Dragonball Z Cast
Long ago, I started designing characters and stories for a series that put all of my friends in the role of hero or villain. It was supposed to be in a world where the 20 Gods (10 evil/10 good) chose champions to battle in a contest to see which side was stronger. Each champion would be transformed into an enhanced being or they already had these powers, which is how they were located. All of the heroes were chosen from the same school, so they had connections even though they weren’t originally friends or had seen each other in years. A key point was that one of the two female leads who were hunting for the other chosen had a bad transformation. Her mind was turned into that of a child, so she’s very innocent. Anyway, there were subplots a plenty.
Then I merged everything into Windemere and a few things happened. These heroes and villains helped create an explanation of why there’s so much magic in Windemere. They answered the question of how the gods recovered from a war with many losses, which is where ‘The Ascended’ came from. More cities and species joined Windemere like the calicos and fireskins. Still don’t remember what I changed the ‘Beasts’ into. Also unsure if having a goddess named Wildcat would be too cheesy or not.
Looking at the story now, I’m not 100% certain how to pull it off. I’m having trouble doing scenes with 6-7 characters involved and making sure everyone gets a voice. Maybe I’ll master this in time, but this series would inevitably become more massive. I’m looking at scenes with at least 10 heroes in the room. It’s a slow build to that level over the trilogy, but it hits that eventually. I might have to kill characters off at key points as the adventure continues. It’s now about rescuing Gola and freeing the Plane of Magic from the Dark God and his minions.
Looking over my notes again, I have 13 on each side and only 1 or 2 die prior to the final book. I spread out the appearances, but not the deaths. At least the heroes get split up a lot in the final book, but this is still a hefty problem. I hate to adopt another pain in the ass story since I have so many, but this one has already been established through some of the Legends of Windemere scenes. Unless I can get away with not telling it . . . but I worked so hard so far. Ugh.
Legends of Windemere 
This sounds like one heck of a story. I put ten bad guys in one room and it was a bear. Good luck
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Thanks. I’m really going to need to think in this one. If for nothing else than for my own sanity.
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The multiple character scenes are a tough one. I have a couple of those in my current WIP and I fear, even though I gave them unique voices, there may be confusion for the reader, we’ll see.
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I think a big reason is because it’s hard to split the time, so there might be a character or two who gets one line. Then people forget he/she is around and they ‘appear out of nowhere’.
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Yeah. I tried to bring mine back with snippets in subsequent chapters but I don’t know how effective that was. I haven’t done a full read through on this draft yet.
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Have you run it by beta readers?
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Gosh no. Have two or three more chapters. Then the alpha reader, the rocket scientist, wants a pass. Then, after a round of edits I might consider that.
I haven’t even read through it yet.
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I’m in that situation with Books 5-8 right now. Still finishing 8, but I’m going to go over them once I’m done. I’m finding it hard to continue the series without reading the previous stuff at least once because I keep forgetting what I did.
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it’s worse after fifty…lol…if it weren’t for my outline to refer to, I’d be lost.
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This sounds and reminds me so much of DOTA, Id love to see the scenes with so many characters involved.
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I have to admit that I don’t recognize DOTA. I have an odd feeling that once I hear it, I’ll be kicking myself.
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Defence of the Ancients, it is an online game 🙂 In the game, there is 2 sides, Sentinels and Scourge. Game is a map with 3 lanes, swamp/river depends how ppl call it and forest, where 5 good heroes fight 5 evil heroes 🙂
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Interesting. I never heard of that before, but I’ve been out of gaming for a while. Sounds fun and complicated.
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If you have Steam, the game is free, DOTA2 ofcourse, DOTA one is sadly no longer played that much,even though it is much better than the sequel.
Eats time. Eats nerves. makes you bold. But builds friendships that last forever 🙂
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That time eating thing is what would get me. I’m a busy little author. 😀
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Yes, defo!I have not played it in months, I realised though it is a perfect thing to do when you have guests you are not really fond of taking sightseeing. You turn it on for them and whoop, its already tomorrow, while everyone was battling and gave you plenty of time to write 😀
I have sent you an email btw, jsut wondering have you got it, or have I sent it to another Charles? (this is happening to me lately)
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I got it, but I haven’t checked email yet. Been slowly working on a scene for my book before I pass out.
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I’d tell you “Good”, but knowing from personal experience, sleeping just gives more book ideas you have no time to write! 😀
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Thankfully, sleeping for me is more like flipping a switch on and off. I rarely remember my dreams or even when I fell asleep. Almost like I blink and feel a little more awake.
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Think of all the X-Men movies where Wolvering and Prof. X do all the talking while everyone else stands and watches. Less is more…
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That’s a possibility. it would require that 1-2 characters become central and the others get demoted to supporting. It’ll take a bit of time to do that.
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But, however, for an example of a “challenge” series where almost every contestant got a feature episode to show why they were in the contest and what was at stake, look up the early episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh.
Yugi was challenged to combat-by-cards (the series is based on a card game, I’m sure you know) by the bad guy Pegasus. Pegasus also challenged Yugi’s rival, Kaiba. Both Kaiba and Yugi refused the challenge. But… Pegasus arranged the kidnappings of Kaiba’s little brother and Yugi’s grandfather, with release contingent upon their participation in the tourney. In addition, Yugi’s good friend Joey had a little sister who needed surgery or she would go blind, so Joey was competing against Yugi — both of them with compelling reasons to win. Each of these main characters (Yugi, Kaiba and Joey) had feature episodes explaining why they needed victory. And, in the end, if turned out even Pegagus was fighting to bring his wife back to life.
It moved slowly. The flashbacks were endless and the voice acting was wooden. But it was compelling to watch because of what everyone had at stake.
So to compare this to your challenge-of-gods scenario… It can be done. You’ll have to slow your pace a little and spend some time showing us who the competitors are and why they’re in this contest… But it can be done.
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I liked Joey more than Yugi in that show. Makes me think of the tournament plots in Dragonball and Naruto too. Those events were used to showcase other characters.
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