Chapter 1 is Done

Wow it feels good to say that. This current story I have been working on has been brewing in my head for close to 4 years. Really I almost feel like it takes exactly that long to flesh out a story. For me the way that I write is that I come up with a few random scenes that play out in my head then form a story around those scenes. In a sense I am constantly making movies in my head. My brain acts as the director, set designer, special effects supervisor, producer, casting agent, etc.

So there is no hiding the fact that I have not really felt inspired to write in several years. That does not mean I stopped working on any of my stories, if anything I have been consistently refining them in my head. It just means that I have not transferred the mental storage to actual words. Writing what I feel is quality work takes quite a bit of effort and that is hard to accomplish with constant distractions.

Around four years ago I had decided I wanted to make a foray into writing fantasy. The truth is I have a very strong passion for history and one of my favorite historical eras is the late middle ages specifically the time ranging from the Hundred Years Wars to the War of the Roses. It is such a fascinating time period when chivalry saw both its height and downfall. I must have read over hundred books just on this period of time.

While it is quite tempting for me to just write a historical fiction book I find that even with a wealth of knowledge I would inevitable get certain elements of history wrong. To a trained eye deviations from history would simply kill any sense of disbelief they had while reading the story. Rather than have to worry about every minute detail I wanted to focus instead on telling an exciting story that is both serious and humorous.

Fantasy I felt was the best outlet for doing this. A large amount of fantasy is based loosely around the middle ages. This provides the perfect setting for indulging in my love for history while still having the free reins to write a good story. While some people dismiss fantasy as wizards and unicorns and kids stuff, is not all European Mythology in a sense fantasy stories? How can one love their culture and heritage and not embrace the mythology of their culture.

By writing fantasy it allows me in a sense to almost write a new mythology. I would never be presumptuous enough to place my stories in with the great stories of our ancestors but I do hope that I can one day be published and breath some new life into the genre. Of course to do this I have to take it in a direction that is not simply a carbon copy of Lord of the Rings which is pretty much the definitive standard of modern fantasy.

I have a deep love for all things Tolkien. He put in so much love and passion into the entire setting of Lord of the Rings that I have the utmost respect for him. In a sense before I even read any of his work I had been doing the same. When I write about a fictional setting I create an entire world in my head. Different lands and people, their cultures and customs and their histories going back sometimes thousands of years. I detail military and economic conflicts throughout their histories. Probably 95% or more of this material will never make it into my stories but I have a personal need to know everything about the people I am writing about.

That is one reason why I find it so difficult to write. I have to sit back and actually buy into the bullshit I am typing out. Balimor, Squire to the Great Knight Sir John the Stout isn't just anyone to me. In fact Sir John is not just anyone. I know who Sir John's father was, and his father, and so on. I know their family estate holdings, what Sir John gave up to become a member of the Order of the Great Knights. Of course in my story Sir John is briefly mentioned a few times. That does not matter to me I have to know everything about him.

About 1 year ago I typed up the first page of the first chapter of the book. At that point I became completely stumped as to how to proceed. I made it to the point that Balimor was to meet a mysterious woman who played into the remainder of the story. I must have fleshed out so many different ways of them meeting in my head that simply did not work. I tried to apply so many personalities and character traits to the woman but everything came up short.

It got so bad that at one point I considered her having a foursome with a dwarf included. What the fuck right? Writers block tends to make me think of some really bad fucking ideas. Thank god I scraped that idea fast. Another bad idea was making her character a mute. I mean I wanted her to be mysterious but a mute? So basically she started to not factor into the story at all even though in a sense she was the focal point. More so the conflict Balimor finds himself in, in regards to her. I am not going to spoil anything, but sometimes things can become so complicated you can become hopelessly lost inwardly.

So as I wrote in past blogs I finally found someone whose personality and demeanor completely fit the character I wanted her to be. And like that, the character came alive and the first chapter is done. It is like a big weight off my shoulders personally. I generally find the hardest parts to write the first couple of chapters. If I cannot draw a reader in on those first couple of chapters than I have lost them. Now I have something down and I am remotely happy with it I will continue to blast out the pages until I am done.