It’s Like a Devblog... but for a book.

TL;DR: Just a field day for grammar Nazis. If reading's not your thing though why are you on a book blog?

I can’t believe I didn't keep notes until now. That’s okay, better late than never. So... Without Further ado: “Once upon a time...” That’s what I’m thinking for a start. That’s how fairy tales are supposed to start, right? I want it to be known that this is above all, a steampunk fairy tale, a dark evolution of the vague mysterious worlds we grew up hearing about, not a tolkienesque fantasy world with dozens of races and supernatural beings. Actually, picture the way medieval Europeans viewed the world. the cryptic xenophobic aura of judeo-christian mythology, replete with demons, curses, and distant, almost absentee benevolent forces.

But of course shaar has it’s own flavor with touches of whatever cultures I see fit. Overall the books can only hold so many themes and alternating moods, so I’d like to condense or even polarize the character’s perspectives to reflect different cultural styles of mythical story telling.

These are human stories, love stories, war stories, and tragic tales, but all beheld in the face of a mysterious force nobody quite understands. In the instance of the European style fairy tales i think the brothers Grimm set the standard and it’s right in their names. Grim. Dark and blunt, unapologetic about the vague atmosphere and brutally straightforward about twists and turns in the threads of fate. there can be other styles to counterpoint this, and look no further than real mythology and epics to see this. I want every unique perspective to be reminiscent of a different culture's traditional simplified mythology, mostly meaning their (sentiment?) unique take on the fantastical implications of the world. Whether it’s Homer, Shikibu, Shakespeare, Pierce, or Valencia, it’s all different takes on the same expressions of the human spirit we witness in everyday life.

I largely want Shaar to be a new planet because I love fictional histories and making my own homemade mythologies. But I also think it’s important to spell out the dark fairy tales aspect. remember all those kingdoms with princes and princesses with resident dragons or angry spirits from all the fairy tales ghost stories? They grew up, but not old. If those generic vague fables are juvenile, then this is their turbulent adolescence. A dark clouded time, fraught with uncertainty and inadequacy. it’s hard to compare an entire human civilization to the the teenage experience, but isn't it just that? maybe its wrong to compare the course of civilization to a human being’s life, since as far as we know human lives only end in death eventually.

Either way, if the course of human civilization is a human life, then the past two centuries are only are awkward puberty and violent teenage rebellion. But I digress, Shaar is Industrializing, yes, and it brings about a planet wide question of purpose and value, which is ultimately disregarded in favor of outward expression. I’ll have to fill in my own psychological blanks for the most part here, and I’m always second guessing myself about the history of shaar every time I come to another big revelation about human nature. Would this affect Shaar’s history?

Maybe I should focus on individuals, since personally that’s all I’ve ever been. of course from the bottom up it’s no easier to see the big picture, but there’s certainly moments when it comes. And just like that I think I see how I’ll get the big picture for Shaar. Seeing it from each character’s perspective, every wildly different style and view, that makes up a truly rich and developed world. In short, I want something better than a two dimensional fairy tale world plus some gore and mature themes, I want a familiar, yet amazingly striking new world where we watch the mistakes and struggles of humans come to life against yet another fascinating setting.

Really, that’s all I feel I can control. If writers are gods, I’m a rather powerless one. All I can do is create the world and man in my image,  but I’m doomed to watch all creation play out the same song or dance that we all can relate to. I can’t claim to have full control over my own characters if that makes sense. So I do what I can, to set the stage as logically as possible, and record what my children see accurately while still capturing the essence of their personas. Comments welcome but distrusted.

Deliver us from evil,
No. 55