All4, I seriously doubt that anyone here is a serious threat to lifting your original material. No matter how unique you think the idea is, have no doubt that its probably been written before. Writing a novel is damned hard, often thankless work. The odds are stacked against you much more so than in most other industries. So I definitely wish you luck with it.
As for Paolini, he's a walking manual on how not to write. He also lifted just about every idea from other, much more prominent sources.
Despite the continued popularity of LotR, elves and other familiar races are generally frowned upon in newly written fantasy. Most authors these days if they want to use that sort of archetype simply invent something else that takes the 'elf' role.
Sounds like you're trying to write more or less organically, which could be interesting. Instead of the character's actions and decisions serving the plot, you develop background and personalities and infer from those creations how they might react to certain choices and situations and have that guide the plot. Sounds like an interesting experiment.
Have you decided whether you're writing first person or omniscient? Whether the action on screen will be 'truth' or mere impressions of the narrator at the time? For excellent first person writing, check out George RR Martin's a Song of Ice and Fire series. Each chapter is written from the perspective of a different character and its really interesting to see their varying interpretations of different events. Its also some of the best fantasy currently being written, so a must read from both a prose and storytelling perspective.
Fantasy is loaded with more talent right now than I've ever seen it. So good luck breaking in there.
This post was edited by AchillesHK on Nov 10 2007 01:07pm