The Making of a Mage King

How do the choices in out lives come about? Some children are subtly guided along the way until they start making their own decisions. Some of that guidance is not so subtle, as many choices are blatantly made, setting the child on a course firmly predetermined. In the most drastic cases, there is no subtly, only cold hard law. And sometimes a child is merely housed and clothed until such time as they take up the task on their own and move out.

Sean Moselle was gently guided through childhood in a certain direction by parents who half hoped the guidance would never be necessary, but they could not risk him not developing certain skills. He was encouraged to learn the art of fencing by stories of valiant knights, both read as well as simply recited as he sat on his father's knee. His desire to be just like King Arthur was more than indulged, but he didn't know the difference. His father was also in a position to instil in him the love and care of horses, as well as the skill to ride them.

In the first book, Prince in Hiding, Sean's happy childhood falls completely apart with the deaths of his parents under unusual circumstances. First, his mother seems to simply drop dead; no cause could ever be found. Roughly a year later, his father, a mounted police officer, was killed in the line of duty, Or was he?

Any other kid growing up in New York who lost their parents by the time they turned seventeen, would have been able to carve a place for themselves. It wouldn't be easy, but it would have been possible. 

In Sean's case, things were not so simple. You see, Sean really wasn't a native born New Yorker. Well, he was, but his parents weren't, and his parents also weren't the two people he had always called mom and dad. His real parents were the crown prince Deain Ruhin and his lady wife was Kassandra Barleduc. This left him with the unwieldy name of Seanad Éireann Barleduc-Ruhin, named by the custom of his people. His people, who were not here on this earth, nor were they even in this time. Where they were, no one has ever determined; they were just elsewhere.

There was no choice. With the deaths of both of his closest guardians, his other protectors had to take him back and teach him how to be the king he was born and bred to be.

You'd think that defeating his evil uncle and claiming the throne would be the end of the story, but in truth it was only the beginning.

Holding the throne does no good if no one knows. Sean's goal then was to go around and tell everyone. He also needed to set people in place who would be loyal to him and in general clean up his uncle's mess, but there was a deeper reason he needed to make this trek and time was wasting, and he had no idea why. For some reason he felt that he had only six months at best to complete his task. He told himself that it had to be finished by the time the snows came and locked down the mountain districts, but though that was the reason he gave, it wasn't quite right.

Once in motion, even the fastest pace his men could travel wasn't fast enough; he felt positively driven, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't cover the distance fast enough.

He took to expending vast amounts of magic, and striving to keep up the pressure on himself, but even powerful mages aren't indestructible. This is where friends proved to be invaluable. They kept him grounded and sane, and they made sure he didn't kill himself. They couldn't, however, protect him from his own dreams. As sleep turned difficult, dreams filled his nights with puzzles and premonitions, visions of possible futures, and possible pasts. Dreams that were just plain strange, and dreams of his first ancestor leading him to the fate he needed to meet, and yet still not telling him what that fate was.

Now we get to the interesting part. Pieces have been in motion since the first book. Cities have fallen and enemy forces have been helping themselves to the magical populous of Ruhin, seeking to use them for their own ends. Sean, needs to act. He needs to find the stolen and hold accountable those who took them. But that didn't relieve him of his original mission, so he had to act quickly, and brutally. He had no time to be nice, to be diplomatic, to hold court and judge war crimes.

With haste, he rounded up his armies and pointed them at their marks, and then he gathered up the closest of his uncle's nastiest warriors and led them against yet another target. War is never pretty, and Sean made no effort to try. And then he had to protect his borders, and more magic was the only answer.

The magic to protect his borders was a balm to his tortured soul after using so much magic to kill his enemies. But now that the war was over, his original task still loomed. Even though he was nearly finished, snows threatened, time was running out. He pushed on as hard as ever while still trying very hard to remain human, to stay that boy who grew up in New York, raised by a man named Moselle. It was a connection he never wanted to jeopardize, it was a memory that kept the overwhelming power of magic that coursed through his veins from turning him into something akin to his uncle.

Then at one point shortly before being able to make it to all of his districts, time ran out. Snow blanketed the landscape and Sean had to use all of the magic his land had to offer to save the world.

Yeah, I'm going to be mean and make you read the book to find out how he did that, and of course there's the bit after that - something to do with the birth of his son and dealing out a little overdue justice.

Book 3 will be available in June.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Great Prologue Debate

There is a major discussion over on LinkedIn on whether to use a prologue or not. It seems there is an entire range of opinions on it, but mostly it boils down to, use one if you want to, if you think your story needs one. You're not going to please everybody; some people will read them, some people will skip over them. Some people think they should be labeled chapter one if you're going to include it at all.

According to my dictionary, a prologue is a separate introductory section of a literary work. An event or action that leads to another event or situation (civil unrest in a few isolated villages became the prologue to widespread rebellion). A short preliminary time trial held before a race to establish a leader (in professional cycling). The actor who delivers the prologue of a play.

Two of those definitions can be used in your book. Now a lot of those comments indicated that information in a prologue should simply be included in the story in some way, but sometime that just isn't possible. Sometimes the information is vital to setting the stage in some manner, but it just doesn't fit anywhere within the story, not unless you want to commit the ultimate sin and include a lot of back-story somewhere.

In my first book, and in my latest book, Half-Breed, setting the stage was important to me. I needed to push the setting of both books into the far future of this earth we walk today. I didn't want these two stories to be just any old where. The lack of a moon is a culture changer, but if no one knew that the world had once had a moon, they would miss picking up on that small item; it wouldn't be a culture change, it would only be different. There were other small things in both books that I wanted to be seen as the same but different, not just other. Lack of prologues would have allowed them to be alternate Earth stories, but I wanted them to be tied much closer to home.

So really, I suppose it just boils down to 'follow your gut'. Use prologues with extreme care; consider all the alternatives first, and then consider exactly how important that information really is. Consider VERY carefully before plugging a prologue in front of your story, because, like I said before, some people will skip over it anyway. Ask yourself, "what does this story mean without the prologue?"

~~~~~

And then lets not forget the prologue's littlest cousin, the epilogue.

According to my dictionary, an epilogue is a section at the end of a book that serves as a comment or conclusion to what has happened.

I used one of those too in my first book. I had so many threads going through that book that when I reached the desired end, many of those threads were left hanging. I felt the need to wrap things up. I did a much better job of wrapping things up in Half-Breed but I still included an epilogue. I mean, the guy simply had to see his kids even though the story had reached it's conclusion.

In The Fortunes of Magic, the last chapter could have been an epilogue after a fashion, because it was a shift of POV, but really that chapter didn't fit the definition above. It was my way of bringing things full circle in that story. Same with The Speed of Dreams. The last chapter was a bring-around to a full circle. Neither book had a prologue either.

How about you? Do you favor a prologue? Have you ever used one? How about the epilogue?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A New Turn of Events

My writing career has taken an unusual turn these days. First, a couple months ago, a friend asked me to help update his book. Terminology and technology in the book was very outdated; it was like watching a movie filmed back in the 50s or so, a very nice story but just old. At first the project was supposed to be an editing project, but it turned out that updating wasn't the only problem with this story. Saving the universe might have been a cool goal back in the 50s but readers are way too savvy for that these days.

As we wrestled with this, I discovered that he had health issues that made concentration difficult. We all know how we need to concentrate in order to keep track of all the different threads we weave through our stories. Anyway, we agreed that I would take on rewriting his book. Any details he didn't like, I'd be happy to change, but he said he liked every bit of it, even though, in taking out the big 'save the universe' idea and replacing it with chasing down a rogue planet, I pretty much changed the whole story.

Anyway, that project prompted me to look up the going rate for ghostwriting and since I still consider myself a student of this writing craft, I can't charge people full price. However, I do think it is only fair that I do charge, after all, I will be working for someone, and if you work for someone, they should pay you for your effort.

I drafted up a proposal on my website, just like I drafted up one for my editing services. Really cheap, but I'm no expert, I'm just told by those I respect that I'm pretty darn good. Maybe someday, when I'm more comfortable with the tasks, my prices will increase.

Now with this one book finished and turned over to it's owner, I figured I wouldn't see another such project for a long time, if ever, but low and behold, this lady asked me to help her with her story. I have no idea where she found me. We connected on Facebook. I'll have to ask her someday. Anyway, now I'm working on another ghostwriting project.

One good thing about this kind of work. I get to explore some really great ideas. In the mean time, my own book is simmering along just fine. At the moment, I've divided it into a bunch of short books, and I'm constructing covers for them. So that means I get to do a lot of coloring every evening. My only picture program is Paint for Mac. It's pretty simple, but it does allow me to add text to a picture. So, I buy a cover image or hire a cover artist and I can put together a simple cover. Don't come to me for your cover though. What I can turn out is really super simple. There are MUCH better cover artists out there.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~