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Author Topic: Help improve the plot of my Diablo fanfic  (Read 1421 times)

Supermikhail

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Help improve the plot of my Diablo fanfic
« on: April 13, 2012, 01:19:10 pm »

A priest teaches the (Blizzard-Diablo) creed to young village boys. The hero, who is one of the boys, is impressed by the tales. On the way home one of the other boys surprises him, but the hero sees him as a demon (in the dark) and kills him with a stick, which a sister of the killed boy witnesses.

While the villagers catch the hero and decide what to do with him, the priest intercedes and declares that the hero is possessed by demons. He performs an exorcism.

Ten years later. The hero is a moody guy, the girl (the dead boy's sister) is neurotic, phobic of violence and of the hero, and pretty much unfit for marrying, for which her parents understandably blame the hero.

An enemy war party (there is a war going on) comes over, and declares the village a domain of their lord. They promptly proceed to also claim the village's food reserves, and try to institute prostitution. One of them tries to chat up the girl and she unexpectedly agrees to a date, with which the hero is unhappy as he seems to have a crush on the girl.

The next morning, the hero's father wakes up the hero and tells him that the soldier has been found murdered and they're trying to pin it on the hero, and he should probably make for the woods, which the hero does.

In the woods, the hero stumbles across a company of friendly soldiers. He doesn't alert them to the situation at the village and instead follows them to their destination. On the way, they introduce each other, and during a night's halt, some bandits try to steal their horses which the watch stops valiantly and receives a fatal wound in the process. He dies by morning and the hero receives his armor and sword.

Then, the party arrives at Tristram. Villagers point them in the direction of a cathedral. When the soldiers come to it, it appears abandoned, but then enemies appear from ambush. The party retreats inside the cathedral, and the hero gets knocked out by a flying rock.

When he wakes up, he is greeted by the deceased watch who is now a helpful ghost. The ghost says that the hero must clear the evil infesting the cathedral. The hero is hesitant at first, but then he discovers the other soldiers dead in rooms around the place he is, plus the Butcher.

The hero runs away, finds a door to a lower level. He shuts the heavy door behind him, and secures it. Then little monsters attack him. While the hero fights them, the Butcher breaks down the door and corners the hero, who manages to dodge the Butcher's initial attacks and almost escapes when the Butcher catches him with a cruel chop, and almost cuts his foot clean off. But the ghost leads the hero who is bleeding out to a shrine that heals him and gives him the power to defeat the Butcher.

However, other monsters attack the hero promptly... He comes to an important-looking gate in a fighty spirit. Beyond the gate is a room with lying skeletons and a giant skeleton sitting on a throne. The skeleton (king) is somehow alive, but doesn't rise to fight the hero. The hero hesitates about destroying the skeleton king long enough for the skeleton king to finally wake up and start raising his minions who attack the hero. The hero figures it out and chops off the skeleton king's hand holding the summoning sword. The sword smashes on the floor, the minion skeletons drop down. The skeleton king says that he's the king and that the hero will be forever cursed if he touches him once more, but the hero does anyway, chopping his skull off and breaking it. Then a passage opens behind the throne.

Downstairs the hero is met by a succubus. She asks the hero to love her, then says that she knows whom he loves. At that the hero kills her.

More succubi attack him, but he dispatches them all. And comes to the room with Lazarus and a dead boy. The hero doesn't hesitate to attack Lazarus, but Lazarus teleports away. The hero chases him around the room unsuccessfully, getting fried a bit by a fireball. Then the boy rises and grabs Lazarus by the cuff while he's near. Trying to escape, Lazarus loses hold of his staff and robe and becomes a pathetic old man whom the hero kills with a bit of remorse.

Then the hero uses the staff to teleport to the next level. He finds himself in a room beyond which is a large space filled with monsters and with Diablo in the center. They come to a stalemate when the hero decides to guard the entrance to his room, killing any monsters who try to enter. Diablo agrees to a duel, but withdraws as soon as the hero steps away from his cover. Climactic fight, during which Diablo makes fiery fissures appear under the feet of the hero charging towards him past the advancing monsters. The hero kills Diablo. Diablo transforms into the boy whom the hero killed in childhood. The ghost congratulates the hero for fulfilling his destiny and freeing the kid and the cathedral from demonic spirits.

With the cathedral cleansed, Tristram greets the hero as... a hero. He must go on, though, to his home village. When he comes home, it is ravaged, and the enemy soldiers are like beasts, drunk and blood-drenched. The hero's family is hung, and the soldiers are about to hang the girl's father. But the hero comes, and kills them all, while the girl hears it, hiding in her house.

At the end of the fight, a company of friendly soldiers arrives and helps mop up the chop-your-head-off-runners-up. The leader of the company greets the hero who ignores him. The hero approaches the girl's house. After some hesitation she comes out and we find out that she sees the hero as a giant armored monster. She overcomes her fear and touches his muzzle, then withdraws.

The horses snort in fear of the monster who goes away his own way.

---

Also posted on ScriptFrenzy, because I'm trying to make it into a screenplay, although I'm not in frenzy. And what the title says, I'd appreciate suggestions on improvement of this plot.
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kaijyuu

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Re: Help improve the plot of my Diablo fanfic
« Reply #1 on: April 13, 2012, 02:49:41 pm »

Describing a story is a lot different than seeing it in action. I see nothing really wrong with the various tropes and story progression*, so how it's executed will probably be the big thing to worry about.



*Note that I only have a passing knowledge of Diablo's storyline, so...
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Quote from: Chesterton
For, in order that men should resist injustice, something more is necessary than that they should think injustice unpleasant. They must think injustice absurd; above all, they must think it startling. They must retain the violence of a virgin astonishment. When the pessimist looks at any infamy, it is to him, after all, only a repetition of the infamy of existence. But the optimist sees injustice as something discordant and unexpected, and it stings him into action.

IronyOwl

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Re: Help improve the plot of my Diablo fanfic
« Reply #2 on: April 14, 2012, 03:36:13 am »

As kaijyuu says, execution is everything. There's no particular way to know how this would turn out in practice.

That said, I do have some reactions. Mostly overly detailed, excessively negative reactions.


In general, the whole thing feels very trite and... modular, I guess? Like, it's obvious that it was written as a series of scenes you wanted to happen, rather than something that actually happened. Best example is probably the Butcher fight- he nearly escapes, but the Butcher nails him good enough to nearly sever his foot. Then he somehow escapes anyway, finds a magic shrine and wins.

Huh?

A lot of other stuff- like how his recent acquaintance rises as a friendly ghost to guide him with no explanation whatsoever- also seems very nakedly written in to satisfy the needs of the story. It's the sort of thing you read thinking "Okay, the author's going to want to continue the sorrow theme of this subplot, which means..." not "Okay, so the hero's pretty good with his sword, but the other guy knows he coming, so..."

Speaking of which, one of the ways you can tell it's a series of scenes glued together and resolved however they need to be is the fact that none of them really interact with each other very much. The closest example, aside from the killing girl's brother at start bit, would be the origin of the ghost, which still isn't gone into very well. That's not to say that each and every part needs to have some massive, reverberating effect on the story as a whole, but it'd probably be really really easy to completely cut out certain parts and not have a noticeable impact on anything else.


Related but not necessarily the same- I don't know what the motivations, personalities, thought processes, abilities, or anything else are of anyone in this story. I know it's a summary, but the hero- what's he like? I have no idea whatsoever. You mention who he kills, but not what he thinks or why he does things, with a few exceptions ("a bit of remorse").


Finally, there's two personal issues I have with the story, which other people might not share. The first is that I despise fanfiction that tries to stick too close to the main points of the source material. Hero enters cathedral, fights butcher, fights king, fights Lazarus, fights Diablo makes me twitch as a plot progression, because it's fairly obviously just "The Game: The Story." Again, this is a very subjective issue, but you might consider writing the story based on your own direction and characters, not as a series of battles with the game's most memorable or plot-relevant enemies.

Secondly, random kid enters cathedral, kills demon lord. Er... I'm not opposed to a bit of heroics, but... I mean... there's no explanation given for that whatsoever. You don't even imply a lot of time has passed, so how exactly does that happen? Is he just insanely gifted? Tainted blood? Ancient sword art you forgot to mention? You're going to need to spend a LOT of time explaining how he's getting better or whatever if you want the explanation to be "he leveled up." Or at least, for me you will; again, other people may not care so much.
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Supermikhail

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Re: Help improve the plot of my Diablo fanfic
« Reply #3 on: April 14, 2012, 04:30:11 am »

Phew. Someone dislikes my story enough to spend their time writing a review. ::) I'm serious. I thought it's even not bad enough to really dislike. Although, I guess the provocative reference in the title was bound to garner some reactions eventually. Which brings me to the issue of making a game story into a good movie. Well, I guess I've failed. Admittedly, I've seriously worked on it only for a couple months, and some screenplays stay in production hell for decades. So, I don't know... I've got a history of abandoning my projects after several months of work, and I don't know how to feel about (abandoning) this project. Although, finishing works for me better if I do it online for folks to see, so maybe the fact that I posted it here is a good omen.

What started this project, and relevant to
Quote
Secondly, random kid enters cathedral, kills demon lord. Er... I'm not opposed to a bit of heroics, but... I mean... there's no explanation given for that whatsoever. You don't even imply a lot of time has passed, so how exactly does that happen? Is he just insanely gifted? Tainted blood? Ancient sword art you forgot to mention? You're going to need to spend a LOT of time explaining how he's getting better or whatever if you want the explanation to be "he leveled up." Or at least, for me you will; again, other people may not care so much.
, is when I wondered what kind of real-life person it would take to be a Diablo hero. The main obstacle I imagined was not going mad/running away from all the living horrors. My initial solution was that the hero has to deal with them on a daily basis since childhood. From there it went to inner demons. And the idea is that everything that happens in Tristram is in the hero's imagination, but it's not rubbed in.

I guess it would be proper to defend my story here point for point, or at least comment on it, but I... just don't know. The criticisms are valid and I'm sorry I had to subject you to reading my abortion. The only thing, I think, I can answer is what the hero is like. I recently got introduced to Dexter, and I can see similarities. Basically, my hero is a schizophrenic in the age when there are neither institutions nor drugs. There may be a scene around the death of the future ghost watch, which shows how the hero is fascinated with the process of dying but has no respect for the dead because he views them as inanimate objects. But right now this scene is out of nowhere, and it's here only because I keep telling myself it'll have impact on emotional development when I begin writing. Supposedly the emotional development is "he's coming to terms with what he is, namely, a murderous psycho".

Yep. Hopefully these explanations sweeten the initial poop.

Edit: Ooops. I swear I didn't mean to ignore you, kaijyuu. It's just that your feedback is the kind that it's not obvious what to do with. So I did nothing. ::) Otherwise, I'm not that versed in trope-fu, so I'm having a hard time deciding whether your reply means you liked my plot, or not.
« Last Edit: April 14, 2012, 05:31:28 am by Supermikhail »
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kaijyuu

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Re: Help improve the plot of my Diablo fanfic
« Reply #4 on: April 14, 2012, 07:33:19 am »

There's not much to respond to since I don't have much to say. I can see it working. I can see it failing. I can't say for certain it'll go either way.

It's hard to say I "like" something that I don't know the quality of. I don't judge books by their cover (or quick synopsis).


Honestly the best answer to these sort of questions is "make it and see how it turns out." If it's garbage, you gained experience. If its' good, even better.
« Last Edit: April 14, 2012, 07:34:58 am by kaijyuu »
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Quote from: Chesterton
For, in order that men should resist injustice, something more is necessary than that they should think injustice unpleasant. They must think injustice absurd; above all, they must think it startling. They must retain the violence of a virgin astonishment. When the pessimist looks at any infamy, it is to him, after all, only a repetition of the infamy of existence. But the optimist sees injustice as something discordant and unexpected, and it stings him into action.

Supermikhail

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Re: Help improve the plot of my Diablo fanfic
« Reply #5 on: April 15, 2012, 02:57:12 am »

What about now:

Az, a common medieval village boy, is haunted by demons. Other villagers find out when he kills another boy. The village priest performs an exorcism.

Yet, ten years later Az still hears the demons whispering in his ear and torturing him in his dreams. He fights and suppresses them as hard as he can, afraid of the painful experience of exorcism. But the demons seem to make a strike when a villager is found dead near the village. Convinced that it's his demons' work, Az leaves the village and wanders the woods in desperation, contemplating suicide as a resolution.

Then he comes across an abandoned church, and a strange voice calls him from the inside. Az enters and finds a monster (the Butcher) inside, who addresses Az as its child and invites him to dine with it. Az sees it as the source of his troubles and backstabs it when it turns away. "Why?" cries the Butcher. "You're a monster," says Az. "So are you!" says the Butcher. "No, I'm not!" says Az and proceeds to brutally murder the Butcher. Then Az throws up, cries, laughs and leaves the church, arguing with the world and the woods that he's not a monster, he doesn't want to be a monster, and in fact it's the demons of hell that are at fault. Suddenly the trees come to life and start lashing at Az, skeletons rise from the ground and advance on Az. "Blame it on us, coward? Run to your mommy!" Az runs away and comes to a ravine. There's nowhere to run, except in. At the end of the ravine there is a bright light that stops the pursuing skeletons. The light turns out to be emanating from another monster, Diablo.
"You've come, my son."
"I'm not..."
"Don't be afraid of what you are. "A monster" is only a label, for power, unrelenting truthfulness, confidence. They call you a monster because you aren't like them, weak, prejudiced, lying, indecisive. You should be proud to have demons as your sires."
"But my father is a man and my mother is a woman."
"Temporary hosts. Look, what an armor I made for you."
The earth grabs Az's feet and a metallic covering begins climbing up his ankles. Soon he's covered in a full suit of armor.
"And your weapon."
Az is able to move. Diablo extends a sword...

Except I don't know how to continue.
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Kilroy the Grand

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Re: Help improve the plot of my Diablo fanfic
« Reply #6 on: April 15, 2012, 10:41:14 am »

Needs more Diablo/azial slashfic
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