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Post by johnnypt on Jul 18, 2023 14:15:13 GMT -5
Some times these nuts are hard to crack!
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Post by Von K on Jul 18, 2023 16:47:30 GMT -5
Thanks for the feedback, VonK! I have tried several of the avenues you describe and ended up at the same brick wall: it doesn't engage me (and I have to be engaged, first and foremost, before I can write an engaging story). Part of *my* problem is I'm not a crime-sort of writer, so the details of criminal enterprise bore me, so I could never grok a epic-enough crime (though at one point I had him stealing the Serpent Ring of Set from Thoth-amon, but the timeline didn't make sense). I tried to reframe Shevatas as a sinister Indiana Jones, more of a tomb-robbing scholar than a criminal, then as sort of a Hyborian Age Belloq. I first decided, when I pitched the idea to Perilous Worlds, to go back and tell his backstory. But, I recalled most REH characters had backstories that could be dispensed with in a paragraph. It did not feel authentic to the character. This is a strange idea in that it removes Shevatas physically from play, but has him looming over the things like some specter. He appears physically in 5 separate chapters that tell the tale of his last night, his thoughts going on parchment as part of his testament; each part of the testament then presages what's going on in the chapters to follow. He's the inciting incident, but not the protagonist. And it's a bit more unique in voice, which is something Titan has said they're looking for. Regardless, we'll see how it goes. It'll either be a steaming pile of bull-pucky, or a different look at the death of a thief among thieves -- and the aftermath of the events described in "Black Colossus". Aye, the creative process can be mysterious and elusive at times as we all come to the same material from an often vastly different background of knowledge and experiences and preferences. So often standard practices and techniques and methods don't necessarily work for everyone in the same way.
Have you considered running your new concept by Steve Saffel?
I'd find it quite difficult to expand for novel length a character who is essentially a one off 'throwaway' for the set-up of a single yarn that REH nevertheless drew with extremely well defined pen strokes His set-up technique in Black Colossus is similar to the one he used in Devil in Iron with the Yuetshi fisherman - but done much more deftly, vividly and uniquely with Shevatas in Colossus. REH's Shevatas imho was influenced by CAS Satampra Zeiros in his eponymous Tale and both have gone on to influence, say, Fritz Leiber's Lankhmarian thieves in general, what to speak of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser themselves.
I think Javier's comment on your blog post is probably the best advice 'trust your gut' or what I would call 'trust your innate creative instincts.' Or as Steven Pressfield might say 'trust the soup.'
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Post by scottoden on Jul 18, 2023 21:07:08 GMT -5
There is a part of me wondering if I should do it as an epistle found in the desert. A first-person account, a'la James Allison, of Shevatas's life, written by Shevatas and addressed to a mysterious Woman of Shadizar. Yeah, these things take time to cook and simmer
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Post by zarono on Jul 19, 2023 7:06:31 GMT -5
There is a part of me wondering if I should do it as an epistle found in the desert. A first-person account, a'la James Allison, of Shevatas's life, written by Shevatas and addressed to a mysterious Woman of Shadizar. Yeah, these things take time to cook and simmer
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Post by scottoden on Jul 19, 2023 9:13:45 GMT -5
Yeah, this'll work . . .
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Post by zarono on Jul 19, 2023 10:36:56 GMT -5
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Post by Von K on Jul 19, 2023 13:29:31 GMT -5
Sounds like first person epistolary might be just the angle you need.
Your approach here reminds me somewhat of Steven Pressfield when he was writing Virtues of War:
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Post by scottoden on Jul 19, 2023 21:49:11 GMT -5
Yes! Precisely this. I'm convinced the story I need to tell isn't the story REH laid out for him, but something deeper. I think I finally found it . . .
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