The Fated Children Trilogy.

[anthorn]

WHAT HAS COME TO PASS.

Over a thousand years ago at the fall of the Arkaim Empire the End lords came to Onchara with their vast knowledge and far superior powers in the Mystic Arts. They would forever change the land as they sought to bind it and teach it to their own purposes. They built Empires, Councils and brought stability to a once warring land. Only for them to betray one another, to all but disappear leaving their vast citidals and cities. Anwyn was the last to die. Her lover and child murdered by the Council she helped to create, she called fourth an army of men and of women. And sorceresses. In the battle which followed the last End lord was broken, trapped in her city she called upon all her knowledge and with the aide of her sister sorceresses destroyed her own army, city and severely weakened the Council. Uttering one final Prophecy, that she would return, reborn in the womb of a child of Krushev.

Though peace returned the Council of Alexiamdra was weakened so much so, that it retreated to its sky fortress and handed over control of the Continent to kings queens and warlords Though they would still answer to their puppet masters and passed one final law. No women may become a sorceress, to prevent another devastation as had just happened. And they vanished for a thousand years.

BOOK ONE: FATED CHILDREN.

The NEW EMPIRE. Is the name of the war host called by the War-lord of Drakovia, Craith Arkarm
who claims himself to be a descendant of the Great Arkaim, founder of the first empire. Further proof of this he claims, is the arrival of the first sorceress in a thousand years Sabetha, who came to him personally offering him the world. One by one, the other warlords succumb to his might until he controls the entire of Drakovia. Setting his sights on the south he orders them to march, to conquer each country as Arkaim did so long ago, no one can stand against him he finds, as one by one they crush the lax armies of the south.

Meanwhile in the South another movement is growing, led by the Dumas Erandi and their leader Faircaira THE ANWYN REBORN. She uses other tactics to get her ends done, she fights with love, decite and extortion. And her army is growing.

Events are moving fast. And soon even the Luarith and Ferilim must decide on whether or not to leave their cities and forests for a battle is coming, a battle like no other, with the victor left with the fate of the world in their hands. While a strange sect, wait in the shadows, waiting to strike.

Thats basically the gyst of my Story Idea. This is set in Stone. The main story arch running from book 1 to three besides this invasion is the "threat" from the Endlords. Their whole story is, their home land is invaded by Sivak and Maeloin. The Maeloin are winged telepathic creatures somewhat like angels. The Sivak are more brutish, like but sentiant like us. Damien was the queen of their land and when it looked like defeat she fled to Onchara. Kandera, Anwyn and Rael followed her to keep tabs on her. And to also prepare Onchara for the inevitable invasion.

It becomes clear that Damien plans to use the Verrusian Crystal they used to come to this land to open a portal in the hopes that the rest of the Endlords would come to Onchara. The others know however that as soon as a portal is opened Onchara will be invaded. Anwyn then uses the crystal to age Damien several hundred years. (Endlords are imortal) and take away most of her talent for the Mystic Arts(magic).

Then due to the Council that Anwyn formed turning against her and trying to kill her. The Endlords are villified.

Damien as an Old woman called Old Maev, plots and schemes to find the Verrusian Crystal and restore her youth so she can open the portal using Anwyns fortress. Lancifer. I also have a plot with Raels daughters, Xara and Kara trying to manipulate several characters fates. I.E getting them to meet etc. All because of some time travel thingy that happens in book3 maybe 4 where Lancifer is activated and everyone gets transported to round about the time where Mazure Island became abandoned. The characters meet Xara and Kara and confusion ensues, leaving Xara and Kara with the idea that the only way to stop the portal is to get those characters to meet.
A kind of, characters being in the past influence the path their futures will take loopy thingy.

But I also want it to be mainly a character drama. With Characters you like or don't.



Since I've lost interest in writing the Synopsis i posted earlier. I'm banging my head with a hammer

I wish i could just do this

Everytime i write i get other ideas in my head and then lose interest in what im doing and go. Hmmm, how would the story be if i tell it from this direction. It's mainly Anthorn and Nikita too, as i start out with them. I can place them into different scenarios, etc. I have detailed ideas for each scenario as their characters should be.


1. Anthorn is a Guardian cum mercinary, meets Nikita member of Resistance.

2. Anthorn lives in slums, is killer for hire. Nikita used to live on Slums with him but he saved her by getting her audition at Opera house. Meet again when he is contracted to kill her Fiancee as she independantly contracts him to find her sister.

3. Anthorn is a Guardian so is Nikita, but Nikita is accused of being a sorceress and is hung, Anthorn years later goes undercover as a Guardian, discovers Nikita is'nt dead, someone faked her death. Is torn between spying for the Guardians and new life. Ends up branded a traitor by the Guardians and kicked out for spying against the resistance.

4. Anthorn and Rosina rescue Nikita from the Order as it is destroyed. Turns out someone or something is hunting down anyone with their family name. It all has to do with an old journal artical about an Airship that vanished over the Abandoned isle carrying their parents/uncles etc.

5 Nikita and Sarana are Guardians as well as Anthorn/ Have Anthorn and Nikita pose as a "couple to infiltrate the Dumas Erandi. Ends up with them symthasizing with them. Chaos ensues when cover is blown.

These are just someof the ideas. Someone Kill me.

I need a good kick up the arse so i can stick with one and not keep changing

 

[KESpires]

My suggestion:

Is to read George R. R. Martin's suggestion:

Frequently Asked Questions - George R. R. Martin's Official Website

The top question deals with what you're talking about.

Firstly, starting with short stories helps you learn how to open, continue, and end a story. Second, you'll be able to finish the stories and you'll become accustomed to finishing what you begin. Third, you'll learn more from each individual short story than you will from starting and never finishing a novel.

Also, you can gauge your progress by your ability or inability to sell those stories to magazines.

I spent my spare time, or my spare-spare time after I did something else like play WoW or watch TV, writing unfinished novels from 2000 until 2003. From 2003 until 2007 (Fall) I was determined I was going to "finish that first part of the series" and wrote much, much more frequently. However, in the Fall of 2007 I started taking his advice and focused on shorts. The improvement was dramatic. Also, after the better part of a year and a half, I sold a story and am cycling around many more.

Stephen King also suggests the same. Orson Scott Card also suggests the same.

They're all really great writers and the advice is good. You can get published faster through writing shorts and you'll learn quicker as well.

The Mt. Everest analogy is a good one. Start small.

 

[anthorn]

Its not that i cant write one. Granted the furthest i have gotten was Chap 22. respectivily. But that was because i realised i was wizzing through the main plot too fast and needed more P.O.Vs. What happens is my changing of how i wish to tell the story. Like the list of what is written above Anthorn is a Mercinary/Guardian etc.\

Reading the lists. Numbers 1 to 4 and reading the whole idea thing. What in you opinion is the best character combanation to tell it.

What frustrates me is that i can get half way through and then get bored, and go hmmm what if i tell it from this point. Hense several different character points

 

[KESpires]

I'd write short stories until you get a good track record of consistent writing. Then I'd tackle this story with the experience I've built up.

That's probably the best option considering that you're planning on telling quite a large story.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Except that I could list dozens of authors who never wrote a single short story until after they had published several novels, and I know at least one highly regarded short story writer who could never get her novels published.

Write the story that has the strongest hold on your imagination (it may be a short story, or it may be a novel or a series of novels); that's the one you are most likely to stick with and finish. It doesn't matter if it radically changes course along the way. The new direction may be a better direction, and you may finally come across an idea that captures you so completely you're willing to stay with it for as long as it takes.

As for Martin, Card, etc. there were so many more professional markets for short fiction when they were starting out than there are today. What worked for them back then is not necessarily going to work for a new author now. Just as things stand now, you have a better chance of launching a career by selling a series than you do writing short stories. But that shouldn't influence you either way. If the stories you most want to write work best as short stories, then write them as short stories. If the specific story you have your heart set on is a novel, then write a novel.

 

[KESpires]

Nicolas Sparks is an example of the authors you're mentioning. He got a million dollar advance for The Notebook.

But, he learned to write by writing about 3 novels that didn't get published before he sold The Notebook.

My main point with short stories, even if you don't sell a one, is that you'll learn a lot by writing them. They'll teach you multitudes about characterization and plotting. Now, writing short stories and writing novels doesn't always require the same skill sets. They do share a lot of traits.

But as far as selling a series goes, that'll be tough business until a lot, and I mean a lot, of time is invested in learning the craft of storytelling. I think a figure that gets thrown around a lot of 500,000 to 1,000,000 words of learning before you start producing publishable results. That figure has proved true with me. I was into my half million before I messed around enough to get a short published. Even then it was in a smaller mag.

Breaking into the big mags is hard, but also, think of it this way, in another statistic that gets tossed around. Only one out of a hundred writers ever get paid for anything they write in their lifetime. That doesn't mean that one out of a hundred get bestseller status. That means that one out of a hundred get paid, any amount, in their entire lives.

So, to break into that 1%, are you confident that some of your first attempts at writing are going to be good enough? Or could you use some basic training?

That's why I'm recommending short stories. Martin, in his article, recommends them as a way to learn and also to build a career. Whether or not they ever see the light of day (hopefully some of them will), I'm recommending them so that you can gain the wealth of knowledge you'll need to jump into that 1% and be a writer who can say he/she sold some of their work.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I think a figure that gets thrown around a lot of 500,000 to 1,000,000 words of learning before you start producing publishable results.

But it doesn't really matter whether that 500,000 to 1,000,000 words goes into 4 to 8 unpublished novels, or 100 to 200 short stories, or (as it was with me) six or seven rewrites of one 100,000 word novel. It doesn't matter if you divide the words evenly between short fiction and novels. What matters is setting goals for yourself and meeting them. For me, the goal was not just to finish something (I could have pronounced the book "finished" in my own mind at the end of any one of those drafts); it was to produce something that I felt absolutely confident sending out to publishers.

Fortunately, having put in the necessary work, and my timing and luck being good, my confidence was justified and I sold the book. But finishing a lot of short stories that I didn't want to write and couldn't sell -- I'm afraid that would have finished me.

 

[Gary Compton]

But it doesn't really matter whether that 500,000 to 1,000,000 words goes into 4 to 8 unpublished novels, or 100 to 200 short stories, or (as it was with me) six or seven rewrites of one 100,000 word novel.

That's an interesting comment Teresa, did you completely re-write 6-7 times or just re-fine what you'd already written? maybe lots of changes?

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Essentially a complete rewrite the first four or five times. After that it was more a process of refining what I had already written, although there were still some parts I completely rewrote.

This was on a typewriter, and when you're obliged to sit down and retype the whole thing with every new draft, you might just as well make big changes as a lot of little ones, do the major surgery that you know in your heart ought to be done instead of try to get by with a lot of fiddling little cosmetic adjustments. It teaches you to be quite ruthless.

 

[Gary Compton]

So you were happy with the story and the ideas but not the writing?

You did well to stick with it. Most people would've given up and moved on

I think you should persevere if you believe in your story, I've been re-writing/refining mine for 4 years!!! Damn!! I'm only ten years away now

 

[RcGrant]

But finishing a lot of short stories that I didn't want to write and couldn't sell -- I'm afraid that would have finished me.

I'm with Teresa on this one. Short stories and novels are two different beasts. Writing should be about passion, should it not? It's sure as hell hard enough as it is, so you'd have to be a bit silly to be doing it if you don't love it (it's hardly good odds for fame and fortune).

If your story says "novel length" then write a novel. For me, putting my novels aside and writing short stories because the going gets tough means that I shouldn't be doing it in the first place. Of course, some writers thrive with short stories AND novels, so for them, mastering both is a goal.

In short: be true to yourself, and your words. If you're dedicated enough then you will get past the block (so I tell myself each time I do). Sometimes I swear that the most useful tool in the writer's box is sheer stubbornness.

 

[Gary Compton]

This was on a typewriter, and when you're obliged to sit down and retype the whole thing with every new draft, you might just as well make big changes as a lot of little ones, do the major surgery that you know in your heart ought to be done instead of try to get by with a lot of fiddling little cosmetic adjustments. It teaches you to be quite ruthless.

Mmmm!! Ink stained wretch, very appropriate. Mine is the cut and paste King, not quite as good.

Back to the drawing board!!

 

[KESpires]

It isn't about passionless writing, and Teresa's point is a good one: He could redraft his first novel, as she did, until he'd put in enough practice and enough work that the final draft, essentially at that point the fifth or sixth time he's written the same novel, is good enough to publish.

I'm not saying he should trash his idea. I'm saying that, and I'm making a judgment here, looking at his post and grammar, this is probably one of his early attempts at breaking into the writing business.

So, to my advice about short stories: They are different beasts. They do, however, share a lot. The practice of characterizing, plotting, and finishing the character and plot arcs, happen the same in a short story and a novel but in different lengths. So, if he were to come up with ideas for short stories that intrigued him, characters that seemed to teem with life to him, and put the pen to the paper on those stories, he'd, in a much shorter time and a much easier environment (Not that short stories are easy, but editing a short story vs a novel is easier to tackle. While novels allow more breathing room, the sheer word count means a long edit process. Editing a short story can be done several times in a day, even though there is much less space to play with) to learn the tools he'll need not only to write the novel successfully, but also to look at the novel with a critical eye and identify problems with the novel.

Now, with Anthorn's specific case, he says he has trouble finishing the book. He has trouble deciding which viewpoint to tell the book from. He hasn't successfully made it through a single draft of the book.

I can speak from experience since the kind of huge plot ideas he's talking about in his original post are eerily similar to huge, mega epic ideas that I decided I wanted to write when I was attempting my first stories. Like Anthorn, I never finished a single whole draft.

But, if he were to think, as an aspiring writer which he is, of some ideas that can be written in 5000 or so words, he'd be able to put a rough draft down in a weekend of good work. He'd be able to edit that story over the next week. Re-edit it the week after that. Put it away. Do another one that he thinks would be neat. Draft that a few times. Go back to the first. I'd bet money that he'd look at that first short story and after learning something about himself and his writing during the second, make changes to the first story that he hadn't thought of and in the process realize something about the craft that he didn't know before.

These don't have to be stories that he isn't interested in writing and perhaps he is a novelist at heart and will never really feel at home writing in short form, but there are things to learn from writing short stories and having gone through the process of writing an entire story, of any length, drafting it over and finishing it.

And that goes back to why I recommended he do the shorts. He isn't finishing a single draft of the longer work. That also means he isn't getting the practice of rewriting, one of the most essential skill that he can learn.

So, in closing, I'm sticking to my advice. Everyone can give him their advice and like opinions, everyone has advice. Only he can decide what'll work best for him. His situation sounds a lot like mine nine years ago. Shorts proved to become a passion with me and I'm 120 pages into a novel now with loads more experience than I had before. The rough, rough (it's actually in pen since I do it in my spare time and can't always have my laptop handy) draft of the new work is leaps and bounds beyond anything I was capable of nine years ago.

And that goes back into my initial advice. Are you serious about writing publishable work? Or do you just wish to write, no matter the outcome. If you aren't interested in having your short, novel, or series published, then no worries. Just write it in any way. No advice from anyone is necessary. But if you're serious about writing publishable work, then you'll have to go through the learning process. Whether you take Teresa's route (which I must say has led her to be published by major houses such as Harper Collins) or take mine and other's route, the work must be done. You don't learn about writing by musing over it. You learn by doing it.

I prefer, after making a lot of the initial mistakes he's making, to start small.

 

[HareBrain]

Anthorn, you've been given some good advice here. Why not try writing some short stories about your characters? Something from their pasts before the main story begins. Try out some of the ideas in your list. Write them not with the aim of selling them, but just to try out ideas.

It's possible that you've got it in the back of your head that this is going to be your Great Work, and therefore you have to cram into it every good idea you've ever had. Also it's easy to get the feeling that to be any kind of success in SFF these days, you have to write something EPIC. I think you have to nail down the core of your story, what is it that makes it different from everyone else's. Which ideas are really essential, and which elements are just nice-to-haves that you want in there because you've seen something similar in other books and films and thought "ooh, that's cool". You say the gist of your story that you've outlined is set in stone, but maybe you need to find something about your characters that's set in stone too.

You gave us a list of options to choose from. Far as I can see, nobody's chosen one, which maybe was sensible, but number 4 intrigued me most. Happy with that? Then get to work.

 

[anthorn]

Which ideas are really essential, and which elements are just nice-to-haves that you want in there because you've seen something similar in other books and films and thought "ooh, that's cool". You say the gist of your story that you've outlined is set in stone, but maybe you need to find something about your characters that's set in stone too.

I think this is my problem. The whole maybe this would be good. It usually changes after i've watched a film or such and go hmm, this would work in my story, then i lose interest and start bringing in new ideas. Anyone else been influenced like that? my two main characters are the ones who cause the problem. For each idea i've got a full bio for them. It just i get stuck and keep changing it. Maybe thats writers block? The one concrete thing about my characters which is never unchanging is the friendship/love between the two.
I quite enjoy writing about those two characters.


Thinking about it, in simple book terms. Book one is mainly a contained story. The focal points being the war from the North and the resistance group in the south and the Guardians in the middle. I know that it would be an Idea to have a P.O.V in each giving a clue to the goings on in each, with also a few P.O.V of the "normal" people in the conflict.


The Guardians Pov. Rosina Tulwinkle. (original synopsis Anthorn until chapter five.)


The Dumas Erandi Pov. Nikita Sarakus. Then Anthorn later on.

But Nikita and Anthorn wouldnt meet until late on in the book.

Anthorn would be a Guardian until he was betrayed and then becomes a mercinary to survive.

Nikita would become a member of the Order of the Rose until she is kicked out when she is unable to preform her duties, due to loss of the use of her legs. Comes in contact with the Dumas Erandi when the leader heals her.

Thats original idea.