Posts Tagged ‘fantasy’

Writing Projects Update

Posted: July 11, 2009 in Pure Escapism, Tears of the Mountain, writing update
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Thought I should do a post updating the various projects, where they currently stand and where they are hopefully headed.

The novel with the working title of Tears of the Mountain has been commenced, with 9K written of the first rough draft. Currently the rough draft is on a short pause as a proper plot and outline are worked on.

The prequel pilot novella, nominally called The Gift has been started, only around 4K done on it so far, but the story plot has been figured out. Aiming for 15-20K in length, it is intended to get a feel for the world, sort of like a pilot to a TV show does.

Pure Escapism is still coming along – need to finish off one draft and then edit it and a second draft to finish off the third volume. Hopefully this month, but certainly for next month.

For the contents of it, I have ideas for a number more short stories for a couple more volumes still. After that, while there will be plenty of one off stories, they will be fleshed out with ongoing series of stories which will, in theory, explore a number of different themes.

Cara’s Choice is going to be the only serial of them, an ongoing story told in episodes as they are released. It is an urban fantasy – nothing too out of the ordinary about it, except vampires will never ever be the good guys.

Of the core world of writing there are two main series, both from the earlier parts of history, but there will be other stories spread around in other time periods as well. I’ve had fun writing the myths of Aracan Hobgoblins in The Cahauc Cycle and so they will keep coming, and in time I may delve into myths of other cultures. The other series is planned to be The Book of Deeds, which relates the deeds of great Maedari Kings and Heroes during the bronze age of the world.

The series that I am calling The Primal Tales revolves around Braega and the lizardman Tudhala. There is plans for another character to join up soon. These stories aim to be wild and primal in nature, revolving around ruins, primeval creatures and the like. For these I have drawn inspiration in part from the Conan stories by Robert E Howard.

The other main series is those dealing with Nhaqosa the minotaur, which go by the name A Wanderer’s Tale. These are trending towards a more dark nature, and the world he finds himself in is more brutal and gritty in nature.

I have also been pondering on whether to write more about the sarcastic android Ray and his luckless master Brian in a sci-fi series, trying for a more humourous group of stories. May be fun to try something a bit more radical than the norm for me.

That is the plan at least – next step is to get it working.

Another Idea

Posted: July 4, 2009 in Tears of the Mountain, writing update
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The rough draft for Tears of the Mountain has suddenly hit 9K words, the draft barreling along at a fair clip of knots, and yet not much has happened. No indication yet as to how long this will turn out to be.

Strangely, while doing this, another idea came to mind. No, I’m not stopping work on the draft, but it does sort of tie in.

What I’m thinking of is to do a longer short story, some 15-20K in length, that is something of a prequel to Tears of the Mountain. The main though behind doing this was to introduce a few of the characters and also to give an overall indication to the feel of the world which is a little different than for most fantasy worlds. Plan would be to have it to share and show around when talking about the novel and the world, so people can see what it is all about.

Sought of like a pilot for a TV program, the purpose thereof to generate some interest.

At least that is the idea.

Fantasy Authors On Twitter

Posted: July 4, 2009 in General
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Brian Rathbone has, on his website, a list of fantasy authors who twitter. Both published and aspiring. And editors, podcasters, publishers, ezines and the like.

If you want to get on it, or are just interested in finding new people to follow, the full list is here.

A Good Start Made

Posted: July 3, 2009 in Tears of the Mountain, writing update
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The rough draft of Tears of the Mountain is coming along at a fair pace – already passed 6000 words and I haven’t quite finished the couple of pages of rough synopsis that it has come from.

It has been bubbling along quite nicely and I was surprised at how much has been done already when I did a word count.

The part written was meant to only be an introduction, get a feel for the setting and story, but it has expanded more than I expected – and it will only do so more when I get around to doing the rewrite.

In its current form it is fairly basic – descriptions, conversations, plot. On past performance, when I do do the rewrite and fleshing out those 6K will be out to 10K or more.

Time to get back to writing now though – have more of the rough draft that needs writing.

Getting The Numbers Right

Posted: July 2, 2009 in General
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In building realistic fantasy worlds, one error that people sometimes fall into is not getting the number right.  By this I am mostly referring to populations and armies.

Often the numbers involved are based more on modern times and not what could be expected for the equivalent time frame.  Million man armies just did not exist, no matter what the Dark Lord may want.

Populations were small, and predominately rural, living in small villages and involved in farming.

Armies, except for rare instances, mostly numbered only in the thousands.  Tolkien is one that gets this right, at lest for the good guys.  Their forces only number in the thousands, even at the Battle of Pelennor Fields, Hornburg and the Black Gates.  Of course the Uruk always number in much larger numbers…

I came across a couple of interesting article on the web dealing with these matters, and offering helpful advice on dealing with realistic numbers.  They will certainly help me in my world building and writing.

Medieval Demographics Made Easy

Keeping Your Fantasy Armies A Little Less Fantastic

The New Project

Posted: July 1, 2009 in Tears of the Mountain, writing update
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After a long period of threatening, I have finally started work on writing the novel. Yep, it is now the WIP and will remain so until it is done, with Pure Escapism relegated behind it.

I started writing it two days ago and have already passed 3000 words on the rough draft, which was a bit more than I expected. I’d written up shortly before that a couple of pages in a notebook detailing just the first small part of the story. I haven’t even finished expanding on that in the rough draft and those 3000 words came from just 150 words in the synopsis. And that will only get longer once it goes from draft to expanded form.

I’m am currently giving it the working title Tears of the Mountain, but that is probably going to change later on.

As for the story itself, it takes place about 20 years prior to the events in Tomb of the Tagosa Kings from the first volume of Pure Escapism, and features a younger Halir. It has action, adventure, lost cities, ancient ruins, hidden treasures, intrigue, politics and much more.

Fantasy Fans Arise!

Posted: June 27, 2009 in General
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I’ll admit it. I’m a fan of fantasy. The books, the movies, the games. I’ve always been a fan, even when I didn’t know it. I was proud to admit it through my schooling days, and still am.

Yet we aren’t always taken seriously.

So I was pleased to come across the following post – Let’s stop sneering at fantasy readers. Good advice.

As a reader first, and now hopeful writer, it has always been my genre. I’ve tried dabbling in other genres, but always returned to it. Most of my favourite books are fantasy books. Tolkien. Gemmell. Pratchett.

And while my writing is often fantasy with some twists and variations, it is still proudly planted in the fantasy genre.

And that is the way I like it.

Scifi/Fantasy Writers’ Day

Posted: June 23, 2009 in General
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It appears that today, June 23rd, has been named SF/F Writers’ Day, as I discovered in this post by Alan Baxter. I’m with Alan on the placement of the apostrophe for the title. 🙂

So for all of us writers of sci-fi and fantasy out there, have a great writing day.

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