spellblade/plans.md

Spellblade Plot

https://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-method/

One Sentence

A woman realizes the gap between two opposites and their place in the middle.

Kick in the Pants

something I feel is missing from this set-up is, what is Alicia's overarching motive? What is she doing this for? Why the army recruiting process, and how would an underground school help her further her goals

what is it that moves her?

This whole thing is meant to be an allegory for coming out as nonbinary. Her goal is to not be so afraid of herself.

Cover Idea

Use the palette of the nonbinary pride flag, yellow sky, white clouds, Alicia in purple holding her locus to the sky, black ground w/ yellow highlights.

One Paragraph

Alicia is a student at the Zhalram School of Bladecraft, one of two schools owned by a shadowy organization that oversees the Zhalrami army recruiting process. Alicia is troubled in her schooling and tries to suppress her innate magical talents with little success. Alicia finds a spiritualist in town and the spiritualist encourages her to use her magic in battle, making her team the cream of the crop (with various social consequences). Alicia gets caught by the schoolmasters and confronted to admit she is a spellcrafter, leading Alicia to disagree and coin the term "spellblade"; arguing that she has a unique gift and she wants to see where it will end up. The teachers have never seen this happen and deliberate before accepting Alicia and encouraging them to continue down that path.

• First battle
  • Cover the setting
    • Introduce the bladecraft school
    • Introduce spellcraft and frame it as an "other"
    • Introduce Alicia undergoing a magical awakening
  • Accidentally uses powers on the field
    • Leads to victory
    • Puts herself in the line of fire
  • Tongue-lashing for the absurdly crazy strategy
  • Meal hall
  • Bed, idle thoughts about her magic
• Spiritualist discussions
• Various battles?
  • Flashbacks to her father noticing signs of this happening and teaching her how to suppress her gift
    • The magical side would effectively kidnap her from a young age and her father wanted to be with Alicia as a kid, the Zhalrami army desperately needs spellcrafters for battle with Usill
    • Father died in the aftermath of an avalanche
    • Alicia enrolled in the bladecraft school to get away from home because it reminded her of her dad