The Warrior and the Mage Series
The Ruby of Idree launched today. Yay me! But I’ve been feeling sick and anxious. This book has been in some stage of work for (lemme go check). Well, I’m a dummy. I moved them around and that messed with the creation dates. I can tell you that the query for The Ruby of Idree was created in 2018, back when I was trying to traditionally publish. So, this first book has gone through A LOT of drafts, because this got like four more since.
Let’s just say it’s been 8 years? (I like the number eight, so fair.)
I want to talk about this series, not just the plot of the first book (maybe another post?). This series was mostly inspired by Soul Eater, RWBY, and Harry Potter. All three with similar premises, magic school, baddies trying to steal something under the school (don’t believe me? Keshin, Relic, Philosopher Stone/Horcruxes). They all go about it at different paces. In these cases: Fast, slow, and medium, respectively.
I’ve liked all of these stories for different reasons. And while The Warrior and the Mage was largely a nice way to explain an Iridescent Universe power, and it came about as a question of: “What if weapons and meisters had to work together or… die painfully?” That was a question I wanted to ask… then this story just sort of… plopped into my head? (They do that sometimes.)
As it has grown and developed, I strayed away from the premise that brought the idea to mind and changed what I focused on.
These has come to be the real questions: What do you do when the world beats you down? What do you do to those who hurt you? Who are you when you’re given the chance to do your worst or to be kind? What is worth fighting for, when you know there’s nothing more? (That last one was a Linkin Park reference, but it’s a good question.)
I built a world teetering on the edge of apocalypse. Majaskis is always at the brink of annihilation… and they just keep going. (Seriously, I know the history of this planet, and it’s survived 3 apocalypses before the start of this series, the people on Majaskis are on another effing level.) The people on this planet are all part of a delicate balance, but it is royally messed up and people are done playing nice with each other.
I wanted to see what happens.
When I began structuring this series, The Ruby of Idree went crazy towards the end. But… as I read it, I didn’t feel it. My focus is always on characters first, but this first go just didn’t have it.
So after some minor plotting and a lot of pantsing, I attempted to shape the series in a way that worked.
Wanna know something?
It ended up looking like the hero’s journey. The Ruby of Idree, became an introduction to the world, a way to meet the characters, a way to see the ‘normal.’ The Spell (the thing that kills mages and helps keep balance) is sort of its own character. I show how it changes the shape of the world. I wanted people to see what ‘normal’ was—terrorist attacks and extremist groups and children learning to fight and all.
Then I took our ‘normal’ and dragged them into the war that was brewing around them. Their normal was somewhat safe, then it wasn’t.
The plot of book one isn’t about the larger conflict. But it is. The Spell is, in a way, an antagonist. It’s like that Spiderman meme. The normal people pointing at the extremists pointing at the Spell. The thing is, that the Spell effects, everyone. It is ruthless. And, to a point, the extremists have a leg to stand on (violence ain’t the option, but you know) and in some ways, people ignoring the suffering of a whole species is… wrong.
Starting with Blaze dying by the Spell (not spoilers, it’s on the back cover)… is my way of saying, “Hey, this is the reason why people fight.” This is the normal, every-day tragedy that pushes people over the edge. This is why people are fighting. But then I show you monsters and the things that the Spell protects people from. The Spell is not all bad or all good and I wanted to introduce that on an easier-to-parse small level. Let you get close to that, breathe it in.
Every character, whether explicitly or not, has been effected by the Spell. I wanted to show it up close before we started delving into the bigger picture of Let’s Start an Apocalypse! When I initially wrote this first book, there was a hollowness. It’s always more abstract if you start far away. We look up and see one less star in the sky and… well, we may not even notice.
If you’re front and center when that star explodes, you’ll understand the gravity of it… for like the split second you’re alive.
I decided to narrow the scope on this story and then broaden it as the series continues. Micro to macro… then a return to whatever micro “normal” is at the end of this.
This means that the start of this series focuses on individual issues. Then those issues will be compounded because lots of people are going through similar things. Then…oh my Jor (God), you really exploded. (I had to put the RWBY reference in there.)
It isn’t as fast paced as Soul-Eater, where we’re slicing and dicing baddies and fighting witches pretty early. Not as slow as RWBY where shirt really hit the fan when a magic trick turned a penny into quarters (Oops… sorry). It’s somewhere in the middle. In Harry Potter, we deal with wizardly threats, all pertaining to the larger story, but… the first time we really see Voldemort as a full visible threat IRL… is book 4.
I only have five books in this series, so baddies of all kinds will be around sooner, but you catch my drift. I want this thing to start closer though. I want to have that context. There will be six ‘main’ MCs, plus four more of/on throughout, and I want people to be able to see the micro through their eyes, because that is what gives context for what is really being fought for.
There are things going on on a macro level all the time, but in real life, all these things really begin at the small level.
So I come back to my questions. What will these characters do when faced with hardships? What will they do when they see people suffer? What will they do when they suffer?
There’re always at least three options to any given question. (What will you do when you suffer? For instance has a millions, but here’s a base three: pass on that suffering, become kind, or sit and do nothing.) And at different points, everyone in my stories have to face choices, and at different times, they’ll all have vastly different answers.
This series has been in the works for ages. I have whole pages of every student’s name in Tharos. I have their backgrounds. I have histories of the planet. I know when the naming convention for mages changed and why. I know about the apocalypses and how they were overcome. I know where the monsters come from (even if the people on Majaskis don’t). I know why they have physical forms (and that’s not even a question that will come up in the series!). I know where the Tharos and Locke lines began and I know when/where they end. I know why the Knights fight and their backstories and the suffering of the mages. I know exactly how much each coin is worth and translated it into real-world currency and even had a mention in the book to help with context (the editor removed this even though I spent ages real-world mathing this, because apparently I gave a good enough image without going into depth… but I did the math!).
I have a bible for this series and it is… (lemme check) 51 pages long.
Yet, jumping right into the mess of the world fell so flat and lifeless. So, I zoomed in. All the threads of the broken world and people are still there, woven all around.
I’m happier this way, the progressive zooming out a bit at a time is working. A hero’s journey both on a book level and then at the series at large. It wasn’t intentional… and then I realized what I was doing, so now I will fully claim it was intentional.
Book 1, The Ruby of Idree, came out today. The Sword of Cressida is planned to release early next year. I’m hoping book 3 will also be in 2025, and that 4 & 5 will release in 2026.
Welp, I’m exhausted and still anxious and off. So, now that it’s a normal human hour to eat food in, I’m gonna go out and grab a nice lunch in celebration. Hope you have a wonderful day, I’m going to try to stop shaking.
Take care!
-Marissa
Let’s just say it’s been 8 years? (I like the number eight, so fair.)
I want to talk about this series, not just the plot of the first book (maybe another post?). This series was mostly inspired by Soul Eater, RWBY, and Harry Potter. All three with similar premises, magic school, baddies trying to steal something under the school (don’t believe me? Keshin, Relic, Philosopher Stone/Horcruxes). They all go about it at different paces. In these cases: Fast, slow, and medium, respectively.
I’ve liked all of these stories for different reasons. And while The Warrior and the Mage was largely a nice way to explain an Iridescent Universe power, and it came about as a question of: “What if weapons and meisters had to work together or… die painfully?” That was a question I wanted to ask… then this story just sort of… plopped into my head? (They do that sometimes.)
As it has grown and developed, I strayed away from the premise that brought the idea to mind and changed what I focused on.
These has come to be the real questions: What do you do when the world beats you down? What do you do to those who hurt you? Who are you when you’re given the chance to do your worst or to be kind? What is worth fighting for, when you know there’s nothing more? (That last one was a Linkin Park reference, but it’s a good question.)
I built a world teetering on the edge of apocalypse. Majaskis is always at the brink of annihilation… and they just keep going. (Seriously, I know the history of this planet, and it’s survived 3 apocalypses before the start of this series, the people on Majaskis are on another effing level.) The people on this planet are all part of a delicate balance, but it is royally messed up and people are done playing nice with each other.
I wanted to see what happens.
When I began structuring this series, The Ruby of Idree went crazy towards the end. But… as I read it, I didn’t feel it. My focus is always on characters first, but this first go just didn’t have it.
So after some minor plotting and a lot of pantsing, I attempted to shape the series in a way that worked.
Wanna know something?
It ended up looking like the hero’s journey. The Ruby of Idree, became an introduction to the world, a way to meet the characters, a way to see the ‘normal.’ The Spell (the thing that kills mages and helps keep balance) is sort of its own character. I show how it changes the shape of the world. I wanted people to see what ‘normal’ was—terrorist attacks and extremist groups and children learning to fight and all.
Then I took our ‘normal’ and dragged them into the war that was brewing around them. Their normal was somewhat safe, then it wasn’t.
The plot of book one isn’t about the larger conflict. But it is. The Spell is, in a way, an antagonist. It’s like that Spiderman meme. The normal people pointing at the extremists pointing at the Spell. The thing is, that the Spell effects, everyone. It is ruthless. And, to a point, the extremists have a leg to stand on (violence ain’t the option, but you know) and in some ways, people ignoring the suffering of a whole species is… wrong.
Starting with Blaze dying by the Spell (not spoilers, it’s on the back cover)… is my way of saying, “Hey, this is the reason why people fight.” This is the normal, every-day tragedy that pushes people over the edge. This is why people are fighting. But then I show you monsters and the things that the Spell protects people from. The Spell is not all bad or all good and I wanted to introduce that on an easier-to-parse small level. Let you get close to that, breathe it in.
Every character, whether explicitly or not, has been effected by the Spell. I wanted to show it up close before we started delving into the bigger picture of Let’s Start an Apocalypse! When I initially wrote this first book, there was a hollowness. It’s always more abstract if you start far away. We look up and see one less star in the sky and… well, we may not even notice.
If you’re front and center when that star explodes, you’ll understand the gravity of it… for like the split second you’re alive.
I decided to narrow the scope on this story and then broaden it as the series continues. Micro to macro… then a return to whatever micro “normal” is at the end of this.
This means that the start of this series focuses on individual issues. Then those issues will be compounded because lots of people are going through similar things. Then…oh my Jor (God), you really exploded. (I had to put the RWBY reference in there.)
It isn’t as fast paced as Soul-Eater, where we’re slicing and dicing baddies and fighting witches pretty early. Not as slow as RWBY where shirt really hit the fan when a magic trick turned a penny into quarters (Oops… sorry). It’s somewhere in the middle. In Harry Potter, we deal with wizardly threats, all pertaining to the larger story, but… the first time we really see Voldemort as a full visible threat IRL… is book 4.
I only have five books in this series, so baddies of all kinds will be around sooner, but you catch my drift. I want this thing to start closer though. I want to have that context. There will be six ‘main’ MCs, plus four more of/on throughout, and I want people to be able to see the micro through their eyes, because that is what gives context for what is really being fought for.
There are things going on on a macro level all the time, but in real life, all these things really begin at the small level.
So I come back to my questions. What will these characters do when faced with hardships? What will they do when they see people suffer? What will they do when they suffer?
There’re always at least three options to any given question. (What will you do when you suffer? For instance has a millions, but here’s a base three: pass on that suffering, become kind, or sit and do nothing.) And at different points, everyone in my stories have to face choices, and at different times, they’ll all have vastly different answers.
This series has been in the works for ages. I have whole pages of every student’s name in Tharos. I have their backgrounds. I have histories of the planet. I know when the naming convention for mages changed and why. I know about the apocalypses and how they were overcome. I know where the monsters come from (even if the people on Majaskis don’t). I know why they have physical forms (and that’s not even a question that will come up in the series!). I know where the Tharos and Locke lines began and I know when/where they end. I know why the Knights fight and their backstories and the suffering of the mages. I know exactly how much each coin is worth and translated it into real-world currency and even had a mention in the book to help with context (the editor removed this even though I spent ages real-world mathing this, because apparently I gave a good enough image without going into depth… but I did the math!).
I have a bible for this series and it is… (lemme check) 51 pages long.
Yet, jumping right into the mess of the world fell so flat and lifeless. So, I zoomed in. All the threads of the broken world and people are still there, woven all around.
I’m happier this way, the progressive zooming out a bit at a time is working. A hero’s journey both on a book level and then at the series at large. It wasn’t intentional… and then I realized what I was doing, so now I will fully claim it was intentional.
Book 1, The Ruby of Idree, came out today. The Sword of Cressida is planned to release early next year. I’m hoping book 3 will also be in 2025, and that 4 & 5 will release in 2026.
Welp, I’m exhausted and still anxious and off. So, now that it’s a normal human hour to eat food in, I’m gonna go out and grab a nice lunch in celebration. Hope you have a wonderful day, I’m going to try to stop shaking.
Take care!
-Marissa
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