Plot help based on my setting and world?
Hello-hello!! I've been thinking of starting a writing project for a long while now and have had this story idea brewing in my head for even longer. I'd truly appreciate any feedback whether it be positive or negative as I don't really have anyone to bounce my ideas off of. (PS: They're in bullet points because I can't be concise for the life of me).
Lore and Creation Myth:
- In the beginning, this realm was blanketed in pitch black and so too were the creatures roming it.
- Every creature, beast, and giant navigated through echolocation and every living organism was only concerned with their own survival.
- The moment light was created was the moment primal instincts gave way for conciousness, memory, and love (Although you could argue that conciousness is the ability to have and analyze memories but that's neither here nor there).
- The story goes that a winged creature was so desperate to protect her children from a giant beast who didn't mean to harm them, almost crushing the mother's nest while he walked past. She created fire with two dry branches, burning the giant's foot with it so he stumbled and moved away from them.
- Long story short, fire became the first source of light, the winged creatures using it for protection until eventually evolving to have eyes to sense the light beyond just feeling it's warmth. These creatures would evolve further until they became human-like creatures known as Wingborn.
- While the wingborn are the focus of this specific creation myth, another from a species called Morrow is also mentioned in the story and is a parallel to the Wingborn's myth. (A Morrow and a Wingborn are the two protagonists)
- Morrow are also human-like creatures who developed into more concious beings after the Wingborn became extinct. (Their main difference is that wingborn are smaller in stature but have wings nearly twice their size. Morrow however, are much taller and broader and do not have wings. Instead, they have incredibly sharp eyes to see in both light and darkness.
Setting
- There are two moons circling this planet (I do not have any creative ideas for their names so let's just call them the lesser and greater moons for now). Their existance / how they came to be is one of the central mysteries of the plot and unlike our moon where the light comes from reflecting the sun, these two glow on their own. The reason why I call them moons instead of stars is because they have a stone-like surface.
- Light almost exists as an element / entity on it's own. It can do many things but at it's most bacic form, it reflects the abstract ideas of the truth and the past. It's also widely accepted to reflect love as it clings to banevolence as many plants and animals glow in various degrees depending on their nature as prey, poison, or predators. (There are plenty of acceptions to this phenomina and it too contributes to the main conflict between the Morrow).
- Light behaves abstractly and can be handled but not bound. It has properties but does not behave consistantly. An elder tracing their finger in a lake reflecting moonlight can distort the shape of the light on the water's surface, turning ribbons of light into people to tell a story to children. He could try again the next day, and it might not work again, either because his story is no longer true, or his audience doesn't wish to listen.
- Morrow live in massive territories known as Norths. Morrow orient themselves when traveling using their respective Norths as reference, hence the name:) They look like palaces and have roughly 100 to 1000 Morrow living in them. The morrow are very communal creatures and it shows with the lack of private spaces. These structures are usually carved in the sides of mountains, cliffs, hills (For the smaller Norths), etc.
- The setting is very whimsical and dreamy, almost as if different places and landscapes have a specific filter tinting everything in a singular hue. Nature is also massive in comparison to Wingborn and Morrow; An average tree for instance is hundreds of times taller than a Morrow.
Premise:
- A young Morrow finds a statue of a Wingborn maiden reaching for the sky and grows attached to it.
- She grows up never knowing the true nature of her silent friend but she eventually recieves a magical looking glass from which she witnesses her memories.
- The Morrow learns a great deal from her friend's life and changes for the better after getting glimpses of who she was.
- The Morrow eventually awakens the Wingborn after what was meant to be the last day of her coming to the grove (The Morrow was drafted to fight in a far away conflict).
- They fall in love and set off on a journey to stop the imposing war looming over the Morrow's North while discovering the truth behind the two moons and the disappearance of the Wingborn. (In the maiden's case, accepting the truth as she already knows what happened). The Morrow also know to an extent what truly transpired but general society hasn't accepted it.
Themes
- Empathy, sacrifice, resentment, and denial are a few key words I think of when trying to spot a lesson throughout the WIP plot. Everyone is learning similar lessons in different contexts and I'm not sure if I can articulate it right in a single sentence.
- Banevolent ableism and autonomy is also a topic I'm weaving into the story as the maiden is visually impaired and I think it'd be a great opportunity to get more blind rep in fantasy:)
- Love is used a lot as a means to justify an end in a lot of my character's plot lines. For example, the maiden was surrounded by plenty of loving family and friends in her past life who always wanted the best for her and gave her everything she could ever need or want, except for independence (I'm sure y'all can infer why). Our Morrow MC means well in everything she does, but is hardened in both personality and mindset causing her actions to come across as passive agressive, ill spirited, etc. (Of course there's more to these two but you get the idea:)).
Thank you to anyone who made it this far!! If you'd like more deatails (I have so much more) then please feel free to let me know. The final few points below are important (I just didn't know where to put them haha)
- Wingborn's bodies calcify and petrify after death, blowing away into dust after enough time has passed.
- The maiden could hear the Morrows whenever they came across her grove but she only understood the language when our Morrow MC unconciously taught her by learning how to speak in front of the statue.
- Connected to the last point, Morrow preserve their voices, believing them to be too sacred for just anyone to hear (It's a cultural thing). They learn how to sign when they're very young but only taught how to speak at the age of around 10. Since Morrow children are encouraged to practice speaking on their own, our Morrow MC did so in front of the maiden's statue, learning vocabulary from the ground-up with her listening:))
- Lots of the Morrow's culture is connected to stars and constellations. They wear masks and remain silent around others because they're trying to mimic the two moons and the stars, silent and unknown (I did not mean for that to sound so emo). Their Norths have bridges inside them connecting different sides of the massive structure. These bridges overlap and cross eachother to form constellations the Norths see most frequently in their area.
- At it's heart, light's main purpose is to reveal truths and memories. The greater moon for example, can shine so brightly that it reveals events from the Wingborn's time to Morrows in the present day without the use of say the special looking glass our Morrow MC uses. Light also remains swirling, sparkling, or growing from within certain objects, animals, and environments because it sticks so much to moments in time shaped by the values it was born from. This can look like glowing flowers and fauna, a valley with sparkling dew, bright lakes, shimmering streams, a glowing tree, etc. The dust from Wingborn's petrified bodies also hold light.
- The looking glass our Morrow MC uses is perhaps one of the only magical items in this universe. Its ability to reveal memories from long ago comes from it's origins in a specific cave in the antarctic region equivalent of this world. The two moons shine inside the walls of the cave so consistantly that the harvested crystals from said cave share the properties of the light it's in (fantasy logic ik).
Any and all critiques, questions, and general feedback are welcome. Thank you so much for reading!
Posted Jul 6, 2026, 1:14 PM UTC