group. I am greatly irked by animes like Bleach and Naruto because the main hero and the villain attain godlike power while everyone else becomes a cheerleader i.e. Worf Effected (or as I like to call it, Vegeta Syndrome). Each brother is capable in his own right, but their true power comes from teamwork.
Jack
Appearance
Dark-haired, I don’t know what color eyes, average height and muscular. I’m Vietnamese, but for some reason I have a hard time attaching ethnicities to these guys. It’s not like their world would have roughly corresponding ethnicities. I think of Nate, Adam and Sam as “vaguely white,” while Jack is “vaguely Asian.” Take that however you will.
Skills and powers
The brothers’ chosen arts roughly correspond to their elements, like Avatar TLA. Buzzwords for Jack would be fast, furious, aggressive, hard-hitting, acrobatic, etc. Jack is purely offense, annihilating his enemies before they can retaliate. He prefers to dodge rather than block, deflect or redirect, as fire has no inherent defensive value, so he has to be creative in his use of fire to prevent enemies from surrounding or pursuing him. He is tough, but he tries very hard to avoid taking hits.
Fire is Jack’s element. He has the most offensive firepower of all the brothers, able to wipe out entire enemy formations or lay siege to enemy strongholds by acting like a living artillery platform. He can manipulate his fire in a variety of ways, from flamethrower-style streams, to sending flames snaking along the ground or even underground only to burst up, blazing a trail by running, concentrating his flame into an explosive fireball, adding additional oomph to his punches and kicks, etc.
Jack also has the gift of super speed (not Flash-level, but just enough to get around and keep his opponents off-guard). Eventually he may figure out how to use his fire like rocket boosters to fly, although aerial combat is more the province of his brother Adam.
Personality
His personality reflects his element; impulsive, hot-headed, sometimes reckless, impatient. Of the four he may be the closest to a traditional hero and the closest thing to a true main character, although all four are main protagonists.
I myself have trained in martial arts; I have been taught skills to maim and kill others if necessary, although I will probably never use my skills in my lifetime. The four brothers, similarly, are taught incredible skills and then thrust into a war for survival where they are forced to use their powers to kill, but out of the four, Jack is the one that most enjoys battle and welcomes any opportunity to test himself against worthy opponents.
Jack is not book dumb, but he rarely applies himself academically, devoting most of his energy to battle. He rarely thinks any plan out in detail, but is very good at Indy Ploys and moment-to-moment thinking, and usually takes charge in a fight.
There is a dark side to Jack. The others can, to an extent, empty their minds and kill without dwelling on what they are doing, but Jack’s power is dependent on his anger and passion. Privately he is deeply afraid that he will lose control and become little more than a beast addicted to blood and slaughter. He must learn to use his emotions in a positive manner, to wield his anger and fury like a finely-honed weapon, but to never allow his emotions to control him. He must learn to look into the dark side of his soul, to accept it for what it is and use it to protect those he loves, but to not allow it to consume him.
Jack tends to be a little emotional, i.e. he has aspects of the Mc Coy. He is deeply concerned with doing the right thing at all times, and is able to connect and empathize with others very well. This sometimes causes conflict with Nate, who is more rational and logical and often sees things in terms of the big picture.
So… you like?
I do like. It seems like a solid start, though I'd suggest not following the "fire" personality type so perfectly to a tee. Maybe throw in some curve balls so it doesn't feel too typecast - does he like beautiful music or poetry, or something like that?
I also want to ask what kind of a tone you're going for here. If you want it to be more comedic (and there's certainly tons of potential for comedy) I'd suggest making them either way over-the-top Badasses or total wimps. If you want it to be more dramatic, then as nuanced as possible.
PS: Just plugging for my favorite show here, but do watch Avatar The Last Airbender when you get the chance. They do some pretty creative stuff with their elements and they based it off of Real Life martial arts.
"War doesn't prove who's right, only who's left." "Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future."Reminds me of Jasper Fforde only played straight. Interesting playing with styles could be possible.
Ah, now that you mention it Jack does seem like a fairly standard hero. I’m not sure what I could do to make him more unique.
Jack, Adam and Nate to varying degrees display stereotypical “manly man” behavior, so I’m a little worried that giving him something like a love of poetry would seem wildly out of place. Nate is a good chef and provides for the others. And when needed they can rock out.
This story can and will have its funny moments. But it’s ultimately a story about a war for existence. The main bad guy isn’t pulling any punches, he’s smart
and he’s trying to win any way he can. He tries to subvert the heroes’ plot armor so he can kill them off permanently. And the heroes will have to kill a LOT of people, mooks, villains, monsters, anything the bad guys throw at them, to achieve victory. So I’d say this story will be pretty serious.
I will keep Avatar in mind and try to watch it when I can.
I’ll draw up a sketch for Adam later.
Yeah, I’ve been kind of lazy and not posting additional info on how I’m trying to visualize my story.
Let’s wait on Adam for a little bit. There was something I was thinking about the other day and I think that should be written down first. The relationship between the fictional characters and their creators.
Let’s take an example, um, Captain America and Iron Man. Before the brothers arrive in the Marvel universe, these two characters will just be doing whatever the author(s) want them to do. It’s kind of hard for me to wrap my head around this; it’s like they’re not really alive or awake.
The four brothers arrive in the Marvel world and they use the Rite of Awakening or what have you to “wake up” Cap and Iron Man. They become aware of the fact that they’re in a comic book, they can now perceive the parts of their world that are elements of the comic book medium, and they are awakened to the idea that there are other realities beyond even the various alternate Marvel realities. They gain a sense of individuality and can do things independent of the creator.
Now, suppose that Cap and Iron Man retain the memories of their lives over fifty or sixty years’ worth of comics, including some more… [[Wall Banger unfortunate material]], like Marvel Civil War.
I’ll bet that Cap and Iron Man will be pissed at the way their friendship was destroyed and their characters derailed (not to mention their I Qs dropping a couple dozen points) just cause the writers wanted to sell comics or make some ridiculous political point or whatever the excuse was at the time.
Maybe that can figure into the main villain, Strider’s motivations. Maybe he’s bitter at the way villains are treated or the way he in particular was treated by his creator, whoever that may be, and wants vengeance. Conquering the whole of imagination is ultimately kind of cliché, because what’s he going to do afterward? Maybe he just wants to make things fair.
It would seem like I would need to explain what’s going on in the real world while fictional characters are becoming sentient and waging all-out war in the collective human consciousness, but I’m not really sure what would be going on. And that would require a parallel story, and I don’t think I’m up for that.
There is a level of “magic” in the world of the Narrative, one that’s separate and above the usual fireball chucking magic. The story takes place in the human mind, where the fictional world is composed of thoughts and ideas and tropes are actual laws like gravity. The heroes might not be genre savvy at first, but soon enough they’ll figure out that a one-in-a million chance actually means a nearly 100 percent chance at success.
Strider is very good at this. He might be a stereotypical megalomaniac at first, but as he visits more worlds and learns their rules and how the villains in those worlds behave, he wises up. He goes out of his way not to push the heroes’ Berserk Buttons, knowing he will probably lose if he does. He treats captured love interests humanely and ensures nothing happens to them. When he kills a hero, he has his minions perforate the body with bullets and laser bolts, burns the body and then tosses what’s left out the airlock. He makes sure to treat his followers nicely and with respect, even if he doesn’t really care about them. Mistakes can be forgiven, and only repeated instances of incompetence and treachery are immediately punished by death. And so on.
The fictional world is governed by tropes, but they are not absolute, and with some kind of practice or special equipment the tropes of storytelling can be bent or outright broken. Strider is good at this, like causing mechs to collapse because of the square cube law in one of my other posts. Bending or breaking tropes should be even easier with badly written characters or stories, stuff that is not consistent or logical, since pointing out the flaws will cause the Narrative to reshuffle in order to correct the error.
But breaking tropes has limits, again as I said above. If the mech is cool and badass (and most mechs are) it won’t collapse due to the square cube law because that goes against “audience expectation.” If the hero wants to pull off something so [[Crazy Awesome crazy it might work]], chances are it will! The Narrative is willing to make allowances in the interest of telling an epic story, and only when the errors are egregious will the Narrative step in to correct it. Stories are no longer exciting or captivating if they are not believable or insult the “audience’s” intelligence.
And that’s all I got for now in visualizing my story. Next time, I really will write out Adam’s profile!
Crap, how did I forget this... I've thought about the idea that every fictional reality is governed by a "Script" or some kind of artifact, the heart of the world. The Script determines the rules - how the world works, the genre conventions, how the characters behave. If Strider gets his hands on the Script of a world, it would become significantly easier to just rewrite the rules and tropes at will. Gravity is turned off, the environment turns into Escher-style landscapes. Characters are stripped of their powers or their Death Revolving Door privileges are taken away.
Okay, okay, here’s the character sketch for Adam, finally.
Also, general note: the four brothers of, um, whatever martial arts school I name, are in their early-to-mid twenties. And I have this idea for a kid sister to join them as well, who has lightning as her element.
Something else occurred to me, which I had not thought about in detail until recently. The four brothers are not related by blood, but they consider themselves brothers because they grew up and trained together under their master. If that is true, then something must have happened to their parents. Either they’re all orphans or come from broken homes or some similar situation, so their master took them in. Their personalities might have been shaped by things that happened to them when they were younger.
Adam
Appearance
About the same height as Jack, muscular build but more slender than his brother. Blond hair, blue eyes.
Powers and skills
I have not really thought too much about how the brothers’ fighting styles would look like if they were performed for real. I have thought that perhaps combining the circular movements of baguazhang with the linear movements and explosive power of xingyiquan might be evocative of the element of air. Adam prefers to cultivate soft, internal power, while his brothers Jack and Nathan favor hard physical power.
Adam controls the element of air, which he can use for a wide variety of applications. He might have some issues with his art being a little less flashy than throwing fireballs and conjuring massive waterfalls, so insulting the ‘weakness’ of his fighting style would be a good way to piss him off.
Naturally, Adam can use precisely controlled wind currents to fly, and can transport his brothers long distances by using air bubbles to fly “side-along.” He is the undisputed master of aerial combat because his power gives him an innate advantage over other flyers.
Using very small, focused air bubbles he can simulate telekinesis. One of his favorite tactics is to perforate enemies by grabbing and throwing a large quantity of blades at them. He can toss dozens of Mooks to their deaths or fire an extremely focused wind blast powerful enough to smash a man through a wall. He can also use his “telekinesis” like a positioning tool, throwing his brothers into more advantageous positions or dragging them out of harm’s way.
He can also use his power defensively, spinning a powerful air current around himself to deflect an enemy’s force away from him.
Sonic and razor wind attacks are another possibility with him. At higher levels of mastery, he can learn to summon tornadoes and hurricane-force winds to decimate entire armies.
Personality
Adam is pretty much a womanizer, in the tradition of James Bond or Tony Stark. He just loves the company of women, and does anything he can to get in their pants. When the brothers travel to new realities, his immediate instinct is to scout out the local… scenery. His habits often cause problems and irritate his brothers to no end. Still, it’s useful when Adam is deployed as a honey trap.
He has some positive qualities though. He may like women but he always respects them, and he finds getting to know them a rewarding experience. The easiest way to get wind-smashed through a wall would be to hurt or mistreat a woman in front of Adam.
Adam is very gregarious and social, and he has the best people interaction skills out of the group, which is fortunate, as the other brothers tend to be anti-social or socially awkward. He frequently speaks for the group, conducts negotiations and talks them out of difficult situations. He has a talent for reading people and often uses this skill in battle, getting inside his opponent’s head and capitalizing on his mistakes.
Adam takes a free-spirited, devil-may-care attitude to life. He often exhibits a cocky and flamboyant demeanor that annoys allies and infuriates opponents. Those close to him generally give him a free pass, because they know he ultimately good-hearted and just blowing hot air (no pun intended), but there’s only so much they can tolerate before they clamp down on him.
And that’s all for now. Hope someone’s watching this thread.
edited 21st Nov '10 11:56:11 AM by Mysterioso
This sounds very exciting and very creative, but I have to say: this is an extremely difficult project to take on. (I say "project" because I don't know if it's going to be a novel or not.) It's just...massive. Are you sure you can handle it, and make it work? Don't take this the wrong way, I'm not trying to say that I'm so experienced and you would have problems, but for anyone, I think it's a lot. I'd say, if you haven't yet completed a novel or other story on a smaller scale, you need to do that first before you take a crack at this, just to find your voice and build your writing discipline, etc.
"War doesn't prove who's right, only who's left." "Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future."Hey thanks for checking in. You’re right, this thing could be massive, bigger than, well I don’t know, bigger than anything I know. I was inspired by that massive fanfic Undocumented Features. Haven’t read it, but the idea of a massive crossover must have sparked something.
I was thinking that when the time came, I could look for other writers to help realize this world of mine. The main story is that of the Elementals, but they’re not the biggest heroes or even the ones that will strike the finishing blow (but they probably will). I don’t like to use the term ‘destiny,’ but something chose them. All the cosmic threads that lead to the army of heroes coming together to oppose the army of darkness lead back to them. They are the ones that start it all.
The beginning stories of course focus on the Elementals, but as their army gets bigger and bigger… well, they’re not general, leader-type material. They’re much more effective just smashing stuff on the battlefield. They’re like the symbols and figureheads of the movement. Other people like Batman would get appointed to leadership positions. As more and more heroes are Awakened and recruited, high command sends teams of good guys and whole armies to protect other realities, to prevent Strider from recruiting even more bad guys to his side. Other writers could take over these sub-stories, of unlikely bands of heroes from all franchises and mediums flung together by fate, fighting on alien worlds, a small part in a massive struggle in the human psyche utterly incomprehensible in scale.
Now, I said before ‘all imagination,’ but I’m no fool. Such a thing would require far more than one lifetime. Let’s pare it down a bit. Strider mainly wants to visit certain realities, places that are supported by the minds of millions of believers, where there are powerful villains he can still bring under his control or at least make agreements with, technology and magics he will need to fight his war, and uncounted trillions of Mooks to pound the ground.
Here are some ideas and franchises I was thinking of, just off the top of my head:
Anime
Naruto
Bleach
Fullmetal Alchemist
Fist of the North Star
G Gundam (the only Gundam I ever watched, except for Gundam Wing)
Comics
Marvel and DC, obviously
Films
Michael Bay films
Dark Knight Saga
Man with No Name films
Star Wars
Alien series
Predator
Commando
Terminator
Inception
Indiana Jones
The Expendables
Iron Man
Literature
Harry Potter
Twilight
Animorphs
Narnia
Live Action TV
Heroes
Sarah Connor Chronicles
Myth
Characters from the Iliad
Greek myth
Tabletop Games
40k
WARMACHINE and HORDES
Video games
Halo
Mass Effect
Half-Life
Metroid
God of War
Doom
System Shock 2
Bioshock
Modern Warfare
Kingdom Hearts, maybe
Metal Gear Solid
Resident Evil
Gears of War
Legend of Zelda
Western animation
Some story ideas I was kicking around:
Joker merging with Megatron to become Jokertron, who proceeds to rip up whatever city he’s in. Followed by Batman combining with Optimus Prime to form Batman Prime, for an epic showdown. I don’t know how it will happen, but I’ll find a way.
Heck, getting Cartoon Joker, Comic Joker and Nolan Joker in the same room and seeing what happens.
Twilight – No really. Seriously. Hear me out. Twilight is powered by millions of misguided fangirls, so… I guess it’s fair. Strider might have use for the Swan girl, since that world seems to revolve around her. She already seems like a selfish, shallow bitch, so it should be easy to manipulate her to his own ends.
I want to see if I could do the impossible – break down Edward Cullen, drag him through the mud, and rebuild him into a hero that can be cheered for. Either that or make him cannon fodder.
And the Alice girl is pretty sexy, so I want to put her in the roster.
At one point, [[{Marvel Universe}} Captain America]] will lead Master Chief, Gordon Freeman, Samus, Commander Shepard and Leon Kennedy in a commando raid to destroy the enemy superweapon/plot device. And it will be glorious.
Appearances of characters in their Rob Liefield incarnations. So imagine Cable, but with a hideously distorted anatomy, covered in ammo pouches and walking en pointe on horribly mangled feet.
Michael Bay world – a world cobbled together from Michael Bay’s films. It’s perpetually sunset and helicopters are always flying overhead. There are annoying comic relief and racist caricatures everywhere, and every woman is a size D Victoria’s Secret model wearing skimpy clothing. Friendly camera bots fly around people to take rotating camera shots. And almost everything is volatile or wired with explosives.
Getting together Arnie in his various incarnations – Dutch Schaeffer, John Matrix, the T-800, etc. and letting them loose.
Sangheili with energy swords battling Sith with lightsabers.
And yeah. I think Strider is begging to be written soon.
edited 21st Nov '10 11:55:50 AM by Mysterioso

Hi everone.
Long time lurker, first time poster to the forums. I’ve never written a fanfic in my life, but recently I got this idea in my head for a story that just won’t go away, so I felt like posting a premise and seeing what others think.
Basically it’s a crossover. A really, really, big crossover. What I’m envisioning could take my entire life to write, or a team of dedicated writers to write.
The very rough premise is this: we have four brothers, not biological brothers but they consider themselves to be brothers because they grew up together and developed a firm bond of friendship. The four brothers train under a master and are skilled fighters in their chosen martial art, and each can also command one of the four classical elements. So it’s like Avatar the Last Airbender, except I’ve never watched the show. So yeah.
The brothers train under their master and want to win the local kung fu tournament, or they want to be the best fighter ever, or Pokemon master, or what have you. The usual shonen stuff.
And then something happens that changes everything. The brothers “Awaken”; they become aware of the fact that they are fictional characters, that they are not “real” in the usual sense, but were born from the mind of a fanfic writer and have developed a consciousness of their own.
Every world, every book, ever film, every TV show, anything ever created by human imagination is suddenly becoming “real” in the collective human consciousness. Fictional worlds are becoming tangible places that the brothers and anyone else who Awakens can travel to. And soon enough the brothers encounter the man who will become their arch nemesis, a man who travels from world to world slowly raising an army of villains, who is determined to conquer every world until he controls the entirety of human imagination, and by proxy every human mind on earth.
The brothers must respond by rallying their own army of heroes. And the stage is set for a war across infinite realities, with the soul of humanity as the prize.
So… do you like it?