Happy New Year post:
So I’m sitting here on new years eve, writing the blog I was going to do at Christmas time. I guess one of my new years resolutions should be to blog on a more regular schedule. We’ll have to see about that, but no promises just yet, I still have like six hours before I need to make resolutions.
Over the Christmas holidays my brother said something to me that really made me think. He said that he loved the Adventurers Wanted books, except for the fact that nothing bad ever happened to Alex. At first I had to agree with him, as nothing really bad has happened to Alex, but then I thought about it and changed my mind. Many people have commented that nothing really bad has happened to our friend Alex, but that just isn’t so. Lot’s of bad things have happened to Alex, but because everything turns out O.K. in the end, we don’t think about the bad things. Let me see… Book 1, Alex almost dies after fighting the shadow at the ruins of Aunk. I always think of nearly dying as a bad thing. Book 2, Alex has to face the fact that all his friends have been captured and maybe killed because the goblin shaman tricked him, and he fell for it. Gee, that seems pretty bad. I screwed up and all my friends have to pay for it. Oh, that works out O.K., and then Alex has to fight and actually destroy his friend Val when they get to the tower of the moon. Not a good thing. We won’t even go into how he must of felt when Vankin didn’t answer his letters, leaving him alone to figure out how to solve the problems in Alusia. Book 3, Alex loses one of his best friends ever, his horse, when the Hellerash attack. He froze and Shahree jumps in front of him to save him. Did she die because he froze or because he was to slow to save her? Well, that seems like a bad thing. Then there is something that I think a lot of people missed. When he’s fighting the necromancer, Mog, Alex has to face a terrible truth. He actually wants to use the power of the necromancer to drag his own mother back from death and demand that she tell him why. Why she had never explained who he was or what he might become. He overcomes this dark desire, but he has to deal with it just the same. Finally, in Book 4, Alex has to take control of the adventure without actually taking control. He makes some new friends, and then has to watch them die as the adventure goes forward. Should he have taken these adventurers out of Nezza when he first saved them? Could he have done something different and saved them? Not exactly easy or nice things to think about. So, what am I saying? Well, I guess I’m saying that a lot of pretty bad stuff has happened to Alex, and I can’t agree with people who say, “Nothing bad ever happens to Alex.” Lots of bad things have happened, but because things always turn out for the best you don’t remember them. I am also saying… “You asked for it, so don’t get mad when it happens.” That’s right, more terrible and bad things are headed Alex’s way. We are going to make Alex’s life harder than it has been, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Now, with that little bit of business out of the way… um, Happy New Year, and on to the questions:
Dracoxis: There are two species of geebs mentioned in the books. Bottle necked geebs and pillow geebs. There may be others, but if there are we haven’t heard about them yet.
Nargira and others who have asked: The title of the fifth book has not yet been released. I know what I want the title to be, but the publisher wants to approve the story before we announce the tittle. I’m working to finish book five up, and when that’s done it will go to the publisher for approval. As soon as we agree on the title I will let you all know.
Lizzy: Mathew is correct in his answer, there will be eight (8) books total when we are done. Also see Akacry(connie)’s answer about my not telling anyone how to summon geebs. Really, you don’t need to know.
Luckyhorsestar: I’m going to let you make up your own mind about what eventually happens to Lazar and Stephan. I will say that Lazar is in big trouble and that he will not appear again in the series. Stephan, well, he is in some trouble, but I think Alex will have a talk with Rallian and try to work things out for the best. Sorry, Alex never does get to meet the elves of Nezza. I will say that in the early version of the story, before a lot of stuff got changed, Alex did get to meet the elves of Nezza. It didn’t work out that way in the final edit, sorry.
PorterRocks: Yes, the counsel of wizards is something I’ve been thinking about a lot. We need Alex to meet at least some of them soon, and with all the trouble the Brotherhood is making, sooner would be better. Right now I’m trying to figure out the hows and whens for Alex meeting them will be. Soon I think, but maybe not in book 5… or maybe at the end of 5 or the beginning of 6.
dante: You’ll have to look at some old posts for the details on the “Pet” question. We’ve been over it a few times, and I don’t think it will happen.
SkyMoon: About other people who have seen the magic sign. I believe I said that it was years and years ago when that happened, and that very few people ever see the sign. No, I don’t think we will meet anyone else who has seen the sign, but you never know.
Rhia101: The dragon broaches from Horn of Moran were given as wedding gifts to the brides of Skeld and Tayo. My guess is that Alex will hold on to the rest of them until his other friends get married… if they ever do.
luckyhorsestar: On the idea of a vampire race, I’m just going to say no. I’ve expressed my opinion on vampires in the past, but just to make things clear. Vampires, in my opinion, do not have human emotions, they don’t feel bad about what they are, and they don’t feel bad about what they do. In fact the only time they might feel bad is, after they’ve eaten and there isn’t any more to eat.
Salinor: The fact that Mr. Clutter is over four hundred years old is very simple to explain. Mr. Clutter is not completely human. Oh, the magic of the adventure shop and all will help him live longer, but basically Mr. Clutter isn’t a human, or mostly not human. No, I’m not going to go into details about what he is. He looks and acts human, he is very human like as far as emotions and such, but he just isn’t completely human. He is, after all, an adventure salesman.
C. Mist and a few others who’ve asked: I can’t say at the present time who if any of the adventurers we know will or won’t be coming back in future stories. Oh, Alex will be back, and Whalen Vankin will be back, but other than that I can’t say. Why? Well because I haven’t figured out yet who will be needed for the future adventures, and who will have to die on those adventures. I’d really hate it if I had to bring back somebodies favorite adventurer and then have to kill them off.
Dark Star: On the question of ideas for stories. How can you run out of ideas? O.K. it happens, so here’s one of the things I do, apart from reading a lot. Always ask yourself, “What if”. What if that tree isn’t a tree? O.K. it’s an alien that looks like a tree. No, it’s a person who’s been cursed and changed into a tree. No, it’s a magical creature that can hide when frightened by making its self look like a tree or a bush or whatever happens to be close by. Gee, there are three different ideas for stories from one, what if. What if car’s stopped working tomorrow? What if aliens took control of the internet? What if I can’t sleep tonight and while sitting up awake I discover that my shoes go on walks without me? Look at all the possible ideas you can come up with if you just ask yourself, what if? O.K. what if isn’t for you… I also watch a lot of movies and documentaries and such. If I see something in a movie or read something in a book that I don’t like, I make up my own story. Or, as happens in a lot of movies, if we meet some group of people or a single person and they are only there for a little bit and then gone, I make up the story of what happens to them and where they go and what they do after there little bit of the book or movie. Change things, shake things up, find your own stories in the bits of other stories you’ve read. There really are more ideas for stories than there is time to write them all.
Ankit: Questions about the wall. Right, Alex never sees his parents at the wall because… Well because it isn’t his time to cross the wall. Loved ones normally only come to the wall when it is a persons time to cross over, to die. Tayo’s first wife came because she wanted to see him, and to explain that it wasn’t his time. Forcing his family to come to the wall so he can talk to them would be dangerous for Alex. Doing something like that is very close the necromancy, a magical practice that is always seen as evil.
Afavfan: Starting a story with a time laps, like the 10 years later… No, I don’t believe I will do that. I prefer to tell the story that is happening now, and I don’t want to leave large blanks where you don’t know what happened. I also know for a fact that my editor would yell at me if I started a story with something like that, so it isn’t going to happen.
Fred: No, Alex is not a time lord. Oh, the Doctor seems to manage jumping through time and space O.K. and not messing up the history and time lines of the universe, but he is a time lord. For most people, including wizards, jumping around in time is very dangerous, and it almost always ends up causing some kind of trouble in the past, present, or future. Wizards, know better than to jump around in time, and they only do it if there is no other way to solve a problem in the present time where they are. So, almost never doesn’t say enough. Never at all, with maybe one exception every few thousand years, and then only because that exception couldn’t be helped.
Laser: I think I’ve said before that Alex’s step brother Todd will not become an adventurer. I have considered having someone magical kidnap Todd and then take him into the magical known lands, but I really don’t think that will happen either.
And now a few general answers:
Book 5, when? I’m hoping we can get book 5 out around October of 2014, but we’ll have to see how edits and things go.
Yes, I know Alex still has several lost bags that need to be returned. No, I don’t know if he will be able to return them all before we get to the end of the series. I don’t even know if we’ll see him return another bag before we are done. Sorry about that.
No, Alex will not have any physical changes to his appearance because he is a dragon as well as a man.
Yes, Oracles can be “Less than friendly”. Normally that means they don’t want to talk to you, and you’d be wise to take the hint.
Fan fiction. I’m open minded about fan fiction, but there are problems with it. First of all fan’s might get things wrong. Second, if fans write fiction and then try to publish it, well, copyright problems come up and publishers are more than willing to sue people for messing with copyrights. For the most part, if you just want to write your own story in my world, I don’t have a problem with that. If you go killing off my characters, I have problems with that. Fan fiction can be a good way to exercise your writing and your imagination, but try to stay inside the rules of the world you are writing for.
And finely, a few words about longer stories with more details. First off, I understand what you are asking for, and I will try to give you what you want. There is a fine line, however, and I try not to cross it. Yes, I could write much longer stories with a lot more details, history, background, and answers to all the questions, but that leads to problems. I believe that most of what is written should concentrate on the story, and if things aren’t important to the story I’m telling now, then you probably don’t need to know about them. Oh, I could tell you about Whalen Vankin’s life as a young man, how he became a wizard, what adventures he has been on, but if I’m telling the story of Alex’s current adventure, well, you don’t need to know all of that about Whalen. Sure, it would be interesting and fun to know, but it’s not part of this story. When I’m writing I try to find a middle ground, giving you the information and details you need to know, but not over loading you with things that don’t matter so much for this story. If you go too far one way you leave readers wondering and confused, and if you go too far the other way you put readers to sleep or make them simply stop reading. (And it is different for every reader.) An example of both extremes, well, have you ever read the book, “Mody-Dick”? It is a tough read, and if you make it all the way through you could possibly kill a whale and boil it down into oil. No, you don’t need to know how to do that to understand the story, but it is in there. Herman Melville was getting paid by the word when he wrote the story, so I understand why he put all of that in, but you don’t need or even want to know it all. Too much detail and information Herman, please stop. On the other hand, the shortest story I’ve ever read is only six words. I can put it here for you to read as well. “For sale: baby shoes, never worn”. It’s a complete story, but there is not a lot of detail there.
So, I will try to give you the details and such that you need, while not driving my editor crazy with a lot of extra information that really doesn’t have anything at all to do with the story. Yes, I will try to make things longer, as much as possible, but I will also promise not to do one thing. I promise that I will not make the stories longer just so they can be longer. By that I mean, I will tell the story with as much detail as I can, but I won’t add chapters that don’t really help the story just so it can be a longer story. I won’t add things that don’t, or won’t matter in the end, just to get a few extra pages. Hopefully I will stay close to that middle ground, where you get enough information to understand the story, but not so much that the the story is slowed down with information overload.
So, until next time, thanks for reading, and I remain,
Yours in Fellowship,
Mark
