How Primorlen Began: Pt. 2

So, where did I leave off? Ah, yes. Freeborn and Freegiven.

On November 1st, 2010, I began digging into Quartorlen and the characters who lived there. It was the first time I had written more than a few chapters since Grey Warrior. And the effect was undeniable. By the third week, I had grown more in my writing skills than I had in all the years before. It's the coolest thing to look back a your own work and see a progression in skill from the beginning to the end (though it makes for a lot of editing :P).

Perhaps the thing that I fell in love with about NaNoWriMo was the fact that I got to live thirty consecutive days with my story. There was none of the sporadicalness or choppiness in writing time that I had experienced in previous stories, and so there was a much more natural progression of character development and growth. When you meet your characters every night, you can track their progress far easier than when you only meet once a week. And the depth of character I achieved astounded me. Here were real people! Growing up on Henty and Tolkien (not a bad thing, by the way), my first characters tended to be models of perfection, ready for anything far younger than was realistic, and always distinctly good or evil. No one changed, there was no fall or redemption, no chance for the hero to grow.

When I first met the four freeborn, I knew immediately they had problems. Why else were the last of the freeborn hiding out in the woods and mountains? Shouldn't they be working to free their country? Or at least bringing some small measure of hope to their Contained brethren? And thus were my first character arcs created. Farjag was self-doubting. Nitiren was proud and bitter. Flashel was fearful. Ogel was dejected. Each blamed themselves or others for events in their past, and had retreated to the wilds to stay away from everyone and everything. Now, they were being called to a mission that was likely to end in their deaths. They would be risking everything for a country they had given up on. Needless to say, no one wanted to go.

And that was what I latched on to. In many of the stories one reads, the hero quite often wishes for adventure or excitement, and only when actually get what they want do they realize what such things really are. They come back wiser. Or perhaps they reluctantly take up the calling given them. But here were four folk who did not want anything to do with saving the world. Perhaps the premise is original, perhaps not. But the fact remains that each character had an important arc in front of them, and that they would end up much changed.

Form follows function, as a certain famous architect once said, and so the form of the story fell in place around the function. To change these characters, they would have to go through a series of trials that would test each as it tested them all, burning away the selfishness and fear they had been living under. There would be no wizard to help them, or give them cryptic answers to questions, or provide a convenient road map. Only a frail old otter-elder who somehow seemed to know each one well enough to know how to chafe each one into going. Once they started, it would be just them. Except for one small addition to their party. If there are four freeborn, then there must be one freegiven.

But that's going to have to wait till next time.

Until then,
Farjag

How Primorlen Began Pt. 1

I was thinking the other day (read: a few moments ago) about how I began writing the tales which take place in Primorlen, my brain child world.

It began some years ago (computer and formatting switches have rendered the "Created Date" useless), probably sometime in 2009, when I and a good writer friend tried to write a story together. Temporarily called According to Power, it consisted of little more than an outline and two prologue-ish snippets. The one that I liked the most, however, was this one:

The north wind blew cold over a brush-covered knoll overlooking the Aquer Sea. A young girl and her little brother were playing on the wind-swept rocks, gathering ferns and moss from among the crevices. Their clothes were not new and showed much wear, but the children did not seem cold. Their hair was shaggy and unkempt and the children looked almost like animals, scampering on the rocks and sniffing the moss before placing it the sacks they carried.
Suddenly the little boy cried out in excitement, “Sister, look! What are those?” he asked pointing far out to sea. His sister followed his finger, shading her eyes with her hand. Several white marks dotted the horizon. Her eyes narrowed as she sniffed the air, then widened. “Ships, little brother, ships!” “Shall we go tell mother?” the little boy asked. “Yes, lets. Come on, I’ll race you!” answered his sister. The siblings began to howl as the raced down the slope, their bare feet slapping over the rough stone.

Time, however decreed that our cooperative work was not to be, and the document fell into the dusty confines of my "Old Stories" folder. A couple months later, me and my brother had a wonderful game of imagination in the backyard, where I borrowed names and occurrences from the unused plot. What came out fit so well into the old story that I updated the plot to match. Now I had a usable story, but nothing happened... yet.

Some time later I began to play with the idea of 'alterers,' a race of beings neither human nor animal, but both. Their birth had been in that snippet above. So I began writing what would become Feather and Fang, a story built entirely on this idea, with these words:

The rain fell in torrents as thick as canvas curtains as lightning flashed and cracked in the clouds above...

As detailed elsewhere, when I was introduced to NaNoWriMo, I began pulling the various threads together. There was the general plotline from According to Power, the "alterers" and alliteration of the title from Feather and Fang. My last world had been an entire planet, which I thought was fairly original, but gave me the distinct problem of large distances and nowhere to grow. So I created the island of Quartorlen, with distinct boundaries, avoiding the "Mountains of Mysteriousness" so many fantasy writers use to create edges to their world.

For names, I fashioned all place names out of two words, usually descriptive, but also having a sense of place, as opposed to "Dark Forest." Thus were born Flamehope and Thunderfell and the other three provinces in Quartorlen. Character names were simple, easy to say, and different without being exotic. Farjag had been with me since According to Power, but Flashel, Ogel, Nitiren and Thoer were new. I set up several underlying structural rules I would follow in creating and plotting: namely a significance on certain numbers. Quartorlen was built on four and five. Five heroes. Four freeborn. Four main provinces, with a fifth in the center. I'm not sure if it's the best way of going about something like this, but it gives a certain foundation that lends to the credibility of a world. Everything connects to something else, much like on earth. Everything is named in our world for a reason, and has a meaning. Nothing is named because it sounds cool. So that's where that's kind of going.

Names are given as such: A first name, your 'animal' form, and a title you earn when you come of age. Thus "Farjag, Tiger-claw," is my namesake's proper name. A title can be an occupation, a character-trait, or a weapon if you are a warrior. Thus you can find "Thoer, Otter-scribe" and "Eppel, Eagle-cry" in the pages of my tales.

But our world is influenced by different countries and traditions. Different people groups view the world differently. So when I created the shieldsfell invaders and their fellow countryfolk, I sought to make them different then the folk of Quartorlen, but still have similarities. Germany and France are quite distinct, but there are parallels. So I gave the people of Dyrmlen a different naming system. Many of their titles and names  end with 'fell' or 'len', and their 'animal' half is reptilian, as opposed to the mammal and avian forms of Quartorlen. Their language is rougher and more brusque than the Anglic of Quartorlen, and the names reflect that. Names in Dyrmlen might be thus: "Rhalax, Commanderlen." "Drobax, Patrollen" "Rogchaen, Macelen"

It was with this structure that I dove into Freeborn and Freegiven, but more on that next post!

Blue Ink

Written for The Director's "Blue Ink" screenplay seed back in January.

Blue Ink

There’s a smudge of ink upon the page
A dot of blue on the writer’s stage
There’s a plant tucked nearby, sage
Still vivid though faded with age

The ink is blue, deep and cool
Seeping through both line and rule
Indelible, permanent the ink pool
A writer’s everlasting tool

Once penned, everlasting
Once written, ever clasping
Blue ink cannot be undone
None can erase, not one

For blue ink is forever
And it fades, never
What will you pen?
For it cannot be taken back again.

Why Tea?

In doing my rounds of fellow writers blogs, (due in part to Beautiful People and the Snippets thingy), I noticed there were two generalizations to be made. Generalizations, mind you, but enough to make me notice.

1st: Mostly girl authors. Now, I don't know if I just missed all the guy blogs, or if guys just don't blog... but I have only seen one other guy blog besides mine (Miguel, you rock!)

2nd: An overabundance of tea. Nearly every blog I visited had tea mentioned somewhere in the title, header, About Me section, or comments on the latest post! This is the one that caught my eye. All girl authors I can handle (maybe).... but tea?

I got a dislikin' fer tea. Now, quite a few of my good friends (male and female), like tea, and all of my multiple sisters sing its praises every day. And before anyone tells me to try it before I hack it, I have. Green, black, herb; you name it, I've tried it.

Now, the thing is, I'm not a coffee drinker either. (And everyone sings coffee's praises!). So, what's my point?

Why tea? What makes tea so important to the author? What are the delectable and all-important gifts of drinking tea that I seem to be missing?

But, I can hear you asking; "Farjag, if you don't drink tea (or coffee, for that matter), what DO you drink? What keeps your nerves and brain alive? What elixir or potion or ambrosia do you imbibe?"

I have the answer, my felicitous friends; Cider!! A good hot mug o' apple cider on a cold wintry day... there ain't nothin' better! When at Starbucks, instead of any of you mochas or fraps or lattes, it's a Caramel Apple Spice for me!

A little frothy on top, nice deep brown beneath, smells delectable from three yards off, reminds you of days gone by.... Mm-m. Ya'll mouth waterin' yet?

So here's to you tea-drinkers! May your teacups be ever so full, my mug's ever so bigger!

Farjag

P.S. Oh, and all you guy authors, get out there and start up a blog! The world needs ya somethin' fierce!

Snippets Of A Story

As if Beautiful People wasn't enough, here's another monthly mission... quest... thing... to do!

Basically, I post a snippet, (or two, or three, or...) and give no explanation. How awesome and evil is that?! All credit goes to Miss Katie S., at Snippets of A Story. Drop by her blog to read all the other snippets fellow bloggers be postin'!

Anyways.... the snippets.

From Railway:

Greetings, Rattlehead. Mind if we drop in?

A few miles away, Hatch’s garbled voice sounded out of an old black radio. Its antenna rose at a crooked angle into the air, and both speakers buzzed as they spat out the sound. Footsteps passing by stopped, and a shadow bent over the dented pile of knobs and switches.
“Did you hear that, brother?” came a voice from a little ways away.
“Aye, I heard it,” came the reply from the man crouched over the radio. “Came from channel 93.1.”
“No one around here ever used that frequency.”
“No, this one’s not from around here. Small group I’d say, he said ‘we’. Portable radio, if they’re paying us a visit. Fellow’s got spunk, to just announce himself out like that.”

From Feather and Fang:

Daegless's thumb twitched a little, plucking a string on the violin that sat, unused, in his lap. He sighed.

A soft footstep behind made him turn. "Oh, Korra, it's you."

The cougar-rogue smiled, her teeth flashing in the darkness. "Tis too beautiful a night to spend worrying, Tiger-brave."

Daegless smiled wryly. "I cannot help myself. There are too many thoughts flitting through my mind right now."

Korra nodded. "I understand." She motioned to the ledge below Daegless. "Mind if I sit below you? The stars are shining beautifully tonight, and I cannot see them from below the trees in the camp."

Daegless nodded. "Go ahead. Just don't expect me to talk."

Korra shook her head as she seated herself. "No, talking will not help you, I do not think."

Well, that's what I'm working on right now!

Sometimes...

Sometimes, silence is better than speech.

Sometimes, what a wearied soul needs more than anything else is the courtesy of quiet.

Sometimes, more can be said when nothing is said.

Sometimes, peace can only be found in silence.

At all times, God's voice is best heard when there is nothing to compete with it.

Stop. Ponder. Breathe deeply. Let God calm your frenzied soul.

Let the answers come of themselves, rather than seeking them out.

Let God whisper in your ear his loving mercies.

They are new every morning.