Revenge of the Gamer

I’ve been working furiously on The Bond of Jhordil for over a month now.  In that time I’ve focused on the first story arc, which deals with two brothers living in a small town.  The problem this presented was a difficult one for me to solve, but I believe I’ve finally done so.

I wanted to show the reader what life in the country Olivantia was like, but was stuck on how to do that without boring them to sleep.  In order for a story to work you need to inject some sort of conflict.  No one wants to read about happy people living ordinary lives.

The novel had some inherent conflict, but I didn’t feel it was enough.  Both brothers are the son of a Binder.  Binders are evil necromancers who’ve drank from the Blood Tree.  This tranforms them into vampires, and gives them tremendous strength.

During the prologue the people of Olivantia rise up and overthrow the Binders.  They kill them wherever they can, and the few that survive flee into the Blood Wood.  My protagonists are both children of the Binder who ruled the town of Mountain Shadow.

One of the Binder customs when they ruled was the taking of wives from among their followers.  They’d kidnap any women they chose, and of course tended to pick the most beautiful ones.  This means that over the centuries a clear pattern emerged.  The Binders and their children were beautiful, more so than most of the peasants living under their iron rule.

Temis and Larken are the spitting image of their father.  Both are attractive, and quite obviously what I call in the series ‘Binder’s Get’.  This has proven to be more curse than a blessing, because it makes them a target for all the hatred the people have for the Binders.

That’s what gave me the basic conflict I’ve used when setting up the novel.  Add in the boys struggle to come to grips with what they are, because they are of the blood.  This means they’ve inherited certain vampiric traits from their father.

Still, I didn’t feel it was enough.  It makes the characters believable, but it just wasn’t exciting enough.

So with some help from Christine I brainstormed a series of scenes that would accomplish my goal.  Yesterday I finished those new scenes, and am very proud of them.

I came up with a dark ritual I dubbed The Call.  Every year the teens in Mountain Shadow go to the cemetary to prove their bravery and that they no longer fear the Binders.  Each year they read a passage from a book of spells to prove that bravery.

In all the previous years this ritual failed, because the people reading it lack the spark of magic.  This year they have Larken read the ritual, and since he has the magic in his blood it causes the spell to work.

The spell calls a pack of blood wolves, and several of the children are killed.  Temis and Larken are blamed, even though they are the ones who save the survivors.  Magic is outlawed in Olivantia, so they’ve committed a grave crime.

Anyway, this series of chapters gave the early part of the novel the conflict I felt was lacking.  I have more details I want to inject, but that was definitely the most challenging.  The others should come easily, and I’ll be done with the first story arc by the end of next week.

Then its on to Temis entering the Blood Wood in search of his father’s legacy, and Larken’s enslavement and inductment as one of the Bonded.  Good times!