Should I write this?

Preface: This story idea actually came from a weird semi-lucid dream I had a while back, which I then elaborated on, because the basic premise was off-the-wall enough to burn itself into my memory even after I woke up.

Genre: Wuxia Detective Story

Setting: The story would be set in a fairly typical ancient chinese style wuxia world. The twist is that this world used to be a proper xianxia one, with three powerful sects, four great clans and two great empires. However, during the Age of Strife, which ended about thirty years before the beginning of the actual story, everything changed when all of these superpowers pretty much enacted their own little World War, which resulted in the destruction or severe weakening of all of these powers save for one: one of the empires actually managed to stand, unify with the other empire, and now it holds hegemony over the continent. However, because of all of the fighting between the cultivators and the destruction of the big powerhouses, fragments of the previously fiercely guarded cultivation manuals got disseminated around the land, and with the help of some survivors, simplified versions started showing up on the markets en masse that allowed even the simplest peasants to cultivate the early stages. This lead to a sharp drop in disease and death in childbirth and a sharp rise in population. That, combined with the average peasant now being able to do the work of ten non-cultivators, led to a huge boom in productivity, which then lead to the forming of a new economic power bloc challenging the old nobility. On top of that, the previously powerless commoners are slowly getting organized enough to demand silly things like equal rights and representation too, represented by the Egalitarian Lodge.
By the beginning of the story these issues have been brewing for a decade, and between the emperor slowly losing grasp on his influence, the traditional nobility and the nouveau rich at each other's throats, the growing slums and the commoners in them getting more aggressive with their demands, the Empire's capital is a giant powder-keg ready to blow... and our protagonist is right there in the middle of it all.

Premise: The main character is the first chief of the recently created Imperial Police Department. He looks like a fairly unassuming man in his 30s with sharp eyes and an even sharper tongue, and he is also the team's brains, pretty much acting like a noire detective. His usual team also includes a hotblooded ex-rogue cultivator (looks like an ikemen in his early twenties, though much older) who just came out of seclusion and is considered very powerful compared to the declining power-levels of the rest of the setting, but has zero common sense, and an ex-military scout (tall guy in his forties with long beard and hair) who is not much of a fighter, but an expert spy, tracker and a memetic ladies-main in-universe. The plot picks up when someone breaks into the imperial palace, and in the process the fourth imperial princess (age six, tiny, pretty cute) disappears, and the second prince (age twenty, burly dude with a seemingly trustworthy mug) personally requests out MC to look into it. After a chance-meeting inside the imperial palace he teams up with the first prince (age twenty-four, kind of androgynous, with short hair and always wearing baggy clothes) to find the missing girl. Then hi-jinks ensue.

Plot:

Spoiler

Basically it's a plot where everyone frames everyone. The emperor's estate pretty much stonewalls the MC even though it's a princess who is missing. The old nobles frame the new nobles, the new nobles frame the old nobles, but at the same time they are all framing the Egalitarian Lodge as well, but in the meantime the emperor is framing some dissidents from the other empire while the Lodge claims it's just a smokescreen to allow the emperor to ignore them. Then it turns out there is also a secret society of old cultivators who are trying to re-establish the old sects by "collecting" (read: taking by any means necessary) certain cultivation manuals and fragments, and they were responsible for the break-in. After a lot of misadventures together with the first prince (to build characters and chemistry), they track down this "Vagrant Sect", where the MCs family secrets and true capabilities are revealed, along with the fact that the first prince is actually a reverse-trap due to politics, and that she has taken the place of her mentally retarded twin brother.
As it turns out, the old cultivators used a long-forgotten emergency exit to sneak into the emperor's palace, and in the process they accidentally broke the walls of the secret hideaway of the real first prince. He gets out, wanders around, stumbles upon the fourth princess, and when the servants find them, they freak out that she would reveal the secret, so they lock her up with him in the same secret area. In the end the situation is defused, the MC and the first prince(ss) decide to keep up the status quo for now, UST be damned, and then in the epilogue it turns out that the second prince with the trustworthy mug was the mastermind behind the whole incident, who tried to use the commotion to his own gain and to possibly knock down the first prince(ss) from the inheritance ladder, and finally we would have some teasing about him having other plans in tow for the heroes. The end.

So, the main question: Do you think this idea is good enough for me to make it into a short story (100k words at most), or should I forget about it and get on with my life?

 

You should totally write it, your story world has alot of detail already. #dont_forget_to_cause_people_angst_by_toeing-the_bromance-yaoi_line_along_the_way

Uhhh I don't think 100k is a short story

 

Just GO for it. Try writing the story, you gpt nothing to loose by writing it, and you don't want to regret not writing the story.

 

Looks good, just make the names sound more CN-like. Or is it in a modern setting? A bit tad confusing

 

Do as your heart wills! You never know what could become of this story should you choose to write it.

 

I definitely think you should try writing it and it seems like you already have a solid foundation to work from! Not many know this, but me writing light novels really was a spontaneous occurrence for me. Although I had the concept for my story lingering in my mind, I didn't start writing until after I randomly decided to conjure up a synopsis one night, which led to me creating the 1st manuscript. Well, here I am a few months later almost finished with the 3rd volume of "My Best Friend is Dense Harem Main Character-kun, But Why am I the Heroine?!" Go for it and I'll be rooting for you!~ Also, I agree with Cuddles that 100k is not considered short lol.

 

Honestly that's a fkin solid plot. I would definitely read it

 

I would love that tbh. But rather than a basic ancient world type of setting I felt like it was a kinda story where this sort of plotline would be great if it had this mix of modern day era tech and cultivation xianxia stuff going on. Like not in the background either but actually out there in the open and the world facing the consequences of people living to be 300 or whatever and staying healthy and just the world at large unable to sustain the massive boom of people who consume resources faster than they can be reproduced and all these other things going on that are directly tied in to cultivation becoming a trend.

 

if you don't write it i will. Tho this kinda reminds me of lucifer the tv series. Not too many supernatural crime detective shows.

 

With that much thought out already it would be a crime not to write it into a short story
And if readers love it you should think of making it into a series on scribble hub!

 

Go, and also don't forget to write the afterword or story after the epilogue.

 

My only real comment is that I think you have Wuxia (Big Sects, lots of cultivation, martial arts) and Xianxia (still martial arts and sects but more focused on revenge and face slapping) backwards. That may just be my personal experience with the genres however. I voted yes.

Have you thought about posting a volume on scribblehub as advertisement/extra income?

 

I would love to, however the series is Amazon exclusive and well, one of the clauses is that you're only allowed to share 10% of the story anywhere else. Perhaps I'll consider the option in the future, but right now I just want to focus on writing the best story possible! Thank you for the suggestion and if anyone is interested, you can read that 10% sample for free by clicking the cover art!~

 

Write anything you want, its a free internet well at least if you are not in China and other countries like it

 

Sounds good to me but something is unclear, this novel what is its mainly focus? (mystery? cultivation? drama? please don't tell me it is Yayoi)

 

Same as Nom De Plume, you missed Xianxia for Wuxia.

There was a movie on TV once where a doctor/detective investigates a murder in nearby a village and finds out one of the locals is actually a ( Wuxia ) martial artist as it is the only way to explain everything that happened and the weirdness that went on in his body and mind during the investigation being done ( there were tells when the martial artist used self hypnosis and his skills invloving meridians and whatnot left evidence on his body that proved he was not a simple strong amnesiac farmer as he claimed ).

 

Sounds like you've already done more world development then half the wuxia WN I've dropped.
Though being a kicksss cultivator doesn't seem as if it would help much in actually investigation

 

I'm totally confused. Is this xianxia or wuxia? Can't tell if it's xuanhuan, either.

Would be interested if it was wuxia or traditional xianxia. Personally would pass on it if it's modern xianxia or xuanhuan.

 

If you ask whether you should write it or not, the answer is always yes. It's whether you should let others read that is a dilemma.

Also, 100k is not a short story, that's longer than a typical literary novel.

Short story is less than 3k words.