Warrior, Wizard Rough Draft Preview

Hey, everyone!  Like I said, I’d be posting the rough draft of the opening scene of “Warrior, Wizard” when I finished it.  Keep in mind that this is still the rough draft of the scene, may end up only being part of the full scene, and probably has a lot of work that needs to be done yet.  This is solely for preview purposes.

So with no further ado, I present:

Warrior, Wizard

One kill.

That's all it was. One more dead body. One more outlander defeated. One out of dozens.

But that one kill was enough to make Jaren Manse sit down. To actually stop and think. Not to contemplate who the man was or where he came from or why he had come. No, he had stopped asking those questions hundreds of deaths ago. This man was important because he was not his kill, but Alera's. Jaren had held nothing back on this mission, but for the first time ever, Alera Quill had outperformed him.

Forty-seven. Forty-seven to his forty-six. It was one kill. Just one kill, Jaren told himself. It didn't matter. And besides, this is what he had wanted. The two of them stood on equal ground now. Alera could keep up with him.

He just hadn't expected to be so shaken by it.

He sat on a log on the beach and watched his partner lobbing fireballs at the outlanders' ships in the fog covering Lesaria's shores. Few discovered the land. Even fewer returned to tell the tale. It was, in large part, thanks to the League, a collection of guilds and adventurers acting as everything from mercenaries to postal service to military. All able-bodied peoples were welcome, and there were plenty of well-paying jobs, but there were few who truly gained glory and notoriety. Jaren realized that he and Alera now stood a very good chance of becoming a part of those few.

As the ships started to catch, Alera walked over and sat on the sand beside him. She was a pale-skinned lithe girl that Jaren thought of as short, though that was admittedly because most people were short relative to him. She exhaled deeply and brushed her long black hair out of her face. “That was a good day,” she said, looking up at him. The bleak mist really drew the color out of her violet-grey eyes. Jaren just nodded in response. “The mission went well, don't you think?” she prompted.

He nodded again. “Yeah,” he said distantly. “Yeah.” He managed to find himself again and turned to his partner. “You outperformed me today, you know. Good job.”

“What? Is that why you—you meathead!” She punched his shoulder, though he barely even felt it under his armor. “That's what's got you like this?” She gave a small chuckle and shook her head. “So how badly did I beat you?”

“Just one,” he said.

“One? Just one?” She laughed. “That's what has you like this? Please, Jaren, that's more of a tie than anything. Luck of the draw. Besides, we're being ranked together. It's not like the count even matters.”

He removed his helmet and let the cool ocean breeze dry the sweat against his face. “...Yeah. It's just...weird.” He looked over at her and saw that she was staring out at the burning ship, a distant look in her eyes as well.

“Yeah,” she echoed. “Weird. I'm as strong as you are now.”

“Yeah, it only took you eighteen years, too.”

She flicked a small ball of flame at him with a grin. “Oh shut up, Manse. Still,” she added as he swatted at the flame, “I'm really glad you stuck with me all these years.”

“I'm glad too. You know, I think we stand a chance of making the lists this year.”

“What, us? There's only two of us.”

“And Ezeo Nohr was only one man, but look at what he accomplished.”

Alera laughed and stood, taking Jaren's hand and pulling him to his feet. “Ah, yes, Master Ezeo. Remind me again, is he on par with the gods, or greater than them?”

He gave her a playful shove. “Shut up! He's an impressive man, you runt.”

“This runt beat you today, meathead.”

“Yeah, well, enjoy it while you can. You know that there's no way I'm letting that happen again.”

“As if!” She grinned. “I've tasted victory now. I won't let it slip past me so easily anymore.”

They joked and talked like that on their way back to the League. The organization had started as just a single, simple guild hall, but had grown larger as dormitories were added for adventurers. Additions to the hall were needed to accommodate the League's growth. Blacksmiths and enchanters flocked in to sell their wares. The League expanded as its fame and popularity increased. In the three years that Jaren and Alera had been members, it had finally overtaken the city. What had once been known as Amnestia City was now simply the League. Many of the same shops remained, but vendors knew their sales base consisted of two groups: adventurers and tourists.

“So the Winter's Requiem have invited us and Deadeye out tonight,” Jaren said as they entered the city gates. “Celebrating the outlander defeat today.”

“Really? Is Ashna coming this time?”

Jaren thought. The reptilos man wasn't exactly shy, but.... “I'm not sure. I wouldn't expect him. He's not fond of being around so many humans.”

Alera rolled her eyes. “Why doesn't he just invite some more repitolos? Does he not get any say? Anyway, I assume you're planning on going?”

“Of course. They're footing the bill. I'm not going to pass on a free meal.”

“And Deadeye will be there.”

He hesitated. “Okay, yes, and Deadeye will be there, but come on, Alera. Free food. You're going, aren't you?”

“Of course,” she said, doing her best imitation of his voice. “They're footing the bill. I'm not going to pass on a free meal.”

“Hey, Quill, remind me again why I didn't dump you with the first guild I could to go solo?”

“Because you know I'd make you look bad in the lists.”

He shook his head. “Don't get cocky, yet, Quill.”

“Don't get cocky yourself, Jaren. We did good today, but we've got a long way to go before we make the lists. Think we can do it within the year?”

He put on a great show of thinking hard about it before answering in his best imitation of her. “What do you think, meathead?” It was, admittedly, not a very good imitation. Water splashed out of a nearby trough as they passed to splash him as the mage took her revenge.

“Come on, Jaren,” she told him. “Let's pick up the pace. We've got dinner to catch, and I'm famished.”

He grinned. “Agreed. C'mon, I bet we can rack the bill up enough to make Drolm actually faint this time!”

***

Well, that’s how the story opens.  There’s a lot I’d like to change yet.  The whole scene feels a bit too dialogue-heavy, several of the names of things may change (though the names of the protagonists and Meela “Deadeye” Ran, Ashna Szil, and Arten Drolm will probably remain mostly the same), and I can probably write it much better once I’ve got the full story laid out in front of me instead of just half of it.

Thoughts, though?  How did you like it?  Any suggestions that I’ll want to keep in mind when rewriting?  Let me know!

Warrior, Wizard Status Update #3: Worldbuilding

It’s that time of the year again: holiday season.  The time of the year that pretty much guarantees that I’m too busy or too distracted to write.  However, while I haven’t been able to sit down and actually write on Warrior, Wizard, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been working on it—or at least on the larger universe surrounding it.

Yes, I’ve been doing worldbuilding.  Here’s a bit of what I’ve got so far.

I’m focusing primarily on the human customs at the moment.  I’ll be delving into the reptilos, ogre, and gnome cultures more in the future (also possibly renaming the races as all those names are just working descriptions), but they don’t show up in Warrior, Wizard very prominently since our two primary characters are male.

The place I decided to start with my society was by bucking some standard fantasy conventions.  Fantasy is so frequently a genre that elevates the “fair” above all else.  Going by the four most standard fantasy races, the elves are prettiest and therefore the best, the humans are below the elves but run pretty much everything else, the dwarves are demoted to comic relief and get no respect, and the ugly orc knockoffs are savage beasts unfit for more than being canon fodder.

I really wanted to avoid that and did so by taking a different direction with beauty and race.  There are four main skin tones among humans.  I can’t exactly describe the tones since I’m not really an expert on skin tones (I live in a very homogenized location), but going with the Fitzpatrick Scale as my indicator of skin tone, the tones would probably be about 2, 3.5, 4.5, and 6, with the two middle tones being the most common and the lightest tone being the minority.  I want to give the world a more Mediterranean feel than the Medieval British Isles feel that most fantasy has.

I’ve also been thinking about “beauty” and what is and isn’t “attractive” in this world.  As we all know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  It’s relative, and different societies in the past have had different standards of beauty.  This society favors the strong, so I’m trying to reflect that into the standards of beauty.  Neither the portly nor skinny are particularly valued: instead it is the strong.  With the physical fighters this is obviously seen in muscle, but with mages, it’s more a manner of how they hold themselves—and the apparel they wear.  A mage can get by on being slender (though being particularly thin would generally indicate malnourishment) because they wear robes denoting their strength.

Two practices are also fairly common: tattooing and decorative scarring.  Both are generally regarded as fairly ritualistic and are almost always done to commemorate special accomplishments, so it’s not like everyone is walking around covered in tattoos and/or scars.  Also, naturally obtained scars are considered highly attractive and sharing “scar stories” is a very common icebreaking conversation.

Which brings us to gender in society.  I specifically wanted to avoid writing a patriarchy, but also didn’t want to write a matriarchy.  I think a large part of why patriarchies evolve is because men generally have more natural strength than women.  So the men would hunt and the women would take on a social role, and men have ruled the world while women rule the men from that point on.  However, magic throws a wrench into things.  With a skill based on study and intellect that trumps pure strength, men and women have been pretty much on equal standings.  This leads to a lot more women who are actually physical fighters.  No one’s telling them they can’t.  Skill’s not a gender issue, and with enchantment and enhancement, it’s not like physical strength is the final say in everything. 

It also led me to think about the family structure.  Since characters have both first and last names, who do they take their surname from?  What are surnames like after marriage?  I had several different paths I could have taken with this.  One was joint names like some couples do now.  Of course, this could potentially end up with someone taking both their parents names ad nauseum and after just a few generations you end up with a John Smith-Doe-Miller-Wayne-Anderson-Richards-Smith-Koerner.  Another option was for the males to take the father’s name and the females to take the mother’s name, like a family I know.  However, I didn’t really like that idea, and I had already given Alera and her father the same surname.  Those were the same issues with the child having a different surname from the parents altogether.  I finally decided, though, that a new surname was chosen upon marriage.  Sometimes one half of the couple would keep their name or a name would be chosen in reference to one of them.  After all, names and the standing they have can mean a lot.  For example, I imagine that there was a Manse Smith (the surname here isn’t particularly important), and his son and said son’s wife took “Manse” as their surname.  The name “Manse” was passed on for generations to Jaren Manse.  If Jaren gets married, he’d probably insist on keeping the name as well.

So yeah, those are some of the little pieces of the society that I’ve been focusing on.  And from the types of things they are, you might think it’s an attempt to be politically correct or “progressive” in my writing.  In reality, though…it’s not.  It’s really just my attempt to make a world different than ours, and different than standard fantasy.  Medieval Europe is far too stock, so I blended it with a bit of ancient Rome and Greece.  Elves and dwarves are commonplace, so I wrote them down on a list of things I wanted to do, crossed them off and marked them with a big “NO.”  Humans are generally limited to a single Caucasian race, so I made the lighter-skinned humans the minority.  Elves being held up as the standard of beauty just annoys me, so I went a different direction with it.  As for the role of gender?  That’s largely a holdover from early Fire Emblem inspirations that I wanted to keep.  In The Sacred Stones, I’d take Amelia over Gillam just as soon as I’d take Joshua over Marisa.  And besides, you’ve got magic in the equation.  When Lute (the biggest inspiration for Alera) is flinging fireballs around like nothing to take out enemies three times her size, it really makes you resent females in fantasy being reduced to the white magic girls. 

So I guess maybe there is a little gender equality behind that particular choice because turning all female fantasy characters into nuns is stupid.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been thinking on lately.  There have been a few other things, like some customary greetings (a kiss on the forehead between males), common forms of entertainment (theatre has grown very popular in the last few years), and the color of robes mages wear (a fairly simple system that will tell you what mage class and disciplines they are at a glance).  However, those are some of the more notable social things.  I hope you enjoyed reading about them, and I hope they excite you for that preview that I have coming!

Warrior, Wizard Status Update #2

Well, as you may have guessed, I was unable to finish WW this November.  It’s probably not even going to be finished this December.  However, I’m making more progress. 

I’ve finished all the “past” scenes, save for one that I might edit out completely (Alera’s Class I ceremony) because I’ve already written a similar scene (her Class III ceremony) and it may end up becoming fairly redundant.  At the moment, I’m in the process of writing the opening scene, which I’ll put on the blog as a preview when I finish with it.

Warrior, Wizard continues to be something of a struggle, but I think I’m finally getting into the flow of things.  Jaren and Alera’s characters are slowly starting to come together a bit more and I feel more comfortable writing them.  The writing still feels like a trainwreck, of course, but hopefully a rewrite will change that.  Who knows, maybe I’ll just alternate between writing the “forwards” scenes and rewriting the “backwards” scenes I’ve already written.

My plans now are less “try to get it published as a short story” and more “publish it as an e-book and see how that goes.”  While I would have loved to get it published by an actual publisher so that I could attach a name to it, I’m far more likely to find an audience on Kindle and Nook than to find anyone who’d publish this story (currently around 10,000 words).

While I haven’t had a lot of time to actually sit down and write or the ability to make much progress when I do, I have been working some on the world.  I’ve been trying to develop some characters from other guilds that we only get passing glances at, work on bits of the setting that are only implied, and develop races and other things that don’t feature prominently in the story.  I’d really like to revisit this world after I’m done with this story.  Maybe not write big, multi-volume stories in it like most writers.  Just write shorter stories, unconnected except for a few events that tie the world together.  Kind of like Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels, only shorter and not actually anything like Discworld.

Anyway, that’s the status on WW so far.  I’ll put up the opening scene when I finish it.  Look forward to it!