"Come explore your dreams' creation; enter this world of imagination..."

I recently read an essay that outlined 70 mistakes you should avoid when writing a fantasy story. It was in the form of a test that, if answered properly, would tell you whether or not you should admit your novel is a rip off of Lord of the Rings and, therefore, abandon it. There are some interesting questions in it, too, along with some funny ones. Most were designed to tell whether you are writing a bunch of cliches patched together with cardboard characters, but I think you could get away with some 'mistakes' outlined in it and still come up with a convincing story.

And so, in a sense, Esmiralda was born.

She came to me grudgingly but insistently, first as a version of a male character I had conjured earlier, and later, as her concept came together, as a means of stringing together many different stories in different parts of the same world. My main gripe with most fantasy fiction is that it always seems to require at least three books that take you six years to get through to find out the end of the story. I always thought there was a market for smaller, localized struggles. They don't have to entail the end of the world, but perhaps the end of the world--figuratively, anyway--for a character or two that people care about. These conflicts could take place in the same world, but different parts of it. Maybe they're connected, maybe not. The common link between them would be Esmiralda, or people like her, who are given the task of recording them so that they are not lost to the vagaries of history.

Esmiralda, or Mira, as she'll be known by those close to her, is the fantasy equivalent of today's newspaper stringer; a freelance historian in search of a story to tell, a hero to document, a legend to immortalize. That she happens on a guy named Seymuhr is her misfortune. Seymuhr is one of those fantasy rules you shouldn't break. He is based on an old Dungeons & Dragons character, but don't hold that against him. This is not necessarily his story--it is Mira's as much as anyone's--and I am not entirely sure where I want to go with it. At first, I thought I would try to break as many other rules as I could, but then I imagined Mira's frank gaze; her eyebrows raised, arms crossed, foot tapping and wondered if she was telling me to quit selling my talents short with silly stories about space cats, goofy warriors and the like. So I wouldn't pay too much attention to the title (The Unlikely Hero) or the tagline ('The odd times and tragic end of Seymuhr Skullsquasher'). Those'll probably change.

Speaking of change, this concept is a bit of one for me, too. Usually I'll have a plot idea, or maybe even just an opening line, and I'll come up with a name and plug someone into it. I have none of that here; only a beginning sense of who Mira is and what drives her, and not much else. I will have to figure out who everyone is, where it all happens, and how to connect all the dots. I will practice things like dialogue, humor, action, suspense and description along the way. 

The picture (above) is of an attempt to keep things straight. It shows a as-yet-unnamed world where all of this takes place. Gradually, it'll be filled in and you may recognize some words and names of places--or variations of them. The map is pretty blank now. At the top right corner you'll see a mountain range, tentatively named The Spine, that borders a place called Azrok, where Seymuhr hails from. It's accessible only by a pass called Azrok's Heel. It is a brutal place. Azrok is named after the stern northern God whose name came to mind while walking 'Action Jack-son' recently, and seeing the way Jupiter and Venus have been prominent in the night sky: the fierce Eyes of Azrok, looking down on the land. I even composed a Warrior's Poem about them, which will make an appearance in the blog.

In the far left, you'll see a town tentatively named Dervish, where my current novel The Prankster's Reward takes place. There's a space next to that for a new panel because that'll eventually be filled, too. Dervish, by the way, is short for something, but I started the novel so long ago that I have forgotten what it was. A shortened version of a phrase that translated as either 'Wall of Wind' or 'Wall Against the Wind,' depending on your inflection.

In the meantime, feel free to check out, follow, share and comment on Mira's adventures. I hope it'll make for an interesting tale, a pleasant diversion. I look forward to your feedback.