Hello, Readers! Clevenger here… as expected. With Graham still on recovery, I’m working to keep caught up with the Blog, but it is challenging because life. So I’m sitting down to write this and the next post and will launch them back to back! Hope that works for you!

So, knowing that there were going to be Tropes that we absolutely could not avoid, Graham and I devised strategies to handle them with a slight spin, or a new angle. Hoping that we could continue to develop our story without running into “cliches.”

For me, the biggest Trope that I knew I was going to run into was “the Mentor.” So common within the Fantasy genre, you have the old man, the guy who will be the touchstone to the Main Characters, and guide them to the next step in their journey. And I went with the classic. Old Man Zenesul, the wizard, the eclectic and eccentric sage that is known throughout his section of town.

But I wanted it to be “known.” He’s not in hiding, he’s settled in. A known helper in the community, no one fears the old man. There is no underlying animosity. And he displays his power and knowledge freely. Both of our MCs contact this mentor. Jesse has been with him before the book begins, and Symon meets Zenesul through his contact with Jesse. And having two MCs learn, we got to explore how the Mentor works. A true teacher who learns as much about his students as he teaches them. Tailoring his training and wisdom to each individual.

When the inevitable “call to action” arrives, the Mentor moves off camera, to handle things that need handling. He’s not “unavailable,” he’s just prioritizing tasks, and gives the MCs a task that they are prepared for. Mainly, survival. The “call to action” is packaged as a “let’s just get through this” rather than a “let’s stop this” moment. And while Zenesul goes to help other people escape the danger, he expects the boys to be able to get out of this on their own. Allusions to the escape from the Death Star in “A New Hope” are comparable. The goal is to get out.

But we didn’t kill Zenesul. We don’t even pretend to. The old wily wizard survives. And he keeps training the boys. The “call to action” is not their graduation, it’s the beginning of a larger journey.

So while the Mentor was a staple of fantasy, and a staple of our fantasy story… we tried to escape some of the “tragic” cliches.

Now, let’s talk subversions. In the next post!

Be Kind.

-Clevenger