Day 10 of the Writing Marathon
Nancy came and Nancy left. As my hard-working and fast traveling wife makes her way around the globe, I am thinking I should use that somewhere down the line, what with my lead characters globe hopping so much. In book 1 alone Simon, Alix, Maya, Karl and Sesame will travel to Germany, Mexico and Brazil. There is also the undisclosed location of Simon and Sally's hometown, which I left ambiguous on purpose. It could either be the UK or the USA - both featured cities, Brookfield and Saxton appear in close proximity to one another in either country. Nice and convenient if you're looking to play into audiences from each country. Of course it remains to be seen how willing either one is to go visit other cultures throughout the series.
Location for Emotion
The original idea for setting the story in different corners of the world was simple. I wanted to address global problems through the prism of a fantasy based metaphor. Each book in the series will follow in the element it is named after (wood, fire, metal, water and earth), so I also wanted to explore various regions and climates in the world, which related to a specific element. So Book1, Wood, sets the scenes within two of the most powerful forests on Earth. First there is the Black Forest in Southern Germany - rich origin of the Grimm Brothers fairy tales. Because this location also allowed me to stick with the cooling temperatures of autumn and the emotional spectrum of isolation, fear, mistrust and individuality. All of these are typical to Western cultures. I thought our characters should start here (in familiar territory). When the plot events, but also the relationships between the characters, start heating up, we move on to more appropriately warmer climates. Hence the Amazon Rain-forest in Brazil. Here we learn about cooperation and (com)passion, but we also reach the conclusion of the book, which involves the heat of battling the villain and his connection to the element Fire.
Personal Stake
I have traveled a lot throughout my life. I started of being a third-culture kid, son of a Dutch woman and British man, who grew up in Canada. Later in life I started traveling abroad to Japan, Peru, USA, Indonesia, Australia and many more places. Eventually I met the love of my life in Eritrea, Africa and after our son was born in the Netherlands, we continued to live around the world. In this respect I have learned great lessons of life by simply being among other cultures. The views and lifestyles of people around the world has left a profound and lasting effect on me, one that broadens the mind and opens the heart. It is with a smile that I realize that the more you travel, the more accepting of yourself and others you become, while when you stay at home, locked up inside your own culture, chance are you become very narrow minded and conservative. These values I try to examine through the eyes of Simon and Sally, making Aelemental a platform for young adult readers to question what binds as a human race and how we can come together to make the world a better and more fair place for all.
Today's Work
Today I wrapped up Chapter 10: The Magical Revelation, a chapter that was roughly identical to its previous incarnation, mostly because it involved Simon being educated in what to expect in a fairy tale city. The only hard part was adjusting the language of the characters. With foreign cultures comes foreign languages and because this does not add much to the drama of the story, I really wanted to get rid of it quickly. How? You'll have to read the book, but in order to make it an issue in the first place, I needed to establish how hindering it can be if you don't understand the people around you. So, being in Germany, I've added a lot of German words, which of course needed to be researched, consistent and written in italics. On top of that one of the characters is supposed to talk in 'old German'. Geez, where do you find the equivalent of Shakespeare in Germany? Anyway, I just wanted to share with you a sneak peak of the Wood language I'm developing (called Kmuu), which is based on the sounds of forests (rustling of leaves, birds and owls etc.). More about that in a later post.
About Draft 4
The main concern with draft 4 is to keep an eye out for balancing action, emotion and information in such a way, that the story flows better than before and generates a more satisfying all-round experience for readers who love mysterious plots, lively characters and fantastic locations all wrapped up in a deep and rich mythology.
Talk to you tomorrow.
Nancy came and Nancy left. As my hard-working and fast traveling wife makes her way around the globe, I am thinking I should use that somewhere down the line, what with my lead characters globe hopping so much. In book 1 alone Simon, Alix, Maya, Karl and Sesame will travel to Germany, Mexico and Brazil. There is also the undisclosed location of Simon and Sally's hometown, which I left ambiguous on purpose. It could either be the UK or the USA - both featured cities, Brookfield and Saxton appear in close proximity to one another in either country. Nice and convenient if you're looking to play into audiences from each country. Of course it remains to be seen how willing either one is to go visit other cultures throughout the series.
Location for Emotion
The original idea for setting the story in different corners of the world was simple. I wanted to address global problems through the prism of a fantasy based metaphor. Each book in the series will follow in the element it is named after (wood, fire, metal, water and earth), so I also wanted to explore various regions and climates in the world, which related to a specific element. So Book1, Wood, sets the scenes within two of the most powerful forests on Earth. First there is the Black Forest in Southern Germany - rich origin of the Grimm Brothers fairy tales. Because this location also allowed me to stick with the cooling temperatures of autumn and the emotional spectrum of isolation, fear, mistrust and individuality. All of these are typical to Western cultures. I thought our characters should start here (in familiar territory). When the plot events, but also the relationships between the characters, start heating up, we move on to more appropriately warmer climates. Hence the Amazon Rain-forest in Brazil. Here we learn about cooperation and (com)passion, but we also reach the conclusion of the book, which involves the heat of battling the villain and his connection to the element Fire.
Personal Stake
I have traveled a lot throughout my life. I started of being a third-culture kid, son of a Dutch woman and British man, who grew up in Canada. Later in life I started traveling abroad to Japan, Peru, USA, Indonesia, Australia and many more places. Eventually I met the love of my life in Eritrea, Africa and after our son was born in the Netherlands, we continued to live around the world. In this respect I have learned great lessons of life by simply being among other cultures. The views and lifestyles of people around the world has left a profound and lasting effect on me, one that broadens the mind and opens the heart. It is with a smile that I realize that the more you travel, the more accepting of yourself and others you become, while when you stay at home, locked up inside your own culture, chance are you become very narrow minded and conservative. These values I try to examine through the eyes of Simon and Sally, making Aelemental a platform for young adult readers to question what binds as a human race and how we can come together to make the world a better and more fair place for all.
Today's Work
Today I wrapped up Chapter 10: The Magical Revelation, a chapter that was roughly identical to its previous incarnation, mostly because it involved Simon being educated in what to expect in a fairy tale city. The only hard part was adjusting the language of the characters. With foreign cultures comes foreign languages and because this does not add much to the drama of the story, I really wanted to get rid of it quickly. How? You'll have to read the book, but in order to make it an issue in the first place, I needed to establish how hindering it can be if you don't understand the people around you. So, being in Germany, I've added a lot of German words, which of course needed to be researched, consistent and written in italics. On top of that one of the characters is supposed to talk in 'old German'. Geez, where do you find the equivalent of Shakespeare in Germany? Anyway, I just wanted to share with you a sneak peak of the Wood language I'm developing (called Kmuu), which is based on the sounds of forests (rustling of leaves, birds and owls etc.). More about that in a later post.
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| I love the cross-pollination of different artistic disciplines: Designing Kmuu I used penciled roughs, practiced with ink and finally will design the alphabet in font software on the computer, so it can be used in the books. |
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| The original text required me to write: 'So, Simon. I was wondering how the However, words like 'I' and conjugations don't exist in Kmuu, so I omitted them. |
About Draft 4
The main concern with draft 4 is to keep an eye out for balancing action, emotion and information in such a way, that the story flows better than before and generates a more satisfying all-round experience for readers who love mysterious plots, lively characters and fantastic locations all wrapped up in a deep and rich mythology.
Talk to you tomorrow.
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