The Wood Beyond The World Forum my new novel Untitled (Valmur)

It's official; it's going to be a novel -- short, I hope.

I've taken down the first chapter from the Wood, and posted the book, so all chapters will be available through the group.  If you read the first I'd appreciate you reading the second and so on.

And I recommend this piece to everyone.  It generates lots of heat.

^{Leah, and I thought Beldor was a bad boy.   You have been taking lessons from a very sick man, and I approve.} 

^Nick.

It seems a bit weird to have so much fun with a bad guy as the protagonist.  I'm a little worried about readers being creeped out by this story.

If Valmur truly is the protagonist of this book, then you must find a way to make him sympathetic, or it will not work as anything but a kind of pulp fiction.  Think the Godfather:  in this book, Don Corleone is made sympathetic by being a powerful force for good within his own community; so would a Columbian drug dealer who is responsible for bringing all the health care available to a poor region of the country, even though it is financed by drug money.

If you cannot find a way to make Valmur sympathetic, then he must be the antagonist, and you must find a protagonist.  If Valmur overpowers your protagonist in the end, then you have written a tragedy, which is OK.

I believe these are the only two choices you have.  If there is a third I'd like to hear it.  But I do know that you can't let a rapist killer gleefully commiting his crimes throughout a novel, unopposed, and have any readers left at the end.

The protagonist that faces Valmur might be someone who has suffered at Valmur's hands, then gotten away and comes back for revenge:  think Count of Monte Cristo.  But this time the protagonist gamely loses.  No time like the present to make these huge decisions.  Make this the escapade that first made Valmur infamous, that keeps his minions in constant fear.

^{Leah,  Bill has a very good point.  Through the 3rd chapter, you have shown Valmur's early formation and given backstory on his history.   I suspect that you have a true protagonist in mind for when Valmur goes to school.   But I think your going to need to give equal time to your protagonist to get readers to care.  Have all the fun you want with Valmur, but give the readers a reason to root against him.}

 

^{I suspect this goes all the way to the Karoli affair and you can find a protagonist in this mix, but the readers will have to care.  I know how the Karoli affair ended, Valmurs involvement, but as a reader I never got a chance to connect to a past protagonist because the full story was never revealed...only glimpses through Wythe and those involved.   This may be your chance, but not sure you're going to pull it off in a short story.  You  know what I mean.}

 

^Nick.

Very interesting thoughts, guys.

Prince Hendric is going to be the main object of Valmur's manipulation of course -- in TM that manipulation has already achieved fruition, but this novel will show how Valmur planted the seeds and tended them.  So I think Hendric is a potential protagonist.

Then there's Tuorvonen.  He and Valmur are both intent on using each other.  This is a kind of Monte Cristo thing, I guess.  Tuorvonen can come within a hair's breadth of getting back at Valmur for stealing his birthright.

I am planning to bring it up to the Karoli affair, actually.  Tuorvonen is key here.  Of course the villainy in OTM and TM depends on Valmur's connections with the Telmi, but those aren't developed until years after the Karoli affair.  Nick, did you ever wonder where Karoli the elder got his ideas for his experiments?  That's a lot of what this story covers.

Thanks for the useful brainstorming, Nick and Bill.

 

^Leah,

 

^{I had assumed it was through the shaman Valmur had come into contact with but now I think its his older half brother (T), and he is your protagonist, even if crazy.  The reader will know that T was taught some mind work by Valmure"s father, but I suspect there is more to T's ability.   T's mother perhaps,  passing on hereditary traits.  Maybe she was a cast off from the shaman's tribe, and through T, Valmur meets them.  Hmmmmm.   Lots of different ways to go and layers and layers of subtifuge.  But be careful how many layers you weave in that the story starts to blur.   You know what I mean.}

 

^Nick. 

That's what I call hitting the nail on the head, Nick -- though my idea isn't quite so specific.  The peasants of southern Vaaseli (and the Karoli estate is as far south as it gets) don't have any traditional connection with the Telmi, but they do have some of the same understanding of mind-powers -- long submerged due to their subjugation to the nobility.

^{Just a suggestion...but I think either the little girl or mother Valmur punished also has to come back and play a part later, because the readers would be able to relate to some from of revenge that perhaps teachers Valmur a  lesson, though different from what they thought.}

 

^{T's warning about never trusting love was also very revealing tie in to .... well, I can not give it a way to those who have not read TM.  : (}

 

^Nick.

Okay, Nick, and anyone else who's been following it, I've got another chapter posted to the new thing.

Nick, you'll see that the girl and her mother do have more to do with the story.

I have to go with Tuorvonen as the protagonist -- in the mold of the tragic hero.  But it's still about Valmur, too.

The plot's getting to be like opera -- vengeance, rape, murder, more vengeance, murder, etc.  I think I just have to go with that.

The plot thickens and the back story as well as the foreward movement is becoming clearer.   Very good.   To those who have not read this work yet, I advise you do.   I have been fortunate enough to watch Leah grow into her own voice and her rough drafts are so much more polished that mine.  lol.

Nick.