My first novel was a gripping Fantasy adventure that covered multiple lands from under water worlds, to forests, to remote islands, to places that existed in air breaches between land and water. It had it all. I was ten, I had read “Magician” and “Spell Singer”, I knew what I was doing. It followed the journey of a sexy hobbit (that was one of my many points of difference that I thought would get the punters in) called Arti and his mission to stop the encroaching darkness with his trusty band of representatives from other species. Now of course there were lots of problems with the girls fighting over Arti, him almost disrupting the wedding of the Fairy King’s daughter and him generally being so darned appealing that all the other males hated him. Love stories, darkness, a varied setting, what more could you want? Thoughtful names? Well I had those two. I made extensive use of my thesaurus. One of the characters, who was a cross between a Gandalf and a Macros the Black figure, was named Callow Erudite. Now these seemed like totally fine words for names to me at the time because I hadn’t really heard them before, and so assumed nobody else would have either. He was an old and wise magician who looked extremely young. He was guarded by a shape shifting gargoyle. Or was it a griffin? Something g related. So, as you can clearly see, I had it all. Just one problem, my public (my older brother and sister) simply could not get to the blistering sexual magnetism of Arti, nor the rich tapestry that was the land, and they certainly didn’t encounter the carefully planned characters, because they simply could not get past the introduction. My sister laughed hysterically, slight problem as it was not meant to be comedic, and my brother tried to be tactful and offer suggestions. I refused to take them all. I knew better. I was ten and utterly brilliant. I’d written a novel, what was his greatest achievement at the time? Finishing his School Certificate? Constantly topping English? Becoming Dux repeatedly? All utter rubbish compared to my brilliant and gripping novel. Now I’ll include my prologue below and we’ll see if you can pick the unfair criticisms levelled at my masterpiece.
Prologue
This story was set long ago, long before there were humans. It was a set in time when, Cerberuses, Cyclopeses, Dark Elves, Demons,Dragons, Druids, Dwarves, Enchanters, Fairies, Fays, Feys,Forest Elves, Furies,Gargoyles, Ghouls, Giants, Gnomes, Goblins, Griffins, Gypsies, Hags, Halflings, Hermits, Hobbits,Hobgoblins, Imps, Lemures, Mages, Magicians, Medusas, Mermaids, Minotaurs, Monsters, Muses, Necromancers, Ogres, Orcs, Pegasuses, Phantoms, Pirates, Pixies, Poltergeists, Prophets, Sirens, Sorceresses, Spectres, Sprites (water, earth, fire and air sprites), Star Elves, Trolls, Unicorns, Vipers, Warlocks,Werewolves,Witches, Wraiths, and talking animals roamed the earth.
Quick confession: I removed quite a number of creatures because I could not be bothered typing up a page worth of fantastical beasts. Perhaps my brother was onto something. 🙂
Write or Wrong 