Archive for the ‘fantasy’ Category

On Fire

Posted: October 14, 2009 in fantasy, writing update
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As I mentioned on Monday, I had started working on something new, something with no plot and no clue to where it was leading.

As of today it has continued to explode into life. From 5pm Saturday to 5pm today (Wednesday), I have managed 4k+ a day and in those 96 hours have written 20,000 words – and I’ve got a couple more hours of writing left in me today. I have been trying to have this kind of progress all year, so am mystified why it has happened all of a sudden now – and on a project I have no idea where is going.

I am also stoked, to say the least, by the progress. In an odd way – with no plot to follow, no characters planned, no guidelines – it has been oddly liberating. I can smash up things as I see fit with no thought to consequences, kill off who I want when I want and generally go to town. The other stories I couldn’t really do that with – too much planning about events that transpire later on that prevents such total disregard for everything.

I guess a little about what it is about – it is turning out to be Big Epic Fantasy, much like the Wheel of Time or Malazan Book of the Fallen, at least in scale. The vast power magic has, the larger than life characters – and plenty of them – death, destruction and mayhem. The first 20K words has a city completely destroyed and a fleet smashed by powerful elemental creatures that escape the control of their summoners and two fairly major deaths – with at least two more I know of whom I plan to kill – a few plot points have developed as I surge on, but not many. There are knights and wizards, kings and princesses and monsters.

Currently one thing I am not happy with is the names – most aren’t going to survive and are just placeholders until I get a chance to sit down and figure out something better Which won’t be hard. Most are awful.

Hopefully I can keep this pace up – if I can, then be the end of the month I’ll be pushing 90K done and hopefully be finished with the first run through. I may even have a sit down and read through it then – I’m dreading to discover just how bad it is and how much polishing it will require.

And because it requires a name, it has very, very tentatively been given the code name He Stands Between

A Strange Turn Of Events

Posted: October 12, 2009 in fantasy, writing update
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The last couple of days have been unusual to say the least.

Saturday morning started fairly normally. I scratched out around 1000 words of the rewrite of Tears of the Mountain, but I was, as normal, not putting a lot of effort into it. Come afternoon I was trawling the ‘net wasting time. Along the way I was reading through various pages on TvTropes and also some World of Warcraft forums, including a debate on most powerful characters in lore.

All of a sudden I get the briefest hint of an idea, normally not enough of one to do anything much with yet, not without more barnstorming at least.

Yet I sat down at 5pm and started writing, and by the time I was done for the night I had cranked out 3000 words.

Sunday, despite half the day being taken out with other things, saw another 4500 words written.

Somehow, in less than two days, I’d written 7500 words. What made it more unusual is that when I started I had no plot to work on, no characters, nothing. Yet somehow I’d managed to write all that, and am likely to hit the 10K mark today easily.

Its turning out to be looking like one of those big epic fantasy’s, completely unlike the world of Sharael. We’ll have to see where it ends up and how long it turns out to be.

Looking For Some New Trolls

Posted: October 6, 2009 in fantasy, World Building, writing update
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Trolls are one of the more interesting mythological and fantasy creatures to play around with, mainly because they are such blank slates.

While Elves are Elves (pointy-eared, long-lived, hang out in forests), Dwarves are Dwarves (short, bearded, live underground and dig up stuff), Dragons are Dragons (big, reptilian, flying and fire-breathing), it is not the case for Trolls. All Trolls Are Different as TvTropes put it. The reason behind that is because mythological they were so varied that it allows each author to put their own unique slant on them.

There are two that are my favourites – the trolls of Discworld and the trolls of Warcraft.

Discworld trolls use the more common stereotype of the big dumb troll, but not for obvious reasons. They are made of stone, with diamond teeth and silicon brains. The warmer the temperature, the slower their brains work until they can practically turn to rock in very hot weather in the daylight. In optimal conditions (ie very cold) their brains work much better and one troll, Detritus, almost worked out the Grand Unified Theory of Everything while freezing to death. Detritus is one of my favourite Discworld characters. A minor character at first, first seen working as a splatter (like a bouncer only much harder), he eventually joined the City Watch and ended up a sergeant.

Warcraft trolls are much differnet. Tall and lanky, they walk hunched over and speak in Jamaican accents, mon. They also sport tusks and mohawks, are incredible ancient and once had empires stretching across most of Azeroth, practising head-hunting, voodoo and cannibalism (though they got very good at it, so don’t need to practice anymore). The only word to describe them, as a die-hard Hordie, is awesome. And they get to be druids in the expansion – yay trolls!

I’ve been wanting to work trolls into my world for some time, but as yet haven’t found the correct form for them. I want them to be uniqueish, with my own slant on them, but not a clone of something I like. I’m thinking of folding them into the more traditional roles that elves fulfilled – forest dwelling creatures who are highly magical (which would explain their regenerative properties given the way magic functions in my setting), but obviously not looking like elves (or warcraft trolls.) Hopefully I can finalise the details before too long.

Puttering Along

Posted: October 5, 2009 in fantasy, Tears of the Mountain, writing update
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Making progress on the writing, which is good. The rewrite of Tears of the Mountain is at about 20,000 words now. Around a quarter of what I’m aiming for. Hopefully by the end of the month I’ll be close to completing the rewrite.

Still also mucking about with ideas for the plot of Shadow Watch in preparation for NaNoWriMo. Some more ideas clicked and I rearranged the plot a bit as well to fit them in. As I was working on ideas, some of the background details of the nature of the universe took on more of a final shape – including some to do with the mist and shadows of the name of the blog. Of course details won’t be forthcoming until the story is written.

Another Idea

Posted: September 27, 2009 in fantasy, writing update
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True to form, as I’m starting to make progress in the rewrite of Tear of the Mountain – 13,000 words in – another new idea comes along.

Cept it isn’t like any idea I’ve had before. A couple of days ago there was nothing. Next thing I knew, without even trying, I had, well, near everything. Five main characters came along and I knew what they looked like, their personalities and how they interacted with one another. In addition there were five minor characters with similar details. Much of the overall plot was there, as well as some minor plot details. Various scenes and conversations were whirling around as well.

In all my time fiddling around writing I’ve never had a project just jump so vividly into existence before. Stopping Tears of the Mountain when I’ve done so much already would be a bit silly, but this new project has really taken a hold and refuses to let go. At the very least I’m going to have to make some notes so I don’t forget it.

Sport in Fantasy

Posted: September 22, 2009 in fantasy, writing update
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The grand final of Australian Rules Football (better known as aussie rules or footy down here in Australia) is on this weekend and it got me thinking about sport in fantasy worlds and stories. Man has played sports as long as they have been around – the Greeks and Romans had their Games and the origins of a number of modern sports such as soccer, rugby and cricket are centuries old. I was delighted to see in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World the sailors playing a version of cricket when they were on the Galapogas islands.

Many fantasy worlds and authors seem to glaze over sports – I guess that when you are busy saving the world there is little time to kick a ball around. Gladiator style games seem the most prominent, though other types of sports do crop up. Raymond E. Fiest has a soccer style game develop though a number of books, which is a nice touch, while other authors make up their own bizarre and often highly dangerous types of games.

In an effort to make a believable world I realised I had to include some form of sports to it. Of course, being Australian, this will be flavoured by what we play here, notably cricket and aussie rules (though most likely not exactly as they are currently played). Other sports will have to be played in different nations, so there is amble opportunity for other styles of sports and games to make appearances.

Speaking of aussie rules – I highly recommend people check it out of they can. It is a truly spectacular sport which is happily slowly gaining followings in other countries. Initially this was spread by the Aussie Diaspora but it is being taken up in numerous nations and now has proper amateur leagues in such places as New Zealand, USA, Canada, the UK, Denmark, South Africa, Samoa, PNG, Nauru, Ireland, Germany and others. It’d be great to see it become a major world sport – a dream I have if I ever became a successful author would be to actively support such moves.

Echoes of Dark Reflections Posted

Posted: August 27, 2009 in fantasy, Pure Escapism, writing update
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Another short story has now been completed and added to the Pure Escapism collection. By my count the total amount of words between them comes in at around 96,000 now, which came as a surprise to me when I compiled the numbers.

This story continues on the tale of the giant white minotaur Nhaqosa, following on from The Pit and The Merchant’s Legacy. This one is called Echoes of Dark Reflections.

The world that Nhaqosa has found himself in has always been the most gritty and brutal of the various setting, but this one is darker still, at least for my writing. The story never intended to turn out the way it did. The concept behind it had always been there, to give Nhaqosa something of a different challenge, one that would test even him. However the story took a different path than I expected and I had to ramp back the ending a bit. Even so, the events are going to leave scars on Nhaqosa, and how than pans out in future stories we will have to see when I get around to them.

Given the nature of the story, it seemed logical to introduce a new race, one that I had been trying to work out how to bring into the setting. This is the Talsharan, as mentioned previously in Long Lost Relics. They have something of a dark, unpleasant history to them as well, one that will require further exapnding on at a future date.

The story is also in a way a bit of a homage to Dark Sun setting. It isn’t set on Athas, but it does in parts have a feel for the same brutal setting of Dark Sun I’d like to think.

And so with another story down, it is time to move onto the next one.

Making It Epic

Posted: August 26, 2009 in fantasy, World Building, writing update
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I first read The Silmarillion many years ago, back in high-school, and was blown away at just how epic the book was. It is pretty much my favourite book of all time, and if there was one book I wish I could have written, it is it. Now days epic seems more commonly used to describe those twelve 1000-page volume door-stoppers with more characters than a phone book. The Silmarillion is small by comparison, and the epicness in it comes from the characters and history and events, not from the verbosity and length.

Ever since I have wanted to right my own sweeping epic backstory for the history of my mythos, in the manner of The Silmarillion. Of course, being young when I first started out, it wasn’t particularly good, and borrowed too much from The Silmarillion. But as I got older and pulled the world apart and rebuilt it more than once, things changed and the backstory faded away and was mostly forgotten.

The recent announcement of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, and the accompanying trailer, got me thinking about it again. The idea of unleashing a cataclysm on the world of my creation has been one I’ve toyed with for many years, but only in the distant past has it really been appropriate and considered. And so the old gears began to churn again to put together that epic backstory.

I don’t want to do it in the manner of The Silmarillion, which is a straight out narrative telling of the events, but to leave it a bit more open. In particular I want to do it as told by one group, in this case the Arduq, and be their view of the events that transpired. In this regard I am drawing ideas that have intrigued me from two games, or game settings actually. One is the Warcraft setting the other the Elder Scroll setting. Both have a lot of history and backstory scattered through them and built up on but, with the Elder Scroll setting in particular, you are never quite sure if all the little bits of lore you come across are the actual events or not. There are whole websites devoted to the discussing and arguing of the lore of those settings, trying to piece it all together.

If I have a dream, it would be that my words become popular enough that it would inspire that kind of behaviour and that kind of debate. A lot of my stories already have scattered tidbits of history seeded in them, helping to give the world a more fleshed out feel. Some of them are fairly straightforward and make sense, others more obscure and may seem irrelevant so far. Others yet may be stated opinions that may or may not be true. In the upcoming Echoes of Dark Reflections short story, the Minotaur Nhaqosa is talking about the Arduq, and says ‘they were old when the world was young’. It is that kind of thing that leads to debate, hopefully 🙂

Of course, also working out the details properly now means less chance for errors to creep in. If I know what happened and how everything works, I wouldn’t be contradicting what has been said in earlier stories. It is too easy to do and is often seen in sequels that were never thought about when the original story was written – some things just don’t mesh.

The big thing now is to make it suitably epic; the characters, events and history. I have a few ideas already. Hopefully some will make an appearance here at some stage. While it will be the story I have always wanted to write, it is not the kind of story easily sold and is likely the kind of thing that only ever sees the light of day if one becomes very successful and popular. One can only hope and work hard to try and make it so.

The Minotaur

Posted: August 18, 2009 in fantasy
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As may have been noticed in some of the short stories, I like minotaurs. While many races have been culled from the world of my writings, the minotaurs survived and thrived.

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I am not sure exactly where my fascination for the minotaur comes from. In Greek mythology the Minotaur was a singular creature, not a race, and was something of a violent monster that ate dwelt in the labyrinth of Crete and devoured young men and maidens. He was slain by Theseus of Athens (though this being a Greek story, it ends in tragedy for Theseus as well.)

Every since, minotaurs have generally been depicted as being rather violent, barbaric and evil creatures. Mostly. Yet despite this, I had a soft spot for them. When I first started writing fantasy at a young age, one part of the world had what I refer to as the half-men; minotaurs, centaurs and satyrs. At the time C. S. Lewis’ Narnia books were one of my main influences, hence the centaurs and satyrs. While minotaurs did rate a reference at times, they were on the White Witch’s side.

I think I may have wondered why the half-man/half-bull creatures were bad while the half-man/half-horse and half-man/half-goat creatures were good, so I included them all in together. Since then the centaurs and satyrs have been culled (reluctantly, and they may return as creatures of one of the Otherwords) but the minotaurs remained. My biggest concern is that I may have made them a little too good.

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Recently minotaurs have been seen in a more positive light, one of the main reasons being Warcraft. In Warcraft III a race of bullmen made an appearance – the Taurens. They were minotaurs with an Amerindian influence. They were wise and calm and lived in balance with nature and became an integral part of The Horde. They are seen by both sides as being probably the most ‘good’ of any race. Hardly surprising then that in WCIII and World of Warcraft that I turned out to be an avid Horde player – and my main was a Tauren Druid called Kwatalani.

So here is to the noble minotaur and be on the lookout for further appearances of them in my stories.

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