Wednesday, February 20, 2019

My Plotting Progress (part 1): The Silver Key




Hello everyone! 
Ever since I finished Tess Short (book one), I thought I should make a post about the novel that I have been plotting and what I have so far...so let's begin: 
The inspiration for my story was Doctor Who, though I admit I have never watched the show. I like the fact that the character dies and then comes back in a different body and has a different personality and yet is the same character and is aware that this is all happening. So, instead of one character, I decided to do this with all the characters, and make them aware of it, thus...
All is Not Lost For All Will Begin Again was created.

Synopsis (what I have of it so far)- 
(First book in the series (though it is not the first in the time line for the world) All is Not Lost For All Will Begin Again)
At the age of twenty every young man and woman finds out what they were in a past incarnation.
Phoenix has reached that age, and is interested in finding out what lies ahead...
The Main characters-  

                                             Phoenix 
Phoenix is an orphan, who wants to promote change for the orphans through his poetry. 

(I'm currently trying to find a good name for her) 



Her father is a martial artist and she was trained in self-defense by him. 



Princess Ashalena 


A princess who is rather upset that her parents are not 
focusing on the orphan problem that looms over the kingdom. 

(Another nameless character) 

I don't know much about him yet, all I know is that Phoenix met him one way or another. 
And that he has some secrets that will be revealed later in the book. 
One distinct characteristic about him, is that he loves food, compared to Phoenix, who, 
does not like it...at all.  
       
The Gods and Goddesses- 
One of my favorite things about this novel is creating the mythology for the world. I thought I would introduce you to the gods and goddesses I came up with (most of the gods or goddesses are loosely inspired by Greek, Egyptian, and Norse mythology, and I will mention what inspired them):
                                                   The creator goddess 
 The creator of the world and the people in it and the queen of the gods, 
and later creator of reincarnation. 

She is known by many names, but people (the mortals that is) call her "the queen of the gods" or 
"the creator" or "all powerful." She is known for creating the world and the people in it. She pitied them for dying and not being able to finish all they wanted to, and because of this created reincarnation. 
However, no mortal has exactly seen what she looks like, no one has seen her face. All they've seen is silvery white hair, and that is why it is one of most recognizable features, and was in fact given to mortals of high class. 

(Since in most mythologies I have read there is a king of the gods who oversees everything, there is never a queen of the gods who oversees anything, so I thought why not change it and have there be a queen of the gods in this world's mythology).
                                                   


Nisis/Nyro the goddess/god of

 love, beauty, marriage (both female and male sides of marriage), etc. 

No one exactly can draw the god/goddess of beauty, since Nisis is prone to change her shape to reflect what a specific person thinks is beautiful to them, and so is the male side Nyro. 
The only reason there is a drawing of them is because one of my characters just so happened to see them in this form. Their symbol is two snakes intertwined, 
which is similar to Hermes's Caduceus but not on a wand. The fact that they can shape shift between male and female was inspired by the myth of Tiresias, who hit two snakes who were mating and got changed into a woman by the goddess Hera as a curse. After seven years, he was able to turn back from being a woman by trampling on two mating snakes. (In some versions he leaves the snakes alone and remains a woman.) The female version of this god's name (Nisis) was also derived from the Egyptian goddess Isis's name. Isis was also the creator of the cobra. 


                                            The King and Queen of the sea                                                
The god and goddess of the ocean, 
marine animals, sailors, etc. 

They are the rulers of the sea.
(Inspired by Greek mythology's Poseidon) 

I have still more gods and goddesses that I am working on that will be posted in later posts about this novel. 

My characters' casting choices-
A habit of my characters is to decide that they look like an actor or an actress. I thought I should mention it in one of my posts since it never really gets mentioned in the other posts about my novels:

                          Eddie Redmayne as Phoenix 
(image from Rotten Tomatoes, https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fantastic_beasts_and_where_to_find_them#&gid=1&pid=n-1382982)

 I knew from the start that Phoenix looked like Eddie Redmayne. Surprisingly, the moment I began writing the beginning of the first chapter Phoenix independently decided he looked like him, too. This rarely happens since my characters usually decide they look like an actor or actress when I am in the middle of the story or series.
(The actor Eddie Redmayne has acted in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Les Misérables, and several other movies)  

                                   Sara Martins as (my currently un-named character)
(image from Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camille_Bordey) 
Once again, this character also decided right away what she looked like.
(The actress Sara Martins has acted in Death in Paradise and some movies.)
                         
                          Linda Park as Princess Ashalena 
                                                         
(image from Wiki, https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Hoshi_Sato?file=Hoshi_Sato%2C_2154.jpg)

Princess Ashelena also surprised me (yet again) by deciding that she looked like Linda Park.
(The actress Linda Park has acted in Star Trek: Enterprise and Jurassic Park III and several other movies.) 

In later posts about this novel, I plan to do photo edits of the actors/actresses as the characters. 

The world- 
 I don't have much information about the world figured out yet, other than that what I wrote in the Synopsis. So far humans and fairies, and possibly other different creatures live in this world. 
And there are thirty-two hours in a day, which makes the world run on a (modulo) 16 clock. Not just the clock is different but the world rotates more slowly than ours, so there are eight more hours than our world's clock.  I don't exactly have the clothes figured out yet, at least for that particular time period in the All Is Not Lost For All Will Begin Again series, so that is why in some of the drawings you never really get to see the character's clothes.
As I continue world-building, I will post again. 

Music that goes along with the story- 
The story soundtrack (aka music playlist) isn't ready to be posted yet, but I will give you a preview of some of the songs that go along with the story...

                            Book and a Cover by Suzanne Vega 
You can also listen to here
This is one of the many theme songs of the story. 

To my Dear Friends performed by Erutan 
You can also listen to it here
This is a theme song for one of my minor characters. 

Howl's Moving Castle Theme 


You can also listen to it here

This song first came up in this post , and was the clue that I gave out about the novel. 
If this novel were a movie, I would say it is the soundtrack for (part of) the first chapter. 
                          
Awake by Kalie Shorr 

                            You can also listen to it here
If I told you what part of the story this song reflects it would be spoiling it.
But let's just say...this talks about something Phoenix has to go through.

And one more song that reminds me of the story (well, more of Phoenix...than the story) is a song
from Les Misérables called Empty Chairs and Empty Tables sung by Eddie Redmayne but I couldn't find a video that was actually officially from the musical/artists,
so I couldn't post it here, but it definitely helps me understand Phoenix's voice...
And just to assure you I don't plan to kill off every character like you may think I have been trying to say.

As I continue to plot this novel, I plan to make more posts about it.
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What is your favorite thing to do when plotting novels? Do you work on the world first or the characters? Also do you like to create mythology (or mythologies) for your fantasy worlds? Also do you enjoy doing world building? 
Love,
Quinley 

Thursday, February 14, 2019

Introducing Some Characters: Valentine's Day Themed characters




Happy Valentine's Day everyone! :) To celebrate I will be introducing to you some Valentine's Day themed characters:


                                                             Alec 

                            

         


           A cherub, who hasn't quite yet figured out how to use his love arrows yet, 
              and has a tendency to shoot his foot and fall in love with random objects, people, and animals. He rather wishes there was such a thing as a love stone, so he could use his slingshot to make people fall in love. Unfortunately none of those exist (yet), so he stuck with a bow and arrow that he doesn't know how to use. 



                                                       Rosa  




                     
Is a sorceress, that specializes in love potions, and has had several desperate people come to her to buy love potions. Unfortunately, she doesn't exactly know what real love is like, and only knows what love potion love is like, which isn't exactly real love. 


                                      Selene 
   


She was named after the goddess of the moon (the one long before Artemis, the goddess of the hunt and moon), because she was born during the full moon. Selene is a demigod daughter of the Greek Goddess, Aphrodite. She does not generally like to talk about it, even though her beauty has attracted very many young men, she has no desire to marry and would rather become a priestess of Artemis or Athena, or even join Artemis's hunts. 


                                                                   Vallara 
                                                 


Vallara is an elf druid, who is rather upset about Rosa's illegal usage of love potions. Vallara wants to stop things before they get out of hand, because love potions aren't exactly real love since it's controlling the person who you want to love with a potion. Thankfully Vallara has managed to reverse the potion's effects on the victims, but she still hasn't been able to stop Rosa from making them. Every time she tries to find Rosa she seems to have moved her potion shop by way of magic. 
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Which character is your favorite? Also, do you have a favorite love song and/or poem? 

Love,
Quinley

P.S. I am currently working on a post that is reviewing two movies, so be sure to keep an eye out for that, even though I don't exactly know when I am going to publish it yet.