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Topic : Re: I love the world and characters I've created for my story, but I dislike the plot. How can I proceed? I've spent several years periodically writing and developing a high fantasy story I mean - selfpublishingguru.com

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I have been having the same problem, so the amount of help I can give is limited. I will say this, on a more constructive note. Originality means little, writing is 99% execution and 1% original thought. As some might sarcastically say, "copying from one source is plagiarism, copying from a whole bunch is inspiration". As an example, take a look at Star Wars. The original trilogy. A New Hope was deliberately written to be the most generic, schlocky thing imaginable (down to following Campbell's monomyth beat-by-beat), and people loved it because the execution was so great.
Same with Lord of the Rings. You'd think after 66 years of imitators somebody, somewhere would come up with a distilled version of the heroic fantasy that would make the original forgotten except for its historical novelty, sort of like what happened with Burroughs' Barsoom series and science-fiction. Except it's not, because Tolkien's execution was so dang good.
As Xavier, Renegade Angel would say, "it helps no one to be reductive". Any idea, when you boil it down to its most basic components, can be framed in a way that sounds trite and overdone. It's the bells and whistles, the twists, and the way you put your unique stamp on it that make the work "good". Even your run of the mill, "a hero joins a rag-tag bunch of misfits to destroy a dark lord" story can be good if its presentation is suitably unique.
What you need are two hooks, an environmental hook, and an emotional one...
Environmental - Why is your setting unique? What differentiates it from every other fantasy world out there. The magic system? Mistborn got a lot of attention (indeed, probably all of its initial attention) due to its unique magic system. Dorohedoro got a lot of attention because of its unique slummy setting. It's things like this that make your story stand out, and you can even make very basic plots seem fresh if done in a novel enough setting where audience expectations are not established, and anything can happen. Segue into your own unique take on a plot, and you have a recipe for success.
A good example of how this could be done badly is The Inheritance Cycle. The Inheritance Cycle had an interesting magic system, and if the plot were designed around that, it would have been an interesting story. But instead, we got Star Wars with dragons. The author couldn't find the hook.
Emotional - Why should I care about these characters? What makes them different from your cookie-cutter fantasy archetypes? What about their personalities and relationships with each other makes them unique? You say that the hero fights his best-friend-turned-evil-because-he-is-jealous-of-his-power, but how does that differ from Naruto and Sasuke, or any other number of similar characters? When someone can read your story and see your characters as unique characters with their own voice instead of "Plucky Hero #7208 ", you know you've done your job.
If you do want to revise your plot, rewrite it, so it highlights the good aspects of your story (world and characters). When I was designing my story, I put my magic system and characters first and then devised a plot that would let me showcase as many of those aspects as possible to the viewer like I was building a train tour through Jurassic Park. Play to your strengths.


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