Introduction
I’ve got a new project I’m working on! If you’ve read some of my previous posts, you’ll know what it is. If you don’t, go read those posts. For those of you that don’t want to do either, I’ll say it now. I’m writing a fantasy novel! I love fantasy as a genre, and novels sell better than short stories. Title is pending for the moment, and I’ve not got to the end of draft 1 yet, but who cares! New project, get excited!
Synopsis
The story concerns an executioner, Jurg, now home after a four-year-long civil war (between a north that wanted to abolish slavery and necromancy, and a south that very much wanted to keep those institutions) and reflecting on his place in life. Namely, nobody likes him, because he chops people’s heads off for a living. Save for his wife, Eira, of course. She was more of a hunter-gatherer type but he convinced her to open an inn. Definitely the funnier of the two.
Doesn’t matter that he was knighted in the war, that a god chose him to serve, because there’s another knight in town too. Doesn’t matter that he saves the town from one problem or another. Other, equally capapble people are around. Still, got his wife, got a good house, and his traitor brother’s dead (because Jurg executed him).
The real meat of the story is in seeing this slice of the setting and how things are going. Of course, that’s boring, so I also put in some cool fights and magic. Something that was sorely missing from my last novel. Sadly, no thin paper doors to smash through or hoards of ninjas to carve into salsa. No, this setting, or this country in the setting, is more Germanic. A republic too. It’s a nice break from the usual feudal systems you see in fantasy. Aragorn would be a senator rather than king, and he’d be elected rather than crowned for his genes.
Ignore the fact that a king from another country is in the lore. Shhh.
(Creative) Choices Were Definitely Made
One thing I want to point out are the creative choices I made with the project. I actively want to avoid doing what I did with my last project. No wandering duo on an adventure (for most of the book). It’s about a couple, but they know and like one another. They’re married, after all. And while the protagonist is stoic, it’s more of a joke. The other joke of the character being that he won’t betray or even think of a woman that isn’t his wife. I may or may not have been inspired by a joke about Odysseus. Credit to whoever posted this comment:
Writing romance isn’t something I’ve had a lot of practice in, but I can get the hang of it. This is what drafting is for! The most I did in A Collection of Wanderers was have one character fantasise about living with another woman happily.
But, if I have a hero, I need a villain. Well, don’t need, but it’s fun! Batman needs his Joker. In this case, the villain of the piece is an old wartime enemy of Jurg’s. Nobody knows who he is, especially not the reader. He’s just called the Grim Knight. What makes him so evil? Well, the skinning people probably have something to do with that. His one friend is a medic from the army. She enjoys his company because the rest of their force were wiped out. I’ll admit that the south in this story aren’t exactly morally grey. Or they shouldn’t be.
Slavery=bad. I won’t let people argue otherwise. If Absolute Batman can be blunt like this, so can I.
Love this series. Highly recommend it. the point of this issue was that Batman realises he needs to tone it down and be less brutal.
The point of GK is to be an entertaining, cold, dry villain. The same way the Night Lords in Warhammer 40,000 are entertaining. Some with a shred of nobility or principles, most without. The fantasy genre means I can add spooky necromancy to the mix and enhance how despicable the villains are.
Also, another point that some people don’t get. A villain can be fun to watch, can even by sympathetic in places. But that doesn’t make them right. Or that you have to give their argument a platform or hear them out. These people still enslave others and wear skin cloaks to terrify their enemies.
Moving away from the people, there’s the world itself. Methodius. I won’t tell you all the little bits of history. Instead, I’ll leave you with what I did to make the setting its own. Hope in the face of grimness. There’s grim fantasy, there’s grimdark, but this is taking the cool stuff from those and saying no, to hell with misery. Things can get better. Because, and I think I said this in another post, I can get sick of grimness. We all can.
Signing off
I’ll end off by saying this. Thank you to all the people that have supported me, that helped come up with stuff for the setting (Faded and co., no real names because I don’t want to dox them). I can’t thank you enough. I look forward to sharing more of this fantasy epic when it’s closer to finished.
- Thanks for reading! If you like this, please check out my published work:
- The Spider and the Moths, on Impspired.
- A Model Dwarf, Wolf in Sheep’s Therapy, on Impspired.
- Cramped Quarters, on New Contexts 4.
- Endure, Reclaim, in New Contexts 5.
- Lost and Found, in New Contexts 7.
- The Cleaner’s Burden, in Apocalypse Now?.
- The Last Man Standing on the Ash Heap, on Impspired.
- Fragile, in New Contexts 8.
- Or, you could have a look at my last blog post, which you can find here.
- Also, I have a Fiverr page, check it out if you need proofreading or copywriting work done. Link here.