Forum: Story Ideas

I'm writing what will be a medium to long length story and need to work on how the tile describes the central premise of the story.

the set up is a child has not said a single word and is now over two years old. his parents are very worried and begin following every lead they can to solve the riddle.

during this process they come across a gypsy woman who is distraught and is ignored by they hospital that they're all in. the parents are diplomats and bring pressure on behalf of the gypsy.

a little while later they return to the hospital to get results and information about their son. the gypsy is still there and thanks them profusely and asks them what has them so worried that they are back in the hospital again, not sure if they're just checking on her. she finds out the child's story about never saying a word, not even babbling .

the gypsy opens a very old book or case or something and takes out a tattered strip of threadbare cloth with what appears to be letters stitched down it. she places it on the child's forehead and whispers something completely unintelligible. the cloth fades into the skin and the boy starts to talk immediately. fully formed sentences as if there had never been a thing wrong.

he only speaks languages he's heard to begin with as he has not yet learned how to harness his abilities to that degree. it starts of as a novelty then a party trick but the boy tires of it after a while and no longer does it in his teens.

fast forward a few years and the boy can when he chooses speak any language at all, even dead ones. he also with much effort learns to read many languages that don't use the latin alphabet, some are harder than others.

as his voice begins to break he starts to be able to influence others with verbal commands. telling players on a sports field to choke, telling his siblings to give him something he wants. he slowly build the idea, skills and rule set of how to use this skill. some of the rules are he has to be in the targets presence though it may work from a recording or over phone. it does not work trough televisions etc. it does not matter if the person can hear him or even if he is in line of sight.

a second change also occurs, he 'learns' a 'new' language at present this is simply called the old tongue as he will learn it is the origin of the tower of babel legend. when he uses this language he can make things happen, he also goes on a quest to find out what this language is. remember he can only read latin alphabets and others that he sets aside time to learn even if he can already speak the language perfectly.

so over time he learns 3 things, how to influence people, how to speak and use the old tongue and what the origin of this language is.

this is the main premise of the story, there are a few things I am thinking about that will follow:
when he uses the old tongue he can change bodies.
as he learns to influence and command people he learns that what he expects to happen is not always what happens, people have to interpret his commands based on their own frame work.
whether math is a language.
will he become immortal?
will he follow his parents into diplomatic service?
how does he learn what the old tongue is? at the moment it's a phone call to a linguist who is also a gypsy and he prompts the boy to reply to a riddle in the old tongue, when he doesn't know the riddle he is challenged on how he learned the language and forms a friendship with the linguist on the condition he never teaches anyone the old tongue.
the target of the order must understand the order even if they don't hear it. i.e. it must be in words they understand, with the possible exclusion of the next point.
the old tongue may have a stronger influence on people who he uses it on than a normal language.

I'd love to have a too and fro here for a few ideas, have temporally lost the email for this account so may get a new one.

The Silent Languages of Supremacy (???)

Out of curiosity, what would happen if the boy was ever exposed to Linear A?

As for a name... The Power of Babel?

As to your other points:
math is a language, it's the language of science. However, it's strictly a written language.
if you want him to be able to alter bodies (and that includes his own) then he's functionally immortal, although he could, presumably, be killed. If you want him immortal, you could do it.
why in the world would he want a job like that? Most of the high-level jobs are bought by campaign contributors, so he'd be a low-medium level underling forever. Which could allow him to travel the world well enough (although I'd expect him more to become the local CIA rep in any embassy, where he'd be attached as a translator)
here's a thought - the last group to speak the 'old tongue' were the ancient Minoans, and he learns the 'old tongue' when he tries to decipher Linear A. Works best if he goes into academia. Linguistics and/or archeology would be appropriate. (Also gives him access to hot grad students for his eventual harem.)

thanks for all the quick replies, I think atm I'll go for the Power of Bable.

I kinda want it to be slowish but still have a reasonable amount of stuff happening. I have a few scenes in out line only.

one of these is during the learning process of commanding people, in the school library he approaches the school 'ice queen' who is a few years older than him and he says "tell me your secret" still working on what he wants out of this exchange but the reply is "my daddy fucks me and I love it" she blanches as soon as she realises what she's said out loud and the plot for the chapter is started more or less, no he doesn't black mail her.

...starts to talk immediately. fully formed sentences as if there had never been a thing wrong

It does happen in real life sometimes, without magic. It's told about my sister that she refused to speak until over three years old and then it was in perfect ten-word sentences right away, and not just lifted from the fairytales but her very own. (And yes, she turned out to be a literature and grammar teacher by calling. Although, it's possible she was designed witchcraft heiress from my grandmother, but refused it. Then, you can't teach Latvian literature and grammar without witchcraft.)

when he uses this language he can make things happen, he also goes on a quest to find out what this language is

The concept of the *true* language was big in medieval alchemy and philosophy, later morphed into and influenced hermeneutics, phenomenology and finally evolved into semiotics and cognitive science.

The same concept is central to European shamanic song magic, with require knowledge about *true* origin of things and *true* names, then supposedly allowing direct control of things, for example like Väinämöinen in Finnish Kalevala "sings up a boat" from seemingly nothing. (Kalevala is quite a nightmare read to wade through, but highly recommended reading nevertheless. Creative interpretations are encouraged, you can read descriptions of ancient technological civilization in it with some deliberation.)

Language and writing as magic is universal.

For example in Latvian, letter/character is burts and to cast a spell is burt, a priest of pre-christian creed is burtnieks (literary he-who-do-letters). Sister "write up" a magically protective war-shirt for her brother. Ah, the language she uses is that of the Great-word Belt (Lielvādes josta) it's variants and simpler cousins like Nīca belt analysed here (pdf). If you want something with quite an alien feel, yet used by humans in Europe less than thousand years ago, take a look. Does those belts have any meaning beyond being one of the most complex ornamental patterns in existence, is anyone's best guess.

whether math is a language

Descriptions of math is language. Mach itself as universal language is often abused as possible route of communication with aliens.

Then, in such expansion, everything is language. Trade people talk, for example, about language of clothes fashion, language of architecture, etc.

Now, out of the blue, I world like to also mention knot-writing. That's a technique of storing information in series of knots and loops on a tread of yarn, allowing you to roll a song in a clew. Technique itself seems to have been globally known, but very few examples survive, and basic assumptions are that local dialects may vary wildly.

I was thinking about something like "The Cloth of Babel" since the gypsy woman placed a cloth on his head.... but I really really like "The Power of Babel" better since it speaks more to what the story is really about and rhymes nicely with the Tower of Babel that everyone's familiar with.

Excellent call!

I think it would be wise to have the boy reach out to experts as soon as he realizes that he has some kind of gift for languages. You could start with him looking through the gypsy community since his parents would certainly have told him of what happened and it'd be a natural place for him to start his search.

The idea of striking up a friendship with an old professor of languages is certainly a good one, too. I would save this until he's 18-ish and can travel freely on his own.

In real life, you have to rely on others simply because there isn't enough time in the day for you to learn all you need to know about a subject or three. The professor of ancient languages could advance the boy's knowledge by decades with a single visit, as well as greasing palms and opening doors.

I would also recommend that you plan for it to be a long story so you can really dive deep in to the mythology of it all. It's great that you have mind-control and body shaping, and I'm sure a young man would be using that to his advantage to get laid a lot, but what's the bigger story?

Dealing with gods and magic is a touchy subject for me because I absolutely hate when a story has those elements in an otherwise mundane world... and the protagonist pretty much ignores the bigger picture of what it means and might entail.

Who would find out, for instance, that magic really does exist.. and then be worried about who they're going to ask to prom or how Sally down the street is doing now that her old man has died? Yea, there needs to be some real life, mundane stuff just to keep a hero grounded, but having hard evidence that there's magic about would completely change someone's priorities and that should be reflected in the story.

I'm afraid those who have so impressed me won't see this, but, my gosh! So much knowledge floating around! Thanks to all!