Writer Wander 026 - Echoes of Heroes Recap I

A status update on the novel Writer Wander is about

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Rider Wander, Episode twenty-six. The novel up until the day of recording this podcast. So it was occurring to me that I've spent a few episodes where I haven't done like an update on what I've actually done with the novel. I've mostly just been ruminating on just random thoughts that have occurred to me in the process of writing. And that's perfectly fine. If anything, those kinds of episodes are what make this podcast different from something like a craft podcast or just a podcast where I'm talking about writing novels, right? You know, it's in the very tagline. You know, Rider Wander is a writing podcast that is not about writing, and obviously, because of that, because of the fact that Rider Wander is not about writing, then um it will have multiple episodes in which the actual writing itself is not the center focus. In fact, I don't think there's really been any episode where the where the writing has been the center focus, with the exception of maybe some of the very early episodes where I was just talking about like the conception of the novel. I I guess the way that I'm looking at all of this, uh the way I conceptualize Rider Wander, it's that the novel is sort of like the connective tissue between all the episodes, and it's slowly developing in the background. But the actual meat of a given Rider Wander episode is the specific topic and the following topics that emerge from that process of writing the novel, right? Because as you know, as I can easily point out, if you want uh another writing craft podcast, there's plenty of those out there, there's plenty of people who do that a lot better than me. In fact, I I used to write under a different persona a long time ago. I had a WordPress blog, I think I was like 17 or 18 or something, and I I it was a blog that mainly dedicated itself to talking about the craft of of writing. But um, you know, I I I'm just not as passionate about that particular subject as other people are. So it I started to burn out a lot on that uh on that old blog, right? But it's still it's still up. It's called Questing Author, if you're interested. But uh it's still it's still around. So um a lot of the writing's probably rather cringeworthy, but it's worth it's worth looking into. Just don't pay too much heed to like that one essay I made about the Lord of the Rings, because I made it not having read The Lord of the Rings. So I don't know why that occurred to me, but you know, it it is what it is, okay? You know, you're getting you're getting it straight. Almost a decade later, I lied on my old pot on my old blog. Um you know, it's over. I'm I'm gonna go to jail, my life is ruined, you know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, okay? But it had to be done. But you know, silly silliness aside, right? Let's talk about how Echoes of Heroes is going. So, like I said, what is Echoes of Heroes, right? You know, a lot of you might have been watching, you know, not all the episodes in synchrony. You know, you you can pop into this podcast in literally any episode because again, the novel is just a through line, but every every episode is roughly independent from itself, minus some references. Uh, and basically this whole time I've been writing this novel called Um Echoes of Heroes. It is a medieval fantasy novel who which is aesthetically designed to be to have a very classical feel. Okay, so from the surface, this novel looks as if as if it's just your standard fantasy fare, and I I deliberately kept as many aesthetic aspects of the you know what we typically associate with the fantasy genre in this novel because I felt a profound desire to reconnect with my own roots as an author, and that that's why that's why I included that there. Now, curiously, um the main conceit of Echoes of Heroes is that this is a novel that takes place not during the period of time in which the heroes are striving against the dark lord of the novel, but rather this is a novel that takes place after the heroes have won the great war, after the great evil has been sealed away, and all of the companions, which correspond to the former generations of heroes, the all of the companions that survived have come to positions of power and they're still in the world, but they're older people, they might be kings, generals, or or you know, of some other position of prominence, and they're moving the world because now they have become institutions rather than merely heroes. And this novel will follow the journey of a young man named Finnegan, Finnegan of Alvenmount, who comes from a region named Namak, who runs into an old an old friend of his called Ken. And Ken is planning on going to an expedition that has been announced from the city of Paragost, where the main, the big, the most important companion living companion, so to speak, called Sigismund Moonbane, he is convoking an expedition to explore a new frontier, and he's sort of treating it as if it is the last quest of the of the present age, which is an age of of fading, right? And the main draw of this novel is that it will have an Odyssey-like structure. That is to say, it will not follow a traditional plot structure because the idea will be it's almost like a sandwich where you have one piece of bread on the top, and you have another piece of bread, another bun on the bottom. But all the stuff that goes in between, you have a lot of flexibility with what you can put in there, but it's still a sandwich, it's still a sandwich. You can put cheese, lettuce, sausage, um, pepperoni, bacon, you know, tomatoes, whatever you want. You can make any kind of sandwich that you want, but it's still gonna be a sandwich, and that's the main philosophy behind the plot structure of this story that the events that occur between Finnegan leaving Alban Mount, which is his village, and arriving in Paragost are events that are loosely connected by the fact that our main character is basically on a road trip to Paragost and he's encountering a bunch of people on the way, he's solving certain problems that emerge along the road, but you know, the the overarching plot is just getting to getting to Paragost, and I think that this gives the novel a very exploratory feel that is quite fresh in the fantasy genre because you know I can't help but feel that in fantasy a lot of times we were dealing with like these these massive plots that almost feel like just these big burdens upon our shoulder, and I figure that it would be very refreshing to create a story that it's just a dude wandering to like you know, like Rider Wander, wandering to another location, um, without necessarily the goal of vanquishing a great evil or undertaking a great quest. He's just there to join an expedition, which is you know, it's sort of like something that a normal person um would do, you know, sort of like a gold rush, uh, you know, like you had in 19th century America, right? And so far, what I've written, I I've written up until the point where Finnegan has just left his home and he's walking with Ken and he's about to arrive to the main city on Namak, which is the land he comes from. It's basically the only city there, and from there he's going to take a ship to the mainland of the continent, from which he will continue on a walking journey to Paragas, where he will eventually join the expedition. But a lot of the things that I think are very interesting that I've done so far have a lot to do with the traditional fantasy setup that you that you often see in fantasy novels, right? So basically, what happens, you know, most you know, the standard fantasy novel, like the the generic fantasy novel that everybody thinks about, this novel typically begins with the protagonist in a village of some variety. He's he's in a village, and while staying within this village, um, he's living like a normal pastoral life, and something happens that is considered an inciting incident to kick him out. The most common thing is that you know the big bad guy or a lieutenant of the big bad guy comes to his village, forces him out, possibly burns the village down, and you know, kills everyone, and this makes it so that our protagonist is forced to leave his home, right? However, again, I I always think that um the best way to play around with tropes is to not abandon them entirely, but rather it is to play around with them in subtle ways. So I figured, you know, I'm still gonna have Finnegan come from a herding community from a very pastoral background from from very humble origins, but I will decidedly make the choice. First of all, he's not he's not a chosen one, which in and of itself is not too uncommon because a lot of people don't like the chosen one trope, and it's actually not as common as people think it is, but obviously there's no prophecy surrounding Finn. But even more important than that, the reason that Finn leaves is not because he's being pressured by an outside force, it's not because there's people chasing him, it's not because there's anyone trying to kill him, it's not because his home has been destroyed. The reason that Finn leaves is purely a choice based on his own desires and his own philosophy, right? I wanted to make it so that Finn is not running away from something at the start of this novel, he is running towards something, right? Finn's home life is very good. He loves his parents, you know. He he might have like some kerfuffles with them or you know, some debates with them, but at the end of the day, they are good parents. He has a solid relationship with with Connor, who's a very traditional Namakian male, you know, this traditional rural patriarchal figure, and he's a good and an honest man by all regards, but you know, the clashes he has with Finn, they're just a result of Finn being different, of having different conceptions of what his goals should be in in life. And you know, if Finn stays in Alban Mount, by all accounts, he has a pretty good life ahead of him, he'll probably inherit his stats herds. Um, he he um the girl he likes, Isolf, um, she she likes him, she already likes him, they're already basically flirting, and basically, um, when Ken arrives, before he is about to give you know Finnegan the suggestion about um leaving for the expedition with him, um, Finn lets him know that he's actually planning on proposing to Isolf. And based on the details that we get uh on the interactions between Finn and Isolf, um, it is very likely that Finn uh would have been successful in getting her affections because so far, you know, you know, they've been very touchy-filly, they clearly like each other, right? But again, I wanted to create this shorts where you have a character that he has a good life ahead of him. You know, he's not, you know, he's not like Frodo, who was basically chased out of his home. He's not like Quilth from The Name of the Wind, who basically had his entire family's caravan destroyed, nor is he like like uh Rand from from Wheel of Time, who was also basically chased out, chased out of his hometown. No, he he could stay there, and there's nothing wrong with it. Nothing bad would happen if he stayed there. The the only thing that bad that would happen is the regret that would continue to exist in his heart if he never left this place that was good toward a an uns unsure horizon that was objectively better. That is the key drama within Echoes of Heroes at the beginning, right? You know, this push and pull between the good and safe option and the dangerous, unknown, but potentially great option that could lead to greater outcomes overall, right? And that's probably gonna be a theme that re you know rebounds across the the entire the entire novel, really. And that's that's again another thing that's really fascinating about this. This is all taking place during a context where there is this big ceremony called the spearing, which is um uh which is meant to, you know, it's just a traditional ceremony from Namak, um, from the passed down from from ages in their in their culture and and tradition, right? It's it's just one of those kind of old ceremonies. And you know, Finn doesn't want to participate initially because a long time ago his brother Niall left, he left to go on his own adventure, and one of Finn's deepest requests uh regrets is that you know he had the chance to go with Niall. Niall had offered him the opportunity to leave with him, but Finn, but Finn said no. Finn said no because at the moment he was too scared to take the plunge, he was too scared to move forward, and as a result, he and because of that he stayed behind, right? So there's that factor to consider. Now, that's one of the things that keeps motivating him, and when Ken arrives, and he presents Finn with this opportunity, up until now, Finn had had this resentment at his brother leaving and wanting to honor the memory of his of his brother, but it was sort of like one of those situations where he was choosing to live with that resentment. But Ken's arrival, more so than even a call to adventure, what it represents is a reckoning with those unresolved emotional tensions that existed within Finn. For a long time, even though Finn has clearly been upset about the fact that his brother left, he's been suppressing that you know that emotion for for a long time because up until then he didn't think there was any way to act upon it, right? His brother had left, and at the end of the day, uh there's there's nothing, there's not much else that he could do about it. If his brother left, his brother left, and and that's it. But when Ken arrives and he talks to him about this expedition, he doesn't just see an opportunity for adventure, he sees an opportunity to make up for that lost opportunity that he had before. A chance to, you know, to finally say yes to his brother Nial in the form of Ken giving him this opportunity to go on an adventure with him. But again, it it cut it's deeply costing Finn. And as the days go on and as the ceremony eventually happens, um Finn is is just he is deeply suffering, he is in deep pain at the fact that I have to leave my home. Or uh or else I will regret not having done so for the rest of my life. And eventually Finn obviously leaves his home or else we wouldn't have the plot. And part of that has a lot of that has to do, you know, with his his going. He says goodbye to his family. He um he uh he spends time with the woman he would have proposed to. And you know, there's like the scene where they go on a lake and they're they're on a they're on a raft, and Finn, you know, you know, in a rush of emotion, he tells her that he has to leave, that you know, he can't bear the burden of staying here, but he wanted to propose to her. And deep down, since she truly loves him, she understands, she understands, and her only request is that he love her on that night before he left for the first and last time. And um, you know, the scene fades to black. They they embrace um it's up to your imagination whether they you know they um they did things on that boat or not. Um I left it open because you know, obviously, you know, as Catholic, as a Catholic, I don't I don't support premarital sex. Uh, I hope that that that's not surprising. I I think it's sinful behavior. However, I'm you know I'm writing with a character that doesn't necessarily share my same moral compass. Um Finnegan comes from a culture that is um has still has many localistic pagan traditions tied within it. So a lot of the stigmas that are coming in from the mainland um in the form of the sleeper religion, um, which is the worship of Aldamiria, who's one of the companions that is asleep and is holding back the great evil uh ever since the you know the turn of the last age, um that religion is only starting to make strides uh in Finn's lands, and so there's a lot of syncretism um in Finn's culture between both of the religious traditions, both old and the new, right? So there are those factors to consider. And again, Finn will not have that same moral compass, so you know, whatever he did on that boat, I don't say it. There's no need to say it. You can you can imagine whatever you want. And basically, Finn arrives, and now we're at the point where we're getting near to where I stopped riding recently, where Finn is on the long road to a city called Winenguard, where he is gonna take a boat away from Namak into the mainland, and on the way, he swings by an old homestead that Ken used to have, and in that old homestead, um Ken left, dug in deep in the earth an artifact sword, which you know he gifts to Finn, and it's a sword made by elves, he gives it to Finn, and you know, Finn is like, Why are you giving me this? Isn't this yours? And you know, basically, Ken says that a long time ago he gave up on the sword. So, for those of you who have been following uh up until in previous episodes, you might recall that I said that Ken is secretly one of the old companions that people thought was dead, but he faked his death, or at least he went along with it, and he took on a different name. His original name was Talison, and he just went on with his life. Um, so the exact reasons why he gave up the sword, I I'm I'm still gonna develop those. I that's a plot thread that I left open for development later on. But uh he gives the sword to Finn, and what he tells him is that this sword had a name before, however, since we are living in different times, since we are living in a fade of in an age of fading, it is only appropriate that before Ken tells Finn the old name of the sword, that Finn starts thinking of a name that he would be willing to give the sword, right? And for a good chunk of the early novel, Finn is not gonna be sure what he's gonna name the sword until he reaches a certain point where you know, in the outline, I already know what the name of the sword is gonna be. Um, but I'm not gonna say it yet because sometimes things happen and things change, and um, you know, who knows? Maybe the name that I give to the sword will change um as well, right? So that was Echoes of Heroes so far, and we've just gotten past the inciting incident. We are still in the first act of the story. There's gonna be a point where Finn is gonna get on the ship, he's gonna meet some new companions, and they're gonna be waylaid by pirates. And once they are brought to the pirate stronghold, I will consider the the first. Um I will consider it the first um uh the first act of the story. Again, so far I still I still feel the energy. I spent a few days um still with this energy, very excited to get to the story. Um, in my experience, eventually this strong burst of energy fades. Um, but I will say that I've had it longer than I've had it before, right? I you know, I'm starting to get these bursts of energy um to write. Okay, and um I'm I'm looking forward to it because in the previous projects I did before, I lost that energy very quickly. Um, which was a sign that I hadn't been plotting something that I had my heart in. So, you know, this has been Rider Wander, and this has been Echoes of Heroes up until now. And um I hope you'll keep joining me to see where I'm gonna take this story from here on out.