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I have a massive question I wanted to ask and I decided to make it a poll but the questions are gonna be too big to put up on the actuall poll choices block so I'm gonna list em here. Read this then answer the vote u like the most.
My whole life I've been working on stories and made up stuff on a super hero I made up named electricman (I thought of naming him that due to the fact I've been electrocuted 20 times in my life and the worst being a zap from a power line and living through it all). 2 years ago, I made a new super hero named B.O.S.S. and I've been working on his story for these 2 years. Recently, I've decided to scratch everything I've done and restart the story on B.O.S.S. and record everything he does to have a book, or maybe even an anime (Japanese means of cartoon production are WAY better then the U.S.'s)
The question is, how do you think I should start it?
1)The original beginning was a showdown between B.O.S.S. and Electricman. Despite Electricman being WAY more powerful than B.O.S.S., B.O.S.S. kills Electricman. B.O.S.S. takes over Electricman's army and the story moves on from there. The reasons for the fight are discussed later when B.O.S.S. talks about his past and I make sure that its the right moment to do that too.
2)I have the story actually start in his past before the fight with Electricman and the story works its way throught the events that lead to B.O.S.S. fighting Electricman.
3)The story starts after the big fight as B.O.S.S. already running Electricman's army as the new leader. B.O.S.S.'s past and the fight will be shown in flashbacks at crucial parts of the story when this info needs to be known.
(I'd like to note that I only told basic info that u may need to make a decision but I kept it under wraps)

This post has been edited by TrueBOSS on 28th September 2007 13:42

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He's Back. He is The_TrueBOSS.
Check me and my partners out at: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheTrueBOSSofJupiter

option 1 seems the best to go, but i would do it this way:

Have it be just before the fight, and as BOSS prepares, flashbacks become intermittent with the present moments, and have the last scene be the fight and end with the epilogue of taking over the army and all, unless there is more to the story...in which case continue writing!

Sounds like a "BOSS" story youre writing dude!...hehe

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<DrkMagimaster282> MWAHAHA. I,
DrkMagimaster282, shall wreak havoc and destroy...
<Mother>TIIIIIIMMYYY...are you planning evil, unkind revenge again in the bathroom??
<DrkMagimaster282>UMMMMMMMM...NO.

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Are you going to go into how BOSS and Electricman got their powers? I personally feel a superhero story lacks flavor if you can't understand the personal motivations of how and why these guys got their powers.

For example: If Electricman got his powers because someone tried to kill him by throwing him into a high voltage substation, and he developed powers instead to gain revenge, that's one kind of hero, but if he was a scientist who was experimenting with something and accidentally acquired the powers, then there's the moral aspect to his story, and that's a completely different kind of hero.

That understood, the best superpower rivalries consist of one character accidentally making the other character a "super" character. There is always some influence in the creation of good rivals.

I'll use batman as a quick example. (PS - there are different stories to how this happens, this was the first that I'd ever heard from a remake of one of the first batman comics [detailing how and why he became bat-man and not anything else])
Small time criminal named Red-hood was robbing a playing card factory when batman hits him and he falls into a vat of chemicals. The life support system in the hood keeps Red-hood alive, but scars his face and changes his hair color, he has a little bit of a psychotic snap, and works the playing cards and the joker-esque look into eachother. Red-hood seeks revenge on Batman for what he did. Thus Batman created The Joker.
Harvey Dent was an up and coming prosecuting attorney, when a mob boss he was prosecuting threw a vial of acid at him. (IN THE ORIGINAL STORY) Bruce Wayne acts quick enough to deflect the vial so it only hits half of his face instead of all of it. Dent survives because of this, but again, psychotic break, and Bruce Wayne is responsible for Two-Face.

The lists go on, and yes there are some baddies that are just unmoral. But everyone should get their explanation of how and why the who and what is.

Shoot, they started a second series to give some backstory to Goku...

I vote #2, because it gives the best opportunity to understand the characters.

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If internal struggles were as enjoyable and glamorous as the self conflicted wars within video game characters, we would all be statues, reveling in perpetual self war. -Me

Play me on Rock Band 2, GH-WT, or any other Xbox GH!
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DrkMagimaster282: I did actually think of a fourth choice after I made this poll were the episode starts with B.O.S.S. and Electricman fighting and, during the fight, B.O.S.S. has a flashback on what happened that led to this. But I would like the fight to finish in one episode so this one may be very time consuming considering the things that would have to be shown to show why he's in this fight now. The idea would be good though in another situation. And yes there is WAY more after this fight, its just all underwraps until I feel it time to be revealed.
Leilong: Yes, I actually am going to go into how BOSS and Electricman got there powers. That will come later in the series though. But it will be discussed.

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He's Back. He is The_TrueBOSS.
Check me and my partners out at: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheTrueBOSSofJupiter

I'm curious about a number of things.

1- Those names sound fairly americanized, like the kind of thing you'd find in DC comics or Marvel. So why anime? It feels... "off" to me, but that's fairly subjective. As for anime being better than american/european cartoons, that's VERY subjective. But this is your story, after all.

2- What's B.O.S.S. an acronym of?

Now then...

1- That feels way too abrupt. Nothing's been established about neither of the characters so not only are we not emotionally attached to them (ie, "Oh noez electricman died... who was electricman again?") we can't have any anticipation. There are no clearly defined boundaries, so you can just randomly decide, "Oh but wait, BOSS had a dagger hidden away in his shoe, and now he stabbed electricman with it! Didn't see that one coming did you?" No, I didn't. And that's why it sucks: without a certain degree of predictability, a storyline suffers. "Oh no, your Diamond Squirrel poker chip really put me in a bind there. I hope the next card I draw are... YES! YES! THANK YOU STORYLINE MAGIC! Royal Flush! Woot!"

What I'm getting at is, build up your characters before going all out with them so we can get into the storyline. Otherwise the first fight won't be any memorable nor exciting.

2- Now we're talking. This gives you an opportunity to not only get the reader attached to the characters, it also lets you give us some boundaries to work with and lets us speculate about how the storyline will go. Sure beats those stupid series where the protagonist's success is based purely on luck ("Score!! I totally rolled that dice and the number I needed JUST happened to come up at a very dramatic moment! lol! Talk about a coincidence! I sure hope my fans won't feel any cheated by this poorly executed moment of suspence!") or where the boundaries are so ill-defined as to allow the author to do anything they want within loose limits.

3- Also good. It's like #2 but shown from a different angle. It may give you less of a chance to build up electricman's character though.

I'd go with #2, personally, but #3 is a good alternative. #1, I'd avoid.

Out of curiousity, what's your storyline about? More specifically, what's the big central theme?

The above's just my two cents.

This post has been edited by Silverlance on 29th September 2007 00:56

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

I'd say to go with option #2. With that, we'll understand the characters in the story, what makes them tick in addition to their origins, they're vendetta (why they're fighting) and after the climatic battle, another story begins a story. Here, you have a story within a story with which you can produce mutlitple chapters/acts. I'd suggest integrating minor characters with integral roles to the plot and the main characters, B.O.S.S. and Electricman.

As a side note, I'm utilizing this strategy for a mutli-chapter/volume action-fantasy I'm currently writing. I started with a the lead character with some minor characters on their way to begin their first quest (for the lack of a better word) then initiates a fight with a gang, then the gang leader. That's Chapter One which ends with a partially-completed assignment, then begins the rest of the story with the introduction of some other vital characters. I included biographical information within the actual story, but I separated it enough (or tried to) so it wouldn't detract from the main plot.

Anyway, I digress. I'd say to go forward with option 2 and definately dramatize the battle between B.O.S.S. and Electicman so your readers will know the climax of the story that will initiate an entirely different chapter than what was previously read.

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"Thought I was dead, eh? Not until I fulfill my dream!"
Seifer Almasy


"The most important part of the story is the ending."
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"Peace is but a shadow of death."
Kuja

Quote (TrueBOSS @ 28th September 2007 09:39)

My whole life I've been working on stories

I thought I was the only one who did that, with little fantasies in my head...

But anyways, I like Option 1 the best. The way I see it, it's more suspenseful and it'll emphasize any major differences of B.O.S.S. before and after the fight, if he changed at all.

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FFIVDS looks awesome, right? Especially the character scans. I mean, look at that CGI scan of Yang. You see it and you just think...badass. And then you look at his polka-dot pants, likely stolen from a Dr. Seuss book. And then you just...shiver.

Yeah, I'm probably am not going to go with option 1 even if it wins. I spent some time thinking on it last night and the only real moment were that kind of an opening worked was in Final Fantasy VIII. But that was a video game opening and opening a story that way would not be as good of an idea. Thinking about working with option 2 has opened up many new doors on how it should start but I'm almost certain I'll take that one. I'll probably make a 10 chapter section on that part of his life. Then I'll do the big fight (really lookin forward to thinking up how the finer details of the fight will go) and then the real story shall begin.

Also, I do have an image of B.O.S.S. on my flashdrive that I would like to upload onto here so you can see what he looks like but I can't figure out how I'd go about that. Does anyone know how to do it?

I created a thread for u guys to ask me questions about this in, so ask them in there now k?

This post has been edited by TrueBOSS on 1st October 2007 13:24

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He's Back. He is The_TrueBOSS.
Check me and my partners out at: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheTrueBOSSofJupiter

Why so many threads though? Give others a chance to post their projects and creations. I don't see why you can't ask/answer questions in this thread. :S

Just my two cents. Your project sounds like it may be interesting, though until you have something tangible to show for it you shouldn't try raising hype too much. By the time your project is ready, people will have lost interest.

Good luck!

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

Ok, I've decided to go with # 2 in my story and have begun writing it and coming up with characters. Thx a lot for ur help guys.
(I answered ur questions in Project B.O.S.S. (your questions) silverlance)

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He's Back. He is The_TrueBOSS.
Check me and my partners out at: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheTrueBOSSofJupiter