Writing: Whodunit?
Or, perhaps accurately, howdunit?
I've been filling in more details, got some other countries in this mix now, a couple of different factions... starting to fill in some of the backstory. I'm contemplating where in the story to start, or how much of the arc to tell. I'm not going to start at the founding of the empire, but the main story that I'm looking to tell starts with a cataclysm of sorts, followed by the response to that, and all the fallout from that. All that plot start before the main character becomes a knight... so I'm not sure if I'm going to tell it all from a perspective that centers on him. If I go with a trilogy, I might make him the focus of the third book, really, because he comes along fairly late in the game.
That cataclysm, though - the more I think about it, the more important that it's getting. It's a pivotal point, something that caused a massive change to the empire... which means that the details, the exact reasons of how and why, are getting to be a lot more important.
Now, I know what the "official story" is, the one cited by the government and accepted by at least a fairly significant amount of the population. The problem is, is that accurate?
I've got about a half dozen factions who, in theory, *could* have been responsible, in that they're on the playing field at the time. Whether or not they had the ability or not is another question. It's definitely not an entirely natural issue here - not like a volcano just happened to errupt or something. Somehow, some way, magic was involved - so it's coming down to finding out who had the means, what their motives were, and following from there. So, back to the drawing board.
I've been filling in more details, got some other countries in this mix now, a couple of different factions... starting to fill in some of the backstory. I'm contemplating where in the story to start, or how much of the arc to tell. I'm not going to start at the founding of the empire, but the main story that I'm looking to tell starts with a cataclysm of sorts, followed by the response to that, and all the fallout from that. All that plot start before the main character becomes a knight... so I'm not sure if I'm going to tell it all from a perspective that centers on him. If I go with a trilogy, I might make him the focus of the third book, really, because he comes along fairly late in the game.
That cataclysm, though - the more I think about it, the more important that it's getting. It's a pivotal point, something that caused a massive change to the empire... which means that the details, the exact reasons of how and why, are getting to be a lot more important.
Now, I know what the "official story" is, the one cited by the government and accepted by at least a fairly significant amount of the population. The problem is, is that accurate?
I've got about a half dozen factions who, in theory, *could* have been responsible, in that they're on the playing field at the time. Whether or not they had the ability or not is another question. It's definitely not an entirely natural issue here - not like a volcano just happened to errupt or something. Somehow, some way, magic was involved - so it's coming down to finding out who had the means, what their motives were, and following from there. So, back to the drawing board.