Anna Tan's Blog, page 12

#AtoZChallenge: M for Mikal, Maha, and the Amok Strength

Yosua’s story really grew from his relationship with Mikal, so I guess it’s fitting that we dedicate a post to talking about Mikal and Maha.

As stated in Justices, Mind-reading and the Secretkeeper, Terang is made up of three city-states: Maha, Suci, and Impian. And each of these city-states has their own leader and their own magical gifts from Kudus.

Kudus’ gift to Maha is the Amok strength. If you’ve been on this blog long enough, you’ll know that it used to be called the “Berserker” strength. G...

#AtoZChallenge: L for LAUNCH DAY!

IT'S FINALLY LAUNCH DAY!!!

And, arbitrarily, the only reason today, 14 April 2022, has been chosen as Launch Day is because it's L in the A to Z Challenge calendar. *shrug*

The Tale of the Hostage Prince (Book 1.5) 
Yosua wears an uneasy crown. Although he is now Raja of Bayangan, he still longs for the land of his birth where everything was much simpler…and less deadly.

But peace doesn’t come easily, not for a twenty-year-old servant playacting at being king .

With his parents brutally mur...

#AtoZChallenge: K for Kudus

Kudus is the name that I gave to the God of Terang. 

I’d initially just called him “God” all the way through, but as I was editing Amok, I felt like He needed a name. (I mean, I did just say names were important, ha). So I was like, God has many names in the Bible, I might as well just pick one from there. 

So Kudus came from Roh Kudus, which is basically the Holy Spirit (or Holy Ghost in some translations). Apparently, this word came over from the Arabic Quddus.

It’s a synonym for Suci (which is o...

#AtoZChallenge: J for Justices, Mind-reading and the Secretkeeper

 Here’s a little lore from Terang!

So, Terang is made up of three city-states: Maha, Suci, and Impian. And each of these city-states have their own leader and their own magical gifts from Kudus.

Today’s post will be about the Mind-reading Gift of the Impianans (Impianites? Idk, I don't think I've decided). This Gift is given primarily to the women, though some of the men have weak forms of the Gift. These Gifts usually manifest themselves around puberty—so between the ages of 12 – 14. Whilst every...

#AtoZChallenge: I for Identity

Harking back to the post on Emigration and Exile, the core of The Tale of the Hostage Prince is Yosua’s struggle with identity. 

Mikal’s parting words to Yosua in Amok are: “I hope you discover who you need to be.” And that’s something that Yosua has been mulling over again and again. 

Who is he? Where does he belong? How can he find out? 

At some point in the novel, Yosua decides where he’s supposed to be. But to get to that point, he needed to discover who he’s supposed to be. And obviously, when...

#AtoZChallenge: H for #HostagePrince (with excerpts from Chapter 24)

The Bayangan people call those of Yosua’s community “Tawanan”, which means prisoner, or hostage, because they’d been taken to Maha as captives in the previous war. Sultan Simson specifically took the eldest child of each noble and/or rich merchant family in order to disrupt the social fabric of Bayangan’s society. He’d also taken Garett, the Raja Muda (crown prince) of Bayangan, leaving Garett’s seven-year-old sister, Layla, alive. 

And so Yosua was born in Maha, the child of two Bayangan hostage...

#AtoZChallenge: G for Guerilla Theatre

The thing about moving is losing things. I'm pretty sure I saved a lot of references on this, but I don't know where they are anymore. 

At any rate, the idea of a courtly theatre-dance performance was first introduced in Amok, a scene that I later echoed in The Tale of the Hostage Prince (See B for Bayangan)

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Amok, Chapter 2 excerpt

Note: this scene is in Mikal’s point of view

There’s an awkward silence between us, masked by the strains of music from the ensemble. 

“This troupe is very good,” Layla...

#AtoZChallenge: F for Food and Drink

Okay, this post is just going to be excerpts of the food & drink mentioned in The Tale of the Hostage Prince because at this point of “planning” my posts, I’m just combing through my text to see what I can fit into what alphabet. Only the significant ones, though, not the ones that just say "I sipped at my tea" or whatever.

Chapter 1
I smile—fake, so fake, is this who you are?—and stride across the hall to my seat at the head of the main table. When I sit, so does everyone else—and the bustle star...

#AtoZChallenge: E for Emigration and Exile

What does it mean to leave your country and head to somewhere new?

I think this question is one that many people are grappling with worldwide, whether they are considering emigrating for a better future, or whether they are being forced to flee their own country due to circumstances beyond their control.

I’ve left Penang and Malaysia for short periods of time, but never for good. It was always with the intention to return. But that doesn’t stop me from asking what if? What if, in 2015, I had deci...

#AtoZChallenge: D for Developing The Tale of the #HostagePrince

One question every writer seems to get (or at least I do) is how did you develop your story? Did you write an outline first? Do you plan out your character arcs? Determine the beats of the story? Or do you just write and create on the spot?

Or, as common parlance puts it: are you a plotter or a pantser? If you don’t know what this means, here’s a great article: https://thewritepractice.com/plotters-pantsers/. Other terms include “architect vs gardener” or “outlining vs discovery writing”.

I’m…pre...