CMCranor

FIRST ASSIGNMENT: Write your story statement. “Join an order of mythical warriors just in time to meet the reason why the world believes they are only a legend.” SECOND ASSIGNMENT: In 200 words or less, sketch the antagonist or antagonistic force in your story. Keep in mind their goals, their background, and the ways they react to the world about them. Alizar comes from the oldest bloodline in the world of Dais. His kind was gifted with unending life… if they chose to live peacefully. Now he seeks to counterfeit the longevity he lost through any means necessary. There are several things that could stand in his way. He’s destroyed most of them. His greatest threat is an order of warriors that is almost extinct. So he’s sending an army to make it so. THIRD ASSIGNMENT: Create a breakout title (list several options, not more than three, and revisit to edit as needed). A LIGHT INTO DARKNESS THE PALLADIUM FOURTH ASSIGNMENT: Develop two smart comparables for your novel. This is a good opportunity to immerse yourself in your chosen genre. Who compares to you? And why? Comps: “Uprooted” - Naomi Novik BECAUSE: Genre, Hero’s Journey, Setting, Demographic Readers, Ease of read, Character dynamics, Character growth “The Demon Awakens” - RA Salvatore BECAUSE: Genre, Hero’s Journey, Setting, Epic Quest, Worldbuilding, Cliffhanger (sequels) X and Y: “Uprooted by Naomi Novik, only it’s a boy becoming a fantasy-jedi-monk instead of a witch.” FIFTH ASSIGNMENT: Write your own hook line (logline) with conflict and core wound following the format above. Though you may not have one now, keep in mind this is a great developmental tool. In other words, you best begin focusing on this if you're serious about commercial publication. Hook line: “A boy sets out to become one of the legendary warriors the world believes are myth just in time to meet the forces pursuing their extinction.” SIXTH ASSIGNMENT: sketch out the conditions for the inner conflict your protagonist will have. Why will they feel in turmoil? Conflicted? Anxious? Sketch out one hypothetical scenario in the story wherein this would be the case--consider the trigger and the reaction. Next, likewise sketch a hypothetical scenario for the "secondary conflict" involving the social environment. Will this involve family? Friends? Associates? What is the nature of it? Elias is just a boy from a fishing village. All his life his favorite thing has been collecting the stories and legends from all over the world from the fishermen that come to port in his village. He loves them all, but especially the ones about the warriors called “Palladium”. They say the greatest Palladium acolytes only take three years to be forged into one of the legendary warriors. When Elias goes to become a palladium the villains from the same legends he loves arrive in one. The master Palladium who train the acolytes are affected by a malaise. The world believes the Palladium are either extinct or just a legend. The masters have begun to resign to that fate. Elias must navigate the treacherous life of a student learning from masters who believe they are already defeated. Luckily Elias isn’t the only acolyte seeking to become a Palladium. Suva has been there already for several years, slowly reinvigorating the light inside the Palladium masters. Just when Suva and Elias are able to express their feelings for one another Suva finishes her training and must return home to tend to the reason she became a Palladium in the first place. SEVENTH ASSIGNMENT: sketch out your setting in detail. What makes it interesting enough, scene by scene, to allow for uniqueness and cinema in your narrative and story? Please don't simply repeat what you already have which may well be too quiet. You can change it. That's why you're here! Start now. Imagination is your best friend, and be aggressive with it. The world of Dais exists under a great firmament – an invisible wall that separates the world from the heavens. The people have discovered a magic where they sublimate precious metal, turning it into a gas that rises to the firmament where it reforms as the precious metal, clinging to the invisible wall. While precious metals can still be mined, it’s now more practical for prospectors to predict when and where the metal will fall from the heavens back to the earth. The sublimation magic may seem available to everyone – but in practice it’s available to the wealthy. Kings now use their armies to roam abroad, fighting for territory they predict the precious metals will land in. This cataclysmic shift in priorities for rulers has changed the world dramatically. Before the sublimation magic there were four ancient kingdoms. Now there are just tenuous alliances between bellicose warlords. The protagonist loves the stories now considered just legends from the times before the sublimation magic. Stories of the Virtu kings: the Lions of the West. Or the slate-black monsters called “salari”, avarice incarnate. But most of all – the warriors who wield the light of god in their crystalline daggers – the Palladium. The Palladium are forged on a secret island in the greatest ocean. Only one man on one boat can make it to the Shining Isle. In old times he would travel the coast, stopping at guarded shrines where the prospective acolytes would gather hoping to prove their mettle and be granted passage to the island. The Shining Isle is a utopia for warriors, craftsmen, and monks. A volcanic atoll formed the grounds to train the greatest warriors in the world. The island is singularly abundant with the best resources and facilities to make artifacts fit for legends. And beneath it all is a secret very few have ever seen.