Now this has been an idea rolling around in my head for awhile, but does a modern day fantasy world (think like middle earth or azeroth in the modern day)sound like a good idea? I mean the world would have all of our modern convieneces (Cars,guns,computers) but would also have elements of fantasy and magic and work them into the modern day (magic being explained in a scientific matter, magical creatures being endangered species). And the world itself will be modernised with governments, coporations and wars being fought over money, natural resources and political power instead of magical rings and fear of getting killed by zombies and demons. I've come up with dozens of ideas surrounding this idea, but here are a few: * My first idea is about a evil dark lord's rise to power, however this dark lord is portrayed as a dictator of a nation. The story follows him from his troubled youth, his time as a celebrated young hero, his time as a high ranking general, the height of his power as a charasmatic yet merciless dictator and finally his downfall at the hands of a young GI. It's all about telling the story of the badguy. * The Second is about a regular grunt like infantry soldier, on the side of the supposed bad guys during a war. I planned to make him like a grotesque looking creature (like an orc or pig man or something) and the story follows his time fighting in the war, his detainement in a military prison, his escape and time spent fighting in an underground militia trying to defend his country from the allied forces trying to occupy it and his final stand after the war as part of a terrorist organisation on some crazy crusade to make the nations on the other side of the war pay for what they did. Again it is about telling the story of the bad guy. *My final idea I'm going to write down here is a Spy thriller about a secret agent who works for an organisation he himself does not know much about. During his personal life he is cool, calm, suave and artistically talented, but when he is on a mission he is brutal, ruthless, blindly follows his superiors orders and generally puts everything nothing before the mission. However one day while on a mission he is attacked by a party not at all involved with his mission and is disbanded from the organistion he works for. Taking tips from a mysterious informant from a secret "assassins creed" like organisation against worldwide corruption, he must travel around the world, undoing injustice, avoiding capture and death and finding out the reality behind how the world really works. So, is this good, bad, okay. You guys decide. P.S: I'm only 16, so don't sugar coat your opinion, but please don't be like those guys from At The Movies and criticise me harshly with big words my feeble mind can't understand! [Edited by - ZacTheImpailer on December 31, 2009 1:28:38 AM]

Thankyou Wai, for your comment, it is very appreciated and you have given me some good ideas.


In the first idea, The story actually started with the dark lord's death, wherein the GI kills him mercilessly and after discover's his memoirs. The GI starts to read about his life and draws parallels to his own. The Story mainly focusses on the troubled dark lord overcoming his shitty life to a point where he has got it good. However over the years he had been slowly developing a certain mindset due to the tradegy he suffers, and then one day one final peice of shit is flung in his face and he goes on a mad quest to undo the wrong, he soon loses his grip on reality and becomes consumed by this mindset he had developed, thus leading to his downfall. The GI reflects on this and has to think seriously about his life. Sorry I didn't make that clear.


On my Second Idea, you pretty much hit the nail on the head and that whole "this could be resolved" idea sounds very good.


Also, I think that my 3rd idea was probably my weakest. Although I didn't quite make it clear, I was going to also put in some strong metaphysical undertones.(think the matrix, metal gear 2)

But again thankyou, you sound like a very good writer.

I'm not 100% sure I follow where you want to go with the modern fantasy. For a glimpse into one author's fantasty-in-a-modern-setting-esque stories, I'd recommend looking into Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series. (A professional wizard who advertises himself as such in the Yellow Pages.)

If you're talking about taking themes from typical fantasy setups and translating them into a modern setting: go for it! Orson Scott Card once wrote "When I was reading Middle English romances for a graduate class at Notre Dame, I realized that almost every one of these thirteenth-century stories would make a terrific science fiction novel if you just changed the sea to space and the boats to starships. And most science fiction novels could easily be turned into fantasy by changing starships back into ocean-going vessels. Frank Herbert's Dune would fit right in with the best medieval romances, if planets became continents and the spice became a source of magical power..." (pg. 16 How to write science fiction & fantasy; 2001 Writer's Digest Books)

Your ideas have merit, but will obviously need fleshed out. I'd recommend looking around for successful stories with similar themes to see what elements you liked and which you would change for your story. Your second idea reminded me somewhat of the backstory of Thrall, the Orc leader in the Warcraft universe. Though ostensibly one of the 'bad guys' he has come to be one of the most iconic and recognized characters in the series' considerable following.

If you've a fair amount of free time you can devote to reading, I'd recommend Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy, as it started out with an idea similar to your first, then evolved into quite a different angle.

@Sraben

Thanks for your insight, The idea i was actually going for was to work the fantasy elements into a modern day setting. Also I did kinda get part of my second idea from playing as a tauren on world of warcraft, I mean most of the horde races are not actually evil, and the tauren are probably the most peaceful of all the races.

Anyway I should probably make a new post for each of these ideas and flesh them out a bit more, this post was just to see if anybody liked my general idea of a modern day fantasy world.

Are yes, dragon age was awesome. I liked the way it tried to depict a realistic fantasy world. The thing I loved about it though, was the idea that the elves were a minority who originally ruled the land, but were put into slavery by the humans who tried to colonise it and have recently earnt their freedom but are still considered an underclass.


with the mage idea though, I imagine that there would be some kind of magic restriction laws to prevent crime and some kind of government regisrty of magic users.Another thing I think that there would be some kind of anti magic leg bracelet or something similar that could be given to criminals who are adept in magic or performed magic based crimes.

But my idea of magic would be that it would not be just a tool of war but a part of everyday life and that the practice of magic would be like a fine science with many different disciplines of magic and different techniques being used to cast different types of spells. I also believe that magic would be something that anybody could achieve, but not everybody does because certain people would not be intrested in magic or would simply not be very good at it.

[Edited by - ZacTheImpailer on January 2, 2010 4:08:59 AM]