Hello, Readers! Clevenger here!

Graham speaks so highly of my topics, even when I don’t believe in them. I appreciate him so much, but man, I thought I was stretching last week! Ha!

But to keep up my end of this conversation, I want to review and add a few little comments about some important aspects of topics he brought up on Sunday.

So the evolution our story was a CRAZY process as we sat down with this project. A three ACT story, Jesse and Symon meet, Jesse and Symon go on an adventure, Jesse meets his love, Symon discovers his self, Jesse and Symon return, defeat and overcome their biggest obstacle, and Bam! Things go back to “normal” and we see how much they’ve grown and changed. The Hero’s Journey in all its glory. But the story of Jesse and Symon meeting became a full-fledged book itself, with loads of intrigue and adventure of its own. Jesse and Symon’s adventure became 2 books, and the finale is now book 4. And it’s wonderful! These characters get their moments to shine, and we have plenty of time to fall in love with them. It made Graham have to essentially write a prequel to his original story, but he did so with great attention to detail, and you really get to root for Jesse in Books 2 and 3, and the romance story he lives is amazing.

One of those characters who got a bunch more spotlight was Thorn. Graham is right. We both love Thorn. For me, her turning point came to a discussion that Graham and I had one night about whether she should stay or go. If we weren’t doing her justice, why was she there. And it was during this conversation that we realized Thorn acts for the reader vicariously. When our heroes tell a tale, or experience a tragedy/trauma and they (as heroes are want to do) say “well, it’s not that bad…” Thorn is there to say “No, that’s messed up!” She tells it as it is, she cares about the MCs in her own ways, and she’s not just comic relief, she’s a grounding point for all the fantastic and unbelievable nonsense that an epic tale should be full of.

Other characters that really came to life with the expansion of the story space were BBEGs (both known and unknown in Manticore’s Shadow), and some amazing secondary characters that make an appearance in Books 2-4. Other antagonists like Olivar, Xerian, and others got more weight and moments to shine. And through the edit process, Kyrn (Symon’s Father) really got to be explored more, including a “Full House” moment that I’m very excited about.

And that leads me to discuss what Graham alluded to last post. I was never supposed to write. There were some story ideas that I had. I was going to outline, and maybe pencil in some ideas for Graham to write around. But I actually fell in love with the writing process. I watched BookTube videos about writing tips (discussed in length previously) and challenging myself to expand my abilities. Watching shows like Critical Role and listening to Matt Mercer eloquently describe combat in a D&D session inspired me to visualize action (a skill I also use now in my own TTRPGs) and magic in my head, and translate that to the page. Graham and I are now challenging each other to correct scenes we wrote early and rework them for point-of-view, tense, and plot consistency during our edit process for Manticore’s Shadow, and I’m having such a wonderful time. This new love of writing was an addition to this project that made it so much more. I’ve said it before, I shall say it again, that Graham pushed me to rediscover this dream, and I cannot repay him enough.

Our story started to take shape from this amorphous idea into a solid work. The core ideas of Symon, Jesse, the Khorric Federation, the Devastation, and our magic system came alive and fed off of each of Graham and I’s willingness to add, subtract and change our vision to fit the life of this epic tale. Now, we are knocking off the rough edges, polishing it smooth, and soon our little baby will be ready to take its first steps into the wild. We can only hope that other people will love it like we do.

See you soon.

Be kind.

-Clevenger