Boarders Writing a Novel, Take 6

[11th Heaven]

Hi I figured I'd share my novel idea I've been working on and see if I got any feedback.

It is called "Wayward Devils"

The story follows the sons of the evil men responsible for a huge catastrophe in America (still working on the details of what exactly they did, but whatever it was it left hundreds of thousands dead). The sons, though their fathers are long dead, are hunted by a band of people who made a promise to kill them to avenge the family members that they lost in the catastrophe. The sons are captured and taken to the Gravelands, the seemingly barren remains of the city destroyed by their fathers, so that the hunters can kill them in the same place their families were killed. When it turns out that there is more life in the Gravelands than anyone considered, both the sons and the hunters are forced to confront both the immediate physical danger they find themselves in as well as the demons of their past and the sins of their fathers.

The story is told through a handful of POV characters, three of them being the sons that are hunted, one being a hunter who is torn between being the good man he once was and honoring the promise he made to avenge his family, and the fifth being an outsider who was equally affected by the catastrophe but refuses to help either side.

Just in the planning stages so far but I'm pretty excited to get started.

Sounds like a great idea - I'd look forward to reading this. Where the fathers terrorists, or are you still working that out?

[holzy1139]

Sounds like a great idea - I'd look forward to reading this. Where the fathers terrorists, or are you still working that out?

Still working it out but as of now yes I'm leaning towards them being extremists whose crimes escalated until something they do wipes out masses.

The point I'm going for is that the boys all had different relationships with these fathers: The main character James was very young at the time of the catastrophe and his father's subsequent death, so his struggle is really that he's being hunted for something he is completely detached from. His older brother Hector remembers being raised by their father and still is scarred by that relationship. Another of the boys, Riggs, had fond memories of his father and his inner conflict is dealing with the man he looked up to being branded a monster.

[ZombieWife]

Hey, Ealdorman, awesome news! Tell your publisher to get that into English ASAP!! :)

I had to take a break from the book. No time right now, but in May, there will be LOTS more time. Yes!

I'm playing with some world-building ideas. Specifically, how would kings protect themselves against magic-users who specialize in earth magic? Couldn't an earth-mage really Eff some stuff up around a castle, or, well-night destroy it? I've looked at nations' geopolitics. Perhaps it's time to look into arcane-politics too. :)

[The Marquis de Leech]

I'm playing with some world-building ideas. Specifically, how would kings protect themselves against magic-users who specialize in earth magic?

Perhaps the castle could be a floating one, on a lake or in the sea?

[Zoë Sumra]

I'm playing with some world-building ideas. Specifically, how would kings protect themselves against magic-users who specialize in earth magic? Couldn't an earth-mage really Eff some stuff up around a castle, or, well-night destroy it? I've looked at nations' geopolitics. Perhaps it's time to look into arcane-politics too. :)

Thus illustrating a frequent pitfall for the fantasy author.

Creation of a good magic system is extremely difficult. It's like a fantasy world/economy: the component parts need to fit together well enough to feel coherent to the reader. In the case of magic, I feel it's important to remember the evolution of weapons: heavier and heavier armour as weapons became more inventive, leading to full plate versus crossbows (crossbows win) and subsequently to kevlar versus modern knives and guns. At the same time, society evolves around the weapons.

Your king doesn't want his castle to be knocked down by an earth mage. What can the earth mage do? is my first question. Turn soil to mud and wear away the castle's foundations? Turn the soil/rock into an earth elemental, caving in the castle? Break a hole in the mantle to create a volcano under the castle? But the second question is: what's the defensive move? There always has to be one.

As an fantasy author, you need to put a brake on magic somewhere, otherwise you'll leave behind a little niggling question about why the magicians don't take over the world. (They're all nice people/live by an honour code? Power tends to corrupt: it'll only take a few worms in the apple to bring the facade crashing down. The king controls the magicians? One spell, and the magicians will control the king: and how do magicians become so? Magic school for anyone who can afford it, or wild talent that can be trained? If the latter, a magical shepherd's kid could become infuriated by serfdom - or a magical royal bastard could decide to oust his legitimate family - and bang goes the kingdom: if the former, you have similar issues with disaffected tutors. The faeries are the source of magic and Cold Iron is impeding its passage into the world? That's a decent excuse...) Maybe the magicians can only cast so much magic at once, for some reason - it hurts them, or they have to give up part of their soul to cast and they've only got so much to go round, or they need to rest to replenish mana (I hate this option in books as opposed to games, btw), or they can only cast spells they've learned rather than making things up on the fly so they're limited by what they know.

Ask yourself what limits the earth mage in question - hir ability, hir capability to use it - and you're partway to an answer. You could throw all sorts of physical and psychic limitations in there, based on how the earth mage's powers are generated - for instance, if magic is blockable by cold iron, bury the stuff in the ground under the palace during construction. (Pick your power source, then pick its poison.) At the very least, the king could hire another earth mage, or a dozen of them. He can afford them. It's like building walls around his castle, and hiring men and machines to protect them: he just needs to spend more money than his opponents are capable of spending - whether he buys in his own magical talent, or whether he engineers the castle in whatever way will stop an earth mage using hir power against it. (He'll only run into trouble if his opponents are a) another monarch, or b ) a coalition of his most powerful lords. It's like any other kind of fantasy warfare.) What ways are possible in your world is up to you!

(For reference: the magic system I use in RD and The Backup Plan is borderline overpowered, but has three brakes. The first is death/insanity/permanent injury of magicians who overdo their magic, the second is a cascade of political difficulties that wouldn't stop an individual Trying to Take Over the World!!! but do stop magicians of the established (and extremely antagonistic to each other) types from declaring war at the drop of a hat, and the third is the ability of extremely strong electrical fields to function as antimagic. I wrote in the latter brake when it became clear that "normal people" were at just too much risk from magic. Of course, antimagic has its problems too...)

[Ahimsa]

I'm almost done with my rough draft, though it has taken me slightly over a year to finish (and it will clock in just under 90,000 words). Not the longest, but it's historical horror (undead set in the Roman Empire) and the amount of research has been disheartening. What's the Dacian wearing? What's he sitting on? To what gods would he exclaim to? Each of these took more time than I thought, but it's been fun. And having an actual manuscript that I can send to potential agents will be great. Most of all, it's a relief to be (nearly) done with the draft.

[Prince Alexander]

That's a great post Eloisa. My easy way out on this: no magic wielded by humans :) (there are still magical things about the world, of course)

[TrackerNeil]

To follow up on Eloisa's excellent post, I find that the presence of magic in a story can be disruptive not only to the plot and world-building, but to characterization.

In my view, good characters make meaningful choices, which I define as

1. Decisions made of their own free will
   
2. That affect the world in which they live
   

Magic can compel a character to act in ways completely at odds with their nature, which is equivalent to having them act with a gun pointed at their heads. Although it's possible to make a powerless character interesting, it's difficult and very few writers manage it. (One of the reasons I generally despise hostage scenarios in movies/books.) Characters should always be in command of their own choices.

Magic can also remove the consequences of a character's choices, by "fixing" the problems that inevitably result. Resurrection from the dead, one of the most overused and underwhelming fantasy tropes, is probably the biggest offender in this regard. The noble sacrifice of the hero, who jumps into the dragon's mouth for the cause, looks cheap and a little silly if three chapters later he's back from the grave. Time travel is another groaner, which allows the writer to throw the story off the cliff and then hit the reset button. The positive or negative consequences of character choices should never, ever, ever be ameliorated by sorcery. That's cheating, plain and simple. Actions have consequences, and the most interesting part of drama, in my view, is when characters have to deal with 'em.

[Migey]

Brandon Sanderson, irrelevent of whether or not you think he is a good author, has written a few very interesting essays on magic in literature and how it should be done. Reading them made me realise some problems and flaws in ideas I had previously had.

http://www.brandonsanderson.com/article/40/Sandersons-First-Law

I don't agree with everything he said but there are certainly some interesting points which are worth considering.

[Ebenstone]

World building is the aspiring fantasy novelists greatest excuse for not writing. It is known.

[ZombieWife]

Perhaps the castle could be a floating one, on a lake or in the sea?

Too high fantasy for this world. :) There isn't a LOT of magic and it must be connected to something found within nature, but I couldn't help but wonder if under the right circumstances, an earth mage would jack some stuff up.

As for the rest of it, the magic system is pretty clear in the world in terms of limitations and such. But, there is always an exception to the "average mage." One thought I had was to restrain magi by binding them to come kind of magical oath. Should their magic be used to harm innocents (which innocents would certainly be harmed if an earth mage caused a massive rockslide and demolished a mountainous castle. Just an example, btw, I do not have this example in my story).

So, when one mage utilizes magic to harm innocents, it is felt by the collective (notably the magi's council who may then send a justicar of sorts to deal with the mage). Just small things like this come up, and, how certain types of magic might influence a kingdom's politics and such.

In truth, this kind of stuff is a blast to think about and I've had a lot of fun speaking to super-nerds like myself and less nerdy folks about it.

[TrackerNeil]

World building is the aspiring fantasy novelists greatest excuse for not writing. It is known.

I could not agree more. Fact is, almost nobody cares about your damn world. People respond to solid characters and a good story, so in my view you get more mileage out of working on those than deciding the architectural style of the Great Kingdom Across the Sea.

[Isalie]

I could not agree more. Fact is, almost nobody cares about your damn world. People respond to solid characters and a good story, so in my view you get more mileage out of working on those than deciding the architectural style of the Great Kingdom Across the Sea.

Yeah, personally, I find it quite depressing to read discussions along the line of "that's so inaccurate, riding from x to y should take four days, not three"

[The Marquis de Leech]

Magic can also remove the consequences of a character's choices, by "fixing" the problems that inevitably result. Resurrection from the dead, one of the most overused and underwhelming fantasy tropes, is probably the biggest offender in this regard. The noble sacrifice of the hero, who jumps into the dragon's mouth for the cause, looks cheap and a little silly if three chapters later he's back from the grave.

I think it all depends on how you handle it. Gandalf's return works because Tolkien makes it so obviously a special never-to-be-relied-upon-again moment of divine intervention. Ditto Beren and Luthien: he has Luthien sing Mandos into an unprecedented act of mercy.

I'd also have to disagree on one point: I think it is OK for magic to undo the positive consequences of a character's choice. Some choices are powerful simply because they're about making a moral stand, even though the choice itself has no wider utilitarian effect.

[TrackerNeil]

I think it all depends on how you handle it. Gandalf's return works because Tolkien makes it so obviously a special never-to-be-relied-upon-again moment of divine intervention. Ditto Beren and Luthien: he has Luthien sing Mandos into an unprecedented act of mercy.

I'd also have to disagree on one point: I think it is OK for magic to undo the positive consequences of a character's choice. Some choices are powerful simply because they're about making a moral stand, even though the choice itself has no wider utilitarian effect.

Regarding Gandalf, I agree with GRRM: he should have stayed dead. The story would have been much more interesting if Aragorn and Company had had to win the War of the Ring without Gandalf around to tell them what to do. And I don't think divine intervention is ever a good story device, because nothing foreshadows it, and it afterward vanishes without a trace.

Besides, you have already named two instances in which Tolkien brought people back from the dead; that's not exactly a never-to-be-relied-upon-again moment. ;)

As to your point about magic undoing a positive choice, I am dubious but not certain. I tend to avoid anything that would nullify the effect of a character's choices, good or bad. Can you give an example in which this has been done successfully?

[emberling]

In my view, good characters make meaningful choices, which I define as

1. Decisions made of their own free will
   
2. That affect the world in which they live
   

Magic can compel a character to act in ways completely at odds with their nature, which is equivalent to having them act with a gun pointed at their heads.

*de-lurk* I have to disagree with a lot of this. I don't see how this is specific to magic, and I don't see how duress is equivalent to powerlessness or loss of free will.

In order to have a story, characters need to make choices, of course. The kinds of choice that make a strong story are usually:

- Proactive

- Difficult

- Unwise

Placing a character under duress - a gun to the head, a child kidnapped, threatened with compromising photos - is far from removing a character's free will; it's placing them in a situation where a non-choice (give money to terrorists? no!) is turned into a choice (give money to terrorists? let son die? go to police? don't go to police?). And since the choice is difficult enough, it is very believable for someone to make the wrong choice (go to police? no, they said they'd kill him if I do! I will have to go after them MYSELF) so that their character can grow and learn the lessons of the story (it's okay to ask for help) as well as so that the conflict can escalate (I got shot and now the police think I was there to rob a bank).

There are two key differences I see with magical duress:

- If it's unsubtle enough it can be the equivalent not of a gun to the head, but being locked in a box welded shut. I don't see either of these situations come up much in fiction, and when they do they're usually brief and ended with a little help from a friend, or in the magical case, take the form of a dark moment that is 'easily' countered with application of willpower and theme.

- If it's the more subtle kind, where a person's priorities are slightly re-jiggered, or a person is made to believe a falsehood (e.g. that they love character X), then the character's free will is completely intact - their choices are just at odds with what we believe they should be.

Again, this situation doesn't require magic - it's attainable entirely through mundane deceptions. Creepy guy frames Bob for theft from Bob's girlfriend Amanda; C then puts on non-creepy act and manipulates A into marrying him. A then finds something 'off' in C's finances or overhears a 'business' meeting and sets off to figure out what's going on (the goal of the story). Now, in the magical version of that story, it's conceivable that A would be mentally blocked from noticing anything is wrong - but then there would be no decision to have a story, no Act 1 turning point. So this is the point where you just say, "In this magic system, you can change memories, but you can't put that kind of mental block."

I admit that there is a character development concern here: firstly, that their character has changed for externally imposed reasons when it could have changed due to internal decisions; secondly, that they get a convenient excuse for why they make any bad decisions they do while mind-controlled, so there is not as much opportunity for character growth. Nevertheless, the character is hardly powerless, and the tension created by this situation can be powerful enough to outweigh the downsides. The way to do it right, I think, is to either frame it in the Buffy style, such that the magic is a metaphorical stand-in for a non-magical thing like addiction or a 'cool' new friend; or to make sure that the character's growth arc is stable, either by making it tangential (the mind control is about the husband, but the growth is about the kids) or by brute force (she keeps trusting the guy then finding that her journal doesn't match what she remembers - until she learns her lesson: trust NO ONE, ignore that nagging voice saying that it's okay.)

Also, why is it so important that the choices affect the world? In my example, Amanda makes a choice to spy on her husband. It is a difficult choice with several possible alternatives (go to the police, just run away, or pretend the evidence is just her imagination). But outside of her head, outside of the subtle decisions she will make to linger a bit longer in doorways or what have you, outside of the horrible anxiety she will feel, this decision doesn't really affect the world. Nobody else will notice (until she screws up). I can't see why this wouldn't be a perfectly fine decision point to launch an Act 2.

Or do you mean 'the world in which they live' to include their own head, and only exclude, e.g., starving children in Uganda that the characters do not spend one moment of time considering?

Magic can also remove the consequences of a character's choices, by "fixing" the problems that inevitably result.

Again, I don't see it in this way.

A dramatic story is an escalation of problems.

1: Oh no, there is a Dark Lord! Help us, Chosen One!

2: Oh no! We need the Magic Mcguffin, but there are too many Dark Forces in the way!

3: Oh no! On the way to the Magic Mcguffin, the Chosen One has been slain!

4: We cannot win without the Chosen One! So we must scour the ancient texts in the ruin of Dangeresque to find the ancient spell of resurrection!

5: Oh no! The ancient spell of resurrection requires us to destroy the Magic Mcguffin! How will our hero have enough power to beat the Dark Lord without the Magic Mcguffin? Do we want the Chosen One or the Magic Mcguffin? Is it even ethical to keep the Magic Mcguffin, our best hope for victory, instead of using it to revive the Chosen One, even if he is doomed without the Mcguffin?

Ignore for a moment that it's totally lame, because well-trod tropes are good shorthand. The point is that fixing the problems that result from a character's choices is part of the basic structure of stories. Inevitably, in a novel-length story, the protagonist will make some dumb decisions and someone will have to clean up the mess. What's important is that the mess exist, that it be real. What's important is not that everyone who dies stays dead, but that when someone dies, getting them back, if possible, is itself a serious problem that involves serious choices.

ETA: Not defending Gandalf here. Screw Gandalf.

[ZombieWife]

On resurrection, I don't find it a bad thing, if it makes sense and isn't just tossed in there because the author can't kill his/her darling. I also disagree with Gandalf and Tolkien's other resurrection(al) choices. He's pulling heavily from mythology. Mythology is ripe with resurrection, with that ultimate transformation--whether its metaphorical (Dany reborn with her dragons out of the fire) or physical (Gandalf).

Using magic items to bring someone back, still don't see it as a huge deal as long as its woven into the mythology of the world somehow and is executed thoughtfully and not in an "ole switcheroo" kind of way.

I'm sorry, I'm going to out myself here, but on the Vampire Diaries (I know, I know), Alaric has a ring. If he is killed by a supernatural being, he'll come back to life. It evens the scales, yes. But, as it turns out there's a downside to it. His personality has split in two because of it and he's slowly going insane. That's a great way (imho) of giving us a cool little "trinket" that can restore life, but, has some really nasty side-effects.

Magic can get you into just as much trouble here. That's the joy of it.

(I realized I kind of meandered on this reply. Sorry for that!)

[TrackerNeil]

*de-lurk* I have to disagree with a lot of this. I don't see how this is specific to magic, and I don't see how duress is equivalent to powerlessness or loss of free will.

You put alot out there, and I'm sure sure all of it is a very direct response to what I said. So I'll clarify my assertion and see if that helps.

I'm not arguing that magic has no place in a story; it's been used often and effectively. However, magic that would force a character to do things he would not normally do by usurping his will is just a poor story device. Characters should always be free to make their own decisions, even if the presence of magic makes some of their choices less palatable than others. For example, when I encounter mind-control magic in a story I want to skip forward until the character regains his faculties and starts acting like himself again. I am not interested in characters who don't have their own motivations, which precisely describes a mind controlled-character.

That being said, I have no problem with a character who is manipulated by magic. Many things can be used to manipulate a character - sex, money, position, familial relationships - and in a fantasy world magic is simply another tool in the author's box. However, a manipulated character is still acting of his own free will, although perhaps under undue influence by another.

My second point was that that magic should never remove consequences, and what I mean is that it should never solve problems caused by character choices. For example, a character who has betrayed another should not be able to mind-wipe him and then go on as if nothing happened. I think a storyteller could effectively use magic to delay the knowledge of that betrayal until a pivotal moment, but as that's something that could be accomplished by mundane means, it's fair. (Again, another tool in the box.) However, it's essential that the betrayer pay the price for what she's done, in terms of the story and her relationships, etc. Using magic to save her from the consequences of her choice...well, that just sucks.

Hopefully that makes my position clearer.

As to resurrection, let me disclose that Back From the Dead is one of my most despised story tropes, usually because it tends to nest and breed in a story. Joss Whedon went to that well how many times? Angel came back, and then Buffy, and then Darla, and then Spike, and who knows how many others. Yes, yes, he can always hand-wave his way around it - "Angel didn't really die...he just went to hell!" - but at the end of the day it's resurrection. When the grave becomes a mere pit stop the writer is straining disbelief and undermining the authenticity of his world.

[emberling]

Okay, yeah, using magic to essentially drive around another person's body while they watch sucks. I just hardly ever see that, except in very small doses. That passive observer status just isn't interesting.

But a person who is still in conscious control of their own actions but is getting fed another person's emotions and desires that clash with their own...or a person who has undergone a transformation into another type of being that is written as having inherently different priorities... those are different animals. Enticing ones. To me, anyway.

Maybe you should avoid reading anything I write.

Re: magic, problem-solving, and resurrection, I think it's important to distinguish between magic that is magical (A wizard did it!) and magic that is physics (built in to the setting in accordance with Sanderson's laws or however you wish to view it). Magic can do more than make problems vanish in puffs of smoke, never to be mentioned again. It can make problems escalate (We brought her back! But now she's evil and wants to kill us.); it can make choice available (We can bring her back! But someone else has to die.)

Basically, it's not that magic should not solve problems. It's that problems should not be solved, unless they are solved with the introduction of another problem, or it's the end. Magic, no magic, that's just story structure. That's why I have a section in every scene summary labeled 'disaster'.

[Ebenstone]

Yeah, personally, I find it quite depressing to read discussions along the line of "that's so inaccurate, riding from x to y should take four days, not three"

Here's my philosophy on that...the amount of time it takes to get from point a to point b is as long as it needs to be for me to tell the story I want to tell.