Outline for a novel

You think you could put it in a format where you can read it from the screen instead of having to download a document?
 
I got a message about the file being corrupted.

But I don't think I'm going to respond, 'cuz Hex is kind of a baby.
 
Okay, since no one seems to have used this in a while, and I can't Hex's post, I am hijacking this thread for similar purposes.

While not a novel, this is an outline for a long-term story I want to write. However, since my last long term story ended going down in flames, I have decided it would be best to outline it. Please C&C.

Since I don't know how to do it like Hex did, this will be in spoiler tags. Also, if an asterik follows a name, that means that name is a placeholder until I find one I am comfortable with.

A Tale of a Pirate and a Ninja

The intro starts by telling the story of the Great Pirate/Ninja War, where long-lived hostilities between the two groups erupted in epic fashion. The war was only stopped by the timely intervention of a coalition army of cowboys, robots, Vikings and samurai, who forced the war to end in a stalemate.

Twenty years later, in the present day, pirates and ninjas live among the common people of Awesomeopolis*. Ninjas are easily able to blend in with their stealth and deception, but pirates have a harder time adapting, and have been known to dig up four-way intersections in search of buried treasure. So they mostly keep to themselves out in the harbor and a small island just off the coast of Awesomeopolis.

We are introduced to Nami, a no-nonsense ninja girl. She has recently taken a blow to her reputation by screwing up a job. (We never learn the details of it, but everyone agrees that she would've done much better if the President hadn't showed up.) She takes a reevaluation test headed by Tagaruto, one of the ninja elders. It is then that her Sensei*, in an effort to cheer her up, reveals that she has a long lost brother…who happens to be a pirate.

This brother, Pete, a slightly crazy and curmudgeonly pirate, is introduced to Nami. Sensei then has the two go on a mission to retrieve a legendary diamond.

"Back during the Great Pirate-Ninja War, the legendary Hook and Hanzo met on the field of battle. In what would be the final deaths of the war, they spilled each other's blood all over the battlefield. They say plants spring up from the blood of the pure-hearted. Well, I'm not sure if that's true, but I know what springs from the blood of the coldhearted: solid stone."

This diamond is currently in the possession of Xanatos* a wealthy industrialist. Sensei hopes to use the diamond to improve pirate-ninja realations, as both sides view the diamond with respect. Nami refuses to believe that Pete is her brother, mostly because of the absurdity of the situation and believes it's just a ruse to distract her from the mission, which Sensei has been known to do in the past. She is initially cold to Pete and insists on working alone. Pete humors her for all of three minutes before deciding "Screw you, ninja sister I've only known for three seconds, I'm coming along anyway."

Meanwhile, Xanatos, realizing that pirates and ninjas could come for him at any moment for the diamond, calls Hank, a government sponsored agent who deals with any of the more ludicrous threats to the city.

Oh, and Hank is also a cowboy.

After an epic heist in which Nami and Pete team up to take down Hank, they escape in Pete's boat. At this point, Nami drops her hostile attitude towards Pete, if only because he helped her. They decide to lay low at the house of Timmy* a boy computer genius who spends too much time on the Internet. In exchange for being allowed to crash there, Pete has been trying to teach Timmy to be a real pirate ("not of those fancy-pants wannabes with an Internet connection") and has been met with limited success. It is there that Timmy tells Pete that Scratchybeard, a high-profile pirate captain who was presumed missing after going on a voyage to the Bermuda Triangle, has returned and is currently at the pirate island. Nami sends the diamond to the Ninja Elders via ninja carrier pigeon.

Sensei wants to use the diamond for diplomatic purposes, only to find the rest of the Ninja Elders want to keep it for themselves. At this point, one of the elders is killed by an unknown assailant. The murder weapon: a pirate flag stabbed through his chest. This

To investigate the murder, Hank is called in, who finds the murder quite suspect.
1. The flag is a standard Jolly Roger. If a real pirate had done the murder, they would have used their own flag, wanting them to know they had done it.
2. The elder, instead of having his corpse immeadietly cremated, as ninja tradition demands, has been allowed to stay untouched and for police investigation. Hank suspects this is because the Elders hope to use this as an excuse to attack the pirates.
In an effort to delay the rising hostilities between pirates and ninjas, Hank splits the diamond in half with his revolver, one half to go to each side.

Nami and Pete return to the ninja home to learn of the murder. Hank's suspicions are proven correct, as everyone but Nami and Sensei becomes hostile towards Pete. While some of the ninjas conspire to attack Pete, Tagaruto confronts Sensei over his fondness for the pirates. He then reveals that he knows the reason why: Sensei is actually the dread pirate Smee. Sensei is forced to flee as his identity is revealed.

Tagaruto, given full authority by the rest of the Elders, accuses Pete of the murder. Nami comes to Pete's defense and the two escape the ninjas. Realizing there's not much else they can go, as the ninjas have spies everywhere, they decide to head for the pirate island, where Sensei/Smee is most likely to have fled.

We then cut to the home of Xanatos, to reveal that someone, who is the mastermind behind the murder, is blackmailing Xanatos into helping them achieve their goal: restarting the Great Pirate-Ninja War, as they want to see the final outcome. They want to see who would finally win this battle: a Pirate or a Ninja? Thus ends Volume One. This story will last no longer then two volumes.

I am prepared to post an outline for V2, but keep in mind it is rougher then this is.
 
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