I wrote earlier a couple of weeks ago on how I wanted Hollenguard to be a story about people who are not warriors, and the lengths I went to in order to convince myself not to go down that route. I killed off some pretty impressive and colorful characters early on, and when my principal cast sets off on their journey they have a knife, a hammer, and a flintlock pistol between them.
Book 1 spoilers ahead...
Kamil's journey further echoes the above idea, sometimes to an extreme that I'm not always proud of when I go back and read the first book. He falls off a mountain in an avalanche, he's captured, he runs from the bad guys, he gets mauled pretty heavily and has to be saved from death before the third act. Oh, and he drops his knife halfway through the story. Kamil spends a good portion of the book injured in some way.
Revisions of the initial draft eased up on this a bit. In fact, his gunpowder had originally been ruined to the point where he couldn't use his dragon during the climax of the story (he was dunked in a river, after all). But since the story begins with a literal bang, and the dragon is such a fun weapon and so linked to the character, it was something I had to highlight at the conclusion. It also gives Kamil some power at the end where, otherwise, he was just helping everyone to run away yet again.
Ultimately, the world turns out to be a mean place. It highlights further Kamil's resolve when he has been hurt so often and has lost his home and people close to him, but he still manages holds on to hope. This bleeds directly into the core arc of the second book, lending weight to the sacrifices he sees others making on his behalf and ultimately propping up the impact of his decision at the end in a way that I'm very proud of.
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Monday, July 15, 2013
This Post Brought to You by the Letter K
Kamil, Kesrin, and Kitarin.
I hadn't realized what an issue it was to have three principal characters of Hollenguard have names of similar length beginning with the letter K until I was rereading my initial draft. There are a few passages with Kesrin and Kamil speaking that were leading to speaker identification mix-ups. Oops.
The idea of these three names has been with me for several years, the origins of which all differ. It truly is just a coincidence that they all happen to start with the same letter. Each is a nod to a different fantasy story that impacted me greatly in my youth. I like to tell myself that it has nothing to do with some sort of deep-seated fascination with names that start with K, but then I ended up with a draft of book 3 with yet another: a character named Kels that had his name changed with a Find/Replace before I started in on my first revision.
What I didn't expect is how much of an impact having those characters' names so closely resembling each other would have on my storytelling. I bowed Kitarin out of the bulk of Half of Forever specifically because of it, and thus her part was replaced by Rinna and given a slightly different role. This gave Kesrin some fun character development opportunities and was ultimately a good thing, but I missed Kitarin a great deal. I think some of her heart bled out into her brother in her absence, softening his edges a bit when he otherwise would have been finding trees to kick.
I hadn't realized what an issue it was to have three principal characters of Hollenguard have names of similar length beginning with the letter K until I was rereading my initial draft. There are a few passages with Kesrin and Kamil speaking that were leading to speaker identification mix-ups. Oops.
The idea of these three names has been with me for several years, the origins of which all differ. It truly is just a coincidence that they all happen to start with the same letter. Each is a nod to a different fantasy story that impacted me greatly in my youth. I like to tell myself that it has nothing to do with some sort of deep-seated fascination with names that start with K, but then I ended up with a draft of book 3 with yet another: a character named Kels that had his name changed with a Find/Replace before I started in on my first revision.
What I didn't expect is how much of an impact having those characters' names so closely resembling each other would have on my storytelling. I bowed Kitarin out of the bulk of Half of Forever specifically because of it, and thus her part was replaced by Rinna and given a slightly different role. This gave Kesrin some fun character development opportunities and was ultimately a good thing, but I missed Kitarin a great deal. I think some of her heart bled out into her brother in her absence, softening his edges a bit when he otherwise would have been finding trees to kick.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Hollenguard: Finding my Voice
In starting writing on Hollenguard, I was sure to play by the rules of NaNoWriMo. That means nothing written down prior to the first day of November. So at the start, with a white screen staring you in the face and no notes to reference, it was a bit daunting.
I fell back on my role-playing roots. All good adventures start in an inn, right? As soon as I started writing I starting thinking of R.A. Salvatore's work, particularly the Drizzt saga. I knew that, given free reign, I would want to write a story about great warriors that are nearly unstoppable in every epic combat that comes upon them. They'd be bristling with weapons, powerful with magic. Superheroes.
So before I'd gotten to page 2 I had put the first of several constraints on my goals: This would not be a story about warriors. And then came my first major dramatic idea: Introduce some warriors into the story and very quickly remove them. So Tol's company came strolling up to the inn to set off the plot, and to remind me as I wrote that this story wasn't about them. This was about a young man's journey, one that had just fired his weapon for the very first time. A man that hadn't seen a single battle, heard of any wars, and had a perfect view of what was to become an imperfect world that existed beyond his home.
But being that I'd never written anything before, I had put down nearly 50 pages before I realized that I was telling this story entirely from Kamil's perspective. I had two other great characters tagging along in Elysandria and Nijal, but it always had to be Kamil who was front and center. I was afraid to pull away from him. 'Isn't this what I'm supposed to be doing?' I thought to myself. It felt like I could do more with what I had.
I took a short break and thought about all the books I've read and loved. One stood out: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. At a certain point in the book, the perspective shifts completely to one where the monster is telling his story. This was a wonderful shock to my young mind when I read it. I loved the whole concept of it. And so, overcompensating for the first 50 pages which I couldn't really go back and revise (50,000 words in 30 days doesn't allow for any backtracking), I dove into an entire chapter of Elysandria telling her story that lead up to her arrival at the inn.
This is a confusing chapter for several readers, and it's my fault. But it was also the funnest chapter for me to write outside of the very beginning of the book. I proved that I would truly enjoy bouncing the perspective around, and that it would only serve to enhance the story. I eagerly wrote my characters to a point where I could throw one of them off of a mountain (recalling the time where I, in fact, basically fell off of a mountain while skiing).
Cue Debo hopping into the book, and the rest of the story began to breeze by. And in my humble opinion, you can really tell. It truly picks up at this point and doesn't let up, and is as fun to read as it was for me to write.
I fell back on my role-playing roots. All good adventures start in an inn, right? As soon as I started writing I starting thinking of R.A. Salvatore's work, particularly the Drizzt saga. I knew that, given free reign, I would want to write a story about great warriors that are nearly unstoppable in every epic combat that comes upon them. They'd be bristling with weapons, powerful with magic. Superheroes.
So before I'd gotten to page 2 I had put the first of several constraints on my goals: This would not be a story about warriors. And then came my first major dramatic idea: Introduce some warriors into the story and very quickly remove them. So Tol's company came strolling up to the inn to set off the plot, and to remind me as I wrote that this story wasn't about them. This was about a young man's journey, one that had just fired his weapon for the very first time. A man that hadn't seen a single battle, heard of any wars, and had a perfect view of what was to become an imperfect world that existed beyond his home.
But being that I'd never written anything before, I had put down nearly 50 pages before I realized that I was telling this story entirely from Kamil's perspective. I had two other great characters tagging along in Elysandria and Nijal, but it always had to be Kamil who was front and center. I was afraid to pull away from him. 'Isn't this what I'm supposed to be doing?' I thought to myself. It felt like I could do more with what I had.
I took a short break and thought about all the books I've read and loved. One stood out: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. At a certain point in the book, the perspective shifts completely to one where the monster is telling his story. This was a wonderful shock to my young mind when I read it. I loved the whole concept of it. And so, overcompensating for the first 50 pages which I couldn't really go back and revise (50,000 words in 30 days doesn't allow for any backtracking), I dove into an entire chapter of Elysandria telling her story that lead up to her arrival at the inn.
This is a confusing chapter for several readers, and it's my fault. But it was also the funnest chapter for me to write outside of the very beginning of the book. I proved that I would truly enjoy bouncing the perspective around, and that it would only serve to enhance the story. I eagerly wrote my characters to a point where I could throw one of them off of a mountain (recalling the time where I, in fact, basically fell off of a mountain while skiing).
Cue Debo hopping into the book, and the rest of the story began to breeze by. And in my humble opinion, you can really tell. It truly picks up at this point and doesn't let up, and is as fun to read as it was for me to write.
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