Any idea how to structure a dark storyline

[MrZalgo]

Title

Basically one of my ideas for a project revolves around the futility of man and the wish for individuality. I want to put it into a dark storyline revolving around philosophical matters. (similar to how the xeno games handled their dark storylines)

I got the characters, I got the setting, I just want to know how to structure it properly. Any advice will be well appreciated.

 

[XIIIthHarbinger]

That would depend a great deal upon your story, I would suggest a great deal less ambiguity on your part, as "dark" is about as opaque as the term suggests.

Personally I am not familiar with the xeno games storylines, so they serve little use as a point of reference. Who are your characters? What is this setting?

A dystopian setting can serve the purpose of illustrating a "darker/grittier" tone to a story, via atmosphere of the story. Conversely a character beset by tragedies can also provide a darker tone, & juxtaposing their experiences against an idyllic world emphasizes those events through contrast. Then there is the possibility of high stakes choice driven narratives, that regardless of choice taken result in undesirable consequences. There is also the impending calamity trope, that inflicts greater & greater negative consequences upon the world as "doomsday/ragnarok/armageddon" approaches. As well as the unavoidable ticking clock calamity trope for nihilistic atmospherics.

Etcetera, etcetera, ad infinitum.

 

[Amarok]

You first need to decide what kind of story you are telling even before deciding what themes said story will revolve around.
That theme of futility is basically a tragedy in the classical sense. "You cant defy your destiny, no matter what you do" so i would start there.

If in the end you end up making it a full fledged tragedy, i would structure it like this:

-1 present the setting and the characters, transmit to the player how bleak everything is so they get a bit numb.
-2 present the conflict, make it darker but also let a bit of light to come out at some points so they dont get bored.
-3 make them think the climax is near, and unexpectedly turn around their expectations about the story/characters to trick the players into thinking that there maybe hope after all! their actions during the game defied destiny!
-4 squash that hope into tiny bits in the most cruel way you can think of.

Now if you dont feel that sadistic you can just stop at point 3 and make it a bittersweet ending.

Also if you are interested in how xenogears specifically handled things and want to know more about how the writers did that inmortal masterpiece (my favorite rpg btw ) take a read at this if you havent already: http://xenogearsxenosagastudyguide.blogspot.com.es/p/the-history-of-xenogears.html

 

[Tai_MT]

Title

Basically one of my ideas for a project revolves around the futility of man and the wish for individuality. I want to put it into a dark storyline revolving around philosophical matters. (similar to how the xeno games handled their dark storylines)

I got the characters, I got the setting, I just want to know how to structure it properly. Any advice will be well appreciated.

There's not really enough to go on here. As a writer, your setting should've been plenty to get a story rolling here.

When you write something, you start with "base concept". Usually 3 words. Maybe up to 10 if you're feeling ambitious. So, yours would probably be, "Living is a pointless waste of time" if we're talking about "The Futility of Man". Which... is pretty bleak. But, when you are that vague, that's what we have to go with. I prefer something less vague as a launching point. That's just my preference because it gives me a solid foundation. Other writers work fantastically with a "vague concept".

Okay, so your base concept is basically "Living Is A Pointless Waste Of Time".

So, then you've got a character motivation attached to that. "I want to be an individual". Individuality could be a theme, but it'll be very difficult to mesh that with "Living Is A Pointless Waste Of Time". So, I've essentially relegated it to a dream, desire, motivation of a character... or all your characters.

Which, brings me to your setting. You... don't really advertise one. So, I'll slot one in here that might fit. Dystopian Future kind of like the book, "Brave New World", where nobody is an individual and the point of life is merely to perform your job until you die. Likewise, you could make your characters robots, and it might work too.

So, then you need to build your world.

To figure out how to pace your story and how to structure it... You need to do some world building. Who are the major players? Who are the major powers? Why is the world like this? Who keeps it that way? What's so bad with individuality? How do the characters become aware enough that they want to break out and be individuals? What's the central conflict? What's the technology base? What are the people like? What is the history of your world? What are towns like? Cities? Is there religion? What are weapons like? Does it have magic? Technology? How does it work? How are people treated from different social strata? Are there any social stigmas? Is there even a social hierarchy? What's that like?

When you finish world building, you'll have a story to tell. You'll know everything about the world. You'll know how it begins and how it'll end, because you'll know everything about the world as well as why everything is futile. You'll know what the world will do in response to anything your protagonists will do.

Now...

If you're referring on just how to structure any particular story... Eh, they're all basically structured the same. Opening (gives us the characters and setting and sometimes the villain), Rising Action (not sure what this is really called, but it's what I call it... it's when the initial conflict first shows up). Midpoint Break (again, not sure I'm using proper terminology, but this is basically the point where the protagonists and antagonists have their plans starting to solidify before they begin to implement them). Downhill Slide 1 (yeah, I don't know any of these terms. This is when things start being resolved as the major players move against each other). Escalation (this is when the big bad or whatever happens that shows us things are worse than we thought, or there were plans we didn't know about, and now our protagonists are in really deep trouble with no way we can think of to fix things). Downhill Slide 2 (protagonists pull something clever out of their rears and stop the major bad thing that was happening from Escalation. Or, they put a plan into motion to stop it). Finally, we get, "Conclusion" (everything is wrapped up with the story, however it finally shook out, if the badguys win they maybe get to gloat, if the good guys won they maybe get to live Happily Ever After, and we get kind of a synopsis of everything that happened after the story ends).

Most every story follows that structure.

 

[MrZalgo]

That would depend a great deal upon your story, I would suggest a great deal less ambiguity on your part, as "dark" is about as opaque as the term suggests.

Personally I am not familiar with the xeno games storylines, so they serve little use as a point of reference. Who are your characters? What is this setting?

A dystopian setting can serve the purpose of illustrating a "darker/grittier" tone to a story, via atmosphere of the story. Conversely a character beset by tragedies can also provide a darker tone, & juxtaposing their experiences against an idyllic world emphasizes those events through contrast. Then there is the possibility of high stakes choice driven narratives, that regardless of choice taken result in undesirable consequences. There is also the impending calamity trope, that inflicts greater & greater negative consequences upon the world as "doomsday/ragnarok/armageddon" approaches. As well as the unavoidable ticking clock calamity trope for nihilistic atmospherics.

Etcetera, etcetera, ad infinitum.

Here's an idea of the storyline for the game. Albeit it lacks a form of structure so it might be flawed in some way.

World: Xanthra, a desolate, war-torn plain whose inhabitants are the Neftherians: humanoid beings whose blood is like a buoyant form of ash. The Neftherians are in a war against the archbishop Sancti, who formed a group of crusaders dedicated to eradicating all with the ashen blood. I have yet to fully develop the world of Xanthra but I do have a hold of some of the characters.

Saryth: The main protagonist, is a female crusader who is excommunicated from the archbishop for reasons I have yet to develop. (It will be more than simply "Killing innocents") She suffers an existential crisis after the excommunication (as back in the middle ages, excommunication was a big deal) and doesn't even defend herself from the bandits who assault her in the beginning. Here, she will meet...

Dante: A major character in the story. Throughout the project, you will learn more about this individual and his backstory. One thing unique about him is the fact that he is not Neftherian (Neftherians have gray eyes) yet his left arm is completely turned into an ashen state. He also carries the Kyth Blade: A weapon capable of turning into any melee weapon that the user wishes. This weapon idea is only an idea and could change.

Those are the two protagonists I've thought of so far. ( I have a couple more but they are still being planned) Here's some of the antagonists:

The First Revenant: A mysterious, masked individual who is hunting Dante for unknown reasons. Revenants play a big part in this as well.

Deus: Advisor to the Archbishop Sancti, he's the classic power-hungry politician with a bit of a twist

Solomon: The main antagonist, but info about him would spoil the entire story. Let's just say he wishes for a world where all races can become one with the ash within all Neftherians.

Their is one more antagonist planned, but she isn't fully developed and am still wondering how she could fit in the story.

What do you think, anything to help structure this?

 

[Sharm]

The structure of a dark storyline is exactly the same as the structure of an upbeat storyline, the difference is all about what goes in it. So if you want a bad end instead of a happy end, take the things that would normally building towards good things and having them building up to something awful. Instead of bad things keeping the hero from his happy ending, put in good things where our hero thinks he's going to win in the end. But the structure itself for both happy and sad, even when the stuff put onto the structure is inverted between them. I don't know how helpful that's going to be to you since I doubt it's really answering the question that you intend to ask, but maybe it'll help you better state the question.

 

[Kes]

@MrZalgo 'General Discussion' is not for feedback on an individual, specific game. That goes into 'Ideas and Prototypes'.

At the moment the discussion is quite broad based, and so could be relevant for other games as well. If you're okay with that, i.e. that answers may be on-topic but no use to you, then I can leave this thread where it is. If, however, you want it to be for your particular game only, then I shall have to merge/move this.

Could you please advise which you want.

 

[MrZalgo]

@MrZalgo 'General Discussion' is not for feedback on an individual, specific game. That goes into 'Ideas and Prototypes'.

At the moment the discussion is quite broad based, and so could be relevant for other games as well. If you're okay with that, i.e. that answers may be on-topic but no use to you, then I can leave this thread where it is. If, however, you want it to be for your particular game only, then I shall have to merge/move this.

Could you please advise which you want.

I would like to have it stay for now, but I'll message you if I believe it could lead to moving it into ideas. The topic is fairly broad, and any of my other ideas would fit under this thread.

 

[OnslaughtSupply]

To answer the question in your title, a dark storyline, you need to establish light moments to contrast the dark. Like without light there is no dark, without death there is no life. That kind of thing. Personally I think it's good to have that ever so briefly near the beginning so the player/reader can see the bleakness of the world you are trying to create. I don't mean in a long show text exposition either. Its better to show than tell. Now the audience has a baseline of how things should be versus how they actually are. Then as others have said, it needs moments of light sprinkled in to maintain that contrast. In a lighter story your plot motivation is usually some issue to overcome, in a dark story its the same but needs to be more deep and psychological. Not just King Goblin is attacking happy town and heros must stop him, but our protagonist in a dark story is struggling against something abstract like society norms, internal demons, duality, self discovery, as well as a possible outside force.

Now the question posed in your post is a little different. Quest for individuality is one most teenagers struggle with, because as they wish to establish themselves as true individuals, they tend to find a crowd and run with it. The futility in this is a loss of TRUE identity. What I mean by this is someone's wish to be truly unique may overwrite their true nature, like becoming something they're not. Taken one on one most people are fascinating and unique, but get us into groups and we are so similar its annoying and can be categorized by anything. Anyhow, hope some of this helps.

 

[Sauteed_Onion]

To answer the question in your title, a dark storyline, you need to establish light moments to contrast the dark. Like without light there is no dark, without death there is no life. That kind of thing.

OnslaughtSupply nails the basic answer to the question I think. For a game to have that fluid structure, cause and effect need to be kind of going on before the game "Starts". That also helps prolong the potential of a game series. Like a game may seem interesting if you just turn the game on and you're a slave in a mining colony, and your desire is "break out".

It is usually a little more interesting for most people when the "why are you a slave" issue is answered before you are just thrust in the game. Sometimes it is handled with a little prologue segment that tells the story of the world before you take part in the story of the game. Also when the developer has the end result(s) in mind before just going at game making, it helps. Game starts you're a slave in a mining colony, game ends, you've become an intergalactic space alien hunter that owns a few planets and retires at the ripe old age of 85 and has 30 grandkids who help run the family business.. Then the rest of the concept of structuring becomes "how did that happen."

I guess what I'm saying, is if you have an idea of what you want in the beginning, do you have an idea of what you want to have happen at the end? Then just start working backwards a bit, then work from the beginning to that point. Maybe this helps.

 

[MrZalgo]

I have the ending for the project planned out, and I have a way to make an attention-getter for the beginning. I think I can take the advice you have offered me. Thank you.

 

[OnslaughtSupply]

@Sauteed_Onion is definitely correct. You have to know the end of your story to figure out how to get there.