BTS: Duel on Hakkojji Bridge
Wow! I don't know how I missed it, but my story "Duel on Hakkojji Bridge" is up at Three Crow Press.
BTS: Duel on Hakkojji Bridge
“Duel on Hakkojji Bridge” originally started out as a writing prompt I devised for myself in order to practice description. Much like the way an artist will practice drawing still life, I wanted to hone my ability to breathe life into something that wasn’t real.
The idea for the bridge came to me in two parts while I was doing research for a novel I’m writing about Asian Fantasy. I saw pictures of several bridges and got the idea to use a bridge as my still life model. Also in the same book, I saw a name for a group of monks who called themselves “Ikko-Ikki”. For some reason that name intrigued me. I tried to figure out why. What I came up with is that I liked how the name had repeating letters in it and the visual effect those letters created when put together. I wanted to create a name that had a similar effect.
I then went down the alphabet typing double letters from A to Z ( I will sometimes use a similar method when trying to devise names for characters-minus the double letter part-until I come up with a letter that feels right for the character ). I came up with three two letter combinations that had some potential.
kk-ii-jj
I then needed to come up with the other letters that would sound like a reasonable name for a bridge. After various combinations, I finally settled on Hakkojji Bridge.
And that is how the story came about. I hope you like it :)
BTS: Duel on Hakkojji Bridge
“Duel on Hakkojji Bridge” originally started out as a writing prompt I devised for myself in order to practice description. Much like the way an artist will practice drawing still life, I wanted to hone my ability to breathe life into something that wasn’t real.
The idea for the bridge came to me in two parts while I was doing research for a novel I’m writing about Asian Fantasy. I saw pictures of several bridges and got the idea to use a bridge as my still life model. Also in the same book, I saw a name for a group of monks who called themselves “Ikko-Ikki”. For some reason that name intrigued me. I tried to figure out why. What I came up with is that I liked how the name had repeating letters in it and the visual effect those letters created when put together. I wanted to create a name that had a similar effect.
I then went down the alphabet typing double letters from A to Z ( I will sometimes use a similar method when trying to devise names for characters-minus the double letter part-until I come up with a letter that feels right for the character ). I came up with three two letter combinations that had some potential.
kk-ii-jj
I then needed to come up with the other letters that would sound like a reasonable name for a bridge. After various combinations, I finally settled on Hakkojji Bridge.
And that is how the story came about. I hope you like it :)