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RAE posted an update in the group Fantasy Writers 2 years, 9 months ago
Name: Igua Dyke Cloak. (Note: Cloaks never share their true last names except with each other, part of Tradition) masculine
World: The original world of Wond.
Type/breed/kind/whatever-you-want-to-call-it: Man
Profile: green eyes, shaggy brown hair, one side of face and neck has burn scars. 5’3″
Culture/people: Realn, a warrior people who believe pacifism to be a weakness. They live on these small islands called the Realn Isles which contain veins of the most precious metals of Wond leading to many invasion attempts from other countries. They follow an emperor/empress but most of all follow a spiritual being they call Ehyeh (actually Hebrew for I AM so you know who that is.)
Clan of the Realn: the Cloaks, spies on the Mainland.
Character Traits: Rash, irresponsible, (note: at the beginning of the story) somewhat crazy with ideas, doesn’t like butter knives, when he speaks in Trade Tongue (which happens to be the most common-spoken language of the Mainland.) he often speaks with an accent (not a Realn accent, he has never seen the Realn Isles) and uses a lot of slang. At the end he basically transforms (with a lot of help from his “horse”) he basically becomes responsible, and the opposite as before if you omit the butter knife thing and the accent and slang though he uses it less often because of the pleadings of his Cloak Circle. A boy to a man story.
Notes: I have a lot of fantasy characters even though it is not the genre I am the most into right now. Igua seems to right now trump them all in my favor since I added some bits of sci-fi elements. Skullcrusher, Igua’s “horse”, is a type of metal-like alien that can morph himself into different forms and he has a lot of tech from his own culture. He is called a Metamorph by Igua. During the story, to keep his existence and tech secret, he disguises himself as a black and red horse which Igua rides. Skullcrusher does not mind butter knives.
I am thinking how to start this story since I think that starting with Igua meeting Skullcrusher and learning each other’s languages would be a little flimsy and boring a start but where else shall I start?
Genre: fantasy, sci-fi
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Hi Rae! Igua sounds like an interesting character. Random thing, but I’m very curious about the aversion to butterknives. Has he got some kind of tragic history involving them?
Also, about him and Skullcrusher, could you throw them into a bit of trouble together? Make them learn each other’s languages under stress and by necessity, if that makes any sense. It’d add interest, at any rate. You could just do that for the first scene, to jumpstart the relationship.
Good luck with your story!
Igua does have a tragic past as Nahim does, his father was a Cloak but his mother grew up and raised him in a little town where he got his strange accent and his awful habit of slang. When they get into full swing it’s called another language but hey! It’s faster to say stuff. His mother supported her husband but never became a Cloak. When his father was home he trained Igua but otherwise he was on his own for training and his mother was very into the socialites of the town, but usually not in a bad way. She was known for being kind, gentle, and generous. Igua does have a sister but he only has ever met her once (or so he thinks) when she was a baby but then his father took her away to some other town where she would be raised safely.
Now comes why. So at this point in the history of Wond, the main servants of Grathmere (who you will learn is the main antag of well…about everything that the Realn are) were the Fire and Water elves, two siblings that the Cloaks don’t even make mention of their names. They had fallen into Black Magic and now serve Grathmere (though Grathmere is not my equivalent of Satan). Igua’s father had broken into some of the fortresses of the Fire elf and killed all his griffins (soldiers too but he likes his griffins.) Because of this, he knew that the Fire elf would strike back and so if in the case that Igua also would be killed he wanted someone to be the heir. He chose Igua to be the one to take the risk, hoping that it would make him be more responsible. Igua does not know where his sister is. Surprisingly, it was many years before the Fire elf struck. Igua got the burns on his face from that strike. Since both his parents were now dead he became a Cloak and entered the same Cloak Circle his father was in. Out of everyone in is Circle only one really cares what happens to him and that is Joshua, bes friend to his father.
As far as butter knives go, there is nothing tragic. He calls them useless things that could never hurt anyone. He sees no point in using extra utensils since he thinks a knife works best. Note: he has never actually used utensils properly and I prefer utensils, this an Igua only thing though Skullcrusher does somewhat agree. Thanks buddy, you were my only hope of changing that.
I also need to tone down the plan for the story since it seems I’m not giving the bad guys a good chance…I’ve got some problems but first they have to learn each other’s languages. Here we go. Sorry for the rant. I think I am like what Gloin said to Frodo in Rivendell about how dwarves are with their works, I think I have that problem.
Rants are welcome! Hey, your plot sounds good! I have a habit of coming up with a million characters, half a dozen story lines, and then trying to smoosh it all together. You can probably guess that it doesn’t work great. For example, my novel work in progress (though I have a short story I have to finish first):
A. Rhianna, the Loki, is an Accidently Created Being who wreaks havoc wherever she goes. The most recent event was a rebellion.
B. Eagle, a Wind, who used to be chief advisor before the rebellion and ought to still be chief advisor, but the Loki keeps getting in the way.
C. Rhianna also accidently woke up a beast called the Nim, which is not actually the Nim, it is the Beastly Nim. The Nim is something totally different, but she was also woken up by Rhianna. Confusing? Absolutely. It will make more sense once I’ve written the story. Anyways, the Beastly Nim is wreaking havoc and is also being hunted by a dude called the Storyteller and a dude called Goya.
Cue Denari, Otherworldly Being and apprentice Wind. He is tasked with finding the Nim and stopping it.
Also, there are multiple glass figurines who are conscious and take a hand in various events during the story.
And Lillian Angel, an Otherworldly being who helps the Nim (but not the Beastly Nim).
I realized, like, last week that all this could boil down to ‘Denari gets sent on a quest to find the Nim before various other villains do’. Please excuse my rant. It was a lot less intelligible than yours was.
Have you every read Mistborn (Brandon Sanderson)? There’s a group of people in that book that have slang like that. ‘Wasing the wanting of doing the thing’ is an example. This sounds like a fun story! You’ll have to let me know if you ever get it published. Speaking of which, do you think you’d want to get published? Or actually be an author? I’d love to publish something at some point, but I’m not sure I’d want to be a full time author.
That is comforting that rants are welcome because (beware) Ru Eis has a lot of rants she can cast forth.
Your story sounds intriguing. I’m curious who these people are and their backstories.
I’m a fan of backstories and that is where my plots often come from. For Guardian Angels, when I figured out the fact that his family was dead and how it happened I made up Vorgan and his Nanians. Then from there was born the storyline of the horrible first drafts of Guardian Angels.
For Igua, when I figured out how he got the burns on his face I put together the previous ideas of the Fire and Water elves, and from there it went. Skullcrusher was C’s idea (C is how I shall refer to my older brother who does not have the patience or skill, as he has said, to write but has the coolest and sometimes the worst ideas for storylines. I’m not speaking anything bad about him, I love him as a brother but he doesn’t usually think about *ahem* whether his ideas are too fantastical, there always cool and I like them but they don’t always work for me.) So Skullcrusher as his original self must be tuned down a little and it won’t make a plot hole later since I do have the thing that he did basically drop out of the sky from space onto Wond…
Are you applying for the short story contest? I won’t be. Nio inspiration but I did write a short story about Nahim’s childhood. I’ll post it if you’d like to see it. **Warning** there are some mistakes that I am not going to change since it was written for homeschool and it was sent to be “published” so that we could have our own copies of it but it isn’t for sale so I will not be changing those mistakes. Besides they are easy to spot and correct if you pay attention. I can’t enter it because I did post it on a private thing called the Scribbling Pens of New England so I thought it probably was against the rules since it is sort of a type of blog…
Anyway, this has gone on quite long enough,
-Ru
Ru from the now present just poking something in. A common sample of Igua’s slang is, “The effe (ef-ee) woul’e dest.” Translation: “The effect would be devastating.” Now you can see why his Cloak Circle BEGGED him to learn how to speak normally!
HA thank you for mentioning backstories, I just realized that literally only two of those characters have them. This is still a relatively new story. Also, I made a conscious effort not to make sad characters, who are the ones that really need those. Something to work on!
How many brothers do you have? Do any of your siblings write? I have two brothers and one sister who writes.
I am not entering the short story contest because a) the short story I’m working on is over the word limit and b) I’m gonna be in Bible camp all this week, so I won’t have time to type it up before the deadline. It did give me motivation to finish writing the thing though. Once it’s typed up, I want to post it here to get criticism. Do you like writing things out by hand first? I think better when I write by hand. You know, the short story I’m working is about my characters’ childhood too! (Different story though. Sci-fi.) I’d love to read about Nahim’s childhood! Even if it’s sad 🙃.
Also, because of Bible camp, I won’t be able to post until Saturday at the earliest. It’s been fun talking to you! See you in a week!
I have two brothers and no sisters, none of whom write. I have no idea where I got this love for writing since no one that I know of in my family does. I have to write things by hand first either on paper or on my digital notebook from the company Mobiscribe, I just have to write it in good ol’ cursive too since my print has some of the worst spacing problems! Actually the short story (13th Birthday Sabotage) is very light-hearted and features all of Nahim’s brothers but one. It’s before the day in 10,013 GA when one dies and therefore before the Laxan Invasion in 10,015 GA. After I wrote it I found myself wanting to rethink killing his family! I now wish he still had at least his brothers. But if I did that it would ruin some stuff.
See you next week! Bye!