Seeking Critique on Pet story concept(s)

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Subeta Forums > Writing Discussion

#1 :: August 4th, 2012 @ 6:15 PM

is a Mirage

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Hi there! I've always preferred a story that spanned all pets in my account, so I'm hoping for a critique on not only on Brisig's story, but also the relation with my other pets. I warn you, though, the story is currently in a rather vague stage...

Basically, Brisig was a dragon that was born and raised in another universe (currently unnamed). His profession was that of a skilled scientist, but later on in his career was exiled due to inhumane experiments upon his own species. Lost and angry, Brisig wandered the universe, planet-hopping until he reached Subeta. Here, he discovers something that quite intrigued him. Gods, and people of incredible power, such as Shinwa and Maleria. He'd never seen a human (or humanoid) before either, which furthered his interest until it became a new purpose in his mind. He decided that he wanted to try and genetically alter orphan Subetans in order to recreate that power. He wanted to go one step further than the limit of power anyone can reach with training. He wanted to create a super-Subetan. Perhaps not perfect, but definitely as close as he dared to go.

This is where my other pets come in. Each one was one lured to Brisig's makeshift lab, where he used his previous profession on his home planet to start these experiments. His first experiment (Aenid, the Nuclear Torrey) was a complete failure, and he was forced to isolate the boy as a matter of public safety. Several experiments later, he reached Nych, the Reborn Ontra, which has thus far been his most successful experiment. Each were created with a certain specialty in mind, something where they would excel beyond any means. They all have a glitch of some sort, which immediately made him deem them failures. He only keeps them around for fear of being discovered and once again exiled.

What I am really looking for right now is a critique on the idea so far. Is it relatively original? I'd really like other people's take on it before I go any further. ^^

#2 :: August 5th, 2012 @ 4:47 AM

is a Skilled Hooker

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I think the idea has potential, but I also think that it could go down the toilet if you don't really develop your idea and characters. It is vague right now, and if it doesn't move from being vague to a much more solid idea, it might not take off the ground too well...

I do like how you're using the Subeta-verse (I never do). Since it's pretty vague right now, I think I'd either really like it or walk away feeling kind of sad about how much potential it had but fell a little short of epicness.

Things to help you get started on development:

what is Brisig's motivation for doing these experiments? How did his character develop into this monster (assuming you want to present him as a monster that you're disgusted and sympathetic towards at the same time? Geez I don't even know that...)? What warped him?

I'd also imagine that if he's crossing moral/ethic taboos and performing experiments on young orphans who don't know better (even if they agreed with it), he'd at least kill a failure out of mercy instead of forcing it to continue a miserable existence (unless he needs more data or something... meh).

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Last Edit by: Chen 8/05/12 - 4:48:57 am

#3 :: August 5th, 2012 @ 6:05 AM

is a Mirage

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Ah, thank you very much for your input!

Regarding what warped Brisig, the idea in the works so far almost draws in a controversial subject of our world. I watched a documentary in which certain genes were shown to link chickens with dinosaurs, and they could 'turn on' in a way those genes in a chicken embryo that had been 'turned off', so that said embryo could, for example, grow teeth, or a tail. Pulling that concept in here, I was thinking his motivation was on a purely scientific scale, where he read about said discovery, which would be reworded to fit his world. His first crossing of moral boundaries then was him wanting to see this for himself, perhaps bribing someone at a hospital to bring him frozen embryos, which he would fiddle with before sending back. When word came around that females of his species were having mutated children, he wanted to take it one step further, perhaps isolating that 'turn on' method into a serum and testing it on a fully grown subject, perhaps the chicken equivalent first, before really stepping across the line to where he used someone of his species. So, basically his reasoning was scientific inquiry at first, but being met with success led to him wanting to push his boundaries more and more, until the obsession almost erased said boundaries.

I think in his case, a narcissistic personality would fit him, knowing full well he was a capable man, and having his personal successes go straight to his head.

In the case of the failures in that case, I think he would never really kill them, even if they are failures, for two reasons. One because he doesn't know what went wrong. He wants to discover what went wrong in the last experiment, so that he can fix it and make the next one more successful than the last. The second reason would be, seeing as he is a man who is stubborn as a mule, would never admit to giving up on an experiment by killing it. He could easily work with a live subject before - it's the delving into the paranormal and the mystical that's throwing him off. He still believes, even after deeming them failures, that maybe he could fix them once he figured out what was wrong. His over-inflated pride and ego would never allow him to just get rid of a failure, no matter how screwed up they became, I think.

#4 :: August 5th, 2012 @ 7:38 PM

is a Skilled Hooker

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okay, offering a bit more critique into Brisig's character.

You might want to watch more than one documentary about evo devo and get up to speed about modern advances in biology when jumping into a sci-fi genre, original fiction. I know you're talking about developmental regulatory genes, which scientists are researching more on right now. However, I don't really see the jump from ambitious scientific advancement to psychopath.

0) scientists typically work in teams, and your team members would check you before you did something really bad. . . you might want to add about how he became a loner.

0.5) if he paid somebody to get embryos, mightn't he just keep them? There's a ton of exceptions and extraordinary stretching of realisticness here, (and we're talking about dragons, who I imagine lay eggs and don't do mammalian test-tube babies), so you should really consider revising that...

1) I think these dragons would be smart enough to map out their genome (like we have) before jumping into these things. Perhaps they're smarter and realized what "junk DNA" was before we threw it out of question and are having to look back at them again.
There's very little need to do a "try it out and see if it works!" in science when very structured reasoning has already proven things, and controlled experiments (read: like growing skin grafts and experimenting on those instead of full-on organisms) usually suffice to prove that something is true.

2) scientific experimentation have a lot more tailored purpose in their query than "let's stick this here and find out what happens!" Experiments are usually started out from a looooot of known information and are very controlled in what they're trying to find out, which answers a very specific question. Sometimes you get a nice, small surprise finding, but it's only valid (not a general anomaly) if the experiment is repeated with the same results.

3) related to above, it doesn't sound like he has any logical or valid reason to start experimenting. Is he doing this for revenge? Does he feel like evolution isn't fast enough and that there's some catastrophe that's going to strike soon that his race is not prepared for? (cough, create dragons that can survive a nuclear apocalypse). There's a lot of openness into more realistic/believable motivation to experiment than "FOR SCIENCE!" -- because science has reason, too. A lot of the time it is to benefit mankind (or in this case, dragonkind). A "scientist" who disillusions himself that research is for the sake of science is forgetting the very reason (the people!) he is researching for.
If Brisig is this kind of disillusioned character, you need to show how he became this way, more than just "scientist wants more science

" More on that below.

4) I feel like you're pulling on the literary-cliche of "scientific advancement BAD" (excuse me, cautionary theme of extreme scientific advancement) instead of a more developed view of a person who just happens to be a scientist that has had a tough time in their life, resulting in the building of a psychopath.
It could be from loneliness and isolation, abuse from his peers, etc that drives into a crazy mode, but I think that you should create a character that somebody can sympathize with, even in a sick and twisted way. The way he is now, a static character... I don't know that much about him besides his personality, so why should I care? Why should I care about him or his story?

5) Also tied with this, a more complex/developed view of ethics conflicting with research, is when people cross the line with the ulterior motive of benefiting more people. One of the things I can think of off the top of my head is birth control testing in Puerto Rico, 1950s ish. It was pretty messy, you can read more about it online.

None of these points were meant to offend, but rather to point out when you're stretching believability too thin. Fantasy isn't supposed to be realistic in the realistic fiction sort of way, but it's not exactly enjoyable when it's not grounded in something that's believable - and the most believable thing is reality. (That's why we enjoy comparisons to things we know in reality when we read, because we can ground our imaginations on something. ex, describing the flight of a phoenix as to a goose, or to a butterfly, rather than leaving that detail empty.)
There's plenty of discussion as to why we want to create believable stories, and how to create believable fiction and/or fantasy... and I think my post is long enough as it is right now

I hope that some of the points I made help you develop his character more

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Last Edit by: Chen 8/05/12 - 8:15:38 pm

#5 :: August 5th, 2012 @ 8:26 PM

is a Mirage

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o.o Actually, that really helps a lot.
I... honestly can't come up with a great response to this, despite your volume of response. However, 4 really struck me the most. That angle was far from what I was trying to go for, by a long-shot. I will bookmark this page so I can refer back to your critique. Thank you so much!

#6 :: August 6th, 2012 @ 4:16 PM

is a Skilled Hooker

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haha, that's okay. Let it sit for a while whilst you work stuff out.

Also, I totally forgot to mention, but you might want to look at pet forumgroups to ping when asking for pet story help, those guys are great~!
(like pet spotlight support)

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#7 :: August 6th, 2012 @ 9:28 PM

Blabbermouth

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Interesting idea, I like it.

#8 :: August 6th, 2012 @ 10:14 PM

is a Mirage

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Ah, thank you! ^^