wolffyluna | (no subject)

So, in April, I am planning to write the first draft of a novel, because who is going to stop me? Me? I don't want to stop me?

But, unfortunately, it turns out that to write a novel, you have to chose a premise to write. I know. It's criminal.

Below, is a list of premises. I am interested to hear which ones sound most exciting to people!

1. Sapphic Steppe Atrocities vs Space NGOs

Alit and Ngaya faced each other into battle-- until new warriors fell from the sky, clad in armour that could block all bow shot and using weapons that fired light itself. As they flee into the wilderness, they must survive and work out wtf is happening.

Sabina-- who does not have a Greek statue avatar on twitter because social media is for people who do not get shit done-- has a world to conquer, but she, unfortunately, may need the help of the locals to do it. Oh, and upper management is on her case about resources, but you can't strike terror into a populace without resources, okay?

Future just wants a future without smallpox. Humanity has done it once before, it can do it again. She would also like distributing smallpox vaccines to involve less a) space crimes and b) crash landing on planets with hostile weather and hostile people.

Things escalate from here.

2. Siege Engineer x Cavalry General

A century ago, a prophecy was spoke into being: from the steppes would come a rule of the world.

The Great Khan is doing pretty well to reach that goal, but recently, another prophecy has come forth: all empires fall, and this one will fall quicker under the weight of metal flying through the air, propelled by contained fire.

The logical response? Invent guns first. And you know-- capture the engineers who could make one!

Iskander the temporarily named is a siege engineer, with a side interest in explosives, who survived the sack of his city for two reasons: 1. by being forced to hid in a basement when he should have been helping design the last ditch fortifications, and 2. someone ratting out where the siege engineers were hidden. He may be alive, but he is very, very kidnapped.

Bob, the even more temporarily named, is a trusted general, which has unfortunately meant he has been given this task: get one of these engineers to make a gun, or it's his neck on the chopping block with the rest of them. And the only one who knows anything about blackpowder is a fighty arsehole with a death wish. But, it's okay, he's a horse trainer: he has experience dealing with fighty arseholes with a death wish, and he can at least win an arm wrestle against this one.

3. Orc Empress x Cave Elf Assassin

Dude McOrcface was a true rags to riches story, or rather, random guy to Emperor of growing Empire story. He drew together an orc coalition, created a new orcish identity, and was on the up and up. He had multiple wives, include Axeya, Whose Name Must Be Changed, our protagonist.

And then he, rather inconveniently, died. The Empire started immediately fracturing, due to a combination of multiple plausible heirs, steppe partible inheritance, and a lot of powerful orc lords all wanting a slice of that pie.

Women aren’t meant to inherit. Axeya wasn’t even his primary wife. She didn’t even give him an heir. But a combination of first mover advantage, sheer ambition, and buckets of charisma, she’s grabbed a sizable portion of his army and land.

But she is now at the head of an imperial shark, that needs to keep fighting and expanding or else it will die. (and well. seeing how many enemies she’s made, so will she.) It’s fine, it’s cool: she goretusk gaslight girlbossed her way into this mess, she’ll goretusk gaslight girlboss her way out.

And okay, maybe the nearest cave elf city has sent an assassin to kill her, but it didn't work! And hey, maybe she can parlay this from an attempted assassination, into a hostage situation, into a very strategic arranged marriage. Don't know if you don't try!