New Fiction Idea #12

Inspired by a painting, curiously enough.

Title: Family of Ibro (could be changed)

Genre: Fantasy

Protagonist: Gavin Ibro, a 16-year-old with the family's typical short, dark hair and green eyes. He can be quite impulsive but is very compassionate. He's very easily upset and not afraid to cry. He has a good build, though he wouldn't dare hit anyone.

Other Main Characters: Shara, Gavin's mother. She's sweet but strong and devoted entirely to the family's cause. She's rather gaunt and naturally has an accumulation of scars.
Angus, Gavin's 18-year-old brother. Though they have many siblings, Angus is the closest to Gavin and has the best sense of humour.

Antagonist: Clark Seeley, a military leader who seeks revenge against a political faction, and those who work for him.

Setting: Typical medieval fantasy. Magic-users are a fairly large minority, and each brand of magic is limited to one family, with foreign blood somewhat diluting the power. The Ibros (and they're always Ibros—if a man marries into the family, he must change his surname) have the ability to take upon themselves the sufferings, physical and emotional, of others, including madness and death. This ability is relatively automatic when sufferers are close, though for others farther away, each Ibro can establish a connection to one or many people and erase their suffering even after they have moved away. Over the generations, the Ibros have built familial philosophies and systems dedicating themselves to this work.

Plot: Clark wishes death on those who stunted his rise to power, but he cannot do any harm to them while the Ibros are in town. He drives most of the family away, but Gavin and most of his household, along with a few very dedicated cousins, remain. They try to set up connections with Clark's political rivals while avoiding detection, for at this point Clark has vowed to kill any lingering Ibros.

Point of View: Undecided. Likely one centred on Gavin, though.

I feel like this could turn out to be quite interesting. I certainly don't have time to write it at the moment, but I may try writing some random scenes and seeing how I like it (and posting them here, of course).

The Annals of World-Building I

As I mentioned in its standard writeup, I've been doing some extensive world-building in the world of Macbay Transportation Services. I figure I could use as much feedback on that as on any other part of the story, so why not do a little sharing?

The map of the mainland is one of the first world-building exercises I did. Apologies for my handwriting, and for the image size (I tried the "X-Large" setting here, but the words weren't legible).

I did some slight naming changes after scanning it onto the computer (Lavil to Havil and Helmland to Helmalann), but otherwise the original ideas haven't changed much. Lines represent major roads (usually alongside railways), though they're not all in great condition, as Macbay can attest. Rivers and lakes should be obvious; major bridges are double lines over expanses of water. The triple points are mountainous/very hilly areas, the sets of three lines are swampy areas, and the clustered circles are forest. Cities with blank circles are less populous. Mayport is the capital.

Macbay is from Avalanche City on Donnelon Island, Loretta May is from Jamber way up north on Rinheart, and Max is Mayport-born-and-bred. None of the mains represent Milsin Island, but it's not that important and is colloquially referred to as "Vet Island" since a whopping amount of war veterans settle down there.

There aren't many natural landmarks, but Wickport has a rather famous and ornate lighthouse open to tourism. Setchport has a clocktower, and Mayport has "Statue Park," a large field monument with various statues of leaders and warriors in a chronologically-ordered winding line of bronze statues.

Havil is the coal center of the mainland (though the "Coal Islands" or Lesser Colonies are that for the whole Empire). Central City is the tech city of the place, while most immigrants stay near Wickport. Fog (named that for a reason) has the nation's best university, although Mayport has its own uni and a good law school (which Max attended). Kinnick is a big producer of fish, though it's not that heavily populated.

Rinheart Island may have a lot more farmland, but Donnelon is the one associated with the country bumpkins. Near Central City and Mayport, those from Rinheart are generally considered snobs, while there's not a solid impression of those farther north or south. "Easterners" and "Westerners" are from the respective sides of Donnelon, while "Northerners" and "Southerners" are from Rinheart.

I don't have a good handle on distances, so I haven't provided a scale. As of now, the place is a bit larger than Japan, though that could change as the plot needs it (don't want Macbay to get to his destinations too awfully quick).

So that's the basic writeup for our mainland. Just wait until I post their world map...

These Dreams

I had a bizarre dream this morning, but I can't remember it for anything now. It would have been nice to have the time to write it down.

I've been considering starting a dream journal for a while. My dreams rarely fail to amuse me, but just like my story ideas—or, more extremely than my story ideas—they fade in and out of my mind. I've tried just rehearsing events that happened, but if I don't write them down—sometimes telling others doesn't even do it—it'll be gone by the end of Genetics class.

Dreams are good for a lot more than vague amusement, too. The idea for Chemists came from one of my dreams. The idea for Entrapped came from the dream of a friend of a friend. Even if loads of pons firing is total rubbish, there are some interesting little gems to be retrieved in all of it.

Would you be interested in reading some of my dreams on here? I still have a few fairly recent ones—and the legendary twin squirrels dream—I could put, though I can't guarantee I'll remember anything that comes up later, or have any sort of predictability as to whether I dream something interesting or not. Nor can I say any of it will be worth reading, but it could give one of us some inspiration, I think.

Any recommendations for dream journals? I still have a mostly-empty moleskine (apparently they're a big deal) that I used a bit in NaNoWriMo, and I had been considering using it. I'm probably not going to be able to type everything up here in time, so I'll have to write it down somehow.

Also, I name a lot of my blog posts after songs...

Life, the Author, and Everything

Life and I have a complicated relationship. Throw in writing, and we have quite a love-hate triangle, constantly battling over each other's hearts and, mostly, time.

How do you balance writing with life? I usually do well enough, but this year has been a brutal tug-of-war in life's favour. Several classes are to blame, though I'm most upset about chemistry (taking it for the third time, after scoring a 5 on the AP test and getting A's every other time—needless to say, it's a hugely frustrating way to tear through time without actually learning anything). I have to kick myself into NaNoWriMo mode to get out 500 words or so of Break Out after a weary day, and I can forget about seriously pursuing other stories at the same time.

Of course, writing is very much based off life, so I'll handle whatever happens knowing I can use it somehow. Perhaps not always quite so optimistically as I just made it sound, but nonetheless handle it.

Time is really the only good weapon life tends to use against me. Crushing stress about exams—I go to writing for freedom. Death of awesome uncle—I apologized to readers if the quality was bad and kept writing, anyway. But loads of chemistry lab work and research paper outlines—there go my hopes of writing (and escape) for the next few days.

Ah, well. I'm sure this happens to everyone.

New Manga Idea #4

When I was younger, I just knew I was going to be a mangaka. This was the first manga that I wrote, drew, and inked on my own. It made it to a chapter before I slowed my pace, and a few more pages before I could be considered to have stopped work on it.

I promised myself I wouldn't give up on this manga, so I feel a bit bad about never going back to it, but my drawing style is different, I no longer have the patience (in lieu of screen tones, I hand-dotted a lot of area on several pages), and I just don't feel like I'm ever really going to get into the idea again. Still, as a tribute to my younger self, I'll post the idea here.

Title: The Colony of Avlain

Genre: Shounen

Protagonist: Talia, a 16-year-old, slightly air-headed blonde with high ponytails and grey eyes. She has rather efficiently blocked memories of her earlier childhood—she was very much a test tube baby and subjected to all sorts of experiments to make her the ultimate Elemental Restraint-Opener. While she can't open any restraints, she's okay with it. She's been living on her own for a while but is still perky about it.

Other Main Characters: Jikuri, a 14-year-old girl with curly, black hair and green eyes. Her mother died giving birth, and while her father was very supportive, he became rather harsh and almost abusive when Jikuri failed to open her first restraint. She pushed herself extremely hard every time he was away at work (guarding the local representative of the empire controlling the island of Avlain), becoming serious and battle-hungry, until she finally managed to become a Spectral Restraint-Opener. Upon coming home that day, she learned her father had died protecting the governor and has been on her own—learning to open even more restraints—since.
Amora, an 11-year-old girl who is technically Talia's twin/triplet sister. She is rather emotionless and serves the research branch of the governor's complex as a successful Elemental Restraint-Opener.
Caden, a 16-year-old boy with curly, black hair and green eyes. He is a Spectral Restraint-Opener that likes joking around. He serves in the junior league of rebels, where he first meets Talia.

Antagonists: Various people who just like to fight, including the Physical Restraint-Opener Kitana in the introductory chapter.
The governor (whose name I forget, though I know I wrote a lot of information on this down a while ago), a Control Restraint-Opener, and those that serve him, including the twin Form Restraint-Openers whose names I have also forgotten.
The government over Avlain in general, though represented best through the governor.

Setting: The island and colony of Avlain, a place with intermediate technology. In lieu of more advanced weaponry, Restraint-Openers are used. In each person are thirty-six restraints, six of each type. Once the first of a type is opened, only restraints in that category may be opened by that individual. The types are Elemental (Ice, Fire, Wind, Stone, Dark, Light), Spectral (Invisibility, Intangibility, Flight, then greater degrees of the previous three), Physical (Strength, Speed, Endurance, then greater degrees of the previous three), Mental (increasing degrees of intelligence), Control (increasing degrees of control over animals, then humans once into the last three), and Form (increasing degrees of flexibility/shapeshifting).

Plot: Jikuri picks a fight with Kitana, who was mugging a helpless Talia, and wins. The two end up sneaking into the governor's complex, where they are discovered. After much fighting, both girls are captured; in an attempt to force Talia to open a restraint, Jikuri is killed. It doesn't work, but Amora takes the opportunity to free Talia and escape with her, leaving their third triplet Amore behind. They try to recover while staying away from government agents until one night when a spectacular fire engulfs the house of a city governor. A teenager, shouting to onlookers how this is proper justice for the tyrannies of the government, flees the scene. Understanding, Talia and Amora follow him to eventually find the underground (literally) camp of children training to overtake the government (there was something about the empire keeping a tight watch over the adults, but not the children up to eighteen years). There they find Caden—Talia avoids him because he looks a lot like Jikuri. He gets a crush on Talia, but between her avoiding him and her being enrolled in the non-Restraint-Opener training, it's difficult. They get together by the time the big revolt date comes along, when they invade the governor's complex in battle. Talia finally opens her first Elemental Restraint and immediately plows through the other five to take out a lot of the opposition with Light. The rebels win, though with heavy losses, and the country of Avlain is established.

I get a bit nostalgic about this, but I really don't think I'm going to pick it up. I may end up doing something fiction-wise with either the Restraints (inspired from the gates in Naruto, by the way) or the universe, though I don't feel I did enough world-building for it to make sense.

Mayflies (NFI#2) Revisited

I've been putting Mayflies through my online 2YN course, and it's had quite a few changes so far. The setting is now Mayan now (though that's thanks to a school friend). That's probably the biggest shift (no more blonde main characters, it seems!), but it's been an interesting journey so far, and I'll be glad to keep it up.

A recent assignment was to write a few paragraphs from first-person, and the same scene in third-person. Since my plan has been to alternate between Jonathan and Matthew in first-person, I wrote up three sections. Although the 2YN forum is limited to the participants, I figured I could share what I wrote here.

Third person:  The tips of stone terraces peeked over the treetops. Neither of the twins could see any more of the city—let alone its inhabitants—at this distance, but that only meant that no one could see them. "I think I'll take a look over," Matthew started, spreading out his wings and looking to his brother for permission. Jonathan crossed his arms. "Don't get caught." Answering with only a nod, Matthew flapped his wings a bit and lunged into the air. Taking a moment to catch his breath—flying wasn't the most fun when he hadn't had anything to eat lately—he pumped his wings harder and harder, ascending high enough any casual observer below could mistake him for a bird. Ignoring the increasing burn in his chest, he swept over the squiggles and squares of the main city until a wide, layered field of maize rippled below him. If he hadn't been the responsible one, he would have swooped down and ripped through the field, plucking whatever would come up and taking off again. But he couldn't get much that way, and he wasn't about to alert the locals Mayflies were around, or Jonathan wouldn't be able to come and get his share. Mouth watering, he swallowed and pitched away, wind whistling and shrieking past his ears as he soared back towards the forest. First person (Matthew): I haul myself onto a low branch, letting my throbbing feet dangle. Just over the next patch of trees, stone temple tops seem to poke out of the leaves. Finally. We haven't had food in so long we can barely fly. I still ought to give it a look-over, though. They could be expecting us—we may be far from the last city we robbed, but news travels fast—and if we walk up to an edge of town without food, we'll be chased out long before we can get to any food. Leaning back to see Jonathan climbing a bit higher into the tree, I start, "I think I'll take a look over." He stops, hooking his knees over a branch and flipping himself back to look at me. Crossing his arms, he just closes his eyes and says, "Don't get caught." With a nod, I stand, gripping a higher branch to keep my balance as I give my wings a few preliminary flaps. I throw myself back into the air with a grunt and slowly fly higher up, getting used to the exertion before picking up the pace. It's harder to breathe the higher I go, but the last thing I want to do is be spotted for what I am. If I look small enough, they ought to think I'm just a bird. Flying straight across now, I watch the pale, writhing roads and darker squares and lumps of buildings pass by beneath. My lungs are really burning by the time I see the right edge of town—an unmistakable farm, its rows of maize ducking and bobbing in the wind. I can smell my meal roasting already. Somehow as intently as I'm watching the maize, I don't realize it's getting bigger for a few moments. Although, really... no one seems to be around at the moment. Would it really hurt if I grabbed some now? No, no. I pull back up into the air, still circling. Ask those kind of questions, and a demon'll be after me in no time. I'll wait. I can't carry enough for the both of us, and if I act now, someone could figure it out before Jonathan can get here safely. Even if they don't suspect Mayflies, they'd at least post a watch—and if they find Jonathan like that, he'll get speared for sure. That's not going to happen on my watch. I finally turn away from the field, wind whistling and shrieking past my ears as I soar towards the forest. First person (Jonathan): I think I see a temple, but I'm not about to go flying to check. Not that I don't love flying—who wouldn't?—but because no one else loves me flying. Sometimes I think they're just jealous, but that's not it. It's more like... zealous. And while I've never heard of any angel telling people to hate Mayflies, it must be some implicit rule that people just really like to follow. Really, I love being cursed with wings. With flight. I just hate people who hate us for it. Unfortunately, that seems to be everyone but Mom. So instead of quickly revealing myself to anyone around who would either run screaming to the king or try to kill me then and there, I just use tree branches to get a little higher. There's not all that much climbing room, but the stone steps rise a bit with every branch. It's definitely a temple. Definitely a city, too, then. "I think I'll take a look over." Stopping, I hook my knees over a branch and lean back to look at Matthew. Despite stating his plan, he's still waiting for approval before going into action. I can't say I mind, most of the time. Caution is a good thing for any cursed person. I may have trouble with it from time to time, but that's why there are two of us. Me, to jump into things when immediate action is needed, and him, to dig me out of it if I mess up. Crossing my arms, I just say, "Don't get caught." He nods and, after readying his wings, takes off. He stalls a bit once he's in the air, and I can hear him panting over the rushes of wind from his wings. One of the reasons we have to steal food. If we hold out hoping someone will give it to us honestly, we just starve more. Get weaker. Stealing might be condemned, but so is murder. We're just trying to keep the others from committing that. Exhaling, I pull myself back onto the branch and watch Matthew climb into the sky.

What You Want to Hear

As you can tell, I've been posting a decent variety of things on this blog. My question is, what do you like best? Seeing my ideas? Seeing how I think about writing or how I write?

Would something else be a good addition? Would you like to see me comment on other writings? Do you want more samples of my writing here? What could I add to make this more appealing to you, the reader?

Is there anything that would help me get a greater audience, as far as content goes?

I'd just like to know if there's anything on this blog I could do better.