Posted by nightphoenix on Sep 17, 2011 in
Novels,
Output,
Process Seriously.
Here’s the situation. Saeli, Raphel, Mora, and Kaladan are on a world that is, due to a series of unfortunate events involving three jealous goddesses, one naive god, and a very angry angelic…well, doomed. Said goddesses created an extremely infectious disease that eventually rendered every single female on the planet unable to bear children. The last generation has reached their mid-50s or so, and they’ve essentially lost hope.
Enter Saeli and Mora, two young women of childbearing age who, due to their not being born on Dheu, are immune to this disease. You can see how this might interest certain parties. The two women get kidnapped, and are currently trapped in a cave surrounded by twenty or so men who are so desperate to not be the last generation that they’re willing to rape female strangers and force them to live out their lives on Dheu bearing children.
Saeli and Mora are both trained in the art of using their qi to do all sorts of extraordinary things, like fire and ice and wind and teleportation spells. None of the men who have captured them have any such power. (Although half of them are what they call “spirit walkers”. They can essentially thrust their spirits out of their bodies and travel about the “spirit realm”, where they receive guidance from the angelics who live there. This is, of course, of no practical use whatsoever against someone who can lob a fireball at them).
The first obvious question: how did a couple of magically inclined characters get captured by a bunch of non-magically inclined characters in the first place? Read more…
Tags: brainstorming, magic, Mora, Saeli, Shades, worldbuilding
Posted by nightphoenix on May 27, 2011 in
Books,
Input,
Process I just finished the Winds of the Forelands series by David B. Coe, and as fantasy epics go, it was pretty good. It’s rare that I pick up a series at random and have it be unique enough to hold my interest. Although it had many of the classic tropes of epics, they were combined and re-imagined in such ways that I couldn’t sit there and say “Ah, so it’s this kind of magic system”, etc. Read more…
Tags: authors, books, brainstorming, goals
Posted by nightphoenix on Mar 21, 2011 in
Process Actually, this post is about dreams. Specifically, the small and sometimes nonsensical details that dreams create.
Many of my story ideas come from dreams. Usually two or three dreams that have been fleshed out, expanded upon, and changed where needed to make a coherent plot. Most often, the main element a dream will leave me with is a mood. How does this story feel? What emotions does it evoke? The more detailed dreams will provide me with several characters and maybe even some plot elements, but that mood is what I take the most time in analyzing and writing down.
But often, my dreams aren’t coherent enough, detailed enough, or removed enough from life to really use. What I call “story dreams” actually happen only once or twice a month, if that. Dreams where I wake up and say, “Man, that would make a great story!” and I rush to write it down. Such were the beginnings of Dragon Singer, Briar Rose, Dreamcatcher, Mask of Eldarmarch…the list goes on. Honestly, if they happened any more frequently, either I’d need to be a much faster writer, or my queue would be much, much longer (than it already is).
However, even the fuzzy, wacky dreams can yield ideas in the form of details. Details of life, of people, of feeling; stuff that sort of passes you by when you’re awake. Sometimes things like that are easier to notice in dreams because they occur bigger than normal, stranger than normal, or simply out of context.
For example, I’ve been having a lot of dreams lately relating to the nuclear problems they are having in Japan right now. Radioactive stuff and refugee type themes. Radiation frightens me. You can’t see it, hear it, smell it, or feel it, and you don’t sense anything off if it’s hitting you. Plus, nothing but distance can shield you it. And it kills in a rather painful, horrible way. That’s up there with velociraptors and tiny dark spaces on Nightphoenix’s DoNotWant list.
The latest in this dream series involved me taking care of a bunch of hairless rabbits who’d been exposed, and then trying and failing to stop some overlord from taking over a small imaginary country. (Yes, even in the dream, it was imaginary. And yet, its loss was terrible. Hard to explain.) I was traveling with the refugees, and this monarch of a neighboring friendly nation was giving the refugee children little bags full of tiny toys and candy. Specifically, red apple-spice candy. There was a moment where I was watching the line of sad refugees shuffle along past me, and all around was this miasma of sweet spicy apple-y scent on the air. For some reason, it was that smell and everything it represented that really made it sad for me. That’s what really stayed with me when I woke up.
That’s what good details do. They call attention to what’s really important in a scene in a subtle, in-world way. They meld all those abstract, powerful emotions into an object, a texture, a moment, something tangible the audience can take away with them. “That was a great love story” isn’t nearly as powerful as “I bawled my eyes out when he handed her that ring”. They might not remember anything else about the story, but they’ll remember the ring and the feelings associated with it. Think about the Phantom of the Opera’s rose with a black ribbon, or Joker’s joker playing card. Significant details often become symbols, reoccurring themes that crop up again and again in a story. (And any details mentioned when describing a room, or object, or person, ought to be significant: ie, if the protagonist always wears a blue headband, that should play some later role in the story…if only to identify or mark her).
So, today, I am reminded to mine my dreams for details missed in the waking world. Like hairless rabbits. And apple-spice candy.
Tags: brainstorming, dreams, ideas
Posted by nightphoenix on Sep 25, 2010 in
Novels,
Output One of the many things that The Way of Kings made me think about was the ecology of fantasy worlds. That was the one aspect of James Cameron’s Avatar that flat-out impressed me: how thought out Pandora was as a functioning ecology. Everything in that world, plants and animals alike, looked uniquely Pandoran (except, incidentally, the Na’vi, but that’s another rant…). It was all beautiful, but everything also had a purpose. The Way of Kings is also like that: everything revolves around the highstorms.
Saeli’s world lacks that. Verre is both like and unlike Earth, but I really haven’t given much thought to those differences. Dheu is a bit more detailed, but Dheu is actually even more Earthlike than Verre so it’s kind of a moot point. Caosgi has the most detail, but that’s because it’s significantly different. (Different is actually easier to worldbuild.)
Read more…
Tags: brainstorming, Shades, worldbuilding
Posted by nightphoenix on Sep 15, 2010 in
Novels,
Output,
Process …from Tennessee, that is. Went on a trip with Eli and my mom to her property up there. It was fun and relaxing, except for the part when we almost hit a deer. That was kind of scary. No internet or cell phone service up there, so I’ve been a bit out of touch these last couple of days. This is kind of a long post. Update, and (another) new idea.
Read more…
Tags: brainstorming, ideas, Shades, Windwaker, worldbuilding
Posted by Mistress of Feathers on Aug 10, 2010 in
Books,
News,
Novels,
Output I read The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau in one day, almost in a single sitting. My husband got kind of boggle-eyed when I told him that, and yeah, I guess that’s a bit quick, even for me. I mean, it usually takes me at least a whole day, maybe two, to plow through a several hundred page book. It was quite a satisfying read…I’ve seen the movie, probably a year ago now, and it was pretty faithful to the book. That sort of conciseness, common to the young adult genre in particular, is something I admire when I see it and something I need to do more. I have a tendency to write epically.
Right now I’m working on Inkheart, another book that I’ve seen the movie of. Pretty good so far.
I have a ridiculous weakness for M&Ms. In case the blog itself doesn’t give that away.
You might notice that I’ve tweaked the sidebar a little bit. That picture (and yes, that is me) is one the hubby took while we were in North Carolina. It was a nice foggy day, which made for some very neat photo opportunities. I also finally figured out how to eliminate the search thingy at the top. I never liked it there. I’ll probably put it somewhere else in the sidebar, so the blog is still easily searchable.
I’ve been thinking about the logistics of the coup Raphel is planning for the city of Aschera. Read more…
Tags: books, brainstorming, reviews, Shades, worldbuilding
Posted by nightphoenix on Apr 6, 2010 in
Novels,
Output,
Process Well, it has been a ridiculously long white since I’ve updated here, but I guess maybe I can blame Easter. And Eli being sick…and me being sick…and, and…oh well. The visit to family for Easter went well; Eli got to play with family that doesn’t get to see him that often, and Jon and I got to relax a bit. On Saturday afternoon, I took a small nap…which of course, is an almost guaranteed way for me to have strange dreams.
This one was about vampires. Well, sort of.
Read more…
Tags: brainstorming, characters, ideas, vampires
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