Dwayne R. Johnston's Blog: Bluestone the book, world building, and other ponderings
October 6, 2015
Check it out
Please check out the art work inspired by my book Bluestone:The Forest, the Path, and the River.
http://northernforestrover.deviantart...
http://northernforestrover.deviantart...
December 31, 2014
World building: Power, Magic, and Beings
To finish with the topic of power from the previous blog, instead of the necessity of a good creator who is the originator of power, I could have used a ‘pool of power’ idea where the power is just there, and which many books use without explaining often where the power comes from – it just is. But then I think I would be depicting the world as a dog eat dog - survival of the fittest kind of world where one ends up with a book that tries to steer clear of the good vs. evil idea and you have to go too much towards - there is no good, and there is no evil (or worse evil is good, and good is evil). It ends up I believe like playing a game with no rules, or as if someone is making up the rules as one goes along. It’s no fun, and a book like that is painful to read I think.
Next I need to address a question because it ties into the existence of the fantasy creatures in the book.
Why is there magic in your book, isn’t it always evil? No, I don’t think magic is necessarily always evil. Here in the world we know magic is often presumed to be supernatural powers with demonic or an evil force behind it, but if the creator is the supernatural power behind the magic, or if the creator created other beings with powers beyond ours, their powers would seem like magic to us.
In the alternate world presented in the book the world has many beings created by the creator with natural powers beyond what we would class as natural on our earth, but their powers always have limits set by the creator, and the degree of free will the beings have will define how far beyond those limits they can go, and what evil effect it might have on other beings around them.
So, it is an alternate fantasy world, and the rules are not necessarily the same as here on earth.
The Humans – the humans are more or less just like us. They could be on another planet, or maybe in a different kind of universe in which fantasy worlds can exist. The world is at a Dark Age stage which I prefer rather than a Middle Age setting like many fantasy books.
The Beasts – There are big ugly blundering evil beasts in my book. Unlike other created beings these beasts don’t belong in the world, or at least not on that side of the gate. They are completely evil or depraved having made their “eternal choice” at some time in the distant past.
Because they are eternal created beings their present state is not how the creator wanted them to be, so it might be well enough to feel sorry that it couldn’t be otherwise, but that is how it is with free will beings, you have to let them suffer the consequences of their free actions, or they are not really free beings. At some time in the far distant past they had the same chance as everyone else to choose good over evil, and they made their eternal choice.
You could ask, ‘Is that true to reality?’ I think it could be, but at any rate that is the rule I decided on so that there are bounds on these beings, and so it is morally ok to be killing them. If they are killed, they go back to the burning plains where they don’t really want to be. That is their true eternal state, where they belong now, and they are not supposed to be on the human side of the gate.
The Endsætas (border guards or protectors in old English) known as the blue elves by the humans, they were earlier created beings that the creator placed as guards between the lower world beasts and the new creation of humans. But a rebellion against the creator’s authority broke out among the Endsætas.
Once a faction of the Endsæta rebelled and they were no longer doing their job, then the High King had to step in and provide some protection for the humans by setting up the Bluestone Army with all its soldiers and tasks to be done at the gate. And because it is a gate that is openable and closeable, well it becomes kind of an Adam’s apple kind of thing for humans in this world, a way they can chose evil over good. It’s a tool and a temptation as well for the dark robes who use it to unleash devastation on humanity, or to leave it closed and try to entice humans to follow them or make them think they are good or better than anything else on offer.
Finally applying it all simply to the world in the book, there are lower world beasts who have made their eternal choice, there are humans presently making their choice and there are Endsætas who have made their eternal choice, but a challenge to the High Kings authority and judgment on the matter is in due process, so it is playing itself out during the time of the books, and has very much to do with the background of the whole story.
That’s all for this time, unfortunately I didn’t really get into how I came up with all my names, hopefully in the next one.
Next I need to address a question because it ties into the existence of the fantasy creatures in the book.
Why is there magic in your book, isn’t it always evil? No, I don’t think magic is necessarily always evil. Here in the world we know magic is often presumed to be supernatural powers with demonic or an evil force behind it, but if the creator is the supernatural power behind the magic, or if the creator created other beings with powers beyond ours, their powers would seem like magic to us.
In the alternate world presented in the book the world has many beings created by the creator with natural powers beyond what we would class as natural on our earth, but their powers always have limits set by the creator, and the degree of free will the beings have will define how far beyond those limits they can go, and what evil effect it might have on other beings around them.
So, it is an alternate fantasy world, and the rules are not necessarily the same as here on earth.
The Humans – the humans are more or less just like us. They could be on another planet, or maybe in a different kind of universe in which fantasy worlds can exist. The world is at a Dark Age stage which I prefer rather than a Middle Age setting like many fantasy books.
The Beasts – There are big ugly blundering evil beasts in my book. Unlike other created beings these beasts don’t belong in the world, or at least not on that side of the gate. They are completely evil or depraved having made their “eternal choice” at some time in the distant past.
Because they are eternal created beings their present state is not how the creator wanted them to be, so it might be well enough to feel sorry that it couldn’t be otherwise, but that is how it is with free will beings, you have to let them suffer the consequences of their free actions, or they are not really free beings. At some time in the far distant past they had the same chance as everyone else to choose good over evil, and they made their eternal choice.
You could ask, ‘Is that true to reality?’ I think it could be, but at any rate that is the rule I decided on so that there are bounds on these beings, and so it is morally ok to be killing them. If they are killed, they go back to the burning plains where they don’t really want to be. That is their true eternal state, where they belong now, and they are not supposed to be on the human side of the gate.
The Endsætas (border guards or protectors in old English) known as the blue elves by the humans, they were earlier created beings that the creator placed as guards between the lower world beasts and the new creation of humans. But a rebellion against the creator’s authority broke out among the Endsætas.
Once a faction of the Endsæta rebelled and they were no longer doing their job, then the High King had to step in and provide some protection for the humans by setting up the Bluestone Army with all its soldiers and tasks to be done at the gate. And because it is a gate that is openable and closeable, well it becomes kind of an Adam’s apple kind of thing for humans in this world, a way they can chose evil over good. It’s a tool and a temptation as well for the dark robes who use it to unleash devastation on humanity, or to leave it closed and try to entice humans to follow them or make them think they are good or better than anything else on offer.
Finally applying it all simply to the world in the book, there are lower world beasts who have made their eternal choice, there are humans presently making their choice and there are Endsætas who have made their eternal choice, but a challenge to the High Kings authority and judgment on the matter is in due process, so it is playing itself out during the time of the books, and has very much to do with the background of the whole story.
That’s all for this time, unfortunately I didn’t really get into how I came up with all my names, hopefully in the next one.
December 8, 2014
World building: foundations
(Heavy stuff alert)
In my opinion, it is hard to make a fantasy world without tackling questions of origins, power, and free will. Where does everything come from? Where does power come from? Where does good and evil come from? And what degree of free will does anyone have?
First where does everything come from? Where did the first thing come from? Where did the laws of nature come from, and the power that brought everything into existence? I suppose, as a writer, I could just say everything just always was, but it would be a much less interesting world.
It is logically impossible to get something from nothing, so there has to be an eternal something behind everything that exists. I need at least some eternal laws and a mechanism of some sort for those laws to work on. I prefer the eternal mind (mechanism?) that provides the laws that make it possible for things to come into existence (from the mind) avoiding the logical problem alluded to above.
For my world building the creator is the eternal being that was before everything else, and from whom everything came into existence. This also starts to answer the power question. Where does the power come from? But there is good power and bad power. You could call them positive power and negative power, so presuming the first positive power comes from the creator where does the other come from, or does it come from the creator as well?
Presuming the creator is perfectly good would leave no room for the bad, but we know from our own existence beings that are both good and bad can exist. I believe free will answers this paradox.
In order to create beings with the ability (freedom) to choose between the positive and the negative, or the good and the bad, they have to be created with the ability to choose the bad. They don’t have to be created bad, only with the ability to choose either way. I believe the act of exercising this ability is where the extra negative power or evil comes from. So when one comes across evil forces in my book, and evil characters, the evil power doesn’t come from the creator.
Now you might ask me, “Why couldn’t the creator be perfectly evil instead of perfectly good?” A good being can set up the necessary conditions for free will by doing a good act (By creating a free being for instance – a good thing), but an evil being would have to do a good act in order to set up the same conditions, and this would be impossible for a truly, totally evil being - it would be breaking his nature. In the same way a perfectly good creator can’t be evil, or do evil (or he’s not perfectly good), a perfectly evil being can’t do good. So this establishes the goodness of the creator.
To sum it up, and put it in words people can actually understand, we can’t get something from nothing. Only an eternal good being would create the world and other beings with the ability to do good or evil (free will).
Now this isn’t the only way you could set up the base foundations of your fantasy world, so next time I will talk a little bit about that, and then try to explain who the beasts, the humans, and the Endsætas are, and why they exist in the world of my book.
In my opinion, it is hard to make a fantasy world without tackling questions of origins, power, and free will. Where does everything come from? Where does power come from? Where does good and evil come from? And what degree of free will does anyone have?
First where does everything come from? Where did the first thing come from? Where did the laws of nature come from, and the power that brought everything into existence? I suppose, as a writer, I could just say everything just always was, but it would be a much less interesting world.
It is logically impossible to get something from nothing, so there has to be an eternal something behind everything that exists. I need at least some eternal laws and a mechanism of some sort for those laws to work on. I prefer the eternal mind (mechanism?) that provides the laws that make it possible for things to come into existence (from the mind) avoiding the logical problem alluded to above.
For my world building the creator is the eternal being that was before everything else, and from whom everything came into existence. This also starts to answer the power question. Where does the power come from? But there is good power and bad power. You could call them positive power and negative power, so presuming the first positive power comes from the creator where does the other come from, or does it come from the creator as well?
Presuming the creator is perfectly good would leave no room for the bad, but we know from our own existence beings that are both good and bad can exist. I believe free will answers this paradox.
In order to create beings with the ability (freedom) to choose between the positive and the negative, or the good and the bad, they have to be created with the ability to choose the bad. They don’t have to be created bad, only with the ability to choose either way. I believe the act of exercising this ability is where the extra negative power or evil comes from. So when one comes across evil forces in my book, and evil characters, the evil power doesn’t come from the creator.
Now you might ask me, “Why couldn’t the creator be perfectly evil instead of perfectly good?” A good being can set up the necessary conditions for free will by doing a good act (By creating a free being for instance – a good thing), but an evil being would have to do a good act in order to set up the same conditions, and this would be impossible for a truly, totally evil being - it would be breaking his nature. In the same way a perfectly good creator can’t be evil, or do evil (or he’s not perfectly good), a perfectly evil being can’t do good. So this establishes the goodness of the creator.
To sum it up, and put it in words people can actually understand, we can’t get something from nothing. Only an eternal good being would create the world and other beings with the ability to do good or evil (free will).
Now this isn’t the only way you could set up the base foundations of your fantasy world, so next time I will talk a little bit about that, and then try to explain who the beasts, the humans, and the Endsætas are, and why they exist in the world of my book.
November 19, 2014
A somewhat lighthearted description of the book
For my blog I figure I might as well have a somewhat lighthearted description of my book. It is also useful for introducing world building ideas and concepts needed for this kind of fantasy story. So here it is.
Bluestone: The Forest, the Path, and the River is a fantasy adventure. The story takes place mostly in the wilderness. The characters flee into the wilderness to evade evil beasts that are trying to find and kill them. It is a high fantasy story set in a world of its own with a varied landscape of forest, hills, mountains, plateaus, rivers, lakes, and a sprinkling of abandoned castles, ruins and other interesting things they explore along the way.
The story takes them through: Baedholt forest, across the Torfasten plains, up and then over the Torfasten mountain alpine heights, back down into the depths of the Wudu-Westen wilderness then along the impassable Adaelan river until forced back up unto the blue-stone plateau, and then back down through some more forest until they come out unto the meadows of the Hiliwæthe (they go to more places than this, but that would be telling too much).
The main characters are: a hunter, three soldiers, and three children. Other beings are: the Endsæta who are elf like beings with special powers; a dragon or two make an appearance; the goblin and troll like beasts have names derived from old English names for such beasts: Balewahs (baleful or wicked ones), Daedskuls (ones who do evil acts), Nitegengas (creatures that go about at night), and Deofols (evil spirit demons).
Last but not least there are some flying beasts I made up myself called the Neofogul meaning bird of prey that feeds on carrion. They can be seen here.
There is a High King who doesn’t really seem to be in control of his kingdom, and he lives far to the north. There is a gate and a bit of a wall in a gorge far to the south that is supposed to keep all the evil beasts out of the kingdom, but somehow they get through, setting the stage for the story. All in all it is an interesting fantasy jaunt through the wilderness you really should read. I think I will go into more of the world building concepts in my next blog.
Bluestone: The Forest, the Path, and the River is a fantasy adventure. The story takes place mostly in the wilderness. The characters flee into the wilderness to evade evil beasts that are trying to find and kill them. It is a high fantasy story set in a world of its own with a varied landscape of forest, hills, mountains, plateaus, rivers, lakes, and a sprinkling of abandoned castles, ruins and other interesting things they explore along the way.
The story takes them through: Baedholt forest, across the Torfasten plains, up and then over the Torfasten mountain alpine heights, back down into the depths of the Wudu-Westen wilderness then along the impassable Adaelan river until forced back up unto the blue-stone plateau, and then back down through some more forest until they come out unto the meadows of the Hiliwæthe (they go to more places than this, but that would be telling too much).
The main characters are: a hunter, three soldiers, and three children. Other beings are: the Endsæta who are elf like beings with special powers; a dragon or two make an appearance; the goblin and troll like beasts have names derived from old English names for such beasts: Balewahs (baleful or wicked ones), Daedskuls (ones who do evil acts), Nitegengas (creatures that go about at night), and Deofols (evil spirit demons).
Last but not least there are some flying beasts I made up myself called the Neofogul meaning bird of prey that feeds on carrion. They can be seen here.
There is a High King who doesn’t really seem to be in control of his kingdom, and he lives far to the north. There is a gate and a bit of a wall in a gorge far to the south that is supposed to keep all the evil beasts out of the kingdom, but somehow they get through, setting the stage for the story. All in all it is an interesting fantasy jaunt through the wilderness you really should read. I think I will go into more of the world building concepts in my next blog.
November 15, 2014
Interesting Questions Raised
First I want to thank Lenita Sheridan for posting her review for my book Bluestone: The Forest, the Path, and the River. Since the review raises some interesting questions about the book, I thought I would use some of my answers to those questions to initiate this blog.
When I first started writing some scenes for Iyla, one of the main characters in my book, I was initially hesitant. How could I, as a man, do justice to writing from her perspective? At the same time the “woman warrior” theme or idea in fantasy is a popular one. The idea of a woman who can “show how it’s done” is an appealing character.
In the case of Iyla in my story for each situation I had her react how I felt I would react if I were in that situation, and in accordance with the character traits I had given her. Perhaps this means that I am very, or too emotional as a man and would be overly protective, or would want to take care of any children if in a similar situation. My reasoning for having Iyla react in the way she did to the situations she was in was not because I believe those are proper or in the least bit expected of women.
Could an emotional woman like Iyla, when push comes to shove, also rise to the occasion and accomplish the things she needs to as a soldier. I think she could.
I would be very interested In hearing other peoples opinion on this.
As far as answering why the children didn’t stay with Iyla at the end of the story this was because I originally was going to write a sequel to the story using the children grown up as the main characters (and perhaps still will). And to do that I need them back over on that side of the river and Iyla remaining behind.
Here is some context for the situation for the army of soldiers. The army was established thousands of years previous, but it has lost its reason for existence, and Iyla herself is conflicted in her vocation which is part of her story as it progresses.
And to end I will list the characteristics I gave Iyla early on.
Iyla Characteristics
Adventurous, affectionate, brave, somewhat carefree but still careful, committed, dependable, discouraged at times rather than disillusioned or doubtful, dutiful, eager, easygoing, encouraging, faithful, ferocious fighter when she needs to be, forgiving, friendly, sometimes frightened and frustrated, somewhat humorous, often lively but not always, loving, mysterious, responsible, respectful, sensitive, sentimental, sharp-witted, sweet, tactful, and loyal.
When I first started writing some scenes for Iyla, one of the main characters in my book, I was initially hesitant. How could I, as a man, do justice to writing from her perspective? At the same time the “woman warrior” theme or idea in fantasy is a popular one. The idea of a woman who can “show how it’s done” is an appealing character.
In the case of Iyla in my story for each situation I had her react how I felt I would react if I were in that situation, and in accordance with the character traits I had given her. Perhaps this means that I am very, or too emotional as a man and would be overly protective, or would want to take care of any children if in a similar situation. My reasoning for having Iyla react in the way she did to the situations she was in was not because I believe those are proper or in the least bit expected of women.
Could an emotional woman like Iyla, when push comes to shove, also rise to the occasion and accomplish the things she needs to as a soldier. I think she could.
I would be very interested In hearing other peoples opinion on this.
As far as answering why the children didn’t stay with Iyla at the end of the story this was because I originally was going to write a sequel to the story using the children grown up as the main characters (and perhaps still will). And to do that I need them back over on that side of the river and Iyla remaining behind.
Here is some context for the situation for the army of soldiers. The army was established thousands of years previous, but it has lost its reason for existence, and Iyla herself is conflicted in her vocation which is part of her story as it progresses.
And to end I will list the characteristics I gave Iyla early on.
Iyla Characteristics
Adventurous, affectionate, brave, somewhat carefree but still careful, committed, dependable, discouraged at times rather than disillusioned or doubtful, dutiful, eager, easygoing, encouraging, faithful, ferocious fighter when she needs to be, forgiving, friendly, sometimes frightened and frustrated, somewhat humorous, often lively but not always, loving, mysterious, responsible, respectful, sensitive, sentimental, sharp-witted, sweet, tactful, and loyal.
