Assignment 1: The Act of Story Statement
Protect his home and his way of life from a dangerous revolution, using his power, and the second chance he was given, to follow the dreams of those who came before.
Assignment 2: The Antagonist Plots the Point
This work is intended to expand into a multi-book series, focusing mainly (or more accurately, firstly) on the threat of the Paradigm Army, a revolutionary army that believes that Echoes, those who hold supernatural powers, hold an unfair position as arbiters of the human race, and seek to create a new world held in their values, shifting the meaning of power by shifting the foundation the world is built upon, using force through their infantry, and politics via the lobbying of officials, and the garnering of public support.
In the first book (this manuscript), this is represented through Captain Varrick Cross, a young man driven to revenge for the death of his brother, Varron, at the hands of The Reaper, a dangerous hunter who goes on to become Cynthia Grace, the protagonist’s mentor. Captain Cross is a man of intellect who supports the P.A. in half-measures, both because the founder gave him a chance at life, and a chance at revenge. While he questions his own actions, rationalizing them to be for the greater good and his greater revenge, he is more often than not driven by a self-destructive depression that endangers ally and foe alike.
Assignment 3: The Breakout Title
Deadsoul: Overture Redux (current working title)
Dead Echo: First Verse
Soulsong: Prelude
Assignment 4: Deciding Your Genre And Approaching Comparables
This series can mostly be described as YA Urban Fantasy, with a few elements of Epic fantasy mixed into the worldbuilding. The setting of the series is a magical, alternate history Earth with added territories, artificial islands, and magical threats to distinguish this modern mystic world from our own.
Comp 1: Mob Sorcery Series (by K.D. Robertson)
In the Mob Sorcery novels, the author blends together a modern city with an interesting and dangerous cast of demons, birdfolk, and a mafia of wolf-human hybrids, with a straight-forward but interesting take on magic spells and mage rankings, using the premise of a criminal underworld to drive the plot forward with a dystopian, grounded setting that uses supernatural elements in what should be a mundane setting to great effect.
D:OR, while not as closely tied to a single city in its world, hopes to accomplish a similar effect by weaving its power system into daily life and plot-relevant events, with characters and conflicts defined by the supernatural force driving them. (I must add that unlike Mob Sorcery, D:OR is not that high on the spicy/horny spectrum. My manuscript is rather conservative with how it describes physical features.)
Comp 2: City of Last Chances (by Adrian Tchaikovsky)
The first installment in The Tyrant Philosophers series, Adrian Tchaikovsky balances the imaginative and vivid nature of a city under pressure, building a hostile world that threatens to spark alight due to occupation, civil unrest, ancient curses, thieves, murderers, and everything in-between, setting up the tension and narrative for a revolution.
This work’s themes and moral subtlety resonates with what D:OR attempts to set up in its first entry (which snowballs HEAVILY in its w.i.p. sequel, D:H, Deadsoul: Harmony), with a world that is, at its core, very angry and hurting, and in due for change. What the first entry seeks to accomplish is setting up the context for the Paradigm Army’s grievances against the magical powers that “govern” the world, and their “justified” (albeit insane) casus belli for waging a seemingly impossible war on the world, and usurping control to make the world a fairer place in their vision. (Contrary to City of Last Chances, D:OR utilizes fewer POV points, but goes for the same idea of using perspectives to paint different sides to the same conflict.)
Assignment 5: Core Wound And the Primary Conflict
First entry logline:
After losing his life and gaining a second chance, a young man with strange abilities struggles to stop a revenge-drunk soldier and his revolutionary ideals, both of which threaten to upend the roots of justice.
Series logline:
Being given a second chance and fate that never belonged to him, a boy burdened with power must stop an endless war hell-bent on destroying the supernatural and threatening to erase the dreams of peace given to him by his predecessors.
Assignment 6: Other Matters of Conflict: Two More Levels
Inner conflict:
Adriene, for the better half of his life, has felt aimless, like a cog in a machine that turns but produces no power. He’s the average, the median, the “just good enough”. Even the power he awakened to, the one he had wished for with all of his might, was nothing but a swiss army knife with dull blades and rusted tools. He finds himself at odds with his own cowardly nature, and after losing his life, and finally gaining a purpose, further devolves as he struggles to meet the expectations of the ones who came before him, and the mentor who put her burdens on his shoulders. Now with a mission to complete and a direction to turn to, he seeks to find that the person he wishes to be, and the person he currently is, cannot co-exist.
Scene Summary:
In a chance meeting during unconsciousness, Adriene is transported onto the spiritual Heavenly Plane, where he re-convenes with the 13 Symphonies, living deities who ascended to godhood for unknown reasons.
Conversing with them, he subconsciously vents his frustration at his weakness and inability to be proactive in his mission, knowing that he is unworthy and undeserving of the power he was cursed with. Under the guise of a training lesson, a god he bears a faint connection to gives him the tools to focus and ground himself, not only to distract him from his self-destructive thoughts, but set him on the path to being the person he was meant to be.
Secondary Conflict:
As a Jager in training, Adriene is naturally at odds with the Paradigm Army, who wish to control and/or eradicate Echoes, those who possess souls and their unique powers, from the world in order to create a fairer society. In this sense, the response to the Paradigm Army is to combat them, as what happens in any war, but the conflict mainly comes from both sides having a similar but clashing reason for wanting to exist. Jagers and the Jager order have perpetuated the idea of Echo superiority by acting as national peacekeepers and law enforcers, and while the Paradigm Army seeks to even the playing field for those without those powers, they too still abide by a hierarchy of those who have, and those who don’t, changing the overall power dynamic from magical energy, to a wealth check of having the money to purchase physical armaments in the absence of supernatural power. Regardless of what larger powers are at play, both sides of this conflict are being fought by people, who believe in a better world, and believe in a better future for their loved ones. Adriene is caught in the middle of wanting to help fight in the war, and recognizing that there’s more to conflict than simply fighting.
Scene Summary:
On the search for the Captain leading the current outfit of Paradigm Army soldiers, Adriene and his friends hear a call for help from a collapsed building.
Hearing danger nearby, Adriene quickly rushes by and the group clears the rubble, only to find a Paradigm Army soldier, no older than the kids themselves. Confused and concerned, they talk to the young man, finding out his personal reason for fighting, as well as his platoon’s beliefs and hopes.
Hearing his words, and being swayed by their dreams of hearth and home, Adriene’s resolve deepens as he begins to disobey his mentor’s teachings, and begins to humanize, and empathize with, the enemies he is supposed to be fighting without remorse.
Assignment 7: The Incredible Importance of setting
This work and the rest of the multi-part series will take place on an alternate earth in fictional alterations to the geopolitical landscape, mostly due to the existence of Soul Energy.
Some framework and context:
Soul Energy is a mysterious power and energy that radiates from things both living and dead. Animals, bacteria, and humans all contain some amount of it, lingering even in death. It is driven by focus, will, and fear, and serves as a driving force in historical events. For the main races that use this power in the series, there are three main categories: Echoes, Soulless, and Soundless.
Echoes: Humans born with a Soul, a semi-corporeal conduit for channeling soul energy through. This can resemble something as small as a feather, to something much larger, like a large clock. Echoes are born with a singular power fueled by Soul Energy, a Soul Ability, that is usually representative of their personality and ideals, as well as their desires and fears. Possessing a weakness to Bloodstones (mineral gems that are formed from the blood and agony of many living things dying in a small area), they represent a very small portion of the human race, but their power and ferocity make them a benefit and detriment, depending on their temperament.
Soulless: In this world, considered “normal” humans. They do not possess the Soul or reinforced bodies that Echoes do, but on average, have a higher capacity of Soul Energy. If seeking power on the level of an Echo, a Soulless human has two available paths:
1. Scholar: Scholars are much like Soul Energy scientists, testing the energy for its limits and pushing the boundaries of its effects on reality. Specializing in Rune Archaic Sorcery, Scholars draw power from Soul Energy by infusing a Bloodstone’s latent energy with their own, drawing shapes using the “ink” they create, and casting spells by essentially programming Soul Energy to perform tasks. This can be something as simple as a rune of circles creating a soap bubble of energy, to a complex formation of lines creating an arrow of pure, potent Soul Energy to strike and pierce opponents.
2. Sibling: Siblings of the church are comparable to Paladins and Clerics in other forms of media, drawing strength from belief, and using that emotion as a medium for their power. By convening with a higher power, a Sibling asks them for divinity, and will have a Divine Inscription etched into their body as a result. By recalling the story bestowed upon them, and reinforcing their belief in such miracles, they are able to call upon that magic in the form of Inscribed Runes, often recreating the legendary deeds told to them in the form of lightning strikes, healing warmth, and cleansing bonfires. Though this practice requires less raw intelligence and talent than learning Scholar rune magic, it requires an inhuman amount of devotion and piety to master. Siblings are often called to exorcise Daemons, bless locations, and protect holy sites from sacrilege and intrusion.
Soundless: A race of artificial humans, fashioned from flesh and soul energy bonded together over a core of Bloodstone and marble. Once enslaved by the kingdoms of old, the Silent King, believing in a better future for his people, fought in the First War, drawing the human deities and their forces to a standstill, earning his fellow Soundless their freedom, and their nation a home in the form of Umbra, a man-made island meant to serve as a haven for Soundless from around the world. In the modern day, the Silent King awaits the next threat to his people, sitting upon his throne and watching the actions of the humans with intent to defend what he loves.
Soundless, being fundamentally different from humans, cannot possess souls, but possess a natural ability named Contractual Obligation, allowing them to form contracts with other living things by using Soul Energy as a medium, giving them access to eccentric and outlandish powers by forming unconventional contracts with others for power. (For example, by forming a contract with a dog to feed and shelter it for an amount of time, the Soundless may gain the ability to use a canine’s advanced smell to seek out targets.)
Deadlight is the polar opposite of Soul Energy, sparking forth from Ambition, and amplified by Drive and Hatred. Though not normally accessible to living things, shards of it can attach themselves to humans, giving them the ability to heal from injuries quickly, disrupt the Soul Energy of others, and otherwise reject the wills of others by turning their ambition and anger into raw power.
Concerning physical locations, countries formed by the deities of old during the First War remain, as ways to prepare the world for other conflicts, set the stage for the coming Paradigm Army and the collapse of order and peace in the wake of extremist rhetoric concerning the status of Echoes as peacekeepers in the modern day. This includes Haven, the home of the main cast and a country founded by the Symphonies (warriors ascended to godhood through some unknown method) to prepare hunters, Jagers, for combat against supernatural and human threats. Landlocked in North America, Haven is the setting of the first three entries into the series, with the first focusing on Solis, a town offshooting from the Capital, Haven City, that is used to train future Jagers (and has a notable addiction to coffee!). Chimera, dangerous animals mutated by high amounts of ambient energy, often roam outside of cities, causing many human civilizations to concentrate around urban hubs to avoid being overrun. Though many familiar locations still exist, like the United States, Canada, China, and places one could find in the real world, they are burdened, altered, and scarred by the existence of such a commonplace but volatile power such as Soul Energy.
