I would like to write an isekai story where the setting isn't a fantasy video game world, but the setting is some wild west steampunk world
After watching a ton of
isekai I've been thinking on story ideas a lot. One idea is more in the formative stages and puts the traditional
isekai idea on its head and basically becomes a horror story.
A more formative one I've been been thinking out is where the protagonist in a Japanese teenager in 1985, who gets transported to a cyberpunk-dystopia, fantasy world, in 1985 New York (Think 1980s New York with all the crime and corruption. Now add in cyberpunk and magic). Some stranger knows who he is and shoots him in the chest before shooting himself in the head. Turns out to hop dimensions you have to die, and rich people pay poor people (the money going to their families) to hop dimensions and get them things they want. Particularly people. In this world, magic users are rare. They're in isolated communities (think the Amish) who can't be cybered up or use any fancy gear because their bodies have become allergic to technology thanks to centuries of pollution. Normally they're thought of as idiotic, do nothing country bumpkins. However, they have their uses. The rich use mages to search for certain individuals who are compatible with magic and tech in other universes and kidnap them. They're called 'assets', and they're used for human experimentation, their organs sold off, or turned into hollowed out, living weapons. They're also the only ones who can use ancient tech that incorporated magic as well as technology. Since they're not considered residents or citizens, they're literal aliens, therefore they have no rights. So its legal to do anything you want with them. Because the stranger didn't instantly kill him, the teleportation was off and now he's running for his life. From the people that brought him here, to opportunists who'd sell him to the highest bidders, to human slavers.
Trying to write a story for the first time in a while, but really not sure how to begin it. Basic premise: guy goes to fantasy world, gets arrested for being human, only way to avoid execution is to do certain tasks. The problem is my vehicle for getting him to the fantasy world was that he was sick of his life, and so he gets singled out by someone who sends him there against his will. Problem is: if the guy doesn't want to live, why would he choose life over death when he gets presented with that opportunity while locked up? I'm not sure how better to do this, as I want him to be unsatisfied with his existence because it plays into the overarching theme. Any idea how I can straddle the line between 'hopeless but not too hopeless'?
For me, you have to make him not be able to die. Obviously if someone is going to kill themselves, then they go to a shitter place, they're just going to kill themselves again. Death is regarded as a privilege for human scum, and only carried out by the state. He receives a curse, whereupon he cannot die. No authority but the state can kill him. However, any injury or wound that would kill him is made a hundred times more painful. And bleeding out isn't loss of consciousnesses, it's pure fire flowing from your veins, making you need to heal any injury you receive.
Of course, you can negate the pain thing and make it a bit lighter hearted by having a ground-hog day montage of him trying to kill himself, but it being utterly impossible. Push it on him as something he HAS to do. Then you can have him just look forward to the days going up to his execution, but then find a reason for him to want to live, to escape the fate he's been given.
