Young Writers Society

Chapter 1: First Encounter

“Well, the worst we can do is sit here and play.” the boy said to the girl, shaking his head. “Do you have any ideas?”

“No, not really.” the girl replied. “But then again, something will happen. It always does.”

“We could always fight the author.” Nisei, the boy, said, smiling.

“That’d be dumb.” Fiera, the girl said, playfully shoving him. “Only Sages and Viewers can fight with the Author. And only the Admitted can get into the Second World. So unless he lets us in, we’re stuck as Third Worlders.”

“Well, I’m getting out.” Nisei said, reaching for the page. I simply tapped his hands away from the paper, keeping him in the Third World. “Hey, that’s not fair!” he yelled at me, shaking a fist in defiance.

“You are here for my entertainment.” I told him. “I have little else to do, and as a Viewer, I can control your life and death.”

“Only by keeping us in your imagination.” Fiera said. “You can’t really control where the story goes. That’s up to us.”

“Well, I’m open to ideas.” I said. “I can’t think of anything to do, and you two are a little outside of my normal travels. I typically keep First Person out of my writings.”

“Fine, why don’t you give us a tour of First World?” Nisei asked.

“You know I can’t do that: you’d have to be First Worlders to see it, and the closest I can get you is Second World, but that can’t really happen in this context, since writing is the osmosis of Second World ideas into Third World format. So you stuck where you are right now.”

“That’s just great.” Nisei said. “You could do a little developing of our characters.”

“I’m not sure how long the inspiration will last. Right now I’m writing off my Net surfing bleed-throughs.”

“You could go read your book.” Fiera said. “Or you could give me a good wardrobe.”

“Or send us into one of your ready-mades.” Nisei added.

“And I kind of want to know what I can do.” Fiera said. “It’s boring being just a dialogue.”

“Fine, I’ll experiment.” I said, reaching down and picking up Fiera. “FIERA: long, flowing, silky hair. What color?”

“Black.” she said, flicking her hair off her shoulder with her hand.

“For now.” I said, glancing at it. “You look young. How old are you?”

“Don’t you know better than to ask a girl that?” Fiera asked.

“Well then I’ll tell you…” I began, and she glared at me angrily.

“Fine, I’m in my late teens. Late, late teens.” she said.

“All right, probable age eighteen to nineteen.” I replied, smiling. “Eye color?”

“I like purple.” she said.

I laughed. “Well, you may like purple, but you’re starting to turn into a meld of Eclipse and either Lavender’s elven form or perhaps Dark Lin, though I’d have to check her JPEG. But I think her eyes were a dark purple. So to keep you original, I’d have to keep you from having green, and purple, and perhaps all the other colors I can thin of. What do you think of pale silver?”

“You’re hysterical.” Fiera said. “And no, you’re not doing any references to my name with my eye color.”

“Oh? Why not?” I asked. “The last time I checked, I’m the one hitting the keys.”

“And the last time I checked, any little nugget of an idea can grow out of your control, and eventually you’ll end up using us.” Fiera replied defiantly. “So I suggest you let me have what I want if you want to go to sleep tonight.”

“You don’t control the Writing Fairy.” I stated, smiling.

“Well you’d better think of something, or else I get purple.” she said, folding her arms across her chest.

“What if I give you purple skin?” I teased.

“Absolutely not!” she exclaimed. “And can we please talk in the Present tense? It’ll make things flow faster. I hate having to wait for you to fix your Verb Tense.”

“Well, I like writing in the Past Tense.” I said. “I’m only struggling because the last book I completed was in the Present Tense and I haven’t transitioned with the current book I’m in, which is in the Past Tense, and not in the First Person, as it should be.”

“Well you’d better transition quickly, or I’m putting my foot down.” she said, stomping her foot for emphasis. “And quit fixing your Capitals on the pronouns. That’s really annoying me.”

“It’s annoying me more.” I replied. “I hate when Word capitalizes the pronouns when I say what a character’s just said.”

“Then ignore it.” she replied. “You’re probably not keeping this document anyway. Again with the Capitals!”

“Again Word capitalized it.” I said. “I’m trying my best.”

“Do you have an eye color?” she asked.

“Finally it worked that time; I didn’t have to correct it. Are you happy now?” I said.

“I would be if you’d quit stalling, although I realize you’re still trying to pick a color while I’m complaining at you.” Fiera said. “What now?”

“I have a headache.” I replied, rubbing my head. “I’ve been on for over an hour straight (not necessarily typing) and my head is killing me, especially considering I woke up two hours early this morning and didn’t sleep that well at all. So I’d like some sympathy for my predicament.”

“None given.” she scolded. “Quit fixing the Pronouns!”

“I’m not sure why it didn’t work this time.” I replied.

“Eye color!!!” she shouted.

“Fine!” I shouted back. “You get black.”

“Ugh! That’s ugly, worse than silver.” she said, sticking her tongue out in disgust. “And you’re still fixing the Pronouns.”

“Well, I can’t give you such a plain eye color as brown.” I said. “You need something a little more…exciting. Ah! Aquamarine.”

“That works, to an extent.” Fiera said. “Although I don’t like the hair with that color. Dark brown works better.”

“Dark brown it is.” I said, making the change. “Now, what else do you need? You’re about average height, perhaps five-foot-seven?”

“That works.” Fiera replied. “And now my dress. I want a long, flowing white dress, with a belt that matches my eyes.”

“It looks like a piece of ribbon to me, but I have no fashion sense, so we’ll just leave it as a belt.” I said, grinning at her disapproving frown. “And I can just see you as a barefoot sort of girl. Do you want a bit of a tan? Or do you like your light skin just the way it is?”

“I’m fine now.” Fiera said. “Don’t start baking me like a lobster.”

“All right.” I said.

“You’re ignoring me.” Nisei said, jumping up next to her.

“No, I’m not.” I replied, gently setting Fiera back onto the blank stage. “But I needed to focus on one character at a time.”

“Well, then deal with me.” Nisei said.

“I am, right now.” I said. “Let’s see, you’re name references the Lower Shou. And you seem to be a bit Gypsy or Rover to me.”

“I am, so give me my bronze skin already.” Nisei said.

“Done. Anything else?” I asked.

“Yes. I have brown hair and brown eyes.” Nisei said. “And I want to be tall and muscular.”

“I can do the looks, not the latter.” I said, wiping off the extra bulk and height he’d given himself.

“You’re letting him have his way a lot more than me.” Fiera said, glaring at me.

“You didn’t know what you wanted.” I replied. “And guys tend to care a lot less. He’s a bit stereotypical. I made you unique.”

“Fine.” Fiera said, sitting back down.

“Now, let’s see. A tunic and some shorts for you, perhaps light tan for the shirt and mud brown for the pants.” I said, attaching the clothes. “And a sword, medium length and grade, strapped across your back.”

“I want a weapon!” Fiera exclaimed, jumping up.

“A hidden dagger under the dress, around your waist.” I absently waived my hand, placating her. “But I know you’re not much of a fighter. You’ll stab them in the back when they’re not looking, but you won’t get into a fight. You’re not built for it. Now, back to Nisei.”

“I want my sword to burst into flames.” he said, drawing the blade.

“No.” I said firmly, putting his little toothpick (or at least that’s what it looks like to me) back in its sheath. “You have a normal weapon with no special abilities. You want to learn something relatively close to magic? Go talk to Hag or Incog. Oh wait, I forgot.” I said sarcastically. “I’m still confining you to your undefined world.”

“You’re thinking about putting us in Lanoche.” Fiera said, smiling mischievously.

“That world’s getting crowded.” I said, trying to hide my smile. Both of them saw it, though, so it didn’t matter.

“You’ve barely spent any time with it.” Fiera complained. “How many are there?”

“For starters, the key trio: Serna, Finch, and I think I settled on Mikah.” I said. “Then there’s Lord Tigernach and Serna’s mentor, whose name I don’t remember at this point. I’m also considering adding Yuri and Tsuke into it, and there was something else that I can’t remember right now. Oh, and Obsidian and Deron are going into it. Ah yes! I remember: Hasdrubal and Mago Barca. The generals. So let’s see; what else did I have?”

“Basically nothing.” Fiera said. “You have no good leader for the Rovers, and no real purpose for them except to be your Mongol hoard.”

“Fine, we’ll let Nisei be the villain Rover.” I teased.

“Hey! I’m one of the good guys.” Nisei objected.

“So you are.” I said. “But that would put you as more of a Gypsy, so you’re starting to cross over, if you were going to be a Lanochen in the first place. However, I haven’t defined either of you yet, which is kind of the point of this…”

“Experiment?” Fiera suggested.

“You could call it that.” I said. “Although I feel like you’re shifting a bit into my Dominant Female stereotype. Perhaps I should go back to the Net, or just reread what I’ve already written to find out where the shift occurred.”

“Or you can just keep typing.” Nisei suggested hopefully.

“No.” I said, scrolling up. “I’m done typing for now. You two can take a break. Besides, my eyes are starting to hurt.”

“Don’t leave us!” Nisei shouted, and Fiera elbowed him in the ribs.

“Oh, hush. You’ll be fine.” she said.

I scrolled back down. “Never mind; I checked: you’re pretty much unchanged, although you were already there, I guess. I just feel the need to bring in some more diversity to my Female Character Personalities. They’re all pretty much Warriors.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” Fiera asked.

“Only when there’s about thirty or so all in one room.” I replied.

“Oh, yuck. That’d be like all of us wearing the same dress.” she said.

“My point exactly. However, since you’ve already bent yourself that way, and this is just for fun, I’ll see where it goes. Perhaps I should see about trying to force a few in my non-dominant persona Types.”

“You are so not a Paladin.” Fiera said.

“I know that.” I replied. “Although I do have some Rogue.”