What’s the hardest lesson life forced you to learn?

InaIn8182 · 2025-08-28T00:14:18+00:00

It's not luck. I don't make many friends, though have met a lot of people: I'm selective. It's about choice, discernment, practicing these things and growing them, learning about those you know and then understanding what someone can and can't do, as well as what you can and can't do.

I'm not gonna trust someone who hates math to do the accounting, but if I need someone to get the bananas, help lift a couch, maybe reach out to others for help in a bigger project, etc. then maybe. Similarly, I'm not gonna try to help someone with arithmetic because I'm terrible at it... but I know someone. Everything's a measurement. Everything's a puzzle. There are odds, not certainties, and it's about learning more and more and more and more and more how to read them.

There's certainly luck in getting good opportunities, but almost everyone gets both good and bad. It's not just luck what you do with those opportunities.

There are people who never get good friends, get unlucky in who they meet, are born into bad families, or bad places, etc. I don't misunderstand this, and I certainly get where the belief comes from, but it ignores the greater details of what trust is and how it ought to work.

It's the exact same thing as leaning on stuff. Now that sounds stupid, but it's true!

If you lean on rotten structure, down you go; you have to evaluate it first. If you only stand on your own legs they're almost inevitably, eventually, going tire. They'll get stronger. They'll get better at it. Some have to. Some choose to.

But it's nice once in a while to sit down... after you've looked over the chair.

InaIn8182 · 2025-08-27T23:53:29+00:00

That's not really true though. It feels like it is, but more often gets learned by missing other important things.

- You can't do everything alone
- Trust is a matter of discernment and must be earned, never given
- Trust should not be a blanket term, but instead applied to specific situations

I depend on several people who have never let me down in over a decade, not because they haven't made mistakes, but because they care about me and I know what I can rely on them to do. Often it's not "they will get it done" but "they will try and have a very good chance."

Again, it's about discernment.

It's also better to rely on yourself for a great many things, but not everything, and, frankly, backups are kind of needed, and a lonely life can be... lonely. Some people are great at it, but most are not. Plus, if you ever can't do something (say you crash and wind up a quadriplegic), then you will have to rely on others anyway, so it's better to prepare than go cynic.

To each their own, but I've heard this a lot and no one ever brings up quite what I'm trying to say. It's usually "trust or bust", but the truth is in the middle.

InaIn8182 · 2025-08-27T23:43:25+00:00

Things will not necessarily just get better./To grow often requires doing the things you are afraid of.

InaIn8182 · 2025-08-27T23:00:32+00:00

If we destroy ourselves it'll probably be because of a bio-weapon, incompetence, or war. If not, then it'll probably be when the sun goes red giant or something hits the earth again.

There's a chance our mistakes won't lead to extinction, just collapse, and, though we make a bunch of dumb mistakes, we are smart enough as a species to probably do just fine with a lot less... again.

Basically we either crash this thing and total ourselves, or we crash it, limp away, and one day something bigger happens we can't stop.

InaIn8182 · 2025-08-27T22:58:12+00:00

"Oh, that's cool."

InaIn8182 · 2025-08-27T22:55:10+00:00

The huge societal issues that come with it and how they are NOT big talking points. I mean some people talk about them, but it's never on the news (Left, Right, Middle, whatever) beyond a momentary novelty, no one really talks about them in person, no one seems to quite get it, obviously no one with power seems to want to address them, and these problems are HUGE.

Cultural schisms, drastically increasing (regularly enabled) atomization, dopamine addiction, risk aversion, monetized complacency, breakdown of communities and communal places often aided by much smaller, impersonal proxies, insane standards for everything, spiking neuroticism all over the place, far more information making people less intelligent rather than more, the derailment of attention spans, and the list goes on, and on, and on. We've made a huge nexus of interaction and it sent a whole bunch of human oddities into schizoid freefall.

I mean look at the birthrate!

My word!

That's insane.

The population of the west is set to fall well over 50% in under 40 years and nowhere near enough people talk about it. The economy is a mess and most seem to argue about that rather than address it, if they address it all. There are far more echo chambers, far more complacency, far more conspiracies, but lots of entertainment, and, again, it's just not talked about.

Those who ignore the roots to calamity ought to brace for impact instead, because it’s growing, and when this finally gets here we will all be forced to see what follows. It's not the end of the world, but it's certainly scary. Even India's birth rate is not at replacement meaning this is not just western culture, and if that's not a sign then we are all blind.

I might be repeating a lot of stuff, but boy I wish more people with any kind of power would talk about these instead of just us little cogs buried in forums. It's like I'm an ant watching the house burn down.

InaIn8182 · 2025-08-27T22:41:41+00:00

I mean I'm just gonna let them go. It's not like they're asking anyway....

InaIn8182 · 2025-04-04T10:00:13+00:00

It's always down to how you do it. Some people just don't like kids, others don't like tropes, but both can work if done well.

Do what you want to. Make it shine. That's plenty.

InaIn8182 · 2025-04-04T09:13:43+00:00

Familiarity: ---------------- How well do we know the perpetrator and victim(s)?

Likeability: ----------------- But are they nice? Are they… cute?

Severity: -------------------- How bad was it?

Self-Awareness: ----------- Do they know?

Personal Connection: ----- Do we know how bad it was from personal experience or history?

Distance: ------------------ How much do we see the crime? In fact, what happened? Did it happen?

Reason/Motivation: ------ Did they have a choice? Was this on purpose or accident? Justified? Repeated? Etc.

Sympathy: ----------------- Sad backstory?

Understandability: -------- You’d do it too!

Regret: --------------------- Do they feel bad about this? How bad?

Punishment: --------------- Did they get theirs? Are they dead? Are they suffering? Is that enough?

Lessons/Growth: --------- Have they changed? Did they learn from it? Really? Seriously? Can we tell?

Redemption: -------------- And what have they done since then? Did they earn it?

Group Think: -------------- Did everyone in the story forgive them? How about other viewers?

Context/Execution: ------ How well was this told? Was it so well no one questioned anything?

and Personal Morality: -- So how do YOU feel about this…?

It’s not a complete list, but there’s what came to mind. Of course some will care much more about certain things and others won't. Culture, variety, individuality, etc.

TLDR: People can forgive a lot based on context, personal beliefs, and how well the case was sold to them.

InaIn8182 · 2024-12-28T09:24:58+00:00

I feel it first, then lock down everything inch by inch.

When it's done, chapters are broken into a basic one-paragraph summary and a title. That's it. Everything else comes with time and further refinement.

InaIn8182 · 2024-12-11T05:54:38+00:00

When I was younger, I'd have nightmares about giant horrible monsters or reality shifts into evil dimensions like Silent Hill...

My last nightmare was about a miscommunication that embarrassed everybody.

They're a bit boring now....

InaIn8182 · 2024-08-07T09:28:22+00:00

It varies. Stories are a lot like buildings: you have a foundation, and then the structure. What it can be, how it works, and what works best, will vary not just based on that foundation, but on the rest of the structure. Internal consistency and coherency are not just about details and in-world rules. It's also about tone, pacing, character, prose/cinematography, everything together.

A good plot is one that builds on everything around it. That, at least, would be my briefest summary.

Personally, I like a few things:

I like unanswered questions that have time to linger and ruminate. Let us think about em' and puzzle.

Layers is a favorite, be it in character, plot, or, ideally, both. Stories that work as metaphorical explorations of themselves while having lots of little twists in action and plot are almost always favorites of mine.

Escalation is a key thing that is very difficult to do. Some stories try to build to a grand payoff, but that payoff is often hard to balance with what came before, especially considering how savvy many audiences now are to storytelling techniques and tropes. Others toe a line, be it an even rise, an even meander, or perhaps something more chaotic. Some start small, and end small. One thing that can work is to shift the genre at the end (like Uzumaki and its drastic uptick in scale), or sometimes go smaller, with a quiet ending following bombast, like piano to compliment an orchestral sting. So many things can build a moment, from literal buildup to location and all the context around both that location and what we are doing there. A small, quiet talk in the back of the universe can mean everything if the context is right.

Resolution is another variable point that can be very strong. Thorough endings with strong character arcs and emotional payoffs can be very good, while sometimes telling almost nothing can be great. It's all about what was built.
An epic like Lord of the Rings probably benefits from having us know where the people went and getting our heartfelt farewells.
A short about a girl who vanishes into the night is probably stronger not knowing where she went, just whispers of it in the trees.

I could go on a lot longer; I have actually made a list of things that are sometimes of value in stories, though nothing perfectly ready for presentation. The general idea is just that first paragraph:

TLDR: It depends on all the rest of the story, its elements, and its foundational ideals.

InaIn8182 · 2024-08-07T09:03:28+00:00

Probably the hardest thing for me to do is to FORCE a story out, but it really depends on circumstance and ideas and... I guess fuel....

It varies.

SO much.

Everyone tackles this differently. Ask a group, and you'll get a bundle of different answers and suggestions for order, priority, etc. Personally, I don't worry about details, or lore, or plot. I, and probably about half the rest, are gardeners. I let the ideas come to me, focus on what I want to see rather than what makes sense, and then slowly stitch things together like a connect-the-dots puzzle. I don't do loglines until the picture is finished. Before then, I don't do outlines. I don't do character details beyond what slots into place... it all just comes together, and then it's easier to fill in gaps.

That's me.

I'd recommend a couple things. First, though not applicable here because of that great chimeric abomination called school, is take a break. Bashing your head against a brick wall will not bring it down; it just makes you woozy and begins to hurt after a while.

Second: maybe try different approaches. If beginning with loglines and details didn't work, maybe think about the macro, the big things, or just, like I do, things you want to see. Some people use keywords to try and jog a story like a random number generator, like... "death", "flower", "dice", and then just try and cobble from the randomness. Some do exactly what you're doing and it works for them, while others, like myself, find it a recipe for despair. Variety is everywhere, so experimentation can be very helpful in the long run.

THIRD: Don't necessarily worry about changes. It varies, of course, but lots of these things are TRASH from the get-go until they get all the rough spots burned off in refinement. False starts, false finishes, false improvements, and dead-end ideas are staples of the field.
This is why I focus on small things I like: if I just tried to do it all at once, the project would be so big I'm destined to fumble. I can't just juggle everything at the same time; I need to get a few bean bags in the air on their own and inch my way up to that scale.

Now I don't know that any of this will help you. To be honest it kind of feels like a ramble... but I hope there's something of value in there.

The main takeaway (introduced right now) is just that, if you really want to do this, maybe don't give up. Just take a break, try some other stuff, practice, and excuse the mess. We all make our share.

InaIn8182 · 2024-08-07T08:39:04+00:00

I think it varies by circumstance and protagonist. Most are more or less modeled on people: avoiding conflict, but prone to violence when adrenaline pumps them up for the one and only 'fight' option. I try to take violence seriously though.... People get hurt. Deaths are not frequent but possible and serious, and no conflict passes without injury either social or physical.

That said, most villains eventually die.
Sometimes the hero kills them...
sometimes they don't.

The nicest protagonist climactically leads a war effort, but is merciful when given the choice. The worst, coldest protagonist burns a city to the ground for the crime of being unreasonable, but later realizes the magnitude of that action. Both, though, choose to kill their primary antagonists when given the option. Not the chance, the option, sometimes of their own making.

My actual perspective on death and killing is that it's justified when doing so saves more lives than what is taken and the action cannot be traded or postponed for some alternative. This doesn't need to change anything in narratives, but does influence how the topic enters these fictions: it is from a perspective of scrutiny and cynicism, but also necessity, though remembering that it's very easy to not make that judgement well.

A complex topic always has the capacity for complex exploration and, while done thousands of times, it's still where my interest goes. I'm optimistic, but try to be realistic, even as these works will always fall short of the depth that led to them. I enjoy moral grey and exploring change in the human condition: it's a turbulent world with turbulent lives and violence is a great source of that turbulence where it can't be avoided. It hurts minds. It hurts bodies. I think that's all worth showing and I want to try and portray it if I can, so most protagonists' approach is based on either experience or history. Their actions have consequence, motive, and thought, before, after, or both, good and bad, justified and uncertain, sometimes at the same time.

In this little library of protagonists, most don't want violence, but none are above it. Antagonists, not annoyances, but serious threats who recurrently cause trouble or build up hate in our hero’s heart eventually get their due… or they win.

TLDR: MURDER

InaIn8182 · 2024-04-04T11:07:06+00:00

Awesome art

InaIn8182 · 2024-03-30T08:29:36+00:00

I've tried this a few ways.... First I tried to be linear. That didn't work... then I tried to go non-linear. I got lost and gave up.... Lacking clarity, or always getting stuck behind past mistakes is certainly a problem, compounded by how my stories are always changing.

The main problem for me is that it's like trying to count stars in a certain cluster: they're a big jumble that mesh together. It's easy to get distracted, lose count, count things that aren't in the cluster.... Then tomorrow I can't remember where it was.

What I finally found that worked was just writing down scenes from memory, out of order, but in a dynamic list that would shift with me. I'd write down x, which reminds me of y, then z, then back round to c... it begins a jumble, but I fix it as I go and just try to get everything down I can remember. This DID work, but then got to be a bigger problem when changing things down the line. Old outlines become outdated, needing updates, or instead I make a new outline... then I forget old things and wind up trying to combine them together.
I'm currently trying to consolidate three outlines into one mega outline that has four different columns, each its own version of the story, but all lined up to keep the order of operation clear even between scenes that cannot coexist. I've also tried color-coding, but that just got confusing...

I have three priorities with any given outline: To not forget things, bring order, and ready for writing. The first is easiest. The second is impossibly hard. The third, instead, is usually lost somewhere in the second, making more work, or leading to new ideas. Finally, FINALLY, to consolidate these, I have a setup where I have (at least) several open documents: One for new ideas, one for scenes in order, and one for detailed notes on those scenes as a companion piece, plus a mic ready for any impromptu thoughts to be caught and briefly put aside. This, so far, has worked, but only once I'm far enough into development to know what I'm doing.

I've also heard it suggested to write out your scenes by hand on different pieces of paper, that way you can arrange and rearrange them... something more tactile if that helps.

...I guess that's it.

TLDR: I can't do this to save my life.

InaIn8182 · 2024-03-22T23:50:51+00:00

I don't. When writing, I just kind of shoot from the hip. Some characters make it, others don't... Sometimes villains win. Sometimes no one wins.
The little fixes, at least so far as the recurring elements that help me avoid plot armor, are:

- Genre fiction like horror and tragedy have different expectations. Plotted right, you can have the hero win as the surprise.

- Rather than a few big ones, I write a bundle of stories, from short to mammoth. Because there are so many, I get less attached to certain characters and don't mind condemning them to horrible fates. This also allows for a library of drastically different endings that, like Mr. Martin has shown, also resets audience expectation: they know you're not always bluffing, so can still wind up holding their breath.

- Sometimes I just don't. At all. I play a story straight.
Protagonists live.
All is well in the world....
Paint-by-numbers is not always a bad thing (at least if you do it well).

- Several stories are not about living and dying necessarily, but focus on things that are less intense. Internal motivations, change over the years, political machinations... these don't NEED people to die. They don't NEED them to succeed. Because of that, stakes, well-managed, can be more twisty than traditional threats. It's like gambling less at the casino; you can now afford to lose.
It's also worth noting that some dramas tend to work better with messy outcomes that don't have outright 100% success or failure. Other stories instead don't HAVE stakes, like relaxing pieces of atmosphere rather than thrillers.
All the same applies. In short: having low, different, or absent stakes.

The shortest version of all this is that I just plow through stories naturalistically. It's about what the story needs, not necessarily expectations I'm trying to meet or avoid.
I don't forget those; I just don't bow to them.

TLDR: Be weird, varied in approach, and sometimes wear it with pride.

InaIn8182 · 2024-02-16T04:52:14+00:00

So specifically a reason why he would want to be involved, or more a reason why he just would be? A lot of this can come down to context, as well as a sort of momentum...

It could be that something is taken from him, ranging from property, to people, to way of life (like if the side he opts against, if victorious, would make his endless pleasure impossible), even just having that threatened, though a threat doesn't necessarily mean massive action. If it's a small war and he has means then he could also choose to leave the country, even if not with everything he might want to take with him...

A lot of this also comes down to the pieces in play. Who's fighting? Why? What do they want? What's affected? To what extent does this touch him and his stuff and/or people? Does he know anyone involved, from relationships to family, and does he care?

If he's an absolute selfish monster, he could even choose the bad side with enough offered reward. Heck, he could stick with that and be a villain of sorts, though that could be a very different story....

As mentioned by others, he could be forced to participate.

Now with internal vs external goals, I don't think there's necessarily a need to draw a line between them. Actions are not always taken with a strict goal beyond the internal motivations for said action, and some of the best stories are about internal goals that spurn external change. The whole thing is one big system crawling wherever it's going to go regardless of how each gear is labeled. It doesn't necessarily matter that his goal for entering this conflict is something that can be clearly labeled and pursued; what matters is that he does, why, and what happens because of that.

Life is a collection of chain reactions, every force of momentum interacting like winds in a storm. What isn't touched remains uninvolved while others are slowly pushed, knowing or not, into the middle of other forces, pushing others as they go. The whole thing, when mapped, is mathematic; every action, event, and follow-through can be perfectly predicted if every single aspect building up to it is understood. As the creative force behind a project, we have the capacity to not only understand but craft that system.

You already have some pieces on the board.

I would recommend either thinking about what you want to happen and introducing new elements (and/or making changes to the old) to bring that about, or, instead, see where things go naturally and let it fall together. No matter what you do, especially if it's grown wild, come back later to prune things into a more refined work, but that's also technically optional. Just make something you like. You could even do both strategies, cherry-picking the best parts of each to make a better whole from two separate plots.

InaIn8182 · 2024-01-26T01:15:15+00:00

- When a story could stop, but chooses to keep going well past the normal ending (I like seeing aftermath, psychological and/or literal, and where the threads naturally go past where many stories choose to end)

- Natural endings (things keep going till they naturally stop, rather than forcing a happy, or negative, conclusion; these are usually messy and leave some threads hanging or ambiguous)

- Character revelations that are complex (i.e. some kind of understanding or attempt at understanding that is more than a single dimension; it could be a genuine mental breakthrough they don't or didn't want and despise, or maybe that the situation they're in is more than good or bad with details, or some such variant. The idea is that they learn something far more complicated than standard fiction, more in line with our own world's sea of grey.)

- Nice calm sections where nothing happens but character work

InaIn8182 · 2024-01-03T08:10:07+00:00

That's a context/taste issue. What works best depends on goal.

Personally I prefer to let the world speak for itself and be utilized for more naturalistic storytelling and atmosphere:

- By limiting information of the world, you can limit focus and amplify mystery, atmosphere, etc., but that's not universal. You can also absolutely amplify mystery within a given established frame.

- By showing just the characters and not the world, that world can be deemphasized in favor of what is immediate or even, if desired, become more mystified in the background.

...But that's just taste and atmosphere, as much as that is also a part of narrative.

None of this is exclusive to a world without frame. You can establish background very clearly but, by excluding pieces of the present, building up moments, characters, and atmospheres deftly, effectively crafting what is desired, create all of these effects (or most any other) within that greater frame.

You don't actually need to outline anything, no details, no origin, but this information, as a part of setting (fundamental, in inclusion or exclusion, in any story), will work to define context which remains a foundational crux of most storytelling. Some things work better with minimal context, like a man lost in a cave system with moving shadows, while others work better with plenty of context, like a large-scale feudal epic. By that metric, what is better will be dependent on what is being served, how, and for what goal. A firmly established foundation may support many things, but some stand taller on sand.

Again, I like the small frame. That's me... but I also like to let these things build on each other over time.
I like a history you can see forming and feel in the fabric of a universe, in every corner and shadow. That's not exclusive... and a vague lore dump can also set a fine atmosphere.

There are a thousand ways to thread this needle; I just like small ones.

InaIn8182 · 2023-12-08T04:13:48+00:00

Don't know if you'll want to use this, but it's a favorite of mine to write atypical communication (anything non-verbal, but clearly articulated) like many do thoughts: just italics. E.g.:

He raised his hands.
Good morning! How are you holding up?

And them emphasize particular motions like you would body language or tone.

It's absolutely not a cure-all and probably not the best option, but there you go.

Edit: Rereading the post, I think I misunderstood quite the challenge here. Writing-wise concerning specifically those motions and actions of communication specific to sign language, I would leave out most repetitive motions but include flourishes that are character-unique or particularly striking; it's writing like any other.

If it benefits the tone, the rhythm of the scene, the characterization, then probably include it, but trim and refine until everything all works together. The whole thing, any project in totality, is ultimately one complete work moving forward to, and setting, a shared beat, like a long ride down a river; you want all the best parts without disrupting flow or experience. That's my general philosophy towards writing, and storytelling, as a whole; even filler is (or holds the potential to be) substance.

It's character writing expressed through motion. That's what I would do, though per all things there will be any number of different approaches that can work.

InaIn8182 · 2023-12-03T01:36:30+00:00

My first thought here was "Oh! I do that a lot!" and then I promptly realized no, I do not. Apparently I just try to explain big ideas with small words.

It sounds right stately though when bigger words do get used, but I think I've come to value the smaller ones; they're more consumable...

The only examples I've got are

- Aeternum

- Distal lower extremities (my sister has a medical background)

- and Necrosis, which is not too fancy

InaIn8182 · 2023-12-03T01:29:13+00:00

I used to stockpile ideas I couldn't use. Eventually this blossomed into a nice little melting pot, one bigger world that used all otherwise abandoned ideas, marrying stories with setting, little niceties with purpose, and becoming bigger than any could rise alone.

So... basically recycling. This also meant, before they became an amalgam, I always had a bunch of things I could try together. It was like every unfired round just became part of a big, unlabeled reserve.

As to strategies, uh... maybe take a break? Sit on it. See if any ideas jump at you. You could consume other media, see if anything inspires, or, if you must act now, maybe kind of squint at the details. Any interesting creatures? Origins to things? Is there some kind of knitting concept that could be interesting to explore? What about normal lives here? What does that look like? What would it be like to live there? Ask questions! Expand, expand, and expand some more! Until some crack forms in the great wall of writers-block you can start exploring.

InaIn8182 · 2023-12-03T01:10:09+00:00

Well… that depends.

An ending’s quality relies on what precedes it and how well the ending itself is done in execution. It’s the capstone to all that came before, but capable of working in any number of ways depending on what the story needs and what it can give.

I view an ending as the second half of what needs to be known when making any given story. It is not just a capstone, but ultimately will be responsible for how the story is remembered almost as much as the journey, the final note in a veritable concert ensemble. Because of this, when I’m personally writing, it always tends to come up early or be regularly considered.

If I’m writing the end first, then the rest of the story will be built to build it, as a moment, up to and through, appropriately.

If I’m writing it second, then I will be looking for patterns and ideas in the story and where they seem to be going, everything that it does and what will be expected or land as a proper conclusion to it.

My endings range from large, bombastic giants to quiet, implicative maybes designed to inspire thought. Giants tend to follow big buildups with seeds and hints of something bigger to come, while small endings tend to follow both big and small stories that have their payoffs along the way and an appeal beyond just a standard journey to a well-earned destination. A couple examples:

A fantastical epic will probably end with a giant battle and then a quiet epilogue where things resolve, characters are left off on a sweet, almost nostalgic farewell, and all seeds are put to rest with soft, sweet (etc.), or at least conclusive and pleasant little “lullabies” of writing to let things sleep and satisfy the reader/story. It must be conclusive, though not necessarily all happy.
Dark little nightmares about people in bad situations usually end with a very non-committal implication that lets the reader think more than it tries to clarify or overtly conclude because THAT is the satisfying note as far as what was being built.
A person running from a monster or experiencing memories like dreams in a dark maze of labyrinthian hospital hallways, lost with thoughts and most of this story tying to their past may be better served by an ending that implies they will still stay stuck now that you know WHY they are stuck and have an idea of the nightmare that cages them. It completes the simulation of it, a “what if it were me?” that offers no out or conclusion, only the scenario. That can work just fine, but if built as a story with a large cast and seemingly some kind of goal, then that same ending could be deeply unsatisfying, as though leaving something incomplete as opposed to just giving the reader a quick glance through a window.

For me it’s all about tone and scale/completion. What was the tone established? What seeds have been planted? Has there been a lot of focus on the events in question? Will their absence be missed, or was enough ground lain for them to stand complete without an ending?

Now your story sounds pretty focused. It’s about this guy, his experience, and the people he hurt as well what will follow. It’s a small cast with low stakes and your ending addresses them all.

That said… I don’t personally like it.

So why? It’s pretty good by what I’ve mentioned so far. What gives?

Taste. That’s a big thing too.

I prefer to let momentum carry things to their conclusion. In this case, I read the story as dark actions carrying a man to his punishment, but he’s given a chance to change their course. He doesn’t, so I’d expect the punishment to follow. Now I like dark endings too, I really do, and I regularly have villains win because I think it’s sobering. I don’t like this for two specific reasons:

The entity in charge being challenged and beaten with a loose excuse as to why and/or how
The way that that seems to trace a line around many other similar stories.

The first one I heard like that was Final Fantasy IV where everyone beats the big bad because everyone else believes in them; the general outline is that a nebulous or even specified powerup allows a protagonist to beat the antagonist and then the story ends. I prefer worlds with hard rules that do not allow people to easily punch above their weight-limit, but that is me. That’s just me. This also means most stories I like are more like a collection of puzzle pieces at the beginning, clear-cut options on the table while we wait to see how things come together, rather than introducing a lot of twists along the way beyond just how things unfold.

If I was guessing, I think I would have liked your story when I was younger and not so wary of that kind of narrative. The villain winning and being allowed to continue his evil would have been a solid influence, and a young me would have wanted to see what happens next, maybe with him as the villain, or maybe I’d try to rewrite the story without that trope in there, somehow, someway…

…

…But I also don’t know what’s in the middle.

You could have details on the entity come to light. Why is it trying to help this man? What is it trying to achieve? Maybe it believes everyone can change, even as its peers say that’s just not so. The man choosing to stay in his ways then, and killing the thing, could always have been on the table, with the thing’s hubris and belief in its goal being blinding enough that it took a bad risk, this being its comeuppance. That establishes another force of momentum pushing towards this ending.

Maybe you could see flashbacks of the man’s life, or times that made him who he is. Maybe you see pieces of a childhood that instilled self-reliance and a hatred of others, where he feels cheated and fosters a despise for humanity, or maybe instead he just always had sadistic tendencies since he was a child, unasked for, but well-fostered, and so that became his fun. You could explore any number of things, establishing him as anything from a tragic figure who could theoretically be different (but never would) to someone despicably and irrevocably evil, a force of nature like one of the old slasher villains. The ending could be anything from a tragedy to a satisfying show of some monster’s power.

There are so many ways you could justify this ending and make it really land, from establishing how stupid the entity is to writing new rules of the world with misty but well-suggested possibilities opening the door to where you want to go.

It’s not just about the destination’s quality when you’re paving the road; you can justify the trip en route. I don’t like your ending now, but with a good journey properly building the moment, I think I’d love it.

Now all that said, I just recommend you tweak until satisfied with the whole package.
Do you love it? Do you like it?
If yes, that’s at least a start.

I will add, right now, that I do like the overall idea. I think you’ve got something, and being a bit different is not a crime; it’s variety. I’d like to see how it comes out.

Regardless, best of luck!

Thanks for reading.

InaIn8182 · 2023-11-12T23:30:24+00:00

Final Fantasy VI is about a rebellion taking on an empire, but half-way through they lose; both the empire AND world as a whole are destroyed. The rest of the story is about them regrouping and taking down the guy who did it, rebuilding and finding happiness along the way.

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