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Back-pedalling and moving forward

/ Melanie Marttila

For the last several weeks I’ve been regaling y’all with character sketches, the creation story, and the divine history of Tellurin leading up to the beginning of my novel.  I just wanted to take a few moments to remind everyone of the overarching reason I’m doing this: world building.

As I mentioned long ago at the outset of this long, grand adventure, I’m a pantser.  That means I write by the seat of my pants.  I start with a character in a situation and writer to see how he or she will get her- or himself out of it.

I’ve recently finished Stephen King’s On Writing and was pleased to read about his process, that it too, starts with situation.  I have to have characters first, but it was gratifying to know what kind of company I’m in 🙂

The world evolves out of that process.  It’s not like I finish my first draft and say to myself, “now I must build my world.”  The world emerges from what I write.  I often take notes and research as I go.  I’ve also had wacky ideas and dreams all my life (and a stack of journals to go with them).  Sometimes, as I write, I think, hey, this idea would work perfectly for that aspect of the world.

Once I’ve finished that first draft, I refer to my journals, lists of links from internet research, the non-fiction I’ve read that relates to my setting, and aggregate documents from all of these bits and pieces.  Plotting and structure do inform my writing, they just don’t define it.

Now that I’ve reminded everyone why we’re all here, I’ll get on with the meat of this week’s post:

A geo-political history of Tellurin, part 1

When the Tellurin were first created/evolved, they were very much like innocent children.  The land and the sea and the air spoke to them.  The elemental creatures were their friends, and they could even understand the animals to a limited degree.

It depended on what animals and elements the akhis used to create people as to what the outcome was.  Experiments with boars led to the okante, jackals became the bakath, lizards produced blinsies, basilisks became krean, gorillas became grunden, and chimpanzees became Tellurin (humans).  Monkeys were also the basis for the dwergen, dwergini, the favrard, selkies and merpeople, but they were each combined with other animals.  The dwergen resulted from added badger, dwergini from added mole, the favrard from added cougar, selkies from added seal and merpeople from added dolphin.  The anogeni of Zaidesahki were created from a small nocturnal tree shrew.  Some of the people had elemental affinities too: dwergen to earth and fire, dwergini to earth and air, the favrard to air and fire, the selkies to water and earth, the merpeople to water and air, and the anogeni to earth and water.

On land, civilization began to form around the river valleys and deltas, as it often does.  For the Tellurin, organization was tribal to begin with.  There were tribes all over the main continent, in every region, adapted to every climate.  The greatest concentration of the population was on the south-eastern part of the continent where the weather was temperate and the conditions for growing food were optimal.  Large amounts of natural resources were also readily available in the area.  There the great Nubiin and Haldani civilizations developed.

They grew parallel, but with opposite philosophies.  The Nubiin were by and large a cult of death.  There were many great sourcerors among their people and inevitably their king, or osire was one.  Sourcerous battle often decided a dynasty, a new king taking by force what he wanted from the old.  Poison was a secondary art and assassins became numerous as well.

The poisonous creatures were milked for the venom and then that was in turn placed in the victim’s food or drink.  Disease was also “harvested” in the form of sputum or pus and secretly administered to the victim.

Though the osire often did have the ability to influence the weather, they soon discovered it was far less bothersome to develop a technology to serve the people’s needs rather than to sourcerously supply the solution.  Irrigation and plumbing were their first developments.  Seaworthy ships were their next, and architecture appeared to be their finest endeavour.

They began trade and to a lesser extent conquest with the help of their ships.  They quickly lost interest in defeating other people and chose instead to elevate themselves and ensure their superiority through lasting intellectual accomplishments and grandiose monuments.

They built great observatories with which to study the stars.  The temples of kings turned into their tombs as one dynasty succeeded the next.  Their sourcerors were great sophisticates and had developed elaborate rituals and ceremonies even before the Agrothe came into being.  Elaborate but effective.  They used order as a way to exert pressure on source, to make it more powerful.  Through their investigations, they had discovered a Way Between the Worlds but were unable to open it in order to pass through.  It was their theory that when they died, their soul and source passed through the Way and onto another life.

Funerary monuments were begun in the year the osire came into ascension (like a star) and continued as long as he (and sometimes his family) were able to hang onto the throne.  At the osire’s death, ceremonies would ensue for days seeing the soul into the next life.  The whole life of the Nubiin people began to focus on death in one form or another.

The Haldani, on the other hand, were adherents to the cult of life.  Anything that enhanced their experience, food, drink, sex, play, sports, became a way of celebrating life.  They were a society of epicureans and hedonists, and quickly fell in to decadence.  Their leaders were corpulent and corrupt.

The warlike Caldoni tribes that wandered the area saw the decadence and over the course of sunspans developed a plan to conquer the Haldani.  Though each tribe had its leader, all the leaders recognised Alexander as their Tigernos, or chieftain.  It was his ambition that carried the Caldoni into the very heart of the Haldani lands and gave them conquest. Eventually, the Caldoni did the same to the Espanic, but though they tried to conquer the other nations of the region, they were never wholly successful.

The Caldoni kept all the best of the Haldani culture, their art and technology, but brought order to the rest.  Except for the common troops that they were forced to kill, the Caldoni kept their Tellurin destruction to the nobles of their foe.  In the end, many lower and middle class Haldani survived and were allowed to flourish and even keep their own ways if they so chose, under close scrutiny though.

To the north of these two great cultures were the Espanic (until they were conquered), Parimi and Saxon territories.  These retained much of their tribal nature and were considered “primitive” by their neighbours to the south.

Still further to the north were the Hussari, the great horse clans.

The coastal islands to the east were home to the Brythoni, Eiran, Alban, and Cymric people.  These were called the Island Kingdoms. Though closely related, they all had distinct languages and cultures, very rich for the small geographic area they covered.  Sourcery was as varied among these people.

Moving inland, the marshy areas of the northern coast were home to the Sami.  The Sami were fierce warriors and sourcerors owing to the harsh conditions in which they lived.

Next to them were the Skalding who lived among the treacherous fjords that topped the Northern Spine of the mountains.  The Skalding were pirates and highwaymen, taking what they wanted from other people.

The mountains themselves were only sparsely populated by itinerant tribes that overseasoned in the foothills and caves, moving back into the mountains when the weather warmed in Shoudranya.

To the west of the mountains, the population remained sparse.

In the north were the tribes of the Shooksa-Nai and in the Deep Forest of the south were the Saanzu, but both of these groups remain insular and are still not integrated into Tellurin society.

When the religion of Auraya spread through out the land, each country adopted the practice in its own way.  Two of the most reverent cultures were the Caldoni and the Parimi.  Fervour was so great among them that they sought to unify the rest of Tellurin under their own vision of the goddess.

Thus began the religious wars.  There was much burning and heresy and bloodshed and in the end, the Parimi fled the superior forces of the Caldoni who threatened to wipe them out. The Haldani and Espanic remnants, seeking to overthrow their conquerors, sided with the Parimi against them, and were forced to flee along with their allies.

The Caldoni pursued them over the mountains and to the very coast of the continent before they were finally stopped. Auraya was fond of the Parimi and at this time supported them, adopting their religion, the Faithful, as her preferred religion. She raised one of them, Alain de Corvus, as the first Kas’Hadden.

It was the Kas’Hadden who turned the tide of battle against the Caldoni. They were stubborn, however, and when they chose to remain in the area, harassing the Parimi, Haldani, and Espanic, Auraya descended, turned them back to the east, and told them never to return, on pain of death.  To this day, the Caldoni believe that this apparition was not the goddess, but some trick of the Parimi.

Since that time, though they have been friendly to all outward appearances, the Caldoni have been plotting to eradicate the Parimi and the Faithful, which has become the predominant religion of Tellurin in the time of IoS.

I hope to redraw the crappy map I’ve made of Tellurin in the near future to give you a better idea of how I see the world.

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The cosmology and divine history of Tellurin, part 2

/ Melanie Marttila

Last time on Work in progress: Yllel got his narsty on and killed his father!

With the death of Auremon, Yllel fled.  Almost at once, Auremon’s school, and indeed the entire island of Aurensart crumbled. Many of the initiates, apprentices, and magi died in the collapse.  What was left of Auremon’s school was a single spire of rock that rose from the water to the full height of the island.

Kaaria, an air elemental from Elphindar, and her sister Naia, rescued what was left of Auremon’s spirit and bound him into the spire that was all that remained of Auremsart. Without his god-share of power, though, Auremon was effectively trapped within the stone. He could communicate with no one but Kaaria and Naia.

Yllel returned to his preying on sourcerors and now magi as well.  He held the magi in particular contempt for his father’s sake.

Auraya, saddened enough at her mate’s sacrifice of his power, was now left bitter and bereft by his death.  She withdrew in earnest from the world, allowing Tryella to serve Tellurin in her stead.

The Kas’Khoudum, or book of light, that was started when Auraya, Auremon, and Tryella mingled freely with the people of Tellurin, was revised and added to.  Many of the feats described in its pages were Tryella’s but the goddess was more than happy to let her grieving mother take the credit for her good deeds.

In response, and out of a twisted need to outdo his mother, Yllel began to inspire the creation of his own holy book, the Rada’Khoudum, or book of darkness.  In its pages he put hideous secrets in the guise of rituals and ceremonies that seemed as if they honoured Auraya.  In truth, the spells he wove into those rituals would drain his mother of her power and bind her will to do terrible things.

When finished, Yllel was careful to see the precious book into the hands of the greatest spiritual leaders of the time.  The Kas’Khoudum, which Yllel encouraged to be seen as a pleasant book of fables, was supplanted by his liturgical masterpiece.  Unfortunately, neither Auraya nor Tryella were very interested in reading and neither of them discovered what deviousness Yllel had been up to.

Tryella investigated Auremon’s murder intensively, but none of the magi who survived the collapse of Auremon’s school could remember anything useful.  The only thing either Tryella or her mother knew for certain was that Auremon’s murderer had been one of his students.

Yllel had visited each of them briefly to offer his condolences, but did not join Tryella in her search.  Auraya retreated to the moon, but Tryella, something piqued by her brother’s behaviour, began to suspect Yllel of his treachery.

She had no proof, but it would only be a matter of time before she found it.

While Tryella didn’t find exactly what she sought, she soon learned how her brother spent his leisure time: hunting and killing the very magi their father helped to train.  She confronted him and Yllel told her that he was merely exacting revenge.  One of these was surely the creature who had killed a god.  Why should he not hunt and kill, even torture them?

Tryella went straight to Azuresahki, the blue realm of her mother.  Auraya listened with uncertainty to what Tryella told her and together they continued to observe Yllel from near and afar.

There was nothing in his choice of victim to indicate that he suspected any of these poor users of magick of Auremon’s murder.  Rather it seemed that he chose them for how much power they had.  Some managed to escape him through clever tricks they called binding, but though their power and soul might have been safe within an amulet or object, that often wasn’t enough to prevent Yllel from killing them for spite and trapping them within the object they had bound themselves to.

He didn’t attempt to break or destroy the artefact, but ensured that the object would remain lost to Tellurin forever, thus relegating the magi within to isolation, and eventual insanity.

This wanton killing and cruelty was enough to inspire Auraya to action.  Tryella still hadn’t shared her suspicions about Auremon’s murder yet, fearing her mother’s response, but held the secret as a trump card until a critical moment, or until she had proof.

Auraya first tried something like an intervention in the hope that Yllel was not lost to her entirely.  Her efforts were rebuffed. She tried again with the same results but was reluctant to give up hope.  Auraya couldn’t bear, after losing Auremon and the akhis before him, to lose another member of her family.

Eventually though, even she realized that tough love was more likely to get results.  Unfortunately, administering a godly spanking was more difficult than she could have imagined.  Tryella at her side, Auraya tried yet again to deliver her son a smack down that would put him in his place.

For his part, Yllel soon grew tired of his mother’s attempts to discipline him.  At first they might have been amusing, but now they were simply tedious.  Soon he no longer cared to hide his true feelings and motivations from them.  Soon he would have enough source that it wouldn’t matter.

Auraya had eventually to concede that Yllel was evil.  He killed for the joy of it as much as any other purpose.  He tortured her with her inability to discover Auremon’s murderer.  His attacks on Tryella were growing positively barbaric.

She had to face the fact that Yllel wanted to kill his sister, and that was something she could not allow.  Reluctant as she was to lose a child, even an evil one, Auraya began to up the stakes, pulling out all the tricks she had learned in her exceedingly long life.  Still every confrontation ended in defeat.  Yllel gloated, but though he seemed eager for the kill, he held back from it, as though he were testing them.  Or perhaps himself.

Something else would have to be done.

She got the idea from Auremon’s ill-advised release of power into the world.  In the process she knew he had torn open a Way Between the Worlds.  Auraya sought that place out and investigated it as a possible means to be rid of Yllel without having to kill her own child.

That Way would not be suitable, however.  There were still a great many people living in the world on the other side.  As Tryella continued her investigations and Yllel continued to test his newfound strength against her, Auraya sought out all the Ways Between the Worlds that existed in Tellurin.  One after another, they proved unsuitable. Until she found the one on the plains.

In the middle of the lush, grassy plains of eastern Tellurin. Auraya found a Way that seemed to lead nowhere at all.  There was literally nothing on the other side, no light, no sound, no air, and certainly no innocent people or creatures for Yllel to torture.  Now that Auraya had found her cage, she would have to figure out how to get the Way open wide enough to admit her son without sucking half of Tellurin in with it, and she would have to figure out how to close the Way afterward and make it impassable to Yllel.

She hadn’t thought so deeply about anything in a very long time.  Rarely had she had to think about how to accomplish something she desired at all.  Usually her desires simply manifested themselves.  This was something different.  Auraya was trying to change the very nature of something, a place, a void, into the ideal prison for her son.

Think of the void as a black hole … sort of.

Despite its apparent suitability, the void was its own place with its own purpose.  It did not want to be changed.  It had its own power and its own desire to use it.  In the end though, Auraya had more power and more desire, and a son she desperately did not want to kill.

When the void was subjugated and prepared, Auraya and Tryella found Yllel, engaged him in battle and lured him to the Way that led to the void.  The battle lasted sunspans in Tellurin time.

Great earthquakes shook the land.  The entire western coast of the world sheered off.  The mountains grew.  Volcanoes long dormant erupted into life.  The plains upon which the three gods fought became a desert.  The jungle became infested with random power, investing its creatures with strange abilities.  Vedranya changed from a season where few wished to travel to one in which shelter was an inescapable necessity.

This was the Tellurin Cataclysm.

In a few short suns, much of Tellurin civilization fell.  Many creatures died before they learned how to survive the newly changed Vedranya.

Finally, on the verge of exhaustion, Tryella and Auraya brought Yllel to the opening of the Way, but now Auraya had to focus her attention in opening the Way without tearing it so that it could be sealed again once Yllel was within.  That meant that the task of forcing Yllel into the void fell to Tryella alone.

She was unequal to it.  Yllel taunted her, as much as confessed to the murder of Auremon while his mother was otherwise occupied.  He was too confident by half and Tryella managed to make him stumble until he was caught in the well of the Way.

He realized his fight against the pull of the void was not going to be successful and relented, but not before reaching inside his sister and tearing her source and immortality from her, in one swift motion, killing her instantly.

Auraya wailed in despair.  First she lost the ahkis, then Auremon, now both children at once.  As she sealed the way to the void, Auraya heard Yllel say one final thing. “Don’t you want to know what I did to—”

And then he was shut away … Auraya thought forever.

Auraya was so depleted from her long battle and so wounded from her losses that she retreated again at once to the moon for solace.  Taking stock, she realized that she was now slowly dying, fading away.  She had poured out so much of her power during the battle with Yllel that the world had gotten hold of it and was slowly siphoning it away.  She could not stem the flow or find a way to reverse the process.  It would take centuries yet, perhaps even millennia for her to die completely, but it was a certainty now.

Kaaria and Naia, as they had with Auremon before, now resurected Tryella in the same manner.  The only vessel that could hold the former goddess was that of a giant sea eagle, or yrne.

From within his prison, Yllel discovered that while he could not escape, his thoughts could, and a god’s thoughts are powerful. He found someone willing to help him escape, a sourceror named Kane.  Over the next two centuries, Yllel plotted, used his favrard soul-slaves to trick some of the other people of Tellurin, the okante, krean, blinsies, grunden, and bakath into binding their collective souls to him as the favrard had done.

Tryella and Auremon, meanwhile found themselves in a predicament. Due to the nature of their respective deaths and resurrections by Kaaria and Naia, they were invisible to all but each other and their saviours. They couldn’t even tell Auraya they were still alive.

The only talent that Tryella retained was that of prescience. That talent alerted her to Yllel’s scheming and she tried to find some way of stopping him. Even with Kaaria’s help, however, her efforts proved futile, until her visions revealed to her the face of a young girl. She could be the means of defeating Yllel. Together, Tryella and Kaaria set out in search of her.

Auraya, meanwhile, while still hidden on Azuresakhi, nonetheless felt the effects of Yllel’s machinations in the world.  She determined to raise a champion of her own, a man who would become the Kas’Hadden, or hammer of light, and her avatar on Tellurin. He would protect the world and end Yllel’s predations once and for all.

Like his sister, Yllel began to be haunted by dreams of a girl. She had power, a mere splinter of a god’s but more than most Tellurin could ever hope for. He knew that she could prove a complication to his plans.  She could kill Kane before the sourceror could free Yllel from the void.

She was such a tasty prize, though, that Yllel determined to enslave her to his will instead.  Only if that plan failed would he concede and kill her.

He also became aware of what his mother was trying to do to end his hopes of escape.  Even as he commanded Kane to set sail for Tellurin and begin the war that would eventually result in his freedom, Yllel began to manipulate his mother’s followers, the Faithful.  He’d make sure that the Kas’Hadden would never be made.

And this is the point at which the novel opens.

Next week: We’ll start on the earthly history of Tellurin.

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Challenges become opportunities: The Author Salon Experience

/ Melanie Marttila / 4 Comments

Back in December, I joined Author Salon on the advice of one of the people I consider to be my writing mentors, Barbara Kyle.

Initially, I had no clue what I was getting myself into.

My first mistake was not reading anything before I signed up, so when I was presented with a profile to fill out, I dove right in.  Little did I know that there was an art to this …  I did read the AS step-by-step guide, belatedly, but I still had no clue what I was doing.

I set up my profile to the best of my ability, sounded off in the Shout Out Forum, and then posted a call for peers in the In Production I Forum group that seemed to suit me best: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Horror, and Speculative Fiction.

The initial group that formed was small, but dedicated.  We started off by critiquing each other’s profiles.

Now, this may not seem particularly important work, but part of the AS process is that professional editors and agents peruse the site from time to time.  Ultimately, the author’s profile will be a marketing tool to those same agents and editors, so it is a critical piece of the AS puzzle.

It’s as important as perfecting your “pitch” or logline, as important as writing a knock-their-socks-off query letter, in short, the AS profile is as important as it gets.

I’ve been at a bit of a disadvantage because I’ve not yet attended a conference where I’ve had the opportunity to “pitch” my concept to agents.  I haven’t started shopping my novel yet, and so I really don’t have any experience crafting a query or synopsis.  I really don’t have an idea about what a hook line should be and how it differs from a conflict statement.  But I’m learning …  and I have to learn fast.

I thought I knew at least one thing going in: even if you have a series planned, the novel must function as a stand-alone, but it seems that everyone else in my critique group is using the fact that they have a series planned as a selling point.  So now I’m fairly convinced that I know nothing, and am approaching the whole process tabula rasa.

One question posed to me was, “why mention your day-job?”  The point was that the information should only be included in the event that it lends to the topic you write about, like a retired police officer writing mysteries/police procedurals.  I’d like to address that here.

As a learning and development professional, I write courses.  Certainly, it’s a completely different beast than a novel, but writing is writing and any practice reinforces skill.  It develops my rhetorical skills to direct my writing to a particular audience with a particular purpose in mind.

Also, as a corporate trainer, I have presentation skills.  It’s a good marketing point and while it may not be on the top of every agent’s list of skills an author must have, it may be an asset that tips the scales in my favour.

I’m more likely to be comfortable in an interview situation, doing public readings, and participating in workshops or conferences on a panel.  I’m tech-friendly, if not tech-savvy, as the result of my work.  I could easily put out YouTube videos or podcasts regarding craft, or reading of my work (in fact, it’s something on my list of things to do for my platform).  I could even parlay my skills into delivering Webinars or tutorials.

Finally, it was my learning and development day-job that got me back into learning-as-lifestyle.  Mutant learning, social learning, independent research, call it what you want, it’s what I need to ramp up my profile and my writing as presented on AS and attract the attention of agents and editors.  I started developing my online platform as a writer thanks to my work in L&D.

What I learned about Initiate of Stone in the first go-round:

  • It was too long;
  • It was too complex:
  • I’m too wordy; and
  • I’m not very good at seeing the redundancies in my own work.

Then, in January, all of my critique partners left In Production I and were promoted to Editor Suite.  Most of them had attended an Algonkian Conference which acted as their respective invitations to AS.  They all received personal notification to move along.  I thought I was left behind.

So I started over with a new call for peers and waited.  Eventually the administrators realized that there was some kind of miscommunication and offered a clarification.  I was promoted to Editor Suite after all!  My relief was immense.

My new critique group in Editor Suite included all of my old friends, plus a couple new ones.

The first order of business was to start over with the profile critiques, and when that was done, we moved onto critique our first acts.  AS calls them the first 50 pages, but I prefer to call it the first act because it’s actually the first 50 -100 pp, depending on where your first major plot point falls.

What I’ve learned from the critique of the first act:

  • My first major plot point takes too long to arrive;
  • The story line for my protagonist needs to be seriously amped up;
  • I still suck at the profile stuff (that’s part of what I’m working on next);
  • I may be wordy, but given my chosen genre, epic fantasy, it works, overall.

Along the way, there was this thing called the Showcase.  AS reps would be showing a foreshortened version of our profile to industry experts and seeing if they could get any interest.  The call went out about the time that the former version of this blog was hacked and there was a little confusion while I reordered my electronic life.  The server on which my blog was hosted at the time was also my email server …

Got that mess sorted, but even though the Showcase went on until May, IoS did not get a single nod.  Almost everyone else in my critique group, however, got at least one, and many received multiple expressions of interest.  I’m very happy for my peers, but really disappointed in/for myself.  This just speaks, once again, to the importance of the AS profile in the overall process.

What I’ve done or am doing as a result of all this:

  1. Cut my novel in half.  The former mid-way point is now the climax and I still have to cut about 40k words.  I don’t know how this will turn out, but I’m willing to work at it until it’s fabulous 🙂 ;
  2. Rewriting Ferathainn’s story/plot line;
  3. Revamping my profile;
  4. I’ve applied for, was accepted to, and have registered for Algonkian’s New York Comes to Niagara conference in October.  If nothing else, I’ll learn how to get my profile together there.

So we’ll see where this all takes me.  The AS journey has been fraught and fun and incredibly hard work so far.

That’s it for this week bubbies!  Gotta get working on my WIP!

For my science fiction writer friends, I want to post links to Robert Sawyer’s two-part January interview with William Gibson:

Also check out Robert’s TedXManitoba lecture:

Are you part of an online critique group?  What have you learned from the process?  How is it changing your creative life?

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The cosmology and divine history of Tellurin, part 1

/ Melanie Marttila

Last time on Work in progress: The supporting cast was introduced.

Once I had all my characters, I needed to think about the world they inhabited.  I went back to the beginning.  The very beginning of everything …

In the beginning, there was the One.  It was everything and everything was in it. The One simply was, and was in perfect harmony, until something within it recognized its independence, and in that moment, the One ceased to be and everything else came into existence (including time, hence the moment, the first).

Modern science would call this the big bang.

The-thing-that-recognized-its-independence wandered the universe, searching for something like itself.  Really, it was searching for the harmony of the One again, but it had destroyed the One, a crime of which it was ignorant, thus authoring its own loneliness and misery.

Having explored about three quarters of everything that existed, it was about to give up, when it finally found something else that felt like “home.”  It had discovered the disc of debris of a planet accreting itself into existence.

The two kindred spirits found names for each other: The-thing-that-recognized-its-independence became Auraya, and the planet, Tellurin.

Tellurin is the name of the world and its spirit, but it is also the name for the main continent of the world.  Originally, it was nothing but a large landmass, one of five on the planet.  Life was limited to plants, protozoa, bacteria, and insects.  The world was one rich in power, but it was latent and undirected.  When Auraya first chose the planet for her home, she explored it thoroughly.

Eventually, the mere exposure of the world to a sentient and powerful being like the goddess encouraged the development of innate intelligences.  The world responded to Auraya’s loneliness and became her first family.

One of the continents took on sentience and personality as brothers: Zaidesahki, Tahesahki, and Nuresahki.  The four remaining continents did not fully emerge into sentience, although the achieved consciousness.  They are called the watchers, because they did not speak or interact with anyone.  They simply bore witness to all that happened.  Similarly, the planet’s single blue, moon became conscious, though never sentient.  She was nonetheless given a name: Azuresahki and became a haven for Auraya.

The air and the water were their sisters: Freyesahki and Augesahki.  The deep fiery core of the earth was another brother, but more distant and less social than the others.  He was also more volatile and less kind that the others.  His name was Dwergesahki.

When Auraya left them to explore the rest of the universe, they felt abandoned.  The first life forms above the level of insect were the elementals.  Each of the sentient elements made its own creature, rich in source and of high intelligence: sylphs (air), undine (water), nomi (earth), and efts (fire).  Then came the animals, birds, and fish.

These arose due to the combined efforts of Zaidesahki with Freyesahki and Augesahki.

Tahesahki and Nuresahki became jealous and wanted to create something better.  Beastly races like blinsies, okante, krean, grunden, bakath, and the like arose from those efforts.

Without jealousy, but merely wishing to make companions for the creations of his brothers, Zaidesahki brought forth humans (Tellurin), and favrard.  Dwergesahki, less interested in all this wasteful creating than the others, asked for Zaidesahki’s assistance in creating the dwergen and dwergini.  Along the same lines as the subterranean folk, and for purely selfish reasons (much like Auraya), Zaidesahki and Augesahki joined forces again and created the anogeni, the hidden people, as special and secret companions for themselves.

Eventually, Tahesahki and Nuresahki became increasingly jealous of their brother, who seemed so contented with what he’d done.  Tahesahki lured the favrard away from Zaidesahki to his deserts.  Surprisingly, Zaidesahki let them go and made Tahesahki welcome as the favrard were much more suited to Tahesahki’s deserts than Zaidesahki’s lush forests and mountains.

The bitter brothers ignored and mistreated their own creations, creating miserable children.  In the end, they rose up against Zaidesahki, shattering him into seven pieces and killing him.  In the process, they sundered the great landmass that had once been their collective “body,” giving themselves wounds as mortal as their brother’s.

Augesahki, devastated by the death of her brother and lover, collected the seven shattered

Susan Boulet’s Isis and Osiris

pieces of Zaidesahki’s soul and encased them in the body of a Tellurin who willingly sacrificed himself for the purpose.  She sealed Zaidesahki in a stone sarcophagus at the bottom of a lake in the middle of the continent.  She withdrew to the sea and became silent. (Based in part on the myth of Isis and Osiris, and in part on Arthurian Legend.)

Freyesahki and Dwergesahki remained what they always were, flighty and stoic respectively, and nothing more was heard of any of the akhis.

Auraya returned to Tellurin to show off Auremon.  Having failed to find anyone else like herself in the entire universe, she clove herself in two, creating Auremon her other half and spouse/consort. (Derived from a tale of how the Celtic goddess Aine fell in love with her reflection in a magic mirror that showed her the masculine part of her, or animus, and subsequently brought him to life.)

She was greeted with the desolation of her first “children” and the chaos of a million different life forms all clamouring for help and guidance.  The watchers, as ever, were silent.

Auraya vowed never to leave her beloved Tellurin again.

Auraya and Auremon began immediately to help the denizens of Tellurin, Auraya from her new home in the blue moon and Auremon by walking among the people in their guise.  Soon it became a titanic task for even the two celestial beings.

They determined to create two of their own children, helpers in their task.  Tryella was much like her father, adventurous, playful, and interested in getting her hands dirty.  She too, like Auremon, walked among the people of Tellurin and helped them in the disguise of one of their own.

Yllel was more introverted.  He resented the time and attention that the denizens of Tellurin exacted from his family.  Attention he thought more befittingly belonged to him.  He only helped the people of Tellurin when forced to and while neither Auraya nor Auremon chastised him for his lack, the praise they lavished on Tryella for her efforts made Yllel feel all the more jealous.

He began to sabotage their efforts in subtle ways, but bored of that quickly.  His attention was then captured by the sourcerors.  These people had recognised in themselves the ability to access and manipulate the innate power in all things.  They called it the source and themselves sourcerors.  Yllel realized that these sourcerors had much to teach him.  After all, what was he but source?  How did the gods manipulate the world around them but through the use of source?

When they began to kill one another and steal each others’ source, Yllel learned the art.  When they developed binding as a way to protect themselves from one another, Yllel paid careful attention.  Soon the god willingly masqueraded as a Tellurin to kill sourcerors and take their source.  Then a truly devious idea occurred to him.  Soul and source could be bound to other objects and even people.  What would happen if he tricked someone, or several someones into binding their source to him while they still lived …  And so Yllel created the first and greatest of his soul contracts, that with the favrard.

The favrard still lived on Tahesahki in isolation from the main continent.  They were in the midst of a battle against the other denizens of Tahesahki: the krean.  The lower race, as even the krean fancied themselves, were numerous in the extreme.  Though short-lived, the krean possessed the ability to regenerate, or heal themselves (essentially trolls, but sea-faring as well as desert-dwelling). Sheer numbers were taking their toll on the valiant favrard and they faced extermination.  In their darkest hour, Yllel came to them, putting on his most beatific form and manner.  He easily tricked the favrard into signing over their source and souls to him while they still lived, to be his slaves in perpetuity.

Binding the living to him taught Yllel much.  He did not get to claim the favrard souls and source wholesale until they died, at his hands or at each other’s, but he could use their source to feed himself even while they lived, and their connection allowed him to possess them from time to time at his whim.  It was as though a piece of him resided in each of them.  He could eavesdrop on any of them, or all of them, at will.

He experimented freely, and sometimes fatally with the first.  He learned just how far he could push them, exactly what he could make them do.  He wasn’t satisfied though.  They were still frail and mortal.  To make them immortal, Yllel would have to sacrifice too much of himself in the process.  His intent was to gather source, not expend it.  So he used his connection with the favrard to alter them.  He made them tougher, stronger, and imbued each of them with the incredible healing ability of their enemies, the krean, so that they could heal from all but the most drastic of injuries.  They would never grow old or ill, but they could be killed.

Yllel continued to make his study of the sourcerors.  One in particular was different.  His name was Halthyon, and he wasn’t a Tellurin, dwergen, dwergini, or any other people that walked on or under the earth.  Halthyon refused to give up his secrets, however.

It wasn’t long before Auremon, also seeing the sourcerors and what they did, but not understanding it in the same way that Yllel did, sought to bring even more source into the world for the people to benefit from.  He believed that if there was more power, more people could learn to use it.  Or more people would be born with the innate ability to access and manipulate the power, and he hoped that it would give them the ability to protect themselves from the worst of the sourcerors who only lived to kill each other and subjugate those of lesser talent.  So he determined to forfeit his godhood and release his power into the world.

Noble sentiments, but things don’t always go as planned.

When he released his power into the world, Auremon inadvertently tore open a doorway he hadn’t even known existed.  Speckled throughout Tellurin, and every world for that matter, are Ways Between the Worlds.  Yllel’s mystery sourceror, Halthyon came through one of these from the world of Elphindar.

Now Auremon tore that Way wide open, pulling a good half of the population of eleph, and many of the other animals, elementals, and other denizens of the world in a cataclysmic maelstrom.  Many of those so pulled died in transit, but those who survived found themselves stranded in a strange place and inexplicably unable to cross back through the Way to Elphindar.

They established their own settlements and learned of Auremon’s terrible mistake when in the aftermath of the Rending, he came to them and tried to make amends.  Their collective fear and anger and shame caused the eleph to reject Auramon’s overtures as well as those of the Tellurin, dwergen, or anyone else who came to trade or make alliances.  They became solitary, wounded people, and for a long time, there was no hope in them.

The cataclysm was a blessing in disguise, however, though one they would not understand for many sunspans to come.  Elphindar was already a dying world.  Auremon’s mistake ushered it on its way more swiftly, but the ultimate decline of Elephinar was inevitable.

Auremon’s mistake did not yield the results he had hoped for either.  No more people than before were able to sense and manipulate power.  He wanted to discover the reason why, but without his own, he was little more than a Tellurin himself.

He researched for a while, found like-minded sourcerors who thought the cannibalistic ways of their fellows and their experiments a form of heresy.  Together these sourcerors, guided by Auremon, devised a new way of viewing the manipulation of power.

By changing the names of all things sourcerous, they hoped to divorce ensuing generations of magi (as they now called themselves) from much of what was evil in their practice.  Source became magick and those who manipulated it were called magi.  A structured apprenticeship bound in ceremony and ritual and true research grounded the craft and made it “safe.”

A young mage was initiated by one of his elders when his talent was detected.  After thirteen sunspans of continuous study, the mage would be made apprentice and his abilities “unlocked.”  In truth the ability was never locked to begin with, but the young mage would be so occupied with his training that he wouldn’t have time to realize that small lie.

Auremon set up a school on a small but mountainous island off the coast of the main continent and magi from all over Tellurin would report for training.  Yllel, in the meantime, had been working hard to fortify his store of source and became contemptuous of his father’s attempts to “dumb down” the art of sourcery.

There were still sourcerors in the world and more recognized their abilities all the time, but Auremon turned a blind eye to them, hoping, quite naively that if he just ignored them, they would go away.

Yllel disguised himself as a Tellurin again and approached his father’s school as an initiate.  He soon became a favoured student, completing all of his tasks competently and without complaint, but Yllel soon began to ask questions about sourcery and the sourcerous arts.

He was trying to expose the dullards his father was producing to the true art of which Agrothe magery was a pale imitation.  Eventually, Auremon invited Yllel to a private meeting.  As he was trying to enlighten what he thought was a simple student, Yllel took advantage of their seclusion and murdered his father.  There was no source left to take, and this left Yllel frustrated and empty.

To be continued …

Do you dress for success?

/ Melanie Marttila / 8 Comments

If you’ve been reading Writerly Goodness for any length of time, then you’ll know that I’m fascinated by process, my own and others’.  I love to find out how other creative people do what they do, their sets of rules and their arcane rituals.  On Facebook, I often share the tips and tricks I find on my blogly ramblings, and secretly, I take a certain perverse pleasure in how many of those rules I break, and how many guidelines I defy.

Writerly Goodness aspires to the transgressive, but only rarely does she manage the faithful leap such actions require.

In May of 2011, I attended the Canadian Authors Association’s CanWrite! Conference.  Workshop host Barbara Kyle offered many writing tips, but the one that stays in my mind is this: dress for success.

Why?  I suppose it’s because I don’t, but more on that in a bit.

Barbara stated that when she got up in the morning, she was always careful to dress appropriately, as if for work: business casual.  She said that this practice honoured her work and her as its creator.  Dressing for work meant that she was serious about her writing, that she wasn’t taking anything for granted, and that she wasn’t going to waste anyone’s time, not hers, not her readers’, and certainly not her agent’s, editor’s, or publisher’s.

I agree that one should dress appropriately for one’s work, but to me, that depends entirely on what your work and life is like.  Let me ‘splain …

Writing is Barbara’s second career, after a successful first career as an actress.  She stopped acting to become an author and made the decision to write full time.  The temptation for someone in that position would be to become part of the pyjama patrol, roll out of bed, and stumble to the computer.  Barbara worked hard at her first career and knew the value of discipline, however; she knew that the slovenly writer’s life was not for her.

I don’t have that luxury.  I have to work and I have to dress appropriately for work.  When I get home of an evening, it’s actually part of my ritual to dress down for my writing.  Phil and I call this transforming into ‘comfort woman’ 🙂

I need to shed one professional self to become another, and my professional writer wants to be comfortable.

Right now, I’m in my shortie penguin pj’s, and damn, do I feel good!  You might have the urge to equate me to Michael Douglas’s character in Wonder Boys who wore the same bedraggled housecoat to write in every day … and discovered he was hideously blocked!  That would be a mistake.

I have a reason to dress as I do when I write.  That in no way means that I am any less diligent or devoted to my craft.  It simply means that my definition of appropriate dress is different.  So I’m comfortable saying that I still dress for success.

Process is different for every writer.  That’s why I find it so fascinating.

What about you?  How do you dress for success?  What does that mean for you?

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Character Sketches Part 2: Eoghan MacDubghall

/ Melanie Marttila / 1 Comment

This is a continuation of my character sketches for my work in progress, Ascension, Book 1: Initiate of Stone.

Last week’s was: Character Sketches Part 1: Ferathainn Devlin

How Eoghan began …

Originally, when Ferathainn was named Rain, and went through half a dozen tumultuous life events, Eoghan was a nameless monk who found the blinded and wounded girl and nursed her to health again, weathering a toxic pregnancy and subsequent abortion in the process.  He fell in love with her, but she never saw him before he was called away by the goddess to become her champion/avatar.

Then I gave him the name of Arastian.  At that time, he was a grown man in his late twenties, and there were some cradle-robbing inferences that I wasn’t comfortable with.

Eventually, when I finally researched and chose Ferathainn’s name, I also decided on the Scottish version (or one of them in any case) of Ewen, child of the Yew.  I’m an unapologetic Celtophile!  (Especially after reading Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series.)  He became a character younger than Ferathainn, and his love for her completely unknown to her, because she never regains consciousness while in his care.  I had to put a few more roadblocks in their way.

Now he’s a postulant monk, not even tonsured (achieved by the painful process of plucking, which he dreads) and at risk of being turned out of the Monastery of Aurayene as any time, a particular cruelty in a world where the season that equates to winter is actually a deadly season of storms.  He becomes Auraya’s Kas’Hadden, her hammer of light in another cruel twist.

Eoghan’s brother Callum was to become Kas’Hadden before him, but Yllel, the villain of the novel, conspires to have him executed for heresy before this can happen.  Auraya conserves the remnants on Cal’s spirit at the Well of Souls and when Eoghan reaches her, she forges the Kas’Hadden from Eoghan, incorporating Cal’s qualities, and a few other choice bits.

The goddess has to subdue Eoghan because he has qualities that she does not want in her champion, namely his love for Ferathainn, and basically traps him inside the fleshy prison of her avatar.  So he’s repressed and imprisoned, and it’s painful.  That’s the kind of goddess Auraya can be …

Eoghan’s story line is much more dynamic than Ferathainn’s, an imbalance I am striving to address in my next revision.  He is one of my favourite characters, though.  He has to be: he’s Fer’s love interest 🙂

The Sketch:

Name: Eoghan MacDubghall

Nickname:  none but he becomes the Kas’Hadden

Birth date/place:  14 years ago, Aurayene

Character role:  Secondary protagonist

Age: 14 years

Race: Tellurin (Alban)

Eye colour:  hazel, later blue

Hair colour/style:  Strawberry blonde, wildly curly.  This doesn’t really change.

Build (height/weight):  5’ 4”, slight, not muscular.  When he becomes Kas’Hadden, 8’ + and extremely well-muscled, an Adonis.

Skin tone:  pale and freckled, later golden.

Style of dress:  robes, cassock.  As the Kas’Hadden, hardly anything 🙂

Characteristics/mannerisms: none

Personality traits:  Desperately afraid of everything.  Self effacing to the point of having little personality of his own.

Background:  Born eighteen years the junior of two brothers to a spiritually devout public servant and his wife, Eoghan was largely ignored by his father and never knew his mother who died shortly after giving birth to him.  His father saw Eoghan as the means of his beloved wife’s demise.  His older brother Callum was the favourite, the one on whom all their father’s hopes depended.  Initially Callum hated Eoghan as well, tried to smother the baby, but couldn’t go through with it.  Surprisingly, Eoghan was the means by which Callum was able to heal from the wound of his mother’s death.

Callum became a soldier at a young age and was quickly inducted into the Sanctori but when their father died, Callum took holy orders.  Eoghan came with him as a ward of the Faithful initially, and early signs pointed to him following his brother into the priesthood.  He proved a fair illuminator, but asked too many questions for the comfort of his teachers.

Eoghan has been alternately ignored and protected throughout his life.  He is incredibly naïve and Callum’s execution nearly destroys his faith, but the war coming so swiftly on the heels of Callum’s death, Eoghan has no time to internalize his loss.  Callum was more a father to Eoghan than their biological one.  Eoghan is lost in every sense when Auraya calls upon him.

Ferathainn represents his only chance to find himself and choose what he wants to do with his life.

Internal conflicts: He’s been so ignored/protected/controlled he has no idea who he is or what he wants to do with his life.  When Auraya turns him into the Kas’Hadden, Eoghan finally has the physical power and presence to support his growing internal convictions but is prevented from exercising it on his own behalf.

External conflicts:  Auraya wants to use Eoghan to defeat Yllel and bring her word back to the people of Tellurin.  Yllel wants to destroy him as one of the few beings who could oppose the god’s escape.

Auraya.  To keep the Kas’Hadden compliant, she suppresses Eoghan’s personality.

Ferathainn can’t return Eoghan’s love because of her trauma, besides, he belongs to Auraya and she demands his total devotion.

Dairragh doesn’t trust Eoghan and doesn’t believe in the Kas’Hadden.  He can’t deny how useful the behemoth can be in battle, but isn’t sure what to make of him.

Eoghan attempts to protect Ferathainn from Khaleal, though she proves not to need his protection.

What Eoghan might look like:

I don’t have a drawing of Eoghan.  Sadly, I’m not very good at drawing the male figure.  So pictures will have to do.

When the novel begins, Eoghan is fourteen and hasn’t really hit his first growth spurt yet.  He starts to grow a sparse ‘stache and a few chin hairs that might optimistically be called a beard.  He’s got this unruly bird’s nest of strawberry blonde curls and a plague of freckles.  He’s a skinny, book-fed boy.

Though the hair colour and freckles are absent, I thought of a young Matthew Gray Gubler as a suitable physical analogue.

When he becomes the Kas’Hadden, he’s more like Chris Hemsworth (ala Thor) but has the physical dimensions of the Hulk.

And that is Eoghan.

Next week: Dairragh.

Ta-ta for now, my writerly friends!

World-building: Where do you start?

/ Melanie Marttila

This is a sample constructed-world as seen fro...

Confession time

I’m a pantser.  I write through first, and restructure later, but I do extensive mapping using my trusty bulletin board, and as I’m getting to know the inner workings of Microsoft Word better, I’m learning to use headings to organize my chapters and sections, making outline view a useful tool too.  I have Office 2007 right now, so that’s the best I can do.  When I have blocked some time to learn more about it, I intend to use a master document to further organize my novel.  I’ll probably start using OneNote to organize a lot of my research, world-building, character sketches, and other resources.  More on that in the future.

Process, process, process

Where to start, indeed?  Really, this all depends on how you write and what your process is.  If you’ve been reading Writerly Goodness, you know my process is organic and holistic.  Some writers might see that as a cop-out, an excuse for a sloppy and ill-defined (dare I say undisciplined?) process.  Really, it’s process as a way of life.

Life = process

That demands a lot of dedication, organization, awareness, and the ability to think, not only on your feet, but sitting, laying down, at work, watching TV, eating …  In short, it means thinking all the time.

Plot leads to setting

If you’re a plot-based writer, that is, if you start with the story, then that will be your jumping off point for your world-building.

Example:

Hard-boiled detective?  Then you’ll have to create that milieu, and that means research.  Add Hammett and Chandler to your reading list, watch the classics of the movie genre, and then once you’ve got the flavour, go for the meat.  What time will you set your story in?  Just because the genre evolved in the 1920’s and 30’s doesn’t mean you have to restrict yourself.  As long as you can evoke the feeling of the hard-boiled detective, you can play.  William Gibson plays elements of the hard-boiled into some of his science fiction.

Once you have your setting, then you have direction.  Research the heck out of it.  Dream about it.  Start mining your life.  Have you ever done or seen anything that is distinctively “hard-boiled”?  Chances are, if you’re attracted to the genre, there’s a reason.  Dig.  You can find it.

But that’s where you’d start, in the Writerly Goodness universe 🙂

Character leads to plot/setting/theme (sometimes simultaneously)

If you’re a character-based writer though, it’s a little tougher.  You write the character, or characters, first, and the story emerges from them.  Sometimes, you don’t even know where or when the story will be set when you start out.

That’s the way it is for me.

If the story is the plot-based writer’s place to start, then character is the character-based writer’s place to start.

Do character sketches, written ones, and maybe actual sketches, if you’re so talented.  If not, find pictures of actors that might fit the bill.  Have them fully developed as people: their back-stories, their personal quirks, their convictions and beliefs.  Invite your writers’ group, or just some writer friends over for coffee, and have them quiz you on your characters, quick-fire style (it’s in the post, about half-way through).  And, of course, keep writing in the meantime.  Only once your characters are real people to you will their stories start to emerge and direct your plot.  Only once you have a developed plot, will your setting and themes become apparent.  Only then will you be able to truly start developing your world.

You may have some ideas when you begin to write, and by all means, start your research as soon as possible.  If you’re going for a contemporary setting, or a historical one, immerse yourself in the time or place.  It might inform your writing as you go and help you develop your setting with crystalline clarity.  If you’re trying to create a truly original fantasy or science fiction milieu, however, those details might have to wait for you to discover them through writing.  The best you may be able to do at the outset is read in your chosen genre.  If nothing else, do that.

Other options

Ultimately, how you write will determine where and when you start to build your world.  Plot- and character-based writers aren’t the only kinds either.  They’re the only kinds I can provide any guidance for, however.  If you’re another kind of writer, then go with your strengths.  Does your theme emerge first?  Or maybe you can’t write in a world that you don’t know and start off with the world first.  It’s all good.  The point is that no matter what you write, you have to put your characters and their stories in a time and a place and you have to know that world as intimately as you know your characters and plot.  It’s the only way to roll 🙂

Coming up

In the next weeks, I propose to post some of my character sketches and the plot lines that developed from them, along with pictures (though I have started to draw some of them, I’m not finished and they wouldn’t come through in a scan well … also, they’re not very good).

In the future, I’ll move on to other aspects of world-building, including a number of print resources on the subject.

Are you a pantser, or a plotter?  Are you a plot-based, or a character-based writer?  Are you something else entirely?  Where do you start in your world building?  Please, comment, like, share!

I failed the test

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

Back in December, Robert J. Sawyer shared this: http://www.rinkworks.com/fnovel/

Rinkworks warns the following:

Ever since J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis created the worlds of Middle Earth and Narnia, it seems like every windbag off the street thinks he can write great, original fantasy, too. The problem is that most of this “great, original fantasy” is actually poor, derivative fantasy. Frankly, we’re sick of it, so we’ve compiled a list of rip-off tip-offs in the form of an exam. We think anybody considering writing a fantasy novel should be required to take this exam first. Answering “yes” to any one question results in failure and means that the prospective novel should be abandoned at once.

The problem is … I answered yes more than once.

Specifically:

4. Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme bad guy?

Well, it’s about three young characters, two who “come of age” and one who just figures out what his damage is, spanks his inner moppet and gets on with it, all three of whom have roles to play in the defeat of the dark god Yllel, and his sourcerous servant Kane.

12. Does “a forgetful wizard” describe any of the characters in your novel?

Yes, Aeldred is dithering and occasionally confused, but he is the exception and considerably younger than most of the magickal movers and shakers in my novel.  Plus, he’s not even close to being a main character.

21. How about “a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage”?

That would be Aislinn, actually and she’s not torn so much between the two peoples as derided and feared by both because she is the first child born of a Tellurin (my version of humans) and an eleph (my version of elves).  She’s actually going to be pivotal in uniting the two peoples.

39. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?

Actually, all of the above.  I’ve changed the names slightly and given them different origins.  My orcs are called okante and are peaceful tribes-people who generally live in harmony with the Tellurin tribes of the north.  They’re only drawn in as villains because Yllel tricks them into soul-slavery.  My elves, as mentioned above, are called eleph and they come from a different world.  One of my gods tries to do something good, but ends up tearing a hole in the world and sucking half the population of Elphindar into Tellurin before the gap can be closed.  The eleph are not pleased.  Dwarves are called dwergen, and are the children of the elemental Gods of earth and fire.  Rather than halflings, I have gnomes I call dwergini and they are the children of earth and air.  Neither race is terribly differentiated from their fantastic forefathers, but they’re certainly not dour and I try not to make them overtly stereotypical.

Enough of the justification, but I can tell you that I was not a little disconcerted by saying yes even those four times.

Fantasy Forest

Fantasy Forest (Photo credit: ozjimbob)

Then, in January, Author Salon posted this for the benefit of the Fantasy and YA Fantasy peer groups, two of the more active in the AS fold: http://www.authorsalon.com/page/general/fantasytropes/

Again, I shook in my metaphorical boots because my story is fairly littered with orcs, trolls (which I call krean), ogres (the gunden), etc.  Will renaming be sufficient?  It’s not like any of them play a significant role, but they are there in their standard and stereotypical glory.

I started questioning the value of my novel in a serious and neurotic way.  Then I sat back and tried to put things into perspective.  My story is not “about” any of these tropes, save perhaps for my protagonists coming of age, finding power, and defeating the big bad.  Renaming will likely be sufficient in most cases.  I don’t have to throw the baby out with the bath water.

I almost failed another one

AS says it wants thick-skinned writers.  Though I do tend to take some criticism more to heart, or react poorly to some of their advice (largely because I think that it’s being posted because someone has looked at my work and though poorly of it, even though I “know” I’m not that important to anyone), I’m learning to understand being thick-skinned in the same way I understand being courageous.  Being brave doesn’t mean that you’re not afraid; being brave means that you act despite your fear and try not to let it limit you.  I’m taking the same, long view of being thick-skinned.  It doesn’t mean that my confidence isn’t shaken; it means that even when it is, I get my shit together and soldier on.

Then Rachelle Gardner posted this in March:

http://www.rachellegardner.com/2012/03/do-you-have-a-thick-skin/

It’s good to know that agents feel the same way us writers do sometimes 🙂

Writing well is the best revenge 🙂

Then I came across a very helpful blog post:

http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/writing-rules-10-experts-take-on-the-writers-rulebook?et_mid=538945&rid=3085641

I’ve always aspired to be transgressive; sometimes in a good way, and sometimes not so much.  I think ultimately, I have to focus on writing the best novel I can, so that when I do break the rules, I’ll be forgiven.  It is easier to ask forgiveness than permission, right?  It’s such a relief to know that I can write my way out of the corner I seem to be getting scrunched into.

Coming up on Writerly Goodness

In future posts, I want to get a bit into the background of the novel, stuff that won’t necessarily be in it, but all of the window dressing I developed so that my world would work fairly consistently.  Stuff like cosmology, the historical timeline leading up to the novel, religion, the way magic works, my various peoples and their origins (in more detail than above), naming conventions, and some of the unique things about Tellurin.  In other words, I’m going to write about world-building.  Have any interest in that?

What are your feelings about tropes and their use/overuse?  Would you fail Rinkworks’ test?  What about the Author Salon article?  Does it give you pause?

If you liked this post, feel free to use the “like” or sharing buttons below.  Or, you may consider subscribing via email, or RSS feed (there are links below each post, or on right side menu on my home page).

Until next week!

Will the third draft be the charm?

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

Nope.

I finished the second draft in September 2009 and devoted some time to writing other things.  I entered a few contests, but was unsuccessful.  In December, I printed everything out and began to reread, make notes, and chart things out as before.  I invested in a bulletin board, pinned all my bits of paper to it this time and had a really good look at the structure.  The puzzle still wasn’t together in the right way.

More changes.

Without the prologue and the framing pieces, nearly 100 pages disappeared from the manuscript.  Third time through, I cut mercilessly, and though I also wrote considerably to add to the novel, the net reduction was over 300 pages.  I was now below the 1000 page mark, an accomplishment in itself.

Finished in October of 2010, I was feeling fairly good about this draft.  Once again, I turned my attention toward writing other things and once again submitted a few short stories. Unsuccessfully.

I decided that I would attend the 2011 CAA CanWrite! conference and booked a 20 page manuscript evaluation.  Though the conference wasn’t until May, I started reading and making notes all over again.  This time, I played with POV.

I had the first two chapters revised by the time the conference came around.

What I learned:

  • If the changes that occur as you revise are substantial, then you still have work to do.
  • The value of a bulletin board for structural rework is immense.
  • Always have backups of the work.
  • Prologues and framing pieces are about telling.  Consider carefully.

Books on editing that have been helpful:

Draft two and what it taught me

/ Melanie Marttila

I printed out and read through my first draft.  It was painful.  I made notes all over it and as I went, made additional notes on scrap paper.  Afterward, I physically mapped out my next revision.  At that point, it was just a bunch of pieces of paper floating around like a free-form puzzle on the table.  I looked for the pattern, made sense of it, and put the papers in ordered groups.

My scrap paper novel map

My scrap paper novel map

I revisited all of my previous work: the character sketches, plot sketches, and timeline.  The title changed again, finally to Initiate of Stone.  This emerged from the text itself, organically, the way I like it.

There were a number of metaphors and events that related to the earth element: taking shelter in caves and underground, the hidden people, who have a special skill with shaping the stone, whose father was the elemental spirit of the continent, now entombed in the mountains awaiting rebirth and acting as a kind of gatekeeper to the otherworld at the Well of Souls, the seal that must be broken to free the dark god is buried beneath the desert sands.

I decided to reinforce the theme and add to the images.  I made even more notes for all the changes I wanted to make and dove back into writing.

I wrote more, started playing with the prologue, nearly 50 pages on its own.  Each chapter now had a framing piece about the world, its history, and other things that I thought I couldn’t bring out in the story but wanted to share.  Characters developed further, names changed, existing plot lines developed, and new plot lines evolved.

I started sharing this revision out to select readers.  In retrospect, it was too early, but I got some excellent feedback from Scott Overton, then president of the SWG.

Part-way through, I abandoned the preface pieces, and decided that the prologue, though important for me to have written, was largely cut-worthy.  I redacted whole sections and added new ones.  I rearranged their order to make more sense with the timeline.

This time, the draft was close to 1200 pages.  I’d done a lot of cutting, so this was a surprise.

What I learned:

  • Step away from the novel between drafts.  You need figurative “space” to approach it fresh.
  • It’s okay to murder your darlings, especially if you keep previous drafts stored on your computer and backed up onto CD.  That way, you haven’t done away with them altogether.
  • Physical mapping is liberating.  Being able to see the structure of your novel, and to play with it, is extremely helpful.  It’s like putting a puzzle together.  Some pieces may seem similar, but they only fit together in one way.  Looking at the story in its concrete representation can help you to find the best fit.
  • Sometimes, you write things that don’t make sense, and you don’t see it until revision.  That doesn’t necessarily mean that to have to throw them out.  If there was a reason that you wrote it, try to figure out what the core intention was.  Don’t put too much intellectual pressure on it or you risk forcing it the wrong way, but if you realize why it was important to write it in the first place, that will give you the key to revising the section in a way that improves your story.

What has your revision process taught you?