This is not a regular chapter. I will use this occasion to talk about my perspectives on stories, my likes and dislikes and how it all influences how I write my story. Maybe it will shed some light on how my writing is to be understood, and why I do certain things the way I do, while NOT doing many of the things, that authors usually do.
1) The ordinary and the extraordinary
I believe, that stories NEED to show us things, that are unusual and different, i.e. extraordinary. A story about something mundane, something that people perceive as normal, will be seen as boring by most people. Therefore, from my point of view, a story needs to have something really special about itself, something, that excites and motivates people to read it. At the same time, however, stories need to feel grounded and "real". How is that achieved? There is no "objective" answer to this question, but I personally always felt that stories, that go into their characters' psyche, that show you these people's feelings, their ups and downs, their hopes and dreams, but also their fears, come across as WAY more "real", because they feel more intimate. This is the "philospophy", that defines my writing: the focus on the characters and their feelings. What is important for these characters' emotions is also the "base line" from which said emotions stem. Thus, my story, out of necessity, shows you quite a number of scenes of more "mundane" situations and conversations as well, in order to contextualize the characters and the world, so the audience can understand WHY certain situations are actually extraordinary. There is a sheer endless number of stories which show you one "epic", grandiose battle scene after the other, but their meaning, their gravity for the narrative just gets deflated by the fact, that these stories just have WAY TOO MANY of such scenes, consequently greatly devaluing their gravitas. This is harmful to a story. I do not like stories where you have a whole team of people with ridiculously OP powers, or even whole armies of superpowered beings battling it out. As I said, that just devalues the impact and the relevance of magic as a whole. Now, you might understand, why my story has barely any mages in it. Just two are already enough. I mean, just look at the damage they can do/have done! There really is no point in having ten or fifty more of them. They are extraordinary people. If I made too many people extraordinary....well, Syndrome from "The Incredibles" said it best: "If everybody is super, no one is!"
2)Pacing and action
On the other hand, my stories are very fast-moving. They show you an important scene, but only linger in the moment for a very short time, before moving on to the next developement straight away. My personal preference for stories, that "always move forward" is the reason for this. Don't get me wrong I have read and am still reading quite long stories - and I mean whole book series - but very often I find myself being bored by authors simply dragging out scenes WAY longer than they need to be and by whole sections of a story which even you as a reader can clearly tell are of negligent importance for the narrative (and very often just try to give people a better picture of some characters). I am sorry, but I hate getting useless information in stories. If the author decribes something in significant detail or focuses on this or that plot element for at least some time, it NEEDS to play a role for the story in some shape or form. If not, then it could be cut, so the obvious question arises as to why it was included in the story in the first place. To waste my time? Well, gee, thanks! (Sorry, for that.) Consequently, my stories are different. Everything in them is relevant. Maybe not every minor detail (at least not all the time), but every character and plot element, that got at least some attention by the narrative. The thing that's intriguing is rather, HOW this person or thing will play a role in the narrative.....More on that later. I really don't like stories, that give you every single character's backstory in minute detail (I'm sure you can think of several such stories that have been or still are popular, that do something like this). If a character's backstory is revealed, just show me the important stuff! I don't care about a conversation a character had with his best friend when he was 7, if that conversation isn't relevant for the story at hand. My story is literally the opposite of that. Sometimes I just hint at stuff from a characters past and never actually explicitly tell you what happened. If it doesn't need to be explicitly told, if it can be left out, it WILL be left out in my writing. And as for action; I do love action. But as I pointed out in point 1, the action needs to be impactful and in order to be impactful, to be "special", it needs to be used sparingly. I don't want to have constant fight scenes, because that would really make them seem like something "ordinary", which they DEFINITELY aren't supposed to be. A fight scene is not an end in itself.
3) Worldbuilding
From my perspective, worldbuilding ALSO isn't an end in itself. Everything that is established about the world of one's work of fiction has to be in connection to the story or its characters in some way. Thus, in my story everything is connected. The characters are a product of the setting/world and the setting/world is influenced by the characters and their actions. Nothing exists in isolation and nothing is just described, because I just had some random idea and simply decided to include it in my worldbuilding. YES, my story does not give you unnecessary information, and this includes the worldbuilding. You are not going to get an exposition dump of "the entire history of the world", simply because I wanted to show off how cool or "epic" the backstory for everything, I could come up with, is. Not gonna happen, sorry! Unless the information is relevant for the characters or the story, you simply won't receive it. This approach is also more realistic, by the way! Why? Well, just ask yourself, do you know the entire history of OUR OWN WORLD? What do you know about the medieval Venetians, the ancient Scythians or....idk India in 500 A.D. for example? Let's be real: 99,9% of people have very little knowledge about the history of their own country, let alone the rest of the world. In a medieval setting, where knowledge is not freely available to the vast majority of the population, that percentage is going to be MUCH lower still. So, it makes sense, that most people in Kaphkos would have no clue about history apart from contemporary history and some very well-known historic events and figures. Most of what they'd know, would only be based on hearsay (=myths and legends), though, so even that "knowledge" of theirs would be very skewed. Myths count more than true history; that's how it always was and that's how it STILL IS.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
4) Expectations and the subversion thereof
I love getting surprised by stories. Hence, I love well-written subersions of expectations in stories. Mind the "well-written" part! Writing good subversions is really hard. They need to make logical sense, as well as they need to NOT destroy the story's themes and ideas. How do you do that? By planning out you plottwists long beforehand; at least that's how I approach this. I deliberately set up my first book like a typical hero's journey, a story of a timid, weak boy, who is the Chosen One and who needs to surpass himself to become the hero. The ending of the first book is a subversion, and actually a big letdown, as it shows, that, while having become stronger, Wenzel is still weak and no "hero" at all. This idea is carried over into the second volume, where Wenzel's weakness basically stops him from being able to achieve anything he wants. And he doesn't overcome these inner barriers on his own. Not at all. Just like in the first volume, his surroundings and developements, that are mostly beyond his control, force him to do SOMETHING. He is left no choice! That is the tragic nature of his character. Overall, the second book is written as a tragedy through and through, something that is a profound shock, if you expected the story to somehow keep in line with what the first book did. It feels like everything is lost and everything is falling apart, until the protagonist does what he has to do, or rather what he is forced to do, because he has no other choice. The big subversion is, that he DOESN'T become a hero, instead turning into a tyrant, just so he can survive. (And I am fully aware, that A LOT of people will not like this kind of development in the story, because most people do prefer rather formulaic, simple, run-of-the-mill stories. Mine DELIBERATELY is different. This is not some kind of mistake. I am well-aware of the tropes and ideas that epic fantasy stories typically employ. If you want something typical and ordinary, then my story will not be for you.)
So, what will the third volume, the conclusion of this story do? Well, it will definitely subvert your expectations again...... It will not end as a tragedy, though. While the second volume is the "The Empire strikes back" of this story, the third book will try to give you hope, but it also will clearly show how difficult and complex human society can be. People fight for a greater good, for higher values, but they also fight for themselves and against other people. In the end, ideals often clash with what is realistically humanly possible. People are fallible. We are not God. But just because things are hard and seem virtually impossible, one shouldn't just give up hope; because without hope, we give ourselves to despair. And despair is just as useless as simply sitting down and doing nothing in the first place. WE DO NOT LIVE TO DO NOTHING. Humans strive, and struggle. Otherwise, we might as well be dead.
5) Themes
What are themes? Ideas that a work of fiction is concerned with, maybe even structured around? That's how I'd define them, but what is important here, is that a story NEEDS them. Themes can be simple and shallow or they can be very deep and complex. I tend to set up rather simple themes, but then I continue to introduce more and more over time, connect them with each other, show how they influence each other and go more and more into depth with them over time. The true depth of my story's themes can only be understood, once you've read it until the end. My story is about the themes, just as much as it is about its characters. They just take some time to crystalize through the narrative, some time for that "crystal" to grow and take form. What are my story's themes? Religion and religiously motivated fanaticism? Definitely. Myths and all the good and bad things, they bring? Just wait and see..... Oppression and how it only breeds ever greater oppression in return? Yes. I don't want to spoil any more than that. All I will say is, that I deliberately wrote my story in a way, that makes it clear, that it is up to the the readers themselves, what conclusions they draw from the events in the story, the decisions that characters take and how they change. None of my characters are just "pure evil villains" or "knights in shining armour". That doesn't mean, that certain characters aren't evil or good, it just means, that there are nuances to them. They are meant to be believable people and not generic tropes.
My Book titles:
Volume 1: "Holy Empire - The Soul Pendant"
Volume 2: "Holy Empire - The Curse of the Blessed"
Volume 3: "Holy Empire" - The Key to Eternity"
