Sophie's World

Haven't gotten much writing done the last two weeks, mainly due to Christmas and holiday preparations at home. For some reason, kids like gettin' stuff for Christmas, and we as parents must oblige them.

Now if I can just keep away from Guitar Hero long enough to revisit my novel every day I'll be in good shape.

Ah, the novel. One thing about fantasy worlds is, not writing does not necessarily mean no development. I have spent a lot of time and effort on world and character development, which are both equally important. In fantasy/sci-fi, the world is just as important as any other element in the story. The world should be thought of as a character in its own way, with personality, quirks, dysfunctions and problems, as well as strengths and virtues. Even the darkest cyberpunk fantasy world has some light in it. For every North Korea or Zimbabwe there should be, say, a France or England. For every George W. Bush there should be a Pope John Paul II.

I'm sure you get the point. Bad must be balanced out with good, or the world becomes less believable. It's true that some worlds appear irredeemably bad on the surface, but even that's largely due to the POV of the main character.

Anyway, world development. It's important. And I've spent a bit of time working on Sophie's world, which in many ways mirrors ours but with several major differences. I shall attempt to explain them in greater detail in future posts, but the major areas of change are Magic, Technology, and Society.

Blue Eyes?

What's the significance of the blue-eyed girl in the margin to the left? Why blue eyes?

It's a plot device I'm toying with. I decided I needed a way to easily identify mages in the story and set them apart from the rest of humanity (other than the obvious, of course) and settled on blue eyes. Not just any blue, though. Eyes so blue they pierce your soul. Blue like looking into layers of glacial ice. The pale, cold blue you usually pay lots of money to get. Blue eyes that simply defy the laws of nature.

I know, it's a bit Frank Herbert, but it seems to be working so far. Oh, and in a further quirk, the color can be disguised from mundane sight by contact lenses, but mages always see through the disguise.

Harajuku

Japan is one of the most beautiful places in the world. Wherever you go, you get a display of light and color that's almost overwhelming in its beauty and variety. Nowhere is this displayed more beautifully than in the bizarre world of Harajuku fashion.

You have to admire the artistry and dedication that these girls show in their fashion and makeup. When you start with canvasses this beautiful, you can't help but get incredible results.

Stranger than Fiction

One of the problems with writing speculative fiction is that the future is always catching up with you.

Meet Sophie Andersen

In today's post I'd like to introduce Sophie Andersen, the MC of my current work. Sophie is about 23 years old, with dark skin, blue eyes and light brown hair she usually keeps in dreadlocks. Picture is courtesy of the Sims 2 Body Shop. She's the latest hot talent in the European art community, and no one knows the slightest thing about her, even Sophie herself.

In fact, she's a witch (or mage, haven't decided which terminology to use yet), but has no memory of her past and isn't aware of the talent she has. She knows there's a vast chunk of her life missing, so she paints in order to remember.

In a few days' time she will be commissioned by a wealthy patron of the arts to produce a series of five paintings, each with a different theme, as a sort of "war memorial." Of course, there's more to it than that, but telling you would be giving away too much. Suffice to say, the artwork will form a powerful magical artifact when complete (she doesn't know that yet, so don't tell her).

Oh, and she also has tattoos covering her body from neck to ankles, everything but the hands, head and feet. However, they've been magically "erased" like her memory, and will begin to reveal themselves through the course of the story.

Aside from all the weirdness, she's pretty normal - likes hardcore metal, doesn't smoke or drink heavily, has a flat in London's West End, and enjoys rock climbing.

New month, new project

Okay, so the NaNoWriMo thing didn't go quite as well as I'd hoped. Still, 10,500 words isn't bad, considering I've never written more than about 3,000 until now. If you include term papers, my highest word count is 6,500. The end result of all that work is that I started and restarted the same story four times from four different POVs. It would have been a good start if I'd been more confident about which direction the thing was going to begin with.

Oh well. Time to move on. The effort wasn't wasted, though. I have several good characters developed with some good back-story. Lately I've been spending time on milieu development, since that's what was seriously lacking.

The new project is an urban fantasy, kind of Harry Potter meets Neuromancer with a little Philip K. Dick thrown in. A psychodrama of self-discovery in a world of magic, technology and repression. The MC is a gifted artist and witch with a tortured past that she's suppressed so deeply she doesn't have the slightest clue she has any magical powers or memory of what happened 17 years ago during a war between mages and mundanes.

Oh, and her body is covered with tattoos that have been magically "erased", but begin to appear throughout the course of the plot. This in a world where being strange or unusual is a stigma.

My goal is to write about 2500 to 5,000 words per week, with no upper limit. Should be fun.