Novel Thoughts

So, yesterday, although I didn’t get far I did begin on Chapter 6 of my Universe of the Nine Roads novel, which I think I am going to working-title “The Dawn Prism.” That is a good thing. However, I have also been thinking about a thing relating to that story about which I am not quite sure how I feel. The story has three “main characters”: Zerieth, the White Hierophant and highly respected member of The Order of the Open Hand, Ethenae, a White Knight who is also a member of the Order and views herself as Zerieth’s bodyguard (not that a master White mage is really in need of protection) and Sephias, a young mercenary and hedge-wizard who’s spent his adult life trying to find his way onto the Yellow Road as a way of honoring his murdered parents.

In theory, Sephias is the “protagonist.” He is the first character introduced: Chapter 1 is entirely from his POV. He gets tangled up in the villain’s plot to assassinate the Nine Hierophants and winds up feeling indebted to Zerieth and Ethenae who save his life. However as things proceed, I find myself feeling a couple of things. One, that Sephias is likely to get somewhat overshadowed by other characters, especially Zerieth who is a character I feel very comfortable and natural writing. And two, related to that, that Sephias lacks the same level of integration into the story. Zerieth has prior associations with both the main villain and with Meteos,  one of the order of assassins that’s been hired to knock off the Hierophants: Sephias has no such ties to anyone else in the story.

Now of course, that could be remedied easy enough. Indeed, since I already know that Meteos is eventually going to leave the Onphar Nine and that they will need a replacement, I could with a little fudging have that replacement be the Grey wizard who killed Sephias’s mother. Or I could create connections in any number of other ways. However, all of these ideas feel a little contrived to me. No such bonds are actually calling out to be made. And, honestly, I’m not sure in the end that I deem it necessary.

Would it really be a problem for Sephias to lack those kinds of preexisting connections? Would Zerieth becoming in some ways more the central figure necessarily be a bad thing? Does a story definitely need a single key protagonist? As many of you know, I’m not a big one for “rules” or common wisdom and tend to follow my own intuition on things. However on the other hand, I do intend to try and sell this novel and while I am not willing to make major artistic compromises to do so, this issue is something on which my own feelings are still unclear. So, I’m interested to hear any thoughts that anyone might like to share on these subjects.

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“Galateon” completed

Just finished the first draft of “Galateon” a new short story I’ve been working on, largely as background for my Roads world novel. It also deals with issues of the difference between the life of the body and the soul and whether it is wise to strive for perfection, with a little flavor of competing religions thrown in. Here is a small excerpt from the begining:

The body was nearly finished. One more spell, and the physical half of Adonal’s masterpiece would be complete. He raised his hands toward the milky giant in front of him and as he intoned the spell of creation the White Road stretched out before him, a glimmering alabaster causeway in his mind’s eye. A nimbus of pearly light formed around the humanoid construct’s head, its shape guided by Adonal’s gestures. At length it solidified into an ivory framework sweeping outwards and upwards like a crest from the figure’s brow.
He’d got it right the first time; the body of the first member of his new race was complete. He ran his hands along the smooth expanse of the construct, feeling a twinge of revulsion at the soft weakness of his flesh, compared to the unyielding strength of his creation.

Now my next project is to work on crits, and begin writing Chapter 6 of the novel.

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Names and Language

So, I am developing some stuff for chapter 6 of my Roads novel. In this chapter, our intrepid main characters will be setting off on a journey to another part of the world, a different continent, by airship. The particular country to which they are heading…probably the whole continent…is a place I intend to have a strong East Asian/anime inspired sort of feel, on all levels including the names of people and places.

Luckily, I have access to the handsome, talented and multi-lingal  Stefan, who speaks Japanese. So I have no issues of information and inspiration. The thing I am contemplating at the moment is this: I do feel a slight temptation to just use Japanese outright. However, I have a vague fear that some may not care for that and, also, it feels a bit like cheating to just port things over whole cloth from “the real world.” Of course I’m doing that already with English but I can’t do much about that.

So, I am trying to decide how much I want to modify the Japanese, or what Japanese-to-my-own-elements ratio I need or want for these names and things. Therefore I ask all ye denizens of the blogosphere…how do you feel about this sort of thing in stories? I am pretty sure I need to put at least my own spin on it to some degree, but how do you feel about secondary world names or places that are clearly inspired by a real world language or place?

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The Nine Roads redone-which would you walk?

So, I have updated the write-ups for the Nine Roads as a concept and the entries for each individual Road, reflecting how they have evolved and how my understanding of them has increased over time.  And so now I invite anyone who sees this post to read the descriptions of the Roads and post on this comment telling me which Road you would choose to walk, and why.

You get three guesses as to what my Road would be, and the first two don’t count 🙂

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