Writing your worst nightmare

One of the most difficult parts of writing is to split or gut, to lay out emotions out there in the open for everyone to see. In an effort to do so, I thought up one of my worst nightmares and wrote it down. If this were to happen, I am pretty sure my mind would break completely.

I have even kept my name and my fiancee's name in there, since it is a retelling of my personal nightmare, and not fiction per se.
Context: imagine reading this as a preface to a novel.

On January 14th, 2014, the author of this novel received my letter of acceptance for the publishing of his work.

Overtaken by emotion, His tears of joy flowing to the point he could barely see the sidewalk his feet landed upon, he ran towards the school his fiancee taught at.

His fiancee had already left work, so he saw her walk towards - 

Then a car cut her life short.

He did not hear the drunk drivers' ramblings as he raced past his murderous car, towards his fallen lover. He was stopped by the sight of her fractured skull. Pascale McDuff-Rousseau was no more. I imagine the following hours were a haze, a wailing of screams and cries of hopelessness where no one could reach to him.

There is one thing we know he heard, though.

When the doctor came out to confirm his fiancee's death to Alexandre, I believe his exact words were: “I am sorry, we could not save the mother or the child.”

On that very moment, Alexandre's mind fractured. The news that he was to have a son, a heir to hold with pride, now a lifeless husk marked as medical waste, was beyond his means to cope.

The following work is a testament to a mind now gone. In honour of this bygone man, we published his entire work without alteration. Not even his typos, though they be few and far between, have been touched.

We owed it to this man to show him our respect the only way we truly could. Heal well, Alexandre, heal well.

The world is holding on for you, waiting for the day that you will return. 

May there be such a day.

Jonathan Davies,
Editor for New York Times Press

It is very difficult, perhaps impossible to write engaging stories without spilling out your emotions. I know I tend to write in a very Cartesian manner, to keep my shell intact. This is an attempt to liberate myself from this shell.

Don’t stay true to your characters.

This articles concerns gamers just as it does authors.

I have heard countless times in my gaming life that one had to stay true to his character. A character is made with a certain mentality, and that should be respected. I have heard the same of readers of fiction, including many aspiring authors. Respecting the initial idea behind the character, and keeping him true to that vision through the whole story, is a crucial principle in the eyes of many.

This is pure hogwash. Good characters flow like water and bend like the willow. They should never be stuck in stasis, unchanging. If nothing in the story can affect them enough to make them evolve, then either the story is not worth being told, or the character is not worth portraying.

The most profound, but also the most subtle, failure of this static vision for characters occurs when people forget that the purpose of the characters is to awe, shock and enamor us. They exist not to be themselves, but to entertain people. Both as a gamer and as a player, when you realize a character, as written, breaks the flow of the story and becomes a hindrance, you have to make him change or evolve in such a way that will enhance the story instead.

In a game, if you or a player have made an all-powerful tyrant that prevents other players from truly participating, you can either make him too bored to bother and mess with the others, or create a number of flaws in him that give the other characters a fighting chance. If a character is beaten down and lost everything, give him something strong he can grab onto and fight back. It is especially important in games, since players who are stuck with nothing to do and nothing to work towards will grow bored fast. It is also most difficult there, because some players will fight you every step of the way to keep a problematic status quo that is advantageous to their characters.

Authors are not as limited as storytellers are concerning this. You control everything that happens in the story, and you don’t have to make sure every player has fun the whole time. However, as an author, you still have to be careful not letting too many “This character wouldn’t do that, even though the story wouldn’t work without it” moments ruin your work.  If you need your character to behave a certain way, try to find why he would do that, or how he might do something equivalent.

The other reason why characters must not be static is simply entertainment value. Many characters, especially primary and secondary characters, have to evolve, one way or another, to maintain the reader's interest. Many heroes will evolve by growing up, gathering their courage, learning to love, etc. Most good villains either develop a more and more dramatic bend, or you get to see their evolution, using flashbacks and old newspapers, in a way that justifies what they have become.

Tertiary characters tend to be much more stable throughout a story, mostly because they would derive too much attention away from the main characters if they changed too deeply or too often. Still, if you read Harry Potter, you will note that Neville and Ginny, who are clearly backbenchers throughout the series, evolve a lot, and that makes them much more endearing than Lupin, who remains pretty much the same from his introduction on. A large 7-novel series does grant an author the room to treat those subjects, while a beginner's 125 pages novella will not.

Professor Rogue, likewise, is not a static entity of established beliefs that cannot change. He is playing the middle against both sides throughout the series, for very personal reasons and aspirations. He seems to sway between those two poles. Also, he is far from the frightened child or the nerdy teenager he once was. That all participates to making the reader's hatred, love and passion for him that much stronger.

Let us face the facts here: people who do not change are boring. They are Autumn people, never progressing, never trying anything new, always the same. Nobody cares about their stories. Who would want to read about them? Who would enjoy playing them? I know I wouldn't.

Examples abound of characters keeping our interest through their evolution. If you want examples of stories solely focused on character evolution, I would suggest two very nice stories that revolve around that are "Spirited Away" by Hayao Miyazaki, or "Les Aimants" by Yves Pelletier. I believe it is not possible to watch those movies and not get the point I'm trying to make.

On thoughts woven against the fabric of the world: the birth of gods.

A Treatise on the Soul part 4.

The forms of ill intent that grew most prevalent over time were jealousy, xenophobia and, the ultimate downfall of the Apes, sloth. Apes wanted to dominate. They wanted everything else to be as they see it, and made sure to impose that way upon the world. Moreover, they wanted dominance to be their birthright, something so innate in them that the mere thought of having to work at it would be thought blasphemous.

Their modifications to the world they inhabited were so profound, with their roads and cities and farms that it was as though the world itself was taking as intent the domination of the Apes.

Then came an Ape known as Meraku, a warlord of the Apes born in the southern steppes where once a jungle lay, domain to the snakes and their primate servants. Meraku was a sight to behold, standing 10 feet at the shoulder and with a maw that could tear a horse's neck in a single bite. His black eyes glowed in the darkness and his roaring speeches could be heard for miles, or so the stories say. But beyond his powerful features and impressive standing, he was the most passionate Ape there ever had been, with Purpose so ingrained into his very fabric that his very steps clapped like thunder!

Meraku was the greatest force that the Apes ever offered to the world. He conquered all the lands from sea to sea, from the peaks of the Havermain to the subterrean refuges of the Allamanti! Meraku was the greatest Emperor the world has known, and the most capable. He led his People to greatness!

And yet, true force lies within, and Meraku's greatest asset was his mate Amuru. Amuru was a weaver of fortune, as were called those who forced Purpose into sigils and the shaping of the land. Meraku's very fur she traced into a symbol with chalk and coal, and this symbol no only bound within him the purpose of greatness for which he became known, but with locks of his hair she wrote the series of intents that formed, within the very being of her Emperor and mate, the first Woven Thought, which later peoples came to call spiritual hosts and then gods.

Every word of Meraku came to be spoken in tandem with his spirit, blooming with a force unbeknownst in that day or any that followed. This spirit, a sentient being woven from the many threads upon Meraku's fur, was as powerful as thought can be. Through the warlord of the steppes, he spoke of greatness! Every moment of the First Emperor, he pushed with strength!

It is said that when Meraku slept under the gaze of the full moon, one could see its ephemeral form lying so close to him as to occupy the non-space between his mate and him, whispering in his ear. Every move he made, every breath he took, Amuru's creation followed and empowered.

Within a decade Meraku was Emperor, and so Amuru wove other thoughts into the fabric of the world. The well at the center of the world's capitol, Haraket, was first given sentience. Its greater Purpose was to bring life and water to the world, and into its very Essence Amuru wove her timeless wisdom, to be parted to all who called for the well and sent it their wishes.

So it was that, whisper after whisper of mendicants wishing for money, power or happiness moved the very fabric of the Woven Thought of the Well of Haraket beyond its original design towards an infinitely complex spiritual host capable of thinking far beyond the wishes of Amuru...

Treatise on the Soul part 3

So it was that Purpose began manifold, reflecting in a myriad of ways the desires of those complex creatures who could will it into objectives varied but simple, such as Dominance, Freedom, Lust, Procreation, Feeding, Drinking, Health and physical fitness.

Farms, villages and cities were built as large canvases to bring forth Purpose into specific directions and objectives. Dominance, and the freedom from the tyranny of other predators, was the main theme guiding the conception of places that were carved larger and larger as the centuries passed.

On the local level, although the design of the farms themselves tamed the land, locals held into greater esteem the more concrete goals of the well, the home and the village gathering house where villagers gathered for support and comfort in a world still dreadful.

As the basic needs for survival were met, other inspirations grew within the minds of the Apes. Amongst them, one was born mostly in the dark corners of society: ill intent. Apes, like the men we know in the modern age, put survival and procreation beyond any other purpose, with Dominance the most marked source of survival in this and, really, any world. But when survival turned matter-of-fact, when thirst could be quenched by holes in the ground that never dried up, when walls staved off wolves and bears, Apes obtained free time.

And Ape, like Man, tends to brood when caught within the grasp of endless time to ponder. He turns to jealousy towards his neighbour. He turns to philosophy, losing his focus the village on the real world. Coming short on threats real, he turns upon threats imagined. He who does not share his taste for a meal, the color of his pelt or the village of his birth has to be hiding something, for nobody would choose so poorly as to differ from oneself.

People today view evil as a unique force of malice pervading and corrupting all it touches. The truth, especially in that time, is far more complex. A hundred billion objectives, most petty and unrelated, built up over decades and centuries of accumulating leisure time. All objectives of ill intent were so unique and unrefined that none could be given a proper name. Thus, no ill intent could be generalized, and only petty squabbles dimmed the prospects of a perfect future eternal for the Apes.

Then stroke the first Downfall of the Apes: conformity. For an Age hamlets grew into villages which grew into burgs which grew into towns which grew into cities. Tribes grew into nations which grew into empires. Families grew into households. Throughout the centuries whence it occurred, the Apes proudly became more powerful, more decisive, more dominant. The pride of the best amongst them swayed large swathes of land under their glory, and naught was seen in progress but unrelenting advancement!

Every time a family was taken into a household, an identity was lost at the profit of a larger entity. Every time a tribe joined a nation, or was beaten down by one, a portion of the Apes' variety and greatness vanished. In time, the Apes lost the unique techniques of thousands of skilled craftsmen, sigil workers and warriors in favor of the strongest technique of the time. In their unity was strength, but also their fallibility, for if one thing could overpower an Ape, than that thing could overpower all Apes.

And so it did.

To be continued in part 4.

NaNoWriMo

I subscribed to NaNoWriMo recently. 

For those who haven't heard about it yet, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo gives its participants a challenge: write a 50'000 words novel within a month. You have the right to research beforehand, but writing must take place wholly between Nov 1 and Nov 30. 

I am doing this because, now that I've started, I realized that with the full support of my fiancee whom I love with all my heart, I really want to become an author. In the last months, I have spent quite a bit of time preparing to write, attempting the beginning of a story that didn't pan out and taking what I assumed would be a boring novella to a level of preparation that I think I can make very good, in due time. I am devising what I believe to be a high-quality original mythology, which is so hard to do when comparing to the naturally-selected myths that survived to this day (http://les-chemins-obscurs.blogspot.com/2011/09/mythologie-passion-et-ecriture.html).

So now that I believe in myself fully, I've invested in a laptop (cannot do NaNoWriMo without a laptop), subscribed to the contest and decided I need to put out a first draft, if only to see what it feels like. It is very possible that I will reject the whole damned thing at one point and start over, but I'd rather do that now than later, with years of preparing stuff that just don't work once applied in a novel. 

If anybody wants to add me to their NaNoWriMo buddy list, my username is Gamashire.

Treatise on the Soul part 2

Let us continue with the Treatise on the Soul where we started last night.

I recommend reading the previous post before this one for new readers.

So the Apes became dominant, and free, and desirable. They found purpose aplenty, and grew to become a society, and later a host of societies.

So life passed on from generation to generation, until Magisters realized that not only could Purpose be directed using sigils, but it could also be made to manifest directly through matter and energy. As bits and pieces of the world could become rife with planned intent, the Apes thought, and that planned intent could be made to serve the Apes, domination of the world could become eternal, and never be flexed away from them like it was flexed away from the predators of old.

That was the idea anyway.

The Apes had a working knowledge of sigils and influence between matter and Purpose, but their theoretical understanding of such phenomena was scarce at best. The Apes understood that they could influence the intention and purpose of the land itself, and of all that dwelt on it, but something else had escaped their notice: Purpose brought with it thought. Once manifested into the world, the Purpose that the apes had summmoned began forming into full-fledged intelligences, almost beyond their control. These beings became known as spiritual hosts.

All of those intelligences were friendly to the apes, as they were made to be by their creators, but they were their own purpose, as is the way of such things. In a world defined by the apes and for the apes, the newly-formed spiritual hosts had no take on dominance. The cities, the farms and the countryside had all been designed as sigils to direct Purpose towards the dominance of the Apes, and as they were, even without the help of spiritual hosts, their mastery could not be challenged inside their domain.

Thus, the spiritual hosts concocted a plan, unknown to their masters, to bring their own Purpose of dominance in favor of themselves. Through millenia Purpose had been shaped into the concept of dominance, and thus the spiritual hosts were like avatars of dominance, and this shaped their actions.

In assistance to the Apes, they advised the construction of a Capitol at the centre of the world, with roads of brimstone converging towards the capitol, focusing a flow of aether towards it, as a means to bring the whole world even more under their control. Unbeknownst to the Apes, the treacherous spiritual hosts had another plan altogether with these constructions.

The brimstone roads and the cathedral built in the centre or the World Capitol were meant to reshape the Apes themselves into something else. When all constructions were done, the spiritual hosts began a chant which infused a bit of their Purpose straight into the Apes. The Apes became amalgams of beast and spirit. The Apes were twisted in a grotesque demeanor in the process, shedding all their skin and losing a lot of their strength. Ape had become Man. The world was still mostly theirs, but their age-old sigils ensured them not their dominance as they did the apes, allowing the will of the spiritual hosts to become dominant.

On this day, the traitorous hosts took on a new name so as to redefine their Purpose. They renamed themselves Gods.

Later aspects of this mythology will be revealed in later articles.

Author's note: I do realize that I have not named people, places or spirits yet, so the story is not yet personal. I have gone straight to the cosmology itself, because I was mostly worried about the originality of that part of my world. Personalizing this mythology can very well be performed afterwards.

Treatise on the soul

This is part 1 of my attempt at creating a cosmology that is both unique and interesting for the story I'm working on. My plan was to find a definition of the soul, and an origin for humanity, that differs from most fantasy novels, and rely on the logical consequences of these setting elements to remain original.

I would really like to know what you all think.

The world was once a planet ruled by purely physical forces, devoid of mysticism and purpose. Rocks roiled and tumbled, thunder crashed upon the hills, water flowed into the cracks of the world, plants covered the world and fire occurred where a spark would light it up. Their was magnificence only as a result of chance, and nothing in the world would recognize it.

Purpose itself existed as a presence in the world, that later scholars would call aether or ephemera, but without anything to define objectives, it was void of meaning and direction. It was the greatest dichotomy of all: purpose was pointless, in and of itself. Then, millenia before the coming of Man, predation moved the world in a glorious dance and stirred as the hunt became meant to feed, and meaning became intention. With intention, purpose was taking shape, a new force upon the world. Predators now desired.

So it was that the predators of the world drew to them Purpose like the twin moons draw upon them the waters of the world. Purpose, during these millenia, gathered in the concepts of dominance, as those predators that thrived were the ones who could dominate the others, and all lesser animals were either killed or weakened in spirit.

The world was dominated by prides of lions and packs of wolves, while the seas were the domain of sharks and orca, relentless predators all. The prey animals reigned supreme in a world seemingly made for them, and while they lacked fine object manipulation, they could use paw and claw to trace sigils and glyphs throughout the world that called upon the aether, protecting their havens from rivals and draining the will of prey and foe alike. Their preys became will-less animals bred only for slaughter.

A mistake of the jungle snakes turned around their world. The snakes were the dominant species in the jungles, and the apes were enthralled beneath them. Their dead skins would be left in the forms of the sigils which made the land theirs, and all that walked upon their jungles along with it. The snakes had discovered, however, that apes had the hands to use rocks and branches when needed, and left them enough freedom to use them in service to their reptilian masters.

Slowly, apes rebelled. No snake realized it, but very slowly, the apes started using those branches to move around the shed serpent skins just enough to disrupt their enthralling effect. As the sigils were disrupted, more and more apes became able to act under their own will, and the more autonomous they became.

When the First Revolt thundered throughout the jungles, the apes were already using sharp rocks tied to sticks, and the snakes could do nothing but hide or die. The desire for freedom sent a shock-wave through Purpose, severing its long-standing uniformity towards domination and breaking into a myriad of possible desires. This failure of the serpents ever branded them as traitors to the animal kingdom, a sobriquet even contemporary men remember.

Unable to react appropriately, the wolves and lions and crocodiles clung to the old ways of the hunt, but nothing could compare to the infinite desires of the apes, nor with their tools which became ever more sophisticated. Purpose grew into the complex web of possibilities that only men can fathom, taking myriad forms outside of the physical world's reach, mirroring, being, and feeding upon the intentions of the apes.

Those myriad intended purposes sometimes grew into larger currents of Purpose, but every ape also drew alongside it a mirrored set of desires in the aether. This set of desires is commonly referenced as a soul.

Just as sigils could control flows of Purpose in the old times, or animate forms of matter could turn pointless Purpose into a directed flow of desire that became souls, so did the apes manage to use patterns to direct the flows of aether in the other world. The drawing of a breeding pen or a city follows the same principles, an occult and oft-forgotten manner of controlling the flows of Purpose, and thus the very desires of people and animals, were penned according to the directions set in the stones and water channels. Apes made the land theirs in this way, every hamlet and every farm the mystical binding force turning the Purpose of the land into the service of the Ape.

So lived the land and Ape within it, for generations and centuries, ever expanding into the territory of the dominant predators of old.

Ape grew in abundance and power unabated, unchallenged and unsurprising, until Magisters learned that Purpose and Desire could be summoned into this world to inhabit, were a Magister skilled enough to bring him forth. But that is a story for another time.

Here it is folks, part 1 of the cosmology for the world I am creating.

What do you all think?