Your Type of Fantasy
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I have some central scriptural verse that resonates with this story:
Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. [Matthew 25:34 KJV]
Here is the key verse of the goal of the Excavatia book series:
And that the eyes of your heart [the very center and core of your being] may be enlightened [flooded with light by the Holy Spirit], so that you will know and cherish the hope [the divine guarantee, the confident expectation] to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints (God’s people), Ephesians 1:18 Amplified Version
- “The very center and core of your being” – The Mid-World
- “Flooded with light by the Holy Spirit” – The realization and coming of Excavatia
- “the divine guarantee, the confident expectation” aka “The Word of God” – The Marker Stone
What is the premise of your novel, btw?
Premise: There existence of mankind is initially bound and confined into a limited perception fixed principally on the Physical World (The Surface World). God says the “unseen world” is more real than what we perceive it to be. (2 Cor. 4:18) We who have been awakened to the larger, eternal reality, sense that it is there as we perceive it through the revealing in the Word of God, and through His Holy Spirit indwelling within us, making us come alive spiritually. There is a purely spiritual realm yet to come where the all of the corruptible shall be raised and transformed into incorruptible (1 Peter 1:4) where we will dwell in an incorruptible body in the very presence of God Himself. (1 Cor. 15:52)
In our present cursed body, destined to return to the dust from which it was created, we cannot be in corruptible flesh and look upon the glory of God’s face and live. God told Moses:
But He said, “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.” [Exodus 33:20 NKJV]
But there is a central part of us, sometimes referred to in the OT as “the heart” and sometimes in the NT as “the soul”, but it is our essence, our personhood, that part of us that contains our identity, our will, and our thoughts and feelings and has a “metaphysical presence”, if you will. It is not the same as our spirit. Our spirit is the part of us that was still born, killed in the Garden by the entrance of sin into the flesh of humankind. It is the part of us that MUST be born again, as Jesus told Nicodemus. Our spirit is the part of us that is sensitive to the communications of the Holy Spirit, and of our communion with God. We worship God in spirit and in authenticity. (John 4:23-24) Our spirit is the part of us that can praise Him out of the gratitude for our personal redemption. It is made alive through Christ and will never die. So, the body is the physical, the soul/heart is the metaphysical, and the spirit is purely spiritual. This is the trinity of mankind, made in God’s image. But what if…The Universe created by Him and consisting by Him is also triune? We have a physical earth and all of the observable universe, and we are assured there is a Heavenly Realm where God’s throne room sits, and only the dead in Christ may enter it. But what if there is a third component that is overlooked in our myopic vision of thinking this is all there is?If Evil and all its forms cannot endure the full glory of God’s perfection and survive, in what places do they dwell in the unseen? Ephesians 1:3 & 2:6 says there is a dwelling of a heavenly place in Christ, in which Christ sits at the right hand of The Father (Ephesian 1:20) , so this must be the spiritual realm we are destined to go to. BUT there exists a heavenly place where wicked entities dwell that we must contend with. Ephesians 6:12. I look at that place as “The Battlefield” and I highly suspect it somehow takes occupancy in the collective hearts of mankind. These things occupy both the unsaved, but are squatters that have no legitimate claim on the territories of the souls who have been redeemed by The Blood of The Lamb. This is where we contend with them, in our hearts, standing against them as more than conquerors when we fully grasp that we are called to use God’s authority to evict these evil forces and drive them out of the territories they had invaded, for the landscape of our heart now belongs to The King that redeemed us. We are to take up supernatural armor, under God’s authority and tear down their strongholds, but we first must shed our old fears, by coming to trust Him more fully, and stamp His seal of Lordship over every vile thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God (2 Corinthians 10:5).
This then makes up the three worlds: Earth as we know it (The Surface World), the metaphysical world of the heartland (The Mid-World), and the Promised Land and Hidden Kingdom we are called to seek first (Excavatia).
The story is the tale of 21 strangers, all from the Surface World, pulled out of time (not necessarily the same time) and into the mysterious land of The Mid-World to join together in a quest to carry one of the three Virtue Stones across the land peopled with friend and foe, humans and monsters, and every kingdom and fiefdom representing the major “human” worldviews that strive to corrupt and thwart the kingdom seeking journey to enter the distance mountains and restore their part of the questing stone into the stolen crown of dominion that the great red dragon tried to steal and escape with over the far stone mountain range. Each of the three stones represents one of the eternal virtues: Faith, Hope, and Love. The three things that last, according to the scripture (1 Cor. 13:13). Some believe these stones have supernatural powers, but others know the truth. All power is give by connection to Christ (Luke 4:6-8), and no one can conjure or wield power unless it be granted and used to serve the ends for which Christ gives it. The most critical point of the quest is not in seeking power, but in learning how to surrender to the authority of Christ and experience His power flowing through us and channeled to do what He commands, even when it may not make sense to the bearer. God’s ways are higher than our way, His thoughts than our thoughts and He uses the simple and weak things to confound the wise and defeat the strong. The MC returns to the Mid-World because he is called to lead this (the third and final quest), not because he is qualified to do so, but exactly because he isn’t. He was the one who helped betray the prior quest and lead to its failure, but the twenty others following him do not know that. But God qualifies those He calls, and they will eventually learn that each of them were called to this. To be there together, to learn to work together and become like a family, a band of brothers and sisters, each with their own shortcomings, insecurities, and secrets. An unlikely team called to a seemingly impossible task, to save a land that they do not know is somehow connected to each of them, and that to save it together, they will be joining in God’s purposes to find the Kingdom, and the implications for their own personal testimony to carry back with them into the Surface World from which they were called.
Brian Stansell (aka O'Brian of the Surface World)
I was born in war.
Fighting from my first breath.Thank you! I made it with Picrew. And your profile picture is beautiful as well! Whoa, your WIP sounds like something I would read. A fantasy psychological thriller? I’m all in. Maybe I should take a leaf out of your book, haha, and make up strange things more often. I find that I put more realistic things in my fantasy these days than made-up stuff. Wow, your setting seems really fleshed out! Which group do your main characters fall into？
Thanks, I didn’t make it lol. I’ve never heard of Picrew but I love the style and the color set, do you have any particular artist techniques you used?
I just love playing around with my worldbuilding. I think it started out along the lines of “I’m bored and idk what happens next I’ll just whip something up! Plothole? Not if I insert fantasy tool/creature/etc a couple scenes before and use it here! No wait…forget plothole now I have screaming plotbunnies and way too many subplots to explain my subplots XD” But my setting better be fleshed out by now I’ve been working on this novel for almost four years now!
Idk much about main character groups but I have three major characters with one MC there; a gifted with Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (the MC), an Autistic glassgirl who wants to be a brawler lol, and a knight who doesn’t have much experience on the battlefield but acts kinda like a special guard in his town during the war and is like the smartest/dumbest character in there. Ok so he’s actually the only sensible, reasonably emotionally healthy guy there which is a real stretch from the…second or third? draft, where he was really rather prejudiced and shallow.
Then in the other kingdom you have the MC’s half-brother the crown prince, a sympathetic but manipulative wizard and a gender-fluid girl, which causes a lot of plot–as well as theme–problems considering an arranged marriage for purely political purposes and they hate each other on sight and that was an exercise in how bad bad ideas can get XD.
As far as my story has informed me I only have two main POV characters though; my MC and the wizard.Your WIP sounds so cool Cathy! I love symbolism, puzzles, and of course sarcasm is the best.
Thank you! SArCaSm iS tHe bEsT, ain’t it? 😉
I like the cultural ideas there for your story!Because I HATE interspecies relationships in fantasy that have zero explanation as to how that even works, I am still figuring out how that works in my world. It’s a bit confusing, and I’m sure it would hardly ever be explained to a reader, but I need to know how it works. One thing I do know is that wilderkin only have relationships within their own kind. Because we don’t need a mutant tortoise man-child or a freaky fish-bird hybrid.
Lol yes! I went through a very interesting mental tangent of world building on inter-race relationships. Most really can’t cos no mutant tortoise man-child or anything like that lol!
To be a light to the world you must shine in the darkness.
The only problem with Space is that everyone will think it’s Star Wars. XD
Thanks!
https://discipleshipwithjoy.com
Hello, Joy!
Girl that sounds cheerful and celebrating even to say as a greeting! What a very happy name you are blessed with!
I saw you mentioned…
Or maybe something in space, like C.S. Lewis’ Space trilogy
I loved those books! It was kind of organic, space and Arthurian legend rolled into one trilogy. Marvelous!
I did and have written some science fiction. As a matter of fact, I have blended in some science fiction with my fantasy, as well as time travel and brief glimpses back into the “times from which they came” for some of my characters, when they briefly return to their “Surface World” existence, for whatever reason. Don’t be afraid to take elements from genres and blend them into your own special mix. True there is nothing new under the sun, [Ecclesiates 1:9] and history does repeat itself, but there is always a new blending of existing elements that are fresh and unique and new. So find your flavor and experiment. Borrow ideas that intrigue and spin them into something that delights and intrigues you. I guarantee that if it delights you to write what you find yourself working on, you will have an audience for it. That delight comes through into the creative work and is fused within it and is infectious… [uh oh, bad word choice…in light of the…um… Too soon?] Well, you know what I mean. 😉
Welcome! Welcome! I am excited for you and look forward to seeing what God’s giftedness in your delights will flavor. Godspeed!
Brian Stansell (aka O'Brian of the Surface World)
I was born in war.
Fighting from my first breath.Hey Joy,
I just checked out your blog site and saw you wrote a book about the Apostle Paul’s sister! That is so cool! I think many people misunderstand the Apostle Paul and how passionate and kind he actually was.
I have a scene in my WIP (Chapter 2 – Writing From Prisons, scene 6), where my MC actually admonishes the group he is leading on Paul’s tenacity in the pursuit of doing what God called him to do, despite the trials and difficulties he faced.So cool that you are digging into the behind-the-scenes of the Scripture. I love that!
Brian Stansell (aka O'Brian of the Surface World)
I was born in war.
Fighting from my first breath.Very cool username!
Oh, thank you! The credit goes to my parents’ good taste in name-choosing.
Yes, I loved the Space trilogy as well, in addition to Narnia. Lewis is one of my favorite authors.
Thanks for the advice! I had actually never considered mixing genres before. I think I should set aside some time just for worldbuilding brainstorming. I appreciate your reminding me that the writer’s delight will make the reader feel passion as well. Confession: Recently I realized that I’ve kind of been stressing too much about word count and stuff and don’t have as much joy in what I’m actually writing, so I needed that nudge. After all, as you said, delight is infectious!
Thank you so much! I’m only on the second draft of that book, so it isn’t quite fully developed lol, but I definitely believe I won’t ever love another WIP in quite the same way. Paul is actually my favorite Bible character, mainly because several of his writings really pushed me into the conversion process. I certainly agree that there are so many misconceptions about him, which was a large part of my motivation to write that book. I really love to see Bible characters as they were – real people with feelings – instead of the statues, paintings, and verses we tend to reduce them to. It’s quite fun to write through Paul’s sister’s eyes. 🙂
Thanks so much for the kind words and greeting!
https://discipleshipwithjoy.com
@obrian-of-the-surface-world That sounds really interesting! I’m thoroughly impressed with how developed it is. How long have you been working on it?
@joy-caroline Of course, haha. It’d be interesting to see just how you can change it so people will stop thinking of Star Wars. I really enjoyed Treasure Planet‘s take on space travel.
@this-is-not-an-alien Ah, Picrew is basically an avatar/icon maker, so I just clicked options until it looked good, heh. Four years is a long time! And also, absolute mood about plot holes and things. More often than not I’m just making things up as I go along… You ask me what a character is like before I start a work, I probably couldn’t tell you. Your characters all sound really cool! The interactions must be really fun to write."I set a melody upon the scenery I saw outside my window;
It's beginning in my spacy world."
- TKI suppose I’m trying to capture the feel of British and Russian lit with the writing style, emphasis on family and social drama, and limited technology. I’m not at all trying to “recreate” a particular time period or culture by any means, but draw from the atmosphere a bit. 🙂
The world my characters live in is fairly ordinary. My characters are all human, there’s no magic, no people with special abilities, etc. But there is a dark world the characters think is just part of their lore, where powerful monsters have been banished. At the start of the story some of the monsters begin appearing at night.
Hi Linyang,
I finally found a question I could give a short answer to. 😁
I started my current WIP on a blog, so I have as precise a time as I could get.Since July 20, 2017 at 8:39 PM to present. I have the two first books online in revising drafts, each chapter published as a blog post. This gives me a timeline and visibility to those who would keep me accountable to “finish what I started”. 😎 It also leaves me open to “trolling” but that’s beside the point. I must learn to work in the forge if I need to.
I have been working on it off and on between a full-time job 50+hrs/week, international trips, conferences, nature walks, day trips, a major house move to a different city, taking time with my wife for a break, and life’s little delays like grocery shopping, yard work, chasing & cleaning up after our naughty dog. 😉Finding time to focus is hard, but worth it.
Brian Stansell (aka O'Brian of the Surface World)
I was born in war.
Fighting from my first breath.@ashley-tegart Oh nice! Any authors you admire? I love Dostoyevsky most, I think. What are the monsters like?
@obrian-of-the-surface-world Oh, cool! I’ve been looking into doing blog serials. Do you have any tips? Wow, your life sounds busy. I’m glad you’ve been able to write, though!"I set a melody upon the scenery I saw outside my window;
It's beginning in my spacy world."
- TKSo I haven’t been on SE in a while. . . but I found this, and I thought it was interesting, so I hope I can say my part.
I don’t really know how to categorize my current fantasy story. It’s rather timeless and somewhat typical in style, based on a blend of dragon and human worlds.
The dragons are the most powerful beings on the world, though to varying degrees of power among themselves. The entire world is based off of what the dragons can do, specifically, their ability to influence nature and Bond with humans, allowing humans to do the same.
There are also rare, powerful dragons called the Origin Dragons. They influence the emotions and mindset of the people, and they have never Bonded in order to maintain balance among humans and dragons and avoid the abuse of their power.
Most people are able to Bond with dragons, during which the two form a connection and the dragon reveals their name and abilities. Their powers are likewise influenced by all people, if they are losing hope, the Origin Dragon referred to as “Hope” (since they can’t reveal their true names without Bonding) will be weakened.
The current plot (it seems to change ever so slightly every time I write) is about people taking advantage of the power the dragons give them and the ability to Bond with them. They are trying to bring the world to order under their rule. They are taking advantage of the fact the Origin Dragons are weakened when the balance is upset.
An opposing group is formed (the main characters) to combat them, though they are also acting against the current government of their world. They work in secret, using their abilities to escape the government’s notice while protecting the people and wild dragons from danger.
The government is composed of one main group, which I haven’t actually fixed characters for. Their main job is to maintain and control a much larger group referred to as the “Nonpareil”, Dragon Masters and capable leaders. The Nonpareil are dispatched to certain islands, and they are to protect the people and maintain balance and order among them and the dragons. Each islands has its own “influencers”, people who have gained respect and trust from the civilians, and the government often uses them to work on projects as well. The government as a whole has a vast amount of control over the people due to the use of the most powerful people in the world, but the way they work, to have few rules and restrictions outside of what seems to be universal, basic decency, the people live in what they believe, and what largely is, freedom.
When the Omega is formed, the antagonists, the government tries to shut them down immediately, but is only able to fend them off. They take control of one of the smaller islands and use their Dragon Bonds to fight anyone who attempts to destroy their base.
The protagonist group (currently undergoing a name change) is not as powerful and does not want to make themselves an enemy of the government, since they also believe in order and balance, so they have to be more subtle and are more restricted in what they can do. When the government discovers them, they attempt to break up the group, to place the members back in their places and use the more powerful ones to continue controlling the people.
The world itself is composed of several islands, each with their own terrains and challenges. The cities are all different based on what resources are around them, and in general, things are kept pretty natural. There aren’t huge cities or many modern devices, since there’s no need for them.
I don’t know what else to say. I’ve made other fantasy stories, but I don’t know where my notes for them are. I’ve probably forgotten a few things, but that’s all I have for now.
I wonder what I was thinking whenever I re-read my old, well-loved stories
Hi Ashley!
Your quote got my attention:
I suppose I’m trying to capture the feel of British and Russian lit with the writing style, emphasis on family and social drama, and limited technology. I’m not at all trying to “recreate” a particular time period or culture by any means, but draw from the atmosphere a bit.
What British and Russian authors do you like?
Of Russian authors, I have read Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s “Brothers Karamazov”, etc. and Anton Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard”, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn “The Gulag Archipelago”, and some parts of Leo Tolstoy’s works, to name a few. We sometimes watch old Soviet-era Russian comedies [with English subtitles] on YouTube, as well.Of the Brits, I do love Charles Dickens (“Bleak House” is awesome), William Shakespeare (the bard of course), Jane Austen (“Pride and Prejudice” is a fav), Emily Bronte (“Jane Eyre”), and some of George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)
My major in college was British and American Literature, and my wife is an immigrant, (now a full US Citizen [for many years now]), from Russia. We traveled back to Russia four times since we were married in 2000. Fascinating place. Almost like a kind of time-travel going there. We vehemently are against its politics, since we are both Christians, but it did present itself as a very moral society, even though it cloaked its darkness behind an Iron Curtain.
I find the works of Ayn Rand interesting, though I think she takes individualism too far (touting “selfishness” as a virtue). However, she was reacting against the other extreme of the evils of collectivism (Marxism) so I tend to cut her a lot of slack.
Here is a quote from her first novel, that I thought was interesting. The MC is Kira, a very talented engineering student, whose, once prosperous, and hard-working family was devastated in the Soviet uprising, said to be “for the people”:“Now look at me! Take a good look! I was born and I knew I was alive and I knew what I wanted. . . . And who — in this [cursed] universe — who can tell me why I should live for anything but for that which I want? . . . But you’ve tried to tell us what we should want. You came as a solemn army to bring a new life to men. You tore that life you knew nothing about, out of their guts — and you told them what it had to be. You took their every hour, every minute, every nerve, every thought in the farthest corners of their souls — and you told them what it had to be. You came and you forbade life to the living. You’ve driven us all into an iron cellar and you’ve closed all doors, and you’ve locked us airtight, airtight till the blood vessels of our spirits burst! Then you stare and wonder what it’s doing to us. Well, then, look! All of you who have eyes left — look!”
— Kira Argounova, We the Living by Ayn Rand
“We the Living” is such an atmospheric novel, and Ayn writes amazingly evocative prose in that one. She was an atheist, though, and sadly some of her works (though not all) do include some amoral behavior that I would not recommend to younger readers.
Brian Stansell (aka O'Brian of the Surface World)
I was born in war.
Fighting from my first breath.@devastate-lasting Oh, I’d love to try writing fantasy like yours sometime. I really admire that style as well. Maybe I’ll get to it eventually.
My favorite things I’ve created so far are probably the Moltan’s…lava people that turn to rock when exposed to water…because their culture is really fun and strange. And the Ticaur (the tiger centaurs), because they are just extremely awesome.😁. I also have War Pigs in my Adventure Fantasy.
It’s hard to describe a Ticaur…they are pretty much a centaur, except instead of a horse body, it’s the body of a tiger. I’ll try to post a sketch I did of one, but it doesn’t’ seem to be working.
"If I'm gonna break, I'll break like the dawn." -Nightbirde
Oh, I love Dostoevsky! Crime and Punishment and Demons are two of my favorite books.
The monsters come out at night and hide themselves in shadows and mist. According to my world’s lore, they devour everything and leave worlds behind them in a state of darkness and decay. There may also be some other kinds of creatures later on… 😉
For nineteenth and twentieth century British works…Lewis and Tolkien, of course! I also love Agatha Christie, G.K. Chesterton, P.G. Wodehouse…I did enjoy A Tale of Two Cities and Jane Eyre. For nineteenth and twentieth century Russian works, Dostoevsky is my favorite. Crime and Punishment and Demons are amazing. I recently read Anna Karenina (Tolstoy). Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is another favorite of mine as well–I’ve read some of his fiction and volume one of The Gulag Archipelago. I love the atmosphere and depth of character in classics! I have never read Ayn Rand, but have heard comments about her work similar to yours.
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