Yes, yes, I forgot to post on Saturday - I was in Durham, dodging rainstorms and poking my nose into their university. Forgive me, readers. I am a bad, bad blogger.
Life is beginning to get a little mad right now - it's the last week of school, and I have my final five-day Duke of Edinburgh trek coming up the week after. Then it's a "holiday" full of Personal Statement writing (which is already pushing me dangerously close to the border of Loonie Land), writing my Extended Essay (which I am looking forward to with an almost worryingly nerdy glee), cramming the school reading list onto my bookshelf and Kindle, and moving house (more on that at another time).
However, today, the lovely girls over at Further Up and Further In have made time in their own massively busy lives to bring us June's edition of Beautiful People. However, this time around, it's a little bit different to usual. This time, we get to choose the questions for ourselves.
So, being the cherry-picker that I am, I have pilfered their archives and put together ten questions from the mix to amuse you all. Feel free to nick them for yourselves if you fancy!
My victim this month would have been our old friend Rin, but as I have horribly neglected his story for several months now, he's sulking in the corner and throwing pointy objects at me every time I try to get near him. Coupled with yet another plot overhaul, that has upset just about everything in the story, he's in no mood to play the game.
Thankfully, I have my plot for NaNoWriMo coming together already and thus, this week, I will present to you one of its central characters.
The place: the gigantic, sprawling and exceedingly smelly city of Scatterank.
The timeframe: if Victorian England crashed into the Late Mediaeval period, and then spots of Sci-Fi leaked in from the upper floor and left splodgy bits all over the place, you might get an idea of the place.
The character: our first-person narrator, Deladier Vandaleur. Socially awkward country boy of nineteen, intellect the size of a small country, but a pretty disastrous cook if ever there was one.
Let's begin, shall we?
1. Does your character have a methodical or disorganised personality?
Deladier is a weird mix of the two. Excluding his glasses, he knows exactly where everything is, how it works, and what he has to do with it at any given time. Things may be in odd places (on top of dressers, under beds, stashed in windowsills etc) but they will always be organised and laid out in a sensible, logical fashion.
2. Favourite writing utensil?
He'll use almost anything, but he's got a particular fondness for fountain pens. One of his mini projects (he has many) is an attempt to build an ink pen that won't coat him in ink. Success thus far has met mostly with over-pressurised ink slots, faulty pen nibs and several small explosions.
3. Where he s/he from?
Deladier was born on a large country-house sort of estate in Pleasancegreen, a small shire populated by ridiculously wealthy aristocratic families. It's about three days out of Scatterank, which is the closest major city. The country as a whole consists of a series of large city-states and their outlying hangers-on situated around the Traders' Sea, a gargantuan natural "bay" that leads out to the open sea and the other countries beyond.
4. Does s/he play a musical instrument? If so, what?
His mother forced him to start playing the violin when he was about five . . . unfortunately, playing music is one of the few things in life that Deladier would sooner avoid. He's hopeless. He loves listening to it, but he can't play it to save his life.
5. How do they feel about people in general?
One word: people-phobe. As much as Deladier likes the idea of social interaction and friendship, he's very shy of people, as he really has no idea how to make conversation. A closeted upbringing with a scary-as-heck father and a smothering, overbearing mother will do that to you.
6. What are they most thankful for?
Books. They're just about the only thing that keeps him sane. He practically lived in his father's library for most of his young life.
Later on in the story, though, there are some very special (if slightly bizarre) people who enter his life, trash it, and leave him standing in the wreckage wondering how on earth he could ever have been who he was before. Whether he's thankful for that, however, remains a mystery to me for now.
7. What's their worst childhood memory?
The day his grandfather died. While the rest of his family were intent on pushing him into a world he has no desire to enter, his grandfather was the only one to consider him as a person in his own right. He was the one who first introduced Deladier to the delights of reading.
8. What is their biggest accomplishment?
Aside from having read every major book by Yostol (a very prolific, very literary and slightly grammatically-challenged author in their world), it would probably be the fact that he's well on the way to being one of the world's top academics. Or he would be, if only he would get around to publishing the essays he writes in his spare time.
9. Is s/he naturally curious?
Very. Despite his social awkwardness, Deladier will jump head first into any opportunity to learn something new, in any area. If he ever plucked up the courage to invite a guest around, he would pepper them with questions about absolutely anything and everything.
10. What does his/her handwriting look like?
For someone like him, it's surprisingly neat - an italicised Times New Roman is probably the best comparison I can think of. He's not into decorative lettering or elaborate signatures - he just wants to get all his ideas down before the ink in his pen runs out, or ends up all over his arm.
And there you have it!
What about all of you? Have you got your NaNoWriMo plots set out? Plotting or pants-ing this year? Anything you're particularly looking forward to? Let me know in the comments!
~ Charley R
Showing posts with label backstory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label backstory. Show all posts
Tuesday, 3 July 2012
Tuesday, 8 May 2012
Swordlore
The sword - the staple weapon of most self-respecting characters who roam the realm of High Fantasy. They're fascinating things - even those that don't flash colours in face of danger, cleave through the flesh of icy-eyed killer wights, or have properties that ward off the dreaded Lesser Spotted Pygmy Possum. Carrying a sword in a fantasy environment pretty much makes your character cooler by about 20% right from the off - irregardless of whether they actually know what they're doing with the thing!
Perhaps as a result of this, I've always been rather fascinated by swords - though if you handed me one, and I was by some miracle able to lift it off the ground, I would most likely kill or maim myself before I got a blow on anyone standing within a ten feet radius of me. I used to be able to delude myself that, if I practiced or joined up a fencing club or some sort of mediaeval weapons enthusiast society, I might be able to use one ... until a particularly entertaining escapade in an interactive weapons demo made a complete fool of me, and I realised I'd best stick to pointy sticks and pus-popping insults.
But, of course, just because I can't use a sword doesn't mean my characters can't! As most of my work are high fantasy, I have plenty of sword-wielders roaming around. Even my Science Fiction 2009 NaNoWriMo novel involved a much-abused katana and a pair of throwing knives.
However, my general lack of knowledge regarding swords left me with some terribly large plot holes in lieu of the (in)famous Aeserion trilogy. However many people he's run through with it, I'm pretty sure Rin's sword wouldn't "shatter like glass" when hit with a mace. Sneaking suspicions regarding his ability to throw it so that it miraculously speared an enemy through the face are also beginning to creep in here and there...
So, because of this, I started doing that which every writer's worst nightmares are haunted by, alongside the giant spiders and Furbies. Research.
Inevitably, I was soon distracted by an excuse to do my favourite thing. Worldbuilding.
Making a sword, as I discovered, is a long, hot, exhausting process for the blacksmith and his helpers, and one small mistake can render the whole thing useless. While reading about the use of bellows, hot coals and regular dousings in freezing cold water, I began to wonder how attached a man would get to a sword he could spend days creating? I can imagine it would be a bit of a wrench letting go of something that became pretty much a part of your arm, knowing full well that the idiot who wandered off with it would probably break it, lose it or have it stolen and come back to you for another one within the week.
Then, by some marvellous act of cosmic serendipity, I came across the Viking practice of naming swords, and passing them down as treasured heirlooms and sources of pride for generations (provided the thing didn't get too old and become too useless to be much more than a decoration over the hearth, next to the polar bear head that your Uncle Ulfbjorn brought home after getting lost after that one drunken Christmas party).
And thus, the idea of Swordlore was born. Here follows an extract from Lord Bayard's Ways of Lore, found in the Great Library of Tearcallon:
Before the first Lady's Missionaries appeared on Errion's shores, the Old Way dictated that any man who seeks to truly call a sword his own must have a hand in its crafting. That role depends on his ability - if he is strong, let him wield the hammer; if he has a good eye, let him dictate the time to pull the blade from the fire; if he is determined, let him be the one who pumps the bellows to keep the fire burning. With a little of his own blood added to the steel in its molten form, he must endure alongside the blacksmith, night and day, to bring his blade into being. And then, when all is done, before he can truly call the weapon his own, he must bestow the final mark of ownership: a name.
Inevitably, as the new faith arrived and Errion began to mix and trade with its neighbours to the south, the Old Way began to fade away until, at the time of the Aeserion trilogy, little of it remains in its original form. Swordlore, though, is part of that "little".
However, it wasn't attachment to the old faith that drove Rin Takarsson, otherwise known as Swiftblade, the famed northern mercenary, to go through the ancient rites when he made his own sword. It wasn't even his occasionally swollen pride.
Nope. He made his own sword so that no one could laugh at it.
You see, Rin's sword isn't like many others. The favoured blade of Errion is the strong, sturdy broadsword - it's been that way for as long as anyone can remember. Occasionally you'll find a looted Skerabian sabre or some strange hybrid sword from immigrant blacksmiths out of the south, but for the most part Errion sticks to its roots. The broadsword is a nasty thing - some weighing up to nearly 40 kilos and requiring massive amounts of strength to swing, relying on the force of the wielder to smash the enemy's skull in, or drive its pointed end through some vulnerable orifice.
And Rin's too much of a weed to lift one. He can't help it - he's tall and skinny by default, and not even his wicked speed can make up for his lack of beef. Like me, he denied that he was entirely useless, until a similar sort of public humiliation convinced him he needed to try another tack.
Rather than following me and sticking to withering words, Rin decided that if he wouldn't fit the sword, he'd fit the sword to him. And thus Whisper came, hissing and spitting, from the blacksmith's forge.
Whisper is longer and thinner than your average blade, made using a technique I unashamedly pinched from the Japanese katana makers - folding the metal over on itself to make it light, but hard. With a little adaption and some suspense-of-belief that comes with fantasy, the resulting sword allows for its wielder to use his speed to his advantage, before darting in at the last second to either slice the foe's head off with the sharp edges or drive the point up his nose. Cleaving in skulls is somewhat beyond his repertoire, but anyone who taunts him for it will soon find Whisper's point worryingly close to their own nasal cavities. That usually puts them off very quickly.
Even Errion's neighbour and arch-nemesis-for-a-reason-that-no-one-really-remembers, the wild nation of Skatha, has its own take on Swordlore. To the south, Errion's many trading and diplomatic partners hold their own views on the use and creation of swords. Even the desert nation of Skerabia hold some respect for them, though bows, spears, poisons and even the occasional vegetable are their preferred weapons of choice. But, strangely, only Errion and Skatha hold to the importance of naming the swords.
Swords in Errion have all manner of strange names. Part of Swordlore is that the weapon's name should tell the observer something about the nature of the blade and, by extension, something about the owner. Whisper was named for its size, its speed, and ability to scare the heebies out of people unexpectedly - much like Rin, if you catch him in one of his moods. A pair of brothers in his company have given their two swords the collective name of the Wicked Sisters (though the names of the actual swords are somewhat less exciting). A man who is known to the gang as Awkward called his Blunder, because he liked the match, and the blade itself is somewhat less than attractive due to a small mishap in the forging process. Even Rin's unpleasant little dagger, which was made using the leftover steel from Whisper, has become known semi-affectionately as Hiss.
And does anyone remember Florien? Well, believe it or not, Mr Run-and-Hide does have a sword - and he knows (vaguely) how to use it! As he didn't actually make the blade, though, he has no real right to name it, but Rin and his company - witty and wonderful as they are - decided to use it as a means to poking fun at their favourite tagalong and have saddled it with the name Hearthwarmer. I'll leave you lovely people to work out the logic behind that one.
What about you, dear readers? Has boring research ever lead you down tangents that would later become rather crucial parts of the story? Is there any particularly fun piece of lore from your own settings and stories you would like to share?
- Charley R
Perhaps as a result of this, I've always been rather fascinated by swords - though if you handed me one, and I was by some miracle able to lift it off the ground, I would most likely kill or maim myself before I got a blow on anyone standing within a ten feet radius of me. I used to be able to delude myself that, if I practiced or joined up a fencing club or some sort of mediaeval weapons enthusiast society, I might be able to use one ... until a particularly entertaining escapade in an interactive weapons demo made a complete fool of me, and I realised I'd best stick to pointy sticks and pus-popping insults.
But, of course, just because I can't use a sword doesn't mean my characters can't! As most of my work are high fantasy, I have plenty of sword-wielders roaming around. Even my Science Fiction 2009 NaNoWriMo novel involved a much-abused katana and a pair of throwing knives.
However, my general lack of knowledge regarding swords left me with some terribly large plot holes in lieu of the (in)famous Aeserion trilogy. However many people he's run through with it, I'm pretty sure Rin's sword wouldn't "shatter like glass" when hit with a mace. Sneaking suspicions regarding his ability to throw it so that it miraculously speared an enemy through the face are also beginning to creep in here and there...
So, because of this, I started doing that which every writer's worst nightmares are haunted by, alongside the giant spiders and Furbies. Research.
Inevitably, I was soon distracted by an excuse to do my favourite thing. Worldbuilding.
Making a sword, as I discovered, is a long, hot, exhausting process for the blacksmith and his helpers, and one small mistake can render the whole thing useless. While reading about the use of bellows, hot coals and regular dousings in freezing cold water, I began to wonder how attached a man would get to a sword he could spend days creating? I can imagine it would be a bit of a wrench letting go of something that became pretty much a part of your arm, knowing full well that the idiot who wandered off with it would probably break it, lose it or have it stolen and come back to you for another one within the week.
Then, by some marvellous act of cosmic serendipity, I came across the Viking practice of naming swords, and passing them down as treasured heirlooms and sources of pride for generations (provided the thing didn't get too old and become too useless to be much more than a decoration over the hearth, next to the polar bear head that your Uncle Ulfbjorn brought home after getting lost after that one drunken Christmas party).
And thus, the idea of Swordlore was born. Here follows an extract from Lord Bayard's Ways of Lore, found in the Great Library of Tearcallon:
Before the first Lady's Missionaries appeared on Errion's shores, the Old Way dictated that any man who seeks to truly call a sword his own must have a hand in its crafting. That role depends on his ability - if he is strong, let him wield the hammer; if he has a good eye, let him dictate the time to pull the blade from the fire; if he is determined, let him be the one who pumps the bellows to keep the fire burning. With a little of his own blood added to the steel in its molten form, he must endure alongside the blacksmith, night and day, to bring his blade into being. And then, when all is done, before he can truly call the weapon his own, he must bestow the final mark of ownership: a name.
Inevitably, as the new faith arrived and Errion began to mix and trade with its neighbours to the south, the Old Way began to fade away until, at the time of the Aeserion trilogy, little of it remains in its original form. Swordlore, though, is part of that "little".
However, it wasn't attachment to the old faith that drove Rin Takarsson, otherwise known as Swiftblade, the famed northern mercenary, to go through the ancient rites when he made his own sword. It wasn't even his occasionally swollen pride.
Nope. He made his own sword so that no one could laugh at it.
You see, Rin's sword isn't like many others. The favoured blade of Errion is the strong, sturdy broadsword - it's been that way for as long as anyone can remember. Occasionally you'll find a looted Skerabian sabre or some strange hybrid sword from immigrant blacksmiths out of the south, but for the most part Errion sticks to its roots. The broadsword is a nasty thing - some weighing up to nearly 40 kilos and requiring massive amounts of strength to swing, relying on the force of the wielder to smash the enemy's skull in, or drive its pointed end through some vulnerable orifice.
And Rin's too much of a weed to lift one. He can't help it - he's tall and skinny by default, and not even his wicked speed can make up for his lack of beef. Like me, he denied that he was entirely useless, until a similar sort of public humiliation convinced him he needed to try another tack.
Rather than following me and sticking to withering words, Rin decided that if he wouldn't fit the sword, he'd fit the sword to him. And thus Whisper came, hissing and spitting, from the blacksmith's forge.
Whisper is longer and thinner than your average blade, made using a technique I unashamedly pinched from the Japanese katana makers - folding the metal over on itself to make it light, but hard. With a little adaption and some suspense-of-belief that comes with fantasy, the resulting sword allows for its wielder to use his speed to his advantage, before darting in at the last second to either slice the foe's head off with the sharp edges or drive the point up his nose. Cleaving in skulls is somewhat beyond his repertoire, but anyone who taunts him for it will soon find Whisper's point worryingly close to their own nasal cavities. That usually puts them off very quickly.
Even Errion's neighbour and arch-nemesis-for-a-reason-that-no-one-really-remembers, the wild nation of Skatha, has its own take on Swordlore. To the south, Errion's many trading and diplomatic partners hold their own views on the use and creation of swords. Even the desert nation of Skerabia hold some respect for them, though bows, spears, poisons and even the occasional vegetable are their preferred weapons of choice. But, strangely, only Errion and Skatha hold to the importance of naming the swords.
Swords in Errion have all manner of strange names. Part of Swordlore is that the weapon's name should tell the observer something about the nature of the blade and, by extension, something about the owner. Whisper was named for its size, its speed, and ability to scare the heebies out of people unexpectedly - much like Rin, if you catch him in one of his moods. A pair of brothers in his company have given their two swords the collective name of the Wicked Sisters (though the names of the actual swords are somewhat less exciting). A man who is known to the gang as Awkward called his Blunder, because he liked the match, and the blade itself is somewhat less than attractive due to a small mishap in the forging process. Even Rin's unpleasant little dagger, which was made using the leftover steel from Whisper, has become known semi-affectionately as Hiss.
And does anyone remember Florien? Well, believe it or not, Mr Run-and-Hide does have a sword - and he knows (vaguely) how to use it! As he didn't actually make the blade, though, he has no real right to name it, but Rin and his company - witty and wonderful as they are - decided to use it as a means to poking fun at their favourite tagalong and have saddled it with the name Hearthwarmer. I'll leave you lovely people to work out the logic behind that one.
What about you, dear readers? Has boring research ever lead you down tangents that would later become rather crucial parts of the story? Is there any particularly fun piece of lore from your own settings and stories you would like to share?
- Charley R
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)