Young Writers Society

Love and Fascination

Shriek brought up a point about Strick and Creiha that interested me (and this is no bash on ya, Shriek. You know I love ya. You just got me thinking. ). Many times people have told me that Strick and Creiha would make a great couple, that they would be a sweet romance story, and each time I keep wondering what people see there. Sure, Creiha is a little crazy over him for a while, but, even though Strick is amiable towards her, he really doesn't love her. I suppose he could. If he wanted to. But the one major reasonI would never let Strick and Creiha be a romance... the difference between love and fascination.

So, we have Creiha who has next to no idea what is going on the beginning of Flames and she meets Strick, this strange, calm character with many layers of secrets all shielded by his desperate attempt not to show emotion. It seems like they would be great - Creiha could force Strick to open up and Strick could knock some maturity into Creiha. The only problem is that Creiha is fascinated by Strick. She doesn't love him; she only thinks he's intriguing; in all, she wants adventure. She wants the exhilaration of diving into something new. She does not love him.

On Strick's side... well, the only reason he's dragging her along is because he feelt a bit bad about getting her into this mess and he thinks she might Senzieda's dying wish who he has been searching for for 3 entire years. And he is repulsed by her fascination. This is delving a bit into Strick's past, but almost everybody in his life only cared about him because he was important to their cause - because they were in essence fascinated. Only Senzieda and later Lusien don't regard him that way.

I could now delve into Lusien, but thatis going to be a long rant... so ending now.

Flames and Tears

Flames the Tears - the duo of terror.

Rewriting parts of Flames has been a nightmare lately. Why? Because when I start from scratch, the characters as they are presently in Tears like to peep through and make themselves known. I was rewriting this one scene in chapter 4 where Strick and Creiha have a bit of a confrontation and suddenly the Tears Strick shows up for a few seconds, takes over. It was scary, because he's not supposed to be that way in Flames, at all!

Creiha is an easy character to write for at the beginning because of her naivety, but Markus and Strick are harder. Anyways, regarding Tears, I am still putting it off.

I'm still in the middle of this stupid Sophie scene where Sophie refuses to talk and Kliana refuses to act if Sophie won't talk. Eeeeevil. I need to figure out what exactly is going to happen in that scene before continuing.

I'm probably about 20 pages or so away from the turning point - the turning point being when Crisci reaches Oceanstone and is in for quite a shock. Poor Crisci.

In addition to that, I have been getting ideas for writing a few shorts on the past of Senzieda, Arillo, Strick, Gietan and Markus. They were the original group, but then Senzieda and later Arillo died. They were a terror, but they were fun.

Sequel Ideas

*deep sigh*

Okay, here's the deal. When I started Tears, I promised myself I was only writing 2 books - 2 books and THAT'S ALL! But, of course, I am getting ideas for a 4 book series. Mind you, I refuse to even begin them until Tears is done, but they are driving me crazy. So, here's my idea.

You don't know this, but King Lucien (a king 2 generations after the beginning of Flames) is the one supposedly writing out Tears and Flames (he has the gift of looking into the past). I'm thinking about adding an epilogue to Flames to hint at this, but I haven't decided yet. Well, it make sense that if Lucien is writing this, it would go up to his time... so here are the two very, very tentative ideas for 3rd and 4th books...

Thunder of Lecraesa

It would track the lives of those a generation after the main characters in Flames. Main character would be Coglia Yalisten who shows up as a one-year old in Tears and loses his memory at the end. Other characters would include Estehla and Linayre Eszrov and all the old characters from Flames. It would be about the legend of the last dragon summoner. "when the two cursed lines meet, so shall the flameless dragon fly again." long story behind that. It would end with Coglia and co. being adults and Coglia being king. I already wrote the tentative epilogue.

Flowers of Lecraesa

Now we get into King Lucien. Don't have much planned for this; I just know that one character will be Seahver, Linayre's son. Not entirely sure about this.

So, those of are weird ideas.

Do 4 books. You'll be twice as famous!

*sighs* I want to do 4 books, but if I do, then unless I take a break, I won't be doing Nanowrimo next year. My aim is to finish Tears by the beginning of my Junior year, but if I start Thunder after that, I'll be very busy. Ah well, I'll have to see. My mom has been bugging me about submitting Flames for publishing. *hides* Flames isn't near good enough to be published, especially in the shape it's in right now. I told her to let me finish Tears and then I might consider it...

Anyways... *coughs*

BACK TO TEARS!

Chapter 5 of Flames won't be up for a long time, because I've promised myself I would reach the turning point of Tears before rewriting any more of Flames. I have to get back to Tears or I won't have it finished in time. And all my plans for Tears are killing me. I was rereading this scene with Strick, Lusien and the speaking stones and I was almost in tears (irony, haha) reading it - I have so much to look forward to. So, for those of you reading Flames, sorry! Be hoping I reach the turning point soon!

Jules the jester wrote:I hate having to kill off characters but it is neccesary in my plot line to kill three or four off.

I may kill off some of my characters too. Not in Nick of Time, but in another book of mine!

So, I scrapped that entire Sophie scene I have been ranting about and decided to start over. So much better already, even though it begins with an argument now... goody. She's actually talking and I think I'm developing some jealousy in another character in the scene, a little unexpected, but not altogether terrible. I can't say I blame her.

I don't know how many scenes until the turning point, but hopefully not too many. *crosses fingers*

...those are good points about love and fascination. I've never thought about it that way, but it could be a grand, grand side-plot.

If all your books are as good as Flames, do seventeen. Twenty, if you've got the guts.

Hahaha, on the plus side, the more you think about it, the easier it gets.

Finally finished my CWC assignment. Okay, so I got lazy and just used Criscialda, Strick and Coglia as my foil characters. It turned out really well and I knocked off a later scene in Tears (though it will need some tweaking). I don't know if I should post the piece here on YWS - it will probably be awfully confusing.

Basically, I love Coglia. Coglia is Criscialda's son in Tears and he is not your average 1 and a half year old; he has a morbid obsession with the idea of death and he reminds me of Pearl from the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne in ways -a kid who says more than he knows. I find it rather ironic that he grows close to Strick (considering Coglia is almost a direct reflection of Strick, except he has retained his innocence.), and I posted some dialogue between the two on my blog.

Fun stuff. As for writing Tears? Still on the Sophie scene - I have been so sidetracked lately with school and this CWC assignment. I need to get back to it now, finish the silly Sophie scene and reach the turning point where I get to write my favorite line: "You would ask a favor of a dead man?" *giggles*

Ahem. Sorry. At the same time, I am planning for further editing on Flames. In two chapters, I get to this one scene where we finally get a good glimpse into Strick's head. *gasp* In the original draft, I didn't really take advantage of hte opportunity, but in the rewrite, I most certainly will. And next chapter we get the speaking stones scene which is going to be a blast. So much juicy material to work with.

I FINISHED THAT STUPID SOPHIE SCENE! *cheers* Hopefully, things will get easier from here. It didn't turn out too well for Sophie though - she had a heart attack from the stress.

EDIT: May I rant?

Character Changes

Aaaah! Character changes. They always change so much. Distinguishing the Flames character and the Tears character is terribly difficult. And when they change throughout both, it gets even worse. Especially with more dynamic characters like Strick, Lusie, Creiha and Markus sometimes.

Static characters like Gietan are just frustrating.

Ahem. Anyways, I'm still planning for my next scene in Tears. I think it will be a scene with Captain Embel and Larckes going to the castle. Sophie and them will meet there while the rest of the characters travel to Hiarnim... and that is where the real fun will begin.

And then the turning point. And then the "You would ask a favor of a dead man?" quote. And then Hiarnim fun. And then I finally bring Strick back into the story (thank God! Maybe I will get some direction back!). Even though I've written the scene where he comes back, I'm uncertain about it - I think I address every conflict he deals with indirectly in the scene, and I'm not sure if that is a good thing or not. My favorite lines?

"One step out of that door and you betray all of Lecraesa!"
"Call me a traitor if you wish."

*applauds WD*

Bah, I love those lines- those horribly cocky lines that cue cliffhangers. ("Gentlemen, I do believe you've made a grave mistake" is my uber-favorite at the moment. )

But...Sophie! Yay! Glad the horrible head/deskness is over.

Chapters in Flames

Chapters in Flames... a very humorous topic, actually.
Why are Flames chapters so long?

Well, you see, Flames was originally written in just a series of scenes - there were no chapters, only scene dividers. If you read the 4 posted chapters of Flames, you will still see the scene divides. It was not until I decided to get some feedback from an English teacher at my school that I divided Flames into chapters.

I was not very happy about the entire idea, and so I hastily divided them with little strategy. I ended up dividing 384 pages into 20 chapters which left me with 20 and 30 pages long chapters. Too long. I agree.

Lately I have been considering chapter names. I've come up with some very witty ideas, but naming all the chapters (and the ones which are yet to be divided) will be difficult. The fact that Flames was written in scenes means that you can have up to 4 groups of characters in the same chapter - usually at least 2 (minus the first few chapters and this one chapter later on). Each group of characters experiences different things so trying to name the chapters with so much bulk to cover is going to be painful.

Ah well, I'll figure it out. The last chapter of Flames will be named "Beads"

EDIT: Names of the first few chapters!

Chapter 1: Sray-Valom
Chapter 2: A Ruined Courtyard
Chapter 3: Arillo (I am considering changing it to Copper Moon)
Chapter 4: How Far (I LOVE this chapter name! *sniffle*)
Chapter 5: The Speaking Stones of Syldameth
Chapter 6: Cold
Chapter 7: Kilandin
Chapter 8: The Queen
Chapter 9: Fairy Tales
Chapter 10: Hiarnim
Chapter 11: Shattered Walls

Wow, you have more dedication than ... anything. Jeezum, you just blow me away. (Once I get up from the computer, the story is over. ) Good luck with your series!

Dahling! I have done a proper crit of Chapters 1 - 3. If I am awake after class tonight, I'll see about scanning them in and posting them.



And, I'll just have to pretend I heard no spoilers concerning Strick.

Cal.

*hugs CL* I love you forever! And sorry about the spoilers.

Chapter Length

It has come to my attention that the chapters I post here on YWS are very long in comparison to other chapters in the forum, and I can imagine that dissuades readers very much.

I've been thinking about splitting the chapters into smaller parts as not to overwhelm any readers, but at the same time, I like having the scenes all in once place. Does anyone have any feedback or suggestions?

I'm beginning to post Chapter 5: The Speaking Stones of Syldameth if anyone is interested.