Great thread.
I'm wondering, what's the overall encompassing term or terminology for good writing? And note that when I say writing, I don't mean writing a book in particular, just writing and storytelling in general.
I read the "through line" which is very important to me. The type of story I'm writing is an adventure, and it seems as if this through line applies to the adventure genre more than any other.
So, to describe my story simply, it's basically this:
! Human life as we know it on Earth may be nearing the end. Monsters kill the humans and then kill each other; aliens from another closely related planet enslave humans, try to build colonies, kill each other for power; humans are in fear, with no world leaders to guide them, and no forms of communication with each other. Many people have no directions in their lives. Some humans side with these aliens, if they haven't already been killed or enslaved. Some humans committed suicide. Earth itself is deteriorating, and will eventually cease to exist.
! All of this is the result of a special energy (I will just call it "Rainbow") known as Rainbow. Rainbow comes from a distant planet of creatures that are very much like humans. The people used the Rainbow energy in their daily lives, and felt that the positives of this energy should spread around for the rest of the universe to know. (I will call the planet Delta for now.) However, by the time these plans actually came into fruition, the planet itself was facing serous issues. An attempted genocide similar to the one by Adolf Hitler on planet Earth occurred on Delta. Unlike Hitler's attempt, this genocide was very successful, as the master race of people almost wiped out the other two races on Planet Delta. Though, this did nothing for the master race, as it's ruler was a ruthless dictator, far worse than Hitler or any perception of Obama that Fox News could paint. This ruler was one of the few who had nearly complete knowledge of the Rainbow energy, and as such, he wreaked havoc and abused powers. The economy fell. Political parties all but vanished. Police and other authority were assumed to be killed by this man. The people of the master race followed suite under their malicious leader. A few managed to escape to planet Earth and tested out the Rainbow energy on an animal. This animal went berserk; slaughtered billions of people, countries and continents and islands and land masses and landmarks were all but deformed or destroyed. Earth itself was not used to this foreign, peculiar energy. Many eruptions, volcanoes, mutations, and explosions occurred as a result. Planet earth continues to fight this Rainbow energy - a battle that could potentially be fatal. Particularly because Rainbow energy has two main sides; Stable, and Unstable. Unstable side only appears when foreign people or objects are affected by this Rainbow energy. When they are affected, the stable energy (the immune system basically) automatically gets pushed out an must be found. When non-foreign objects and people are affected, they are fine. Earth needs this stable energy to be found, it wants to be saved. Many people from Delta, again followed suite. They went to earth and tried to rule. Other sane people went to earth to escape the craziness of Delta. But they were in for a rude awakening.
! This is how Earth is the way it is today. Some humans who have contact with the Rainbow experimented and tried to destroy the evil Deltans. Others were overwhelmed by the Rainbow power. Some few, just wanted to find meaning in their lives. What is this all for? Why are we in fear of extinction, and why are we just letting it happen? The only thing we should let happen is the death we might face by trying to live and fix this situation, not the inevitable death by the Deltans that will happen to us when we are found in our hiding spots.
! If only more though this way. A few did. A special boy in particular who happens to be our main character. His name (I will just call him Mario) is Antonio Banderas (okay maybe not). His goal, is one like no other. His goal, is to stop living in fear, to fight against the Deltan people, to find the stable energy (which has been spread around galaxies and parallel universes) and to find the meaning of life.
Sorry if it's too long, but it's really interesting (at least in my opinion, haha.). So I'm wondering, is the plot too radical? Cause with the plot structure, Antonio and some few other people will simply visit locations and learn more about life for the first arc. Then, when they have enough experience mentally and physically, they will travel around the galaxies and collect the stable energy.
I'm concerned. Because, for instance, I notice many people liked Bleach, Yu Yu Hakusho, and Naruto's 1st Arc. And one thing they had in common was that they were more episodic and had a simple yet deep approach. So I'm concerned my story will be the same, where the 1st arc is more episodic with them trying to learn about life, then shifts to a long-arc based style format (just like those shows mention above do), and many people felt those shows (at least Naruto and Bleach) went downhill. So I'm wondering, how do I avoid this?
Is there a guide (or terminology) for knowing how to go about and approach certain types of plots?
