The Woods- Concept

This is an idea that has been festering inside me for awhile and I have already started developing it, but before I go any further I would like some input on whether the concept is worth pursuing.

The Woods takes place in a magical forest where there are four Kingdoms: Heatherton, Wanderstock, Champlin, and Burnett. The story starts with the Kingdom of Burnett on the brink of civil war because of the intense division between rich and poor. Meanwhile, the Queen of Heatherton dies and is quickly replace by her daughter, who is thrust into the position. She then attends her first Gathering, which is the meeting of the four kingdoms. There they discussed the current situation of Burnett. Soon after that meeting Burnett broke out into civil war and the Royals fled and took refuge. After the war, the Royals began to build a new Kingdom in a new location and left the old Kingdom to rot as a way to keep the past in the past and start a new.

It is now worth mentioning that each Kingdom has a trade that they contribute to the other Kingdoms. Heatherton is lumber and construction. Champlin is mining metals and weaponry. Wanderstock is farming. Burnett however, never really contributed anything but it was known as a "Piece of Paradise" and many people would visit, so it was a tourist destination if anything. However, now after the war, the other Kingdoms decided that they would have to come up with an actual trade in order to pay everyone back for building them a new Kingdom, plus it is only fair. So Burnett's trade is Science and Innovation, they promised to be the leader in coming up with new discoveries and inventions that would help everyone. 

Now while all of that is going on the Queen of Heatherton has fallen in love and gotten married to a man she has known a very long time. However, once she becomes pregnant with their first child he begins to change. After the birth of their second child, the Queen knows something has to change because her King has pretty much become a dictator by increasing taxes, upping security, and enforcing outrageous laws. So the Queen's maid, who is her good friend, suggests that she go to visit a lady in the forest that could possibly help her with her problem. The woman in the woods gives the queen a book with empty pages and a lock on the cover. She tells the Queen all she has to do is write the Kings name in the book and place it near him and he will be sucked into the book and then to lock it. The lock has been enchanted so only the person who writes the name or someone who shares the same blood can open the book again. So the Queen does what the lady says and successfully traps the King inside the book, but in the process, she angered the Kings, 3 brothers. Unable to find the book they steal the Queen's children instead and hold them hostage and promises to kill them if she does not give them the book. So the Queen does what they ask and she gets her children back. However, she knows that they will be back because once they figure out they can not open the book they will kill her children. The Queen rushed back to the woman in the forest and pleads that she help her. The woman in the forest concocts a curse so powerful that everyone in the Kingdom of Heatherton will now have the memory of the Queens children dying in a tragic accident, and the Queen gives her children to her trusted maid to care for forever. So now if the brothers come back everyone will tell them a tragic story about how the children died and they can't take them away from her permanently. 

Once the brothers realize that they can not open the book they debate on whether or not to go back, but the oldest brother says that all they need is magic to open the book. So they travel to the Champlin who's Queen has magic plus she is young and manipulated easily. The brothers travel to Champlin and meet with the Queen, they explain their story and how Heatherton is not to be trusted. Over the course of the week the oldest brother starts manipulating the Queen and gets her to fall in love with him, he even gets her pregnant. The news of the Queens pregnancy quickly spreads and the two then get married, the news spreads to the Queen of Heatherton. She realizes that this is all just a scam for the brothers to get power and use Champlin's army to get what they want, so the Queen of Heatherton hires assassins to kill the brothers and end this. The assassins were successful in killing the oldest and middle brother. The Queen of Champlin realizes that her King was right and Heatherton really is a huge threat so in the middle of her breakdown she sends her army to destroy Heatherton. The Queen of Heatherton is pleased that the assassins killed the oldest and middle brother but unfortunately the youngest survived and now an army is headed her way. 

She organizes her army and sends half to meet with Champlin's army and the other half to Champlin. When the army reaches Champlin they burn the entire kingdom to the ground and meet up with their other half and kill off most of Champlin's army. The remaining few of Champlin's army retreat back to the kingdom only to see their home has been burned down. The Queen of Champlin miraculously survives and from that day forward she vows that she will not rest until Heatherton is destroyed and everyone in it is dead. 

After that, the story fasts forwards and we meet up with the Queen of Heatherton's children who is living with her maid, who of course have no memory of her. They work in their mother's bakery and the daughter, who is the oldest, is realizing that she was born with magic and tries to hide it. After running into a man going through some rough times she decides to start a side business where she sells potions in cupcakes. So the man she ran into was sad that the woman he loved does not love him back so she sold him a cupcake with a love potion it in. This concept quickly became a top black market item. 

The daughter of the Queen of Champlin was also born with magic like her mother. Her mother, the Queen, is also teaching her the dangers of Heatherton and explains the importance of building a strong army and finding a King. The daughter of the Queen is constantly set up with dates and all of them end badly since no one likes her because they are forced to be there. The daughter soon becomes agitated and starts freezing her dates when they reject her and keeping them in her safe. Meanwhile, Champlin expands to create like a sub-Kingdom called Payton, where all of their military training takes place. After this expansion many residences became uneasy and a few broke off to start a rebellion. This rebel force reaches out to Heatherton and they conspire a plan to kill the Queen of Champlin. So one day one of the soldiers of this rebellion finds out about the potion cupcakes and gets one that will kill the Queen when she eats it. Later, the cupcake is delivered and the Queen take a fateful bite and dies instantly. The daughter pretty much loses it and finds out that the cupcake came from Heatherton and so this only pushes her to continue her mother's legacy. 

Soon after the daughter of the Queen of Heatherton falls in love with a guard who works for Champlin and the two are secretly meeting for months until the new Queen of Champlin finds out they are dating and when she goes to meet with her guards new love she find out this is where the cupcake that killed her mother came from. The new Queen then kidnaps the daughter of Heatherton and the guard and takes them to her castle. The new Queen enchanted her castle so only she could use magic inside and proceeds to force feed a love cupcake to the guard to make him fall in love with her, all while the daughter of Heatherton watches in agony. After that, the new Queen sends the daughter to the dungeon and plans on making her a slave. However, the guard sneaks away from the Queen late at night and breaks out the daughter because the potion did not work because no one but the Queens magic will work inside the castle and since the cupcake was the daughters magic it did not work.  The guard and the daughter sneak through the castle, however, the new Queen awakens and the 2 race outside so the daughter can use her magic and the Queen and the daughter begin to fight. In the middle of the fighting, the daughter knocks the Queen off of a cliff and accidently knocks the guard off as well. She rushes to save the guard who is hanging on for dear life nad the Queen handed on a ledge knocked out. The daughter rushes to try and save the guard but he slips and falls onto a spike that goes completely through him. She lays in the dirt in utter shock, and the Queen begins to wake up. She is then drug away by these strange people who claim to be helping her. She tries to fight him but the death of her love renders her useless. As it turns out the people dragging her away are members of the rebellion that had come to rescue her at the Queen of Heatherton's request. She is taken back to Heatherton where she finds out that she is actually a royal and that her whole life is basically a lie. After a few weeks of mourning, she joins the rebellion. 

Author's Note

~~~ This is the main story, there are also a bunch of side stories about the royals in the other kingdoms and what happens to Burnett and the whole 9 yards. This is just the beginning and a little bit of the middle portion of the story... I also left out how all the names of the characters because they are actually based off of people I know and how the guard and the daughter fall in love, how the daughters adopted father dies, and how the rebellion got started, and who started it. I left out a lot more but those are the main ones... I mainly want to know if this is a good story because I think it is great. I want to know if you want to know more, if I should continue, etc. I have spent about 2 years developing this story to where I am now... I have a detailed timeline, characters with back stories, and general history, how magic works, the battle between science and magic... What artificial magic is... everything. Everything in this story is based on people I know and things that have happened to them (with a twist) and it is also based heavily on music and the stories they tell. I have not completed the entire story but a good portion of it has been outlined. Again let me know what you think! Ignore all the grammar and spelling, it could also get a little confusing as to who I am referring to but I tried to keep it simple.

Reviews

[Musa]

Sounds like a project worth continuing.

[Musa]

I like the background it gives a vivid picture of the story. Good descriptions of key characters.