Still mentally blocked from writing on my main story and to keep myself from re-writing parts I've already finished I want to start a new project. I've got what to me sounds like a solid set of guidelines and conflicts but I can't decide on placement.

Masquerade - hidden world right alongside modern day earth
Broken Masquerade - hidden world has been exposed or gets exposed
Alternate Universe/world - A world like ours but with the different being magic or whatever.

I'm hesitant to use the masquerade type story partially because its been done so much but partially because I feel like its getting harder and harder to justify why someone wouldn't find out about the world or why it would be secret. Also if you keep everything hidden there is only so much damage you can cause and things you can change before it becomes silly if people don't notice.

What say you all about the options? What have you seen too often or too recently? How do you feel about them? Just trying to get some ideas that aren't my own...

how bad could it be?

Yikes... I realized tonight that I have written myself into a corner and have severely limited the amount of danger my protagonist will face. So in the world of my story there is magic and people know it exists... but its rare and the ones displaying it are almost always unhinged and dangerous people. So the counter to them is the government (and godly) mandated and approved counter group. The problem is that in scenes I've already written (and there are a lot of them) it is made abundantly clear that normal people shouldn't attempt to fight the magical powered folk or the counter govt group and doing so guarantees you a quick and painful death. But that means that unless I create an extremely large number of both I'm not going to have much for anyone to fight I need mooks, faceless minions and people for the heroes to fight but if I make too many of them then we wind up with essentially a world of badasses that for some reason common people don't realize even though the culture, religion and goverments are all built upon a foundation of magic. Ugh. I realize the solution but I'm just dreading it.

What do you do when you realize you've screwed up thoroughly in your preparation that you thought was complete?

I don't want to have an all magic world where everyone knows magic... but it might be the easiest change at this point. I also can't have a world where magic is completely hidden. It won't work. I was planning to have magic be cause for people to mistrust a character... but have the heroes using magic although in a different form that people don't recognize as traditional magic. But there are plot holes galore going about it that way. Ugh. What a mess.

Or maybe I'm just realizing the world I created doesn't match the story. That would be really upsetting.

Just a quick question on how people feel about new races being injected into traditional fantasy situations. How do you view books that try to go outside the traditional fantasy races? Orcs, dwarves, elves, etc.... There are different humanoid races that have been created although the ones that aren't completely monstrous don't seem to be very popular. Sure Jim's Codex Alera has the Canim, Marat and Icemen and some games have expanded the possible human/animal combinations like the Elder Scrolls series with the Khajiit (Cat men) and Argonian (lizard men) but I just wondered how do you feel about these additions? Is it trying too hard to be different or do you appreciate having something new to figure out and get to learn about?

I suppose you could go the Eragon route and take the normal tropes and rename and rework them a bit.... but meh. Seems too much like cheating. Do you roll your eyes when something new walks across the screen/page? Or do you appreciate someone not just taking LOTR and putting a fresh coat of paint on it?

I've been writing my story set loosely in a Norse tradition world with other influences mixed in but its not classic Norse stories though so I've changed some of the words around. Shortened things, added bits in to make it easier to read as well as combining and tweaking existing short words but I'm wondering how much should I change?

My story has enough time and enough outside influence for language to evolve a bit without loosing its flavor. But what should I do about common names and common items? Swords, Daggers, Axes, bows? Should I come up with different names or stick to the basics? Should I tweak the names of well known items and creatures to reflect the change in times and to make it easier for people to read and speak if they talk about it with friends? Examples like Gullinbursti (A boar ridden by one of the gods) Njorthrbiartr (a heroic act or the title of hero) and Hrimfaxi (a mythical horse) are kind of a mouth full. They don't roll off the tongue and they don't stick in your head too much. There are from actual literature, baby name books and things like that. They just aren't that great though to read and say unless your an expert in the language. I'm not.

How much do I alter and still keep what I'm going for? What can you shorten? What can you change without it sounding like every other story out there?

I previously had 12 chapters written out but I've been revising and rewriting after I got into a bind and didn't know where to go next to get to how I had the story planned out. It seems like the further I plan and the more names I pull from actual Norse mythology and history I lose readability.

I like how Jim uses things and names from History, myth and name meanings to give things extra depth without sounding completely alien and like you've stumbled into a foreign language course.

I hope what I'm asking makes sense.

I'm finding that the farther I progress in my story and the more characters I introduce whether they be minor or major I'm running into the issue of keeping them all straight. Maybe its because I haven't fleshed out many of them in my head...whereas with main characters I have lots of events and backstory all planned.

But I was wondering how you all keep track of your characters. Do you have a character list with descriptions physical and otherwise? Or what do you do?