{ ＩＮＫＬＩＮＧＳ v.4 } A Thread For Writers

[Nitro Indigo]

I was thinking that the protagonist would join a group of the last fliers in the world. So basically, Guardians of Ga'Hoole during the day.

[TheSongOfTheStars]

Just the fact that you know what Guardians of Ga'hoole is makes me want to read your story now.

[Nitro Indigo]

I haven't written it yet. I don't even have any characters for it yet. That being said, I think Ga'Hoole is what made me want to write about birds in the first place.

[TheSongOfTheStars]

Same, I have an idea for a story, but it's gotten buried with everything else I'm doing. It may end up being part of the legend base for my story world.

[Nitro Indigo]

I'm writing this Pokémon fanfiction called Journey of Tides (and I already have a plot outlined, since I came up with the idea a few months ago), and it's basically a journey through the ocean. I've made a YouTube playlist of ocean-related music to listen to while writing it once I get around to that - does anyone know what to put in it? I think it might help improve my writing focus.

[Nitro Indigo]

I have another idea for an original story that - shock, horror - I actually have a conflict for. Basically, it's about a flying bird who goes out exploring with xir friend, and the next thing xe knows, xe's turned into a flightless bird (perhaps a swimming one?). While learning to adapt to xir new body with the help of someone who's always been that species, the transformed bird and xir friend hear from a wandering albatross (maybe) that a wise bird might know why the protagonist transformed, so the duo set off to find the wise bird. Also, the friend feels guilty for inadvertently leading the protagonist into danger.
What species should they be, though? I sort of want to protagonist duo to be birds of prey, but what? I also want the birds in this story to come from the same general area in real life.

[Ranger of the North]

I have another idea for an original story that - shock, horror - I actually have a conflict for. Basically, it's about a flying bird who goes out exploring with xir friend, and the next thing xe knows, xe's turned into a flightless bird (perhaps a swimming one?). While learning to adapt to xir new body with the help of someone who's always been that species, the transformed bird and xir friend hear from a wandering albatross (maybe) that a wise bird might know why the protagonist transformed, so the duo set off to find the wise bird. Also, the friend feels guilty for inadvertently leading the protagonist into danger.
What species should they be, though? I sort of want to protagonist duo to be birds of prey, but what? I also want the birds in this story to come from the same general area in real life.

It'd be pretty cool if they were from New Zealand!-?
Although it will likely be easier to write with birds you're familiar with c:

[Nitro Indigo]

There lies the problem... Most small flightless birds are from New Zealand, which is literally on the opposite side of the world from where I live. In my ideas so far, the level of anthropomorphism is Civilized Animal (think Guardians of Ga'Hoole), so maybe I could have some kind of proto-bird-Zootropolis? Except I want this to be an adventure story...
(It's late at night here.)

[Megaguirus]

There lies the problem... Most small flightless birds are from New Zealand, which is literally on the opposite side of the world from where I live. In my ideas so far, the level of anthropomorphism is Civilized Animal (think Guardians of Ga'Hoole), so maybe I could have some kind of proto-bird-Zootropolis? Except I want this to be an adventure story...
(It's late at night here.)

There's many relatively flightless birds. Chickens and other poultry for one. Yeah, yeah, they may fly up into a tree every now and then, but they don't fly like you'd think birds fly. And they're all over the world, even though the original chicken, the Junglefowl, are in Asia.

And in my opinion, there's nothing wrong with writing about an animal you aren't familiar with. Just research about it. And you can also have an adventure story with a Zootropolis, just don't spend all of the story in it. Many adventure stories have the main character starting out in a city or town and then exploring outside of it. Lastly, if you make this into its own universe, you don't need to be grounded to real world distribution of animals. That's what I did with my dinosaur novel.

[Nitro Indigo]

Hmm... good point. Maybe the protagonists could be from a "multicultural" (multispeciesal?) town? And one of the two species could be mentioned as coming from far away? I want the protagonist to meet a member of the species she transforms into relatively soon, or maybe she already knows one by the time the story begins, because I want a scene where the protagonist is taught how to adapt to her new body. ("I don't want to look at the sky; I want to be in the sky!")

Also, I sort of got the idea of "character who can fly gets transformed into something that can't" from wondering what would happen after the events of a Cars fanfiction, of all things. Of course, as ScytheRider says, there's a difference between inspiration and plagiarism.