Lore

I've started building lore.  In my first novel, I mention some religion, some historical and religious texts.  I'm not sure if passages from them will ever be used later, but I"ve decided it's time to write them out.  I know what they contain, in general, but I feel like sitting down and putting them to paper might be a good idea, a good place to start from.

I have a history of the world, and of the universe, in mind.  Telling the story of the world, and making it interesting, is the difficult part. 

I have three sort of starting points for what I'm trying to do with my novels, and I guess this is as good a place as any to explain them.

My first inspiration is David Eddings.  I've already mentioned here somewhere how much his Belgariad series meant to me when I was young; how much they shaped who I am and what I’m interested in.  He's the first starting point for what I’m trying to do.  My first goal.

My second starting point comes from Isaac Asimov.  One of the best, and most prolific, writers of all time, Asimov was my introduction to Science Fiction, just as David Eddings was my first introduction to Fantasy (Okay, really my first introduction to Fantasy was Tolkien, but isn't he everyone's?).  What Asimov did was to me, at the time at least, astounding.  He took all his various novels and short stories, from the Robot series to the Foundation novels, even to his R. Daneel Olivaw Detective novels and, in the end, tied them all together.  One giant, persistent, mostly coherent universe, spanning thousands of years; hundreds of characters.  Yes, some inconsistencies were created (You can look them up if you're not familiar with them.  Or even better, go read all of Asimov's books and find them yourselves.  I can wait), but the revelation that everything was tied together was, for a late-teenaged me, astounding. 

My third starting point is Robert Jordan, and here's where it gets tricky.  Robert Jordan created both one of the most detailed and expansive worlds I've yet read (I'm sure there are others out there, I just haven't gotten to them yet), and one of the most secretive.  There are hints throughout of a giant, expansive timeline; one that extends from today to the far far future and back.  But they're never really acted upon.  I very much enjoyed the world Jordan created; I just wish it were more open, more revealed.  I also wish the series were about three books shorter (9, 10, 11), but that's beside the point.

The point is, I have a starting point.  Or, I have three starting points.  Three examples of what I want to do with my world building.  I've tried to start with characters; with creating people to fill the world.  But I feel like they come to me when I write; that I pull them to me when I need them, and that they're best left alone until they're needed.

So now, I'm going to try another approach.  I'm going to build the history of the world, starting with its ancient legends, its religion.  Hopefully from that I will be able to extract the lands and the people that inhabit the world.  They already exist somewhere in my head, and I’m hoping that this new approach can help me drag them, kicking and screaming, onto paper. 

I can't think of a title.

Last time (here’s a secret, I wrote this post and the previous post at the same time.  Aren’t I sneaky?) I talked about quotes; about how amazing and powerful they are, and about how I someday want to write something that powerful, that meaningful.

I know it may sound strange, wanting to get that sort of meaning out of writing some young adult fantasy novels, but it’s true.

Growing up, I read a lot.  Like, a lot.  Like, I read through morning prayer and had my book confiscated so I pulled out a second book and continued reading a lot (I think that last bit should be hyphenated.  I also think I like, said like too many times there).

Between bullying, a dearth of friends, and angry, divorced parents, reading was my escape.  I found a series of books, The Belgariad, by the late David Eddings, and they changed my life.  Literally.  The characters in the Belgariad became my friends, my parents.  I didn’t go outside and play with other kids, I played inside my head with Garion and Ce’Nedra.  They were my friends.  Silk and Barak were my wise uncles, Durnik and Pol were my more-functional parents, and Belgarath was my crazy, mischievous grandfather.  The characters that David Eddings created in that series, they were my family.

I can look at the interactions I have now, the things I try to do in my daily life, and almost everything about me comes from those lovely novels.  They have meant so much to me that, if I ever were to get a tattoo, it would be a line from those books.

What line, I don’t know, don’t ask.  That requires thinking and choosing, and I’m bad at both of those things.

In my journey from Elementary school to High school, I read through the Belgariad literally hundreds of times.  They were, and always will be, my favourite books.

As I sit and look at the book I’ve written, The Fire and the Fog, I find myself despairing, just a little.  Because I don’t feel it, or anything else I ever write, will ever be as good as the Belgariad; will ever captivate someone so completely, so totally that they’ll live their whole life by the words I’ve written; that they’ll literally inscribe my words onto themselves, using their own body as paper for the things I’ve said.

Because I want that very badly.  Not the tattooing; I could do without that really.  (though it can look really pretty sometimes).  But I want something I create, something I write or make, to mean that to someone.  I want for, after I’m dead and gone, someone to think of my passing and say of me, ‘David Alloggia was my favourite author.  His books changed my life’.  I want for someone I’ve never even met to miss me.

I doubt that will happen, the odds are not in my favour.

But that’s not going to stop me from trying. 

Because I’m hoping that’s where quotes come from.  Not from sitting at a desk and thinking about saying something witty and meaningful, but from wanting to mean something to someone.