Dissecting Literature

Hey there, traveler! Here we are (if even a day or so late) for our last stop in this magic trilogy. Three, such a wonderful number, isn’t it? I apologize for the delay, sadly this exam period sucked me up like quicksand and I got no time yesterday to write. But let that not deter us from today’s topic: the various systems of magic, both in literature and their real-life counterparts. Let’s start with my favorite: magic items. We all know the trope of the wizard’s wand, the world slaying sword or the wishing lamp, and these varied applications of a common concept shows just how much potential rests with this system. As far as I could research, there are a couple of sources for this trope predating the classic fantasy stories. There’s a scene in The Lord of the Rings when our heroes are departing Lothlórien and they receive capes from the elves as parting gift. When Sam asks if they are magical, an elf replies that they are “just elven”.  The earliest representations of magi...

Hey there, traveler! Dar here with exciting news: we started a new project! First, let’s see if I can entice you, then we’ll do a deeper dive into the how’s and why’s. A lovecraftian horror / adult dark fantasy in a land that sunk beneath the Earth’s surface around 1000 A.D. and a curse turned half the people into vampires. The order of the day is gloom and despair, human kingdoms are stuck in a perpetual war while the vampire clans toy with powers they barely understand, threatening to unearth an ancient eldritch entity hell bent on consuming the world. Are you on board?  Good, here we go! I. Prelude (skip forward if you’re only interested in the WIP) The story of this WIP starts back in 2015, when me and a good friend of mine we shall call Niel got out of high school and into two distant universities. We still wanted to keep in touch somehow, so instead of chatting on facebook like normal people, we created a play-by-post roleplay forum in a dark fantasy setting. This was a land...

Hey there, traveler! Our journey through time and space continues exploring the various elements of magic, moving on to the experts, the humble craftsmen of the mystic art: the magicians. Or wizards. Or enchanters.  Too many names? Don’t be afraid, I was just as confused as you are.  But today we will look at all the types, the real-life inspiration, and some literary representation. So strap on, put on your “Hide Helmet of Resist Magic” because the show is on. First, let’s lay down some basic.  As we discussed in last week’s Dissecting Literature, the English word “magic” and consequently “magician” comes from ancient Greek and Persian languages. The original mages, or “magi” were most likely Persian noblemen with supposed magical power, but the meaning of the word dissipated over the many centuries. As far as I could research, there’s no solid consensus among roleplayers and fantasy geeks about what word used to describe a magic-user actually means and each piece of fic...

Hey there, traveler! It’s Wednesday again, and as custom, our favorite penguin slashing up imaginary concepts for a living is back with another tale to tell. This episode is mostly about our WIP, but it concerns a pretty slippery topic we encountered – what is the cost of a flawed main character. There are a lot of people boldly proclaiming that they like to read about not-so-perfect, flawed, and fallible characters, but is it true? Is there a place for a point of view character to start out in a miserable or even evil state without losing the reader’s sympathy? I want to nail down some points first. By „flawed” I don’t mean antihero, nor villain. Those are entirely different tropes and they have huge fanbases (just think about Artemis Fowl and the recent uproar when the movie changed his villain status or Jorg Ancrath from Prince of Thorns), but people have a different take on these characters. Villains and antiheroes are expected to be cruel, uncaring, narcissist, and overly confiden...

Hey there, traveler! That’s right, it’s Dar here with today’s cadaver on the dissecting table: magic. Given that magic isn’t technically one trope but a broad term used to define many things mostly in fiction genres it won’t be a single post but a short series about the topic. Let’s start with the basics: what do we mean by this short word, where did it come from and what’s the big deal? This episode is more of a ‘fun facts from the history of magic’, but I think they are interesting enough to inspire some readers. So have fun! Magic is roughly saying a supernatural method to affect beings or forces that we can’t manipulate with mundane methods. From witches’ brew to voodoo dolls, chants and sacrifices, magic can appear in many forms but the main gist is the same: the user does something symbolic and commands a force to alter reality in some way. Some may think magic was born with J.R.Tolkien, but as you can guess from the introduction, it is a tale as old as time. The more ancient civ...

Hey there, traveler! Dar here with another episode of our favorite penguin telling stories clutching a weapon-sized medical tool. Today’s topic starts with one of our dear friends and important beta readers. He just finished reviewing the first draft of our WIP and the familiar itch to write came over him, so he asked us a question – how do you start? So let’s talk about that, shall we? A few disclaimers first: we are not a writing advice blog, and we never will be. There are plenty of those around the web if you’re looking for some, I’m sure they’re easy enough to find because they are literally everywhere. This is more like a fireside story of how we did it and someone may find a few moments here and there that rings a bell or inspire them. Still here? Awesome! Let me show you around… I. Our writing style Before we started creating our little book-baby, we already had a few years of experience roleplaying on play-by-post forums, so we pretty much knew what type of writers we are. Mai...

  I decided to take a break from the villains and dissect another very popular trope – the outcast. How many times do we see at the beginning of a book, that the main character was not like other girls? I bet you can tell me at least one. Bella Swan, Feyre, the assassin girl from Nevernight, Luce from Fallen, I think you get the idea. They are not popular among the other girls, or at school, they have different hobbies than the others and of course they are the one who catches the eye of the strange but cool supernatural guy, or the billionaire, playboy, and philanthropist. Here we can ask the question this blog revolves around: why? Why is this trope became so common? Is this something new, or something that accompanied us from the beginning of the history of storytelling? Like everything else, this also has a lot of layers. Let’s start with the classic outcasts and for this, we have to travel back again to the times when our ancestors lived in caves. So why being an outcast is a ...

Another half-baked book idea, without an excerpt this time, since I sadly don’t even have that. I’m toying with the idea of trying to write this during NaNoWriMo, we’ll see) I call this “Project: Remembrance.” (This art is by theDURRRRIAN on DeviantArt, check it out: www.deviantart.com/thedurrrrian/ ) A cyberpunk world with fantasy elements struck by a mysterious curse that deletes any and all memories of the day as soon as someone falls asleep, so people are basically stuck reliving the same day over and over. Most people arent even aware of this, some are but can’t do shit about it, and a few managed to circumnavigate the problem with futuristic science, forming four distinct organizations (referred collectively as “Wakeners”). The Mnemos is a cybernetics focused group that implement artificial extensions to their nervous system and connect to a core database, storing all their memories and downloading them at the start of each day. They are basically cyberninjas with augmented eyes...

Hey there, traveler! Today I’d like to share a personal story concerning both the woes of being a writer, my mentality on self-publishing, and our current project. This is the story of how I created the cover for our WIP. To tackle a few things heads up, I’m not a complete amateur when it comes to graphic design, however, I am only scraping the surface. I’ve never received any education in graphic design but it became a kind of guilty pleasure for me as soon as I found the magic of MS Paint, so I’ve got some years of self-education, reading up on the topic and long hours of just d*cking around with graphic software behind my back. Given that, I’d only recommend doing the cover yourself if you know what you are doing or you don’t have any other options – me personally falling in the latter category. We are trying to self publish with little to no funds, to begin with, and thus have to make some tough decisions. One of them is the fact that we can’t afford to hire a professional cover de...