They say a picture speaks a thousand words. Well... this is CLOSE to what I image my Elfin Riders riding through as the story kicks of in earnest on Thars on the Plains Goblins seacoast in "A STRANGE SENSE OF DIVINE DESTINY": book two in the Legend in Thars series.
Okay, so I've been relatively silent on this blog for a while. Doesn't mean I'm dead. Doesn't mean I'm not doing anything. No, I am doing something I'm adding DEPTH to my opus, which is A LEGEND IN THARS.
I actually have a sidebar on this blog siting the progress in this series. Admittedly the progress has been slow. Lots of reasons for that:
- I can't write full time. I have to have a "real job" to support myself. Currently I work in a yard for a construction company. Easy work. Isn't breaking me down. Lends itself beautifully towards making progress on the novel series.
- I took some breaks to writing a couple screenplays. Hey, lets face it writing the next "Lord of the Rings" series takes time. Tolkien didn't do it overnight. Neither will E.C. Henry. I wrote, "When the Motorcycle Calls" and "The Commune III" when the idea for those stories "popped". They were ripe to be picked -- and I did just that! I've found that sometimes it's needed to take a break from "big projects" and that's what I did. Doesn't mean I abandoned Thars. No, I'm back to it now. Though "The Commune III" lingered wayyy longer that I thought it would. Really put some extras in that one. Maybe someday those efforts will pay off. Hasn't happened so far.
- Right now I'm mostly EDITING Thars, not a lot of "creative" writing. The story's done, been done for years. I know how it ends and doubt I'll deviate from that, but my prose isn't strong enough right now. And I want that to shine. Hence, the grind...
Okay, so where do we go from here?
Continue to work hard at it. Add depth. Focus on characters and making them iconic. And yes, I think I have a bevy of special characters in Thars. Going to try to turn the focus into the good guys of the story and build up their friendship, and how they form this bond over outside pressures that seek to keep them apart.
Friendship. Isn't that a good accent for stories given the current state of our world?
I think so.
E.C. is shooting for a mix something akin to this in Books 2 through 5 in THE LEGEND IN THARS book series.
So what does "depth" entail? Well, in epic fantasy I think its depth that readers respond most to. Why was Lord of the Rings so popular? People could loose themselves in the rich world of Middle Earth. I need to have that in Thars. Need to have a rich tapestry that people could see themselves having adventures in. There's also character depth, but in stories involving world creation I think world trumps character. So I need to work on that. Continue to make Thars believable; a place that adventurous souls would WANT to explore.
And so it's on. What can I deliver on...
I set the bar high. I want MY STORY to compare favorably to J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" when this is all said and done. And so I toil on. Adding depth to the world of Thars, making it more and more like a real place that could actually exist. I also work on an expansive character roster. The novels aren't all I writing, also character bios. Keeping a HISTORY of a world's characters straight is a chore, but it's a chore I'm committed to.
The best thing about Thars is my complexity of characters. I don't write simple stories. Rather I believe in complexity with many moving parts going at the same time. I don't write to pacify simpletons. In the end, I write for myself and hope what I like rubs off on others.
So don't get down in these highly politicized times. There's still some adventurous souls out there working on making art that is new and exciting. Will never be a sell-out artist. Will always write what's on my heart to best of my ability, and NOT let in voices that are pushing a destructive agenda.
E.C. Henry is the real McCoy; a writer committed to writing the best stories that God gives him to write. And that will always be my focus. God first. Writing is what follows.
Hope y'all are blessed this Christmas season. Wish all who who reads this the full blessings of Christ as well celebrate His birth. To Jesus be all glory from this day forth and forevermore! Always remember the reason for the season. Christ's claims trump all else:
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