Story element - free cities

I'm writing with friends right now, and of course I decided to work on the UFPE. There are other things, like the as-yet untitled story of Jemma, that are begging for some attention, but sadly, they seem unlikely to get it anytime soon. Today I'm working on an outline of the rest of UFPE Vol. 1. The second-to-last setting of the novel, I've decided, is going to be a place with the working name "Shore City." Simple, but accurate.

As I was outlining, I thought to myself that perhaps Shore City should be a city-state. It would be a nice change of pace from the kingdom that covers the rest of the continent, and for various reasons they are very popular in fantasy. They're often written as a sort of pre-modern Las Vegas-meets-New York City, where exotic people and fashions and foods come together to create a riotous clash of international color where laws tend to be lax in the extreme. And next to the picturesque little villages where much of UFPE Vol. 1 takes place, I'm anticipating that these cities will be a lot of fun to write.

I'm envisioning that the entire west coast of the continent is a string of city states, all loosely allied in case the king tries to annex them again. Oooh, and this works especially well since I've been imagining the Mage Towers on the west coat. Maybe they lend some of their mojo to the defense of the city states - the only interference they permit themselves (and that they are permitted) in the political realm.

The major city states of history range from ancient Greece to Renaissance Italy to modern-day Singapore, all of which conjure up exciting imagery in their different ways. It might be really fun to base the different cities on these different eras - maybe the northern ones are more Greece-like, the middle ones more Italy-like, and the southern ones more Singapore-like. The Mage Towers particularly would blend in well with the Greece-like atmosphere, I think.

So I should get back to the writing, but this struck me as such a fun idea that I had to post it here. This league of cities needs a name. Ahh, maybe a constellation. Let's see... the continent is shaped vaguely like South America, which means that the the west coat curves outward for a ways and then descends in a more-or-less straight line down to a point. So it's sort of a backward question mark. A scythe! So the cities need a dramatic, fearsome name to warn the king (well, duocracy) not to mess with them. I think collectively they call themselves the Ten Notches of the Glittering Scythe. Very nice - and very useful for word count.

I should think about how this affects the Book of Might Have Beens. Surely the Glittering Scythe will have something to say about L! Or not? They might like the idea of a weakened kingdom, after all.

Progress - Book of Might Have Beens

UFPE continues on, this time in an entirely new medium. Yes, I have officially begun the comic. Right now, I'm writing the script for it and drawing a stick-person version so I have a vague idea of what it should look like, one day. I don't think it would be terribly interesting to copy it wholesale here, but I know - I'll give the captions for the first page (which is all I have completed so far). There are eight panels, and the captions say:

#1: Carnivala Floriena. They say Lady Fortune and the Lord of Love descend from the stars to dance with the farmers on this night.

#2: If they did attend, I hope they did not notice how badly I fouled my steps.

#3: After I was spun through three jigs, I begged my leave. My head continued to whirl as I looked out over the unending crowd, spilling out into the village green like a flurry of starfliers.

#4: I had never seen such activity, nor such crowds. People jostled me with every step, and my ears rang ceaselessly with the raucous cries they raised.

#5: I saw a man swallow his saber, and I waited with mounting horror for the silver blade to pierce his throat from the inside, to release a crimson fountain. Everyone else just laughed.

#6: Of course, he was perfectly fine.

#7: I spoke to him, after. He smelled vile, and I could see weeks of dirt caked into his flesh.

#8: All my life I had been told I was one of them, yet never before had I felt so utterly lost.

The MMC is quite the sympathetic character here - no trace of the villain he is to become. Even though my drawings are just stick figures, I'm very much enjoying glancing down at the page and seeing what I've created. I don't have the words drawn in, but I can follow what's happening without them. All in all, this is very exciting.

Short Post - character idea

Now that school is winding down for the semester, I'm hoping to get back into this blog more regularly. I'll especially try to keep updates coming about the status of my UFPE "Book of Might Have Beens" scheme; I've never tried to write in the comic script form before, so it's more than a little daunting. But it'll be a long time before I have three months of evenings free again, so I'm determined to make the most of it!

Briefly, I just finished reading a wonderful book, The Remains of the Day, about an English butler reminiscing about his career and things. It made so much of an impression on me that I'd like to include a character like that in the Book of Might Have Beens. He (or she, I suppose) would appear in the MHB where FMC lives in Prince Seaton's palace as part of his harem. Of course, for the purposes of the UFPE, the butler character's stiff-upper-lipness has to be exaggerated for comic effect, and I feel almost guilty about transforming such a well-done, touching character into a parody. Not too guilty, though; it really is a testament to how marvelously the author developed the character in a pretty short book.

So, the butler! This person will appear at first as a very stiff, almost heartless sort of person, but s/he will probably end up perfoming some very valuable service for FMC along the way, rather like the innkeeper (whose name I've forgotten) in UFPE Volume I. As I think about it, this could be another theme of the UFPE - love is already an important theme, so why not expand it to include charity toward our fellow human beings? It's the kind of thing the Secret Society would never count on, certainly not something as toweringly monumental as Destiny.

This has been a more productive post than I had imagined when I started. I have a new character and a new theme!

Idea, story and media

Several factors - reading the brilliant Sandman comic series, thinking about embarking upon another NaNo adventure during the summer, visiting a little art show at my sweetie's apartment building and listening to older people talking about how they were so happy to have taken up art late in life - have recently collided in such a way as to harass my brain with a very new and very interesting idea. I'm thinking of doing another volume of the UFPE for JulNo, as I did last year (which was the beginning of the UFPE, in fact), except this time in comic form.

Once upon a time, I did compose (what is the word? draw? write?) a few comic strips about a broom and his wacky, bad-pun-riddled adventures around the house. It was called Sweepstakes (get it?). Anyway, it was hardly memorable, not even the way UFPE is, but it was fun to create both the visual and written part of a story at once. Over the summer, it seems I'm going to be a research assistant, one of a team, which I suspect will leave me with a good deal of free time. I'd like to work as much as possible - I was planning on a very different sort of job that would have netted me a bit more of a cash flow - but I doubt I'll rack up 1/10 of what I had thought to make.

Ah well.

And finally, I remember a conversation I had in the past year or so with my sister. As is evident from this blog, I've focused my creative energies in writing much more than drawing, but she told me that she always thought I was good at drawing. I certainly have wished more than once that I had taken art classes in college. So while I'm unfortunately not in a good position to take art classes now, I think this would be a very fun way to stimulate some creative neurons that haven't fired in a long time and to continue the proud tradition of the UFPE.

Now I need to remember what I somehow picked up about drawing and learn to write scripts.

For the specific story, I'm currently planning on using the "Book of Might Have Beens" for the storyline. I think I've described this before, but I do need to expand the idea. I was thinking of having 5 "Might Have Been" storylines because of 50K NaNo goal, but I suppose in this format, I can be more flexible about the number and length of the MHBs. The MHBs focus on Bad Guy and FMC, possibly starring Good Guy in a supporting role. He's not terribly important in this volume because one of the themes of the UFPE is that FMC chooses him (I think, at least) because she loves him, as an act of free will - instead of succumbing to the Secret Society and all their proclamations about destiny.

Possible Prologue: Bad Guy is on his youthful travels. During a carnival scene I've tried to write a few times but never got very far into, he receives The Revelation that shapes his future.
MHB #1: FMC is a servant in Prince Seaton's court, possibly part of his harem; this could have happened fairly on in the UFPE Volume 1. Bad Guy succeeds in rallying his people and razing a few human villages near their territory. Seaton insists on meeting with him. For all Bad Guy's talk of destroying all humans, he knows he's not ready for a full-on war just yet, especially with the mages unaccounted for. Upon seeing FMC, though, sparks fly, and he abducts her (a la Blue Sword). Seaton is pissed, and war subsumes the land.
MHB #2: Near the end of UFPE Volume 2 (well, near where I stopped writing), there's a close shave where Bad Guy might well have overpowered FMC and Good Guy. In this scenario, he gets even closer to his goal and ends up killing Good Guy, leaving FMC opportunity to escape. Good Guy's last magical stand gives her some protection from Bad Guy's magical tracking, leaving her to vow his destruction and stalk him while he builds his army. Whether she kills him in the end and just how dramatic it is remains to be envisioned.
MHB #3: Early on in UFPE Volume 2, FMC is spurred to flee Bad Guy when he's professing his love to her and she sees some very bad news in the depths of his eyes. Instead of fleeing, FMC is frozen with fear and doesn't do anything. Later she has some very deep thoughts on the subjects and concludes that the only way she can stop him is if she pretends to return his affections, waiting for the ultimate moment of betrayal. Ditto the last ending. Betrayal is one of my favorite things to write, so it's going to be dramatic. I might scale back the ending of MHB #2 so I don't exceed my drama quota, which exists even for a UFPE.
MHB #4: This one is very early in the idea stage. We learn at some point that Good Guy knew FMC's father because both were mages. Instead of the slavers or whomever picking up baby FMC, Good Guy is going to find her and bring her back to Mage Tower. I envision this MHB as opening up with her as a student in the ivory tower world of the mages, sitting in a class and probably daydreaming about doing something more interesting. As news comes in of Bad Guy's meteoric (sp?) rise, the mages debate whether they should engage or stay out of the conflict. Somehow, the debate escalates into some mage civil war, leaving the whole world devastated by forces even more powerful than Bad Guy turned against each other.
MHB #5: Is it just me, or does one of these deserve a happy ending? I'll think about it. In this one, FMC never fled her home village at all. As Bad Guy sweeps down upon the world - possibly getting certain territory from Seaton as a form of appeasement - his forces invade her village. Oh, here's a possibility for a happy ending. She flees into the mountains where UFPE Volume 2 theoretically ends, where her mother's people are lying in a deep slumber. Her distress and things rouse them, and they come in the nick of time to confront Bad Guy and push him back into his own territory. Not sure if Good Guy puts in an apperance here; maybe it ends with FMC being counseled to go find him?
Epilogue (maybe? Or this could go elsewhere): the members of the Secret Society are tracing the paths of their destiny. They're absolutely determined that Bad Guy and FMC have to be together because they both have incredibly powerful astrological signs. I had an explanation for why they cared all worked up awhile back, but it's become fuzzy since then. I suppose they have an idea to harness that power for themselves. Anyway, this whole installment is how their ideas are bound to go horribly, horribly wrong. I realize that some of the MHBs, at least one, don't have FMC and Bad Guy meeting. I'm pretty sure I can remedy that.

So there is my scheme! It's a lot of work, but I'm very excited for it.

Prompt - very short story

This time, it's a visual prompt; a friend drew me as an anime character, complete with saber and gauntlets and what she called "flowing chi." I was telling her that I often wish I could draw myself as an anime character and recount the adventures anime!me would have, and she took about ten minutes to just sit there and draw me. It was pretty neat.

I'm also inspired by another friend (one of my two loyal followers) thinking about his own writing and wanting to write a very dense piece, one where every word is crucial to the story. So I won't flatter myself that I'll get something like that achieved, but I'll just see where it takes me. Yes, it will be very purple.

*****
All she could smell was the creature's bitter tang. All she could see was the rotting pestulance it left as it slithered across the earth. As she tracked it, its slime sunk into her flesh so that her fingers were always slightly oily. She had forgotten sunshine and cool breezes as the trail led her deeper into shadowed places so completely that moonlight burned her eyes when the jungle glowed silver at night.

She worried that her fingers would slip when time came to wield her blade. She wielded no other weapon, but she would tear it apart with her teeth if steel failed her. Her strength was slipping since she had penetrated into a place where no wholesome plants or animals dwelled, but she had foreseen this and hoarded a reserve for her moment of need. Her limbs throbbed, and she could not remember what it felt like not to ache. This was for the better, she thought.

Her pupils were huge and black in the jungle, but her skin was shriveled and pale, ever damp. In her dreams she morphed into one of the clusters of fungus she crawled over every day, and she awoke from those vomiting and shaking. Barely visible things wriggled under her darkened fingernails, no matter how bloody she scratched them. Desparate for nourishment, she sucked greedily at them instead and found herself strengthened.

Her stomach clenched, not at the food but at the idea. She needed to find the creature and kill it. She needed to flee this place before she acclimated any further. It was drowning her alive.

Then one day she stopped worrying. Her scabbard drooped from its perch on her back and dragged a shallow trench in the soil, and she did not hoist it back. The insects that had swarmed her upon entering the jungle lost interest, as if she had become another dead fixture in this dead place. Her arms pulled her as her legs propelled her, but no glint touched her eyes when the trail warmed.

In the silver glow, the creature was blind. More recently in the world than it, she yet saw. She stared. Her slick fingers did not twitch. Her breath did not quicken. Her tongue flicked out to lick something wet that landed on her cheek. The saber creaked. The creature jerked at the sound and howled, but she did not wince.

The smile that stretched her lips did not meet her eyes.

*****

Ooh well, that was unexpected. The story idea I had changed as I was writing it, and even as I was in the flow I knew there were a few small contradictions in there. But overall I'm pretty happy with the passage, if surprised. Prompts are fun.

In case it's not completely obvious, this is very much inspired by HP Lovecraft. I have a such a love affair with his works, even when they're laughable.

And another realization I had; my post for the writing group's prompt ended with a fairly similar closing line - something about an unsettling sort of smile. I think this just means I am as fond of purple closing lines as I am of purple prose. Such is the fun of a UFPE.

Prompt - story excerpt

Another dry period, another litany of what I promise are very good excuses.

But that's not interesting. About a month ago, I joined a LiveJournal writing community, and though they post prompts every week for a 100-500 word work, I've never actually written anything for them until this week.

The prompt was a quote by Neil Gaiman: “Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.”

Very dramatic. I was initially thinking of writing something with another character I've mentioned here, Illunova, but I wanted to write it right then and there, and the story I'd have for her would take a little bit of plotting to develop. Instead, I wrote something for the UFPE from the Bad Guy's POV. I've been trying to write his backstory for awhile now, but I've been stuck. This isn't exactly backstory, more of a 'Might Have Been' (phrase stolen from the incomparable Madeleine L'Engle), and it didn't go exactly where I had envisioned.

It has nothing to do with romantic love, as suggested by the prompt, but love more in the sense of patriotism and loyalty to one's own people (especially, in this case, when they probably don't deserve it), which is a major part of Bad Guy's motivation. I've really enjoyed developing his backstory, and sadly, I imagine he's a lot more interesting a character than the MC.

Enough rambling. The whole point of this post was to share the piece I had written. It's Luzeoir on the ever of a battle that (at least as I'm imagining the story arc so far) never will happen but could have, if not for the intervention of our heroic MC.

*~*

The nights were darker now. Structures of wood and stone that had reached into the sky lay in haphazard heaps of debris, and the buttery yellow light that had streamed from their windows had died in the destruction. Standing in this valley once used for farming, Luzeoir could see the stars wheel above him clearer and brighter than he had seen them the last time he was here. He drank in the sight, reveled in the soft insect song that told him he had succeeded, but he still could not read the stars.

Unimportant. A shadow quivered beside him, and a moment later, one of his disciples stepped into the starlight. “We engage them tomorrow,” the other man murmured. “here in the valley. The rivers will run red.” Alhreas bowed his head after he had finished his report. “What do you see in the stars?”

Long ago, a man here had told Luzeoir a secret. You must understand them, and they will consent to anything you ask of them. He did not smile, but had he been alone, he might have. “They speak of strife and tears. Darkness covers the land and extinguishes the false sun. They speak of balance and vengeance.”

Alhreas peered up at the night sky, as if he could see any of the things Luzeoir had described. The man was the best Shade Walker among them, but he lacked the slightest trace of Far Sight. When his disciple murmured his farewells and disappeared again, Luzeoir allowed himself a very thin smile. Alhreas would never have advanced so far, skilled as he was, had Luzeoir not personally chosen him for a messenger. 'Forgiving' was not a word commonly used to describe the Onyx Elves, and above all things, they loved to think that they knew things others did not. Alhreas's problem, Luzeoir had often mused, was not his lack of Sight but his forthright acknowledgment of this flaw.

You must understand them, and they will consent to anything you ask of them. The Onyx Elves had not left their jungles for centuries, and now they had consented to follow their general into the arid lands to the south. They had kept to themselves, obsessed with divining secret knowledge from the depths of the world, and now he had taken them into the heart of the enemy's territory.

Until he came along, they had not even known they had an enemy.

Until he came along, they were content to remain a fairytale. They had been a brittle people, turning ever inward and calcifying in their beloved shadows. Now they were proud again, a terror and a scourge, and the world would weep to hear their name.

His smile grew. He loved them so.

Story idea - questions

The two followers of this blog both know why I haven't been posting lately. My creativity took a crash after recent events, and it's only recently begun drifting back in. Yesterday in my Professional Responsibility class, something my professor said sparked an idea. It's still very rough, and I have no idea where it's going, if anywhere. I typed up these questions in Notepad when I should have been taking notes, and now I'm posting them without further comment.

As I attempt to return to the normal routine of my life, I'll be posting more and more here again. I do miss it. Copied and pasted, these are the questions that came to mind:

What would a society look like where something like a lawyer represented both sides of a dispute?
Would the sign of a really good lawyer be that the decider of law, fact has a really hard time deciding? But this is just as possible with really bad as really good representation.
What is the goal of this lawyer? What incentives are there to uncover all the facts, law?
Lawyer could (and probably should) still act zealously, but what about loyalty and confidentiality? Loyalty to whom?
What are the values of this society?
One positive aspect is that, if there are sufficient incentives to unearth all the relevant info, the lawyer would be an expert in the case.
How do they assure that lawyers won't be swayed by own opinions, interests toward one side or another?
Another positive aspect is that a single case could have several sides, instead of the X v. Y model and multiple trials.
Is there any way to retain the "adversial description" of this system? Intuitively, I'd say no.
What would make people in general agree to this model?
What would this model say about society?
This puts lawyer (need another word?) in a despotic position; who can restrain lawyer in investigations?