the snowflake project

I’ve added the description of the final major race in Kos’s world to the Races page. Technically, the Griind were not created by The One God, and shouldn’t qualify, but they are certainly important enough to the story to be included in my notes on races. I’ve been developing the Griind as an evil race for about 6 years. Their peculiarities are influenced by a lot of other fictional evil races – the Zerg in the Starcraft universe, the Borg from Star Trek, vampires, werewolves, zombies, etc. I think there’s nothing more terrifying than an enemy that doesn’t just kill you, but recreates you in its own image.

Those of you who are more observant may notice that I left out the physical description of the Griind breeders. That’s because I haven’t completely decided what they’ll look like. I only know they will be beastly and monstrous.

Anyway – let me know what you think!

I’ve added a brief description of Dwarves to the Races page. There are fundamental differences to each race that go much deeper than the typical differences between fantasy races. There are hints of elemental origins, totally different biology (iron blood, copper blood, carbon blood), and extreme cultural differences that I hope will play out strongly, if not in this book, then in followup books where the non-humans factor in the plot more heavily.

One of the cultural quirks of the Dwarves is certain to be controversial – doubtful to endear them to anyone, and sure to make them abhorrant to many. But systemic misogyny is a real thing that real societies practice. I may only hint at that factor in Dwarvish society, or I may really run with it. Regardless of how heavy-handed I am on the topic, knowing that Dwarves abuse their women, and knowing that THEY are not the chief evil in the world, will certainly keep things interesting for me as an author.

I’m slowly plodding forward in the world building process. I may take a break from it and go into the next Snowflake Method step soon, just to make sure that doesn’t lose any momentum.

In the meantime, I’ve added a description of the Elves in Kos’s world to the Races page. They’re different from standard elves – in fact I’m considering doing away with the word ‘elf’ altogether. Let me know what you think!

The first step in The Snowflake Method is to write one sentence that communicates the essence of the story, in 15 words or less, if possible. Well I can’t do that until I’ve done a great deal of thinking about what sort of story I want my novel to tell. So before Step 1, comes Step 0.

3 Cornerstones

I know three major things about my novel:

1. It will be a fantasy novel
2. It will be an epic physical and metaphysical journey
3. It will be about looking through what SEEMS to be, and finding what really IS

So from those three points, I can determine my genre, the fact that my novel will be jointly driven by plot and by character development, and I have a central theme. That’s a great start to Step 0, but I need a lot more.

Setting

I started thinking about the fantasy genre in general and how much the fringe of the genre is stretching, and how many different ways you can tell a fantasy story. There’s high fantasy, portal fiction, dark fantasy, steampunk, magical, non-magical, modern fantasy, and so much more! I’ve settled on a slightly non-traditional version of high fantasy for my setting.

I enjoy portal fiction just as much as the next geek, but something about writing portal fiction seems like a bit of a cop-out. It makes finding excuses for exposition way too easy. How am I supposed to explain the strange and wonderful workings of my amazing world to my readers? I know! I’ll make the main character a normal person, just like them, who needs everything explained! It also seems just a little too easy to fall into the trap of making the main character too much like me – after all, he’d be a normal guy from my universe. I like the challenge of writing a story completely contained within a world of my own creation.

I know there will be magic – in fact, I’m fairly certain it will play a very large role in the story – however, magic will be rare. I’ve learned from role-playing games, that deciding something like this up front is vitally important to the integrity of the story being told.

My departures from the typical high fantasy setting will be as follows:

1. A smattering of steampunk
2. A somewhat non-traditional look at the standard fantasy races

Characters

I’ve given some thought to the protagonist – and the fact that his story will be a journey. It’s a bit of a cliché in fantasy fiction, especially high fantasy, to make the protagonist a village boy or a farmer who dreams of world travel and adventure, and then finding some way of actually getting him out doing amazing things. I like stories like this; they work. If the protagonist is already somebody important, most people will have a harder time empathizing with him. However – I don’t want to go the country bumpkin with big dreams route. That’s where I draw the line.

My protagonist will be committed to his life – more likely in a city than in the country. He’ll have a lot of reasons to stay – and he’ll go off into the great unknown against his will. More on him later.

As for the other characters – I haven’t yet given them much thought. I’ll need a companion (or two) for my hero, as well as potentially a love interest. I’ll need someone to act as a sage as well. I’ll need a villain, of course, as well. Are there other big character shoes that need filling? Probably – let me know in the comments.

I think that’s enough to chew on for now. I’ll most likely post a “part 2″ of Step 0 soon with a little more initial planning.