I’ve been looking up different ideas and techniques for developing a novel outline and story. I’m trying out the snowflake method (which I found at http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-method/ ...it’s obviously intended to sell the guy’s software, but the basic technique seems interesting) and so I’ve followed the first two steps he states on that site: make a one sentence summary of the story, and making a paragraph summary of the story.
With that being said, I’ll post the paragraph summary here...be warned, it’s lengthy and rough and I’ll probably end up editing it a bit over the next couple of days on this comment (I really should have broken up a lot of the sentences and made it multiple paragraphs) but with three main characters I believe I did the best I can. The universe this story takes place in is really too large to have one main character, especially with the empire-wide changes that are planned to eventually occur.
Anyways, here’s the paragraph summary for folks to chew on. Needless to say, spoilers are there, but I think the three followers I have will be fine with them.
“The story starts out three-hundred years after the dwarven underground empire conquered the above-ground human kingdoms through the use of gunpowder and in the process killed off the last human magic users. Now, after subjugating the human populace and developing even better firearm and railroad technology, the dwarven empire is expanding east across the great plains. The story starts with the discovery of a charred human female’s corpse in the major above-ground city of Goldenhill by Detective Grothmag Farbeard. At the same time a “duffer” human bounty hunter, Willic Derrain who makes his living hunting down escaped human slaves and turning them back in to their dwarf masters, is kidnapped by the human resistance movement, and a frontier town where humans and dwarves mostly coexist in peace is attacked and razed by a band of renegade elves who take offense to the encroaching civilization and the sole survivor of the attack, Kiria Ruston, is captured by the warband’s chief. Eventually Grothmag determines the charred corpse is the result of humans experimenting with magic that got out of control and he is approached by a secret dwarven police organization known as the Dru’Vinal, who enlist his cooperation in their efforts to hunt down human mages. Meanwhile, the human resistance tries every avenue they can force Willic into joining their cause and conducting terrorist style attacks targeting dwarf nobles and eventually, after discovering his mother and threatening to kill her does he finally give in and begin carrying out the ordered attacks – ten names on a list that he must kill or die trying. At the same time, Kiria is dragged along by the renegade warchief where she is beaten and raped while the warband continues to raid small imperial settlements on the frontier but is eventually freed when a rival elf tribe’s braves attacks the band that has her captured and the new tribe’s chief takes her in and helps nurse her back to health. Finally, Detective Grothmag and the Dru’Vinal locate the human wizard responsible for burning the woman to death and discover it to be a young six-year-old boy in a different human resistance hideout from Willic’s group, whom the Dru’Vinal agent attempts to kill, but Grothmag tries to spare, resulting in the agent killing the boy before Grothmag can prevent his death. Willic, meanwhile, works his way down the list, which leads to the final target which happens to be a noble in Goldenhill who is also the head of the Dru’Vinal attachment in the city. He attacks the noble at the same time that Grothmag is brought before the Dru’Vinal chief by the agent to be sworn in to the secret organization, but Willic’s attack stops this and gives Grothmag the opportunity kill the agent to bring justice for the dead boy. The two end up begrudgingly banding together and escape the city, heading east; Grothmag because he knows the Dru’Vinal will likely hunt him down if he stays in town and Willic to escape the resistance before they try to force him into doing more of their dirty work. Finally, Kiria slowly grows to trust the chief of the new Elf tribe she finds herself a part of, who also happens to be a skilled magic user. He senses the potential to become a powerful wizard in her and begins training her in the ways of magic, and the story ends with her summoning a fireball in the palm of her hand.”
With that being said, I’ll post the paragraph summary here...be warned, it’s lengthy and rough and I’ll probably end up editing it a bit over the next couple of days on this comment (I really should have broken up a lot of the sentences and made it multiple paragraphs) but with three main characters I believe I did the best I can. The universe this story takes place in is really too large to have one main character, especially with the empire-wide changes that are planned to eventually occur.
Anyways, here’s the paragraph summary for folks to chew on. Needless to say, spoilers are there, but I think the three followers I have will be fine with them.
“The story starts out three-hundred years after the dwarven underground empire conquered the above-ground human kingdoms through the use of gunpowder and in the process killed off the last human magic users. Now, after subjugating the human populace and developing even better firearm and railroad technology, the dwarven empire is expanding east across the great plains. The story starts with the discovery of a charred human female’s corpse in the major above-ground city of Goldenhill by Detective Grothmag Farbeard. At the same time a “duffer” human bounty hunter, Willic Derrain who makes his living hunting down escaped human slaves and turning them back in to their dwarf masters, is kidnapped by the human resistance movement, and a frontier town where humans and dwarves mostly coexist in peace is attacked and razed by a band of renegade elves who take offense to the encroaching civilization and the sole survivor of the attack, Kiria Ruston, is captured by the warband’s chief. Eventually Grothmag determines the charred corpse is the result of humans experimenting with magic that got out of control and he is approached by a secret dwarven police organization known as the Dru’Vinal, who enlist his cooperation in their efforts to hunt down human mages. Meanwhile, the human resistance tries every avenue they can force Willic into joining their cause and conducting terrorist style attacks targeting dwarf nobles and eventually, after discovering his mother and threatening to kill her does he finally give in and begin carrying out the ordered attacks – ten names on a list that he must kill or die trying. At the same time, Kiria is dragged along by the renegade warchief where she is beaten and raped while the warband continues to raid small imperial settlements on the frontier but is eventually freed when a rival elf tribe’s braves attacks the band that has her captured and the new tribe’s chief takes her in and helps nurse her back to health. Finally, Detective Grothmag and the Dru’Vinal locate the human wizard responsible for burning the woman to death and discover it to be a young six-year-old boy in a different human resistance hideout from Willic’s group, whom the Dru’Vinal agent attempts to kill, but Grothmag tries to spare, resulting in the agent killing the boy before Grothmag can prevent his death. Willic, meanwhile, works his way down the list, which leads to the final target which happens to be a noble in Goldenhill who is also the head of the Dru’Vinal attachment in the city. He attacks the noble at the same time that Grothmag is brought before the Dru’Vinal chief by the agent to be sworn in to the secret organization, but Willic’s attack stops this and gives Grothmag the opportunity kill the agent to bring justice for the dead boy. The two end up begrudgingly banding together and escape the city, heading east; Grothmag because he knows the Dru’Vinal will likely hunt him down if he stays in town and Willic to escape the resistance before they try to force him into doing more of their dirty work. Finally, Kiria slowly grows to trust the chief of the new Elf tribe she finds herself a part of, who also happens to be a skilled magic user. He senses the potential to become a powerful wizard in her and begins training her in the ways of magic, and the story ends with her summoning a fireball in the palm of her hand.”