StoryMash Creative Storytelling Forum

OK, I've got this awesome idea about using the letters in the Greek alphabet (31 of the little buggers in all) for characters in a book I'm writing, and I tried dividing them up based on how many letters were in their spelling (2 to 3, 4 to 5, 6 to 7), but, its uneven for me since I don't want it to be a unbalanced or what not.

Another thing was, well, should the group with the least about of characters be the strongest? Or should the characters with the smallest spelling be the strongest? Or should it just be a community thing? Its really irritating to me because usually I can pick these things up right off the bat.

another option I had was trying to figure out was where to actually include this arch into the actually story itself, or write it as a DIFFERENT entity although located with in the same story universe. To be honest, this really has me flustered, and I REALLY don't want another Infinite Web clone.

So what do you guys suggest?

Hi, Dr3arms! I don't know how much help I can be, but I can give it a try :)

I'm not sure what you mean about it being uneven and not wanting it unbalanced - do you mean that the groups are not even, and you want them to be? If that's the case, I see two possible options for you: 1) you decide that what you want is most important, so you find a different way to divide them up (though honestly, is there any way to evenly divide 31?); or 2) you go with it and see if maybe you'll wind up liking it, even though it wasn't necessarily what you wanted in the first place. I can tell you that there have been times I've tried something out, not liked it at first blush, but wound up discovering that the uniqueness added a level of depth I wouldn't have had otherwise.

Without knowing the story you're writing, I don't know how well I can help you with the second question. Are you wanting to see a conflict between these groups? Are they working together toward a common goal? What is their design in the story? If they're fighting each other, I recommend giving each group some weakness and some strength - think like "rock paper scissors" - each one can beat one thing, but is vulnerable to another. And if we're talking about sentient beings here, then this opens up all sorts of new story directions: how have they overcome their vulnerabilities? How have they capitalized on their strengths?

On the other hand, if they're working together for a common goal, you can give each group different, complementing strengths - as a simple example, building a house - one group is skilled at cutting lumber, the next group is skilled at nailing, the next group is skilled with roofs, etc.

How to include this arch into the story itself... Again, without knowing the story, that's a bit harder. But there are always subplots in stories. Maybe the main character has to travel through some strange land to get to his/her goal, and stumbles across these strange people who need some sort of help. Maybe he/she needs something FROM these strange people in order to reach said goal. These people could be helpers, providing some sort of needed support to the main character (think like Tom Bombadil in The Fellowship of the Ring), or they could be the opposite, slowing down the progress of the main characters (think like the barrow-wights in the same book).

Hope I've provided some help, and I wish you the best! By the way, I noticed that your grammar has really improved :) Keep up the good work!

Thank you! Well, I've really been improving over all. I've been posting new parts every couple of days on story mash. since I'm trying to wrap up the sixth chapter in order to get started on the seventh and what not. I'll copy paste what I've got down thus far from a word pad excerpt I worked on previously.

1. Sho (2 to 3 letters)

two letters:

1. Mu
2. Nu
3. Xi
4. Pi

three letters
1. Eta
2. Rho
3. Tau
4. Phi
5. Chi
6. Psi
7. San

2. Heta (4 to 5 letters)

four letters:
1. Beta
2. Zeta
3. Iota

five letters:
1. Alpha
2. Gamma
3. Delta
4. Kappa
5. Theta
6. Sigma
7. Omega
8. Qoppa
9. Sampi

3. Stigma (6 to 7 letters)

six letter:

1. Lambda

seven letter:

1. Epsilon
2. Omicron
3. Digamma

Originally I was thinking that I'd go by how the letters were shown on Wikipedia, with the known letters being the lowest class, then the unused ones being a rank above those like a military, and final the other class letters being at the top.

Then I decided to see how many of each letter number there were. As per the place in the story where they are.... How best to put it..

In the sixth chapter, a fight breaks out between the Skeletal Angels and Twilight, a fusion of sorts who basically flambes everyone. When the chaos is over and done with, Twilight dies and separates into Alpha and Omega, who are in fact two of the thirty one Fragments of the Creation's Vortex, a tool that can undo the damage the Golden Strands have done.

So Morgan (in the story) has decided to send them off to gather the other fragments like them selves. I've already got that part down pat, its how I want to potray the other fragments thats frustrating.

I've come up with a few options on how to do this:

1. The fragments with 2 to 3 letters (Xi, Mu, Nu, Pi, Sho, Tau) be the stronger and the fragments with longer names be weaker based on the number of letters that make up their names.

2. Throw the fragments with the same first letter in the names together, almost like family ties and what not, and see where that leads.

3. Put a even number of each class of fragment into three factions and let them go at it. This and number 2 would be an interesting choice, but take the most time to get the ball rolling to the good part.

4. Have it be almost like a food chain kinda thing, where it wouldn't matter mow many characters are in the name, that if the stronger gets defeated by the weaker, then the winner gets the strength of the loser plus that of their defeated opponents.

There are just so many avenues I could go with this that it almost feels a little bit over whelming to me. It would really help if I could collaborate with some one on this, this way we could bounce ideas off of each other. The fragments themselves are sentient, but I haven't gotten beyond that point.

The book itself is going to be ten chapters long, and with nearly 6/10 of it completed, it only gives me four more chapters to get everything in order. I might add another ten chapters onto it, but my heads been buzzing with so many ideas for projects that I've literally been stunted productivity wise.

Would or anyone be interested in collaborating with me for this? I either want to make this a side story that I can add into the main bit of the story, since Alpha and Omega would be doing there thing while the main chunk of the cast would be doing theres.

Actually, I think that's the best choice! This way I could focus on getting the seventh chapter written with out having to worry about any constraints with my 30 part system. (Where I write a chapter in thirty parts, using the decimal point system if need be).

i figured the whole thing out!