After a few weeks spent working on non-fiction articles, finishing editing a short story, submitting the short story and doing research on my next fiction project ... I've begun the fiction project.
The title, so far, is "Bayne's Climb." Right now I'm expecting it to be novella length, about 45,000 words. You can check out my progress at the very bottom of this blog. There's a little bar there noting my progress. Not much, yet, but the progress will come.
I had about a dozen different ideas for my next project, but eventually I worked my way around to one.
What is "Bayne's Climb" about? I won't say too much for now, but it's fantasy. On an online forum a while back I saw some postings about Sword and Sorcery stories, and if there was such a thing as a literary Sword and Sorcery tale. The general response seemed to be "no," Sword and Sorcery being just action fiction with no higher asperations. I disagree with that. I've always felt Sword and Sorcery has a lot to say about the human condition, often about such topics as the male ego, patriotism, honor, death. And, of course, there's the expected action and adventure, which can be fun. But heck, I find high meaning in "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly."
So, can Sword and Sorcery be a literary tale? I aim to try. After a lot of thought on a plot, and a good bit of just sitting down with a notebook to do some plotting, and some research, I'm trying to write a literary Sword and Sorcery tale. It will be "Bayne's Climb."
Maybe I'll succeed. Maybe not. But at the least, it should be fun.
4 comments:
I am looking forward to what you do. As for myself I would like to think that I also do literary S&S, because of the themes involved and the refrences that may require inside knowledge of history and art to fully appreciate-not that you couldn't just viewing it as an adventure tale too. It's a fine line as you said.
Looking forward to it myself, DJW. And Ty, I will respond to your email - just getting back on after a 3-day absence and have lots to read and catchup on.
David, yep, adventure fiction is fine, but in my opinion even the most vacuous of action stories has something to say, a thematic background, even if it's a weak and/or overly familiarly one. Take the TV show "24," for example. I loved the first two seasons, but after that it felt like it was just a re-hash of the same old thing. Terrorists are going to kill a bunch of people. Jack Bauer saves the day, usually at some personal loss and/or physical abuse beyond the pale. Still, I think there's more there than just Jack beating up on terrorists. A portion of our current cultural zeitgeist, if nothing else.
von Darkmoor, you can probably ignore that big long e-mail I sent you. I decided to go a different route, while still working in several of the themes I wanted to focus on. The new route, "Bayne's Climb," will allow me to use a more traditional story-telling route while keeping to my themes. I hope.
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