Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Take a look at the current Brtetonnian army book. Look at King Louens heraldry.
It is simple enough that you can have a crude version on footmens shields and a progressively more ornate version for progressivbely wealthier knights and lords.

Your symbols are a flowery mess and fit only for elves and jewelery.
Don't think of your images as a .img or .gif, think of them as sewn onto surcoats or embroidered onto standards or painted onto shields. Can you see medival artists outside the elven kingdoms painting those onto the shields of warriors? I don't. But its still your story so....

in a medival fantasy setting, unless you have a magickal fabric printer, you could only have the above images for a human faction as the embroidery on a fashionable lady's dress, or something very special like a wedding gown, and the lady would have to be very rich as it would be difficult to make.
Embroiders can be very elaborate, as elaborate as this or more, celtic and norse embroidery was from surviving pictures of it, but it was also rare too rare to be standardised.

You could put junk like that on a royal standard, expensive one off item, but royal standards would need standardised (which is where we get the word) imagery. People will have problems recognising that flag in the heat of battle. Big red bird icon, ok, red bird like spirals don't cut it when you are looking for the moral support of the royal standard while avoiding being cut down by your opponent.

 Orlanth wrote:
Take a look at the current Brtetonnian army book. Look at King Louens heraldry.
It is simple enough that you can have a crude version on footmens shields and a progressively more ornate version for progressivbely wealthier knights and lords.

Your symbols are a flowery mess and fit only for elves and jewelery.
Don't think of your images as a .img or .gif, think of them as sewn onto surcoats or embroidered onto standards or painted onto shields. Can you see medival artists outside the elven kingdoms painting those onto the shields of warriors? I don't. But its still your story so....

in a medival fantasy setting, unless you have a magickal fabric printer, you could only have the above images for a human faction as the embroidery on a fashionable lady's dress, or something very special like a wedding gown, and the lady would have to be very rich as it would be difficult to make.
Embroiders can be very elaborate, as elaborate as this or more, celtic and norse embroidery was from surviving pictures of it, but it was also rare too rare to be standardised.

You could put junk like that on a royal standard, expensive one off item, but royal standards would need standardised (which is where we get the word) imagery. People will have problems recognising that flag in the heat of battle. Big red bird icon, ok, red bird like spirals don't cut it when you are looking for the moral support of the royal standard while avoiding being cut down by your opponent.

Ah. I know those are just ideas, I was planning on making them solid looking. And not as ornate as they are now.

But thanks for the tip. The problem is that looking for the metaphorical meaning and the fact that it has to be simple is quite difficult. I will choose the serpernt for right now, and try to think of some metaphorical value from it. And test to see if it works.

Then I will look at the other two.

To your heraldry point, here's some images that should really point you in a more realistic direction:

First is a couple of more heraldic/simplified sea snakes:


Next are some ideas/examples of how actual houses would look:


And finally, a good representation of how "different" a carried shield would be from the family crest/coat of arms:





Hopefully this helps you out.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
To your heraldry point, here's some images that should really point you in a more realistic direction:

First is a couple of more heraldic/simplified sea snakes:

Spoiler:

Next are some ideas/examples of how actual houses would look:

Spoiler:

And finally, a good representation of how "different" a carried shield would be from the family crest/coat of arms:

Spoiler:

Hopefully this helps you out.

Oh so houses symbols are just very simple compared to the heraldry. Ah okay.

So there isn't much difference between a shield heraldry compared to a flag heraldry.

But yeah thank you!

I will start experimenting on the idea.

 Asherian Command wrote:


Oh so houses symbols are just very simple compared to the heraldry. Ah okay.

So there isn't much difference between a shield heraldry compared to a flag heraldry.

But yeah thank you!

I will start experimenting on the idea.

Quite often yes... Thing to keep in mind is that often times, surcoats, tabards, Caparisons, etc were sewn by peasants or low ranking noble ladies, and depending on the area they may or may not be very skilled at this sort of thing. The royal arms of England would have been sewn/flown almost exactly as on the shield because it's the king of fething England! But that hedge knight, or newly knighted bloke probably wouldn't get the same level of craftsmanship on his stuff (plus, his shield is probably painted by himself, or a squire... and the squire probably has less skill/desire to do a good job than the women doing the sewing )

So what are your guys thoughts on.......

The Heros Journey.

I am using it as more of a guide. More of an idea to help me write my story so it is concise and understandable.

I use it merely as a guide. Not as what I should do.

But my questions are various....


How many mentors should I have for adith, I currently have two in the beginning and the mood sort of shifts and near the end it is only one mentor. Stanimir (Loyal Captain of the Guard) and Quientin (The Merc), one is inspired by money, the other not so.

I have currently written it to follow Adith's side of things, and he sees Quientin as more the jerky mercenary, and Stanimir as the loyal friend. Where stanimir aides Adith throughout the story and even running a few errands. I mean my entire appeal is to make Adith a Kantian ethicist. So he follows his life by not using people, but he is still not great guy. He breaks his own rules, and is quite inconsistent because he's human. He's never purely this or that.

Do you guys think that is interest?

A person who flip flops? Due to a deep emotional problem?

Hey guys I have written up the first chapter into its first draft ^.^ (Which means its typed up, not written)

I've also picked up Chris Voggler's The Writer's journey and have started pondering a few ideas.

As I want to follow a linear line that doesn't go all over the place.

So i am planning on making the character go through trials and through this we start to understand what is going on.

So here are a few questions:

Should 1. Make the character unreliable? 2. What Archetypes should I execute in the story? 3. For more research on medevil things what should I look up? 4. In terms of the creatures, should I maintain it a minimal levels to ensure the reader is not overwhelmed?

5. Should I make it grimmer than I currently have it? (A few characters have died, but nothing that yells. I am a depressing story!)

6. What should I read to get a better grip of the idea of 'grim'? (any anime, books, movies that I should watch or read?)

7. What do you guys recommend in terms of character arcs. Should I make the character open up as the story goes on. Or keep a lot of his back story as a mystery until later on? I mean before the final fight or should I do it in the middle or the beginning of a story?

8. What attracts an audience a mysterious background with an interesting character or something else?

9. I am currently trying to figure out how to make the design of the book?

10. I've been reading quite a bit lately, and something I have found out is that most stories have pieces of someone's life scattered into, illusions to their own life, to try and garner the readers attention to pry some similarities between the character, and the reader.

11. Should I include poetry into this story? Like have some short blurbs of my own poetry to kind of make someone start thinking about their meaning?

12. How does everyone think of the hero's journey? Should I follow it and its structure?

13. Personal note: just watched the show called Cowboy Bebop, holy gak. It was amazing.

 Asherian Command wrote:
2. What Archetypes should I execute in the story?

TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life is a metatrope to be wary of. Think to hard about these kinds of things, and your writing will suffer. It's good for critics, messy for writers. Don't think to hard about what tropes, motifs, symbols, or archetypes you want to include. Just write the story and those things will sort themselves out.

6. What should I read to get a better grip of the idea of 'grim'? (any anime, books, movies that I should watch or read?)

The Black Comapny series can be pretty grim (and not in the sort of black comedy way 40k is grim, I mean real grim), as well as A Song of Ice and Fire.

10. I've been reading quite a bit lately, and something I have found out is that most stories have pieces of someone's life scattered into, illusions to their own life, to try and garner the readers attention to pry some similarities between the character, and the reader.

This is the outcome of the saying "Write what you know."

This isn't so much purposeful as completely unavoidable. You can't not put some of yourself into your writing. It's inevitable. You'll probably notice it especially when you spontaneously come up with settings and character's on the spot to fill an immediate need in the story. You often pull on things you already know or are familiar with when that happens (and there's nothing wrong with that).

 LordofHats wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:
2. What Archetypes should I execute in the story?

TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life is a metatrope to be wary of. Think to hard about these kinds of things, and your writing will suffer. It's good for critics, messy for writers. Don't think to hard about what tropes, motifs, symbols, or archetypes you want to include. Just write the story and those things will sort themselves out.

6. What should I read to get a better grip of the idea of 'grim'? (any anime, books, movies that I should watch or read?)

The Black Comapny series can be pretty grim (and not in the sort of black comedy way 40k is grim, I mean real grim), as well as A Song of Ice and Fire.

10. I've been reading quite a bit lately, and something I have found out is that most stories have pieces of someone's life scattered into, illusions to their own life, to try and garner the readers attention to pry some similarities between the character, and the reader.

This is the outcome of the saying "Write what you know."

This isn't so much purposeful as completely unavoidable. You can't not put some of yourself into your writing. It's inevitable. You'll probably notice it especially when you spontaneously come up with settings and character's on the spot to fill an immediate need in the story. You often pull on things you already know or are familiar with when that happens (and there's nothing wrong with that).

Haha. Well. I am following what I've been told so far.

So I just think about and create characters. And then I go back and look at it and deconstruct my work, to see if the messages are hit upon.

I think one of the worst things about English classes in the US honestly is how they drill students on Theme (while not even touching on things like structure, tone, word choice, motif etc). It's bad for developing writers. If you write a story, the theme will form itself. You don't need to put it there. Trying to put it there just makes it feel forced.

My advice would be; Write the story -> Wait 1 Month -> Editing Round 1

Editing;

Print your story off and get some colored highlighters (at least 5 different colors). Make yourself a key matching a color to Dialogue, Monologue, Description, Narration, and use the fifth to highlight each proper name the first time you see it. Add that proper noun (persons, places, events, etc) to a list in a notebook or something, trust me, especially in fantasy and scifi, you're going to end up making up a lot of proper nouns, you'll want a way to keep track of them all.

First go through Dialogue and Monologue together. Make sure that it all meshes together, and the characters are consistent in the way they speak and think to themselves and others. You can get really really in depth with this if you want, giving each one distinctive ways of speaking (long sentences? short sentences? Big words? little words? etc) or you can just shoot for consistency across the work. This will also help you isolate conversations without anything in your way so you can ensure they flow logically with one another.

Next go through your descriptions. Things like how characters look, how settings are described, etc. You'll probably want to spend a lot of time here, as descriptions are a huge part of fantasy and you'll want to be sharp with them working them and reworking them over and over again.

Last is narration, and by this I just mean sentences that describe what is happening but don't necessarily represent a characters 'speech' in the story. Just go through it and make sure it all looks good. Be sure that when you are describing actions and events that you are concise so the reader can understand.

Once you've done that, you should have a very strong idea of the story, it's contents, and how it presents those contents. The themes and symbols that have arisen from the natural writing process will slap you in the face during the above steps. Trust me, they'll stand out and you'll see them.

Now you do Editing step 2;

Enhance those themes and symbols (not too much) when you rewrite the entire thing from start to finish. Keep your print out and notes with you while you do this. I'm not saying completely restart from scratch just type the entire story out all over again. You will find natural points to enhance your theme while doing this, as well as stumble into many ideas probably that will help improve your story.

Trust me. Writing a story is the easiest part of writing. Editing the story is the nightmare (and yes, you will want to edit, the story and your work will benefit amazingly).

 LordofHats wrote:
I think one of the worst things about English classes in the US honestly is how they drill students on Theme (while not even touching on things like structure, tone, word choice, motif etc). It's bad for developing writers. If you write a story, the theme will form itself. You don't need to put it there. Trying to put it there just makes it feel forced.

My advice would be; Write the story -> Wait 1 Month -> Editing Round 1

Editing;

Print your story off and get some colored highlighters (at least 5 different colors). Make yourself a key matching a color to Dialogue, Monologue, Description, Narration, and use the fifth to highlight each proper name the first time you see it. Add that proper noun (persons, places, events, etc) to a list in a notebook or something, trust me, especially in fantasy and scifi, you're going to end up making up a lot of proper nouns, you'll want a way to keep track of them all.

First go through Dialogue and Monologue together. Make sure that it all meshes together, and the characters are consistent in the way they speak and think to themselves and others. You can get really really in depth with this if you want, giving each one distinctive ways of speaking (long sentences? short sentences? Big words? little words? etc) or you can just shoot for consistency across the work. This will also help you isolate conversations without anything in your way so you can ensure they flow logically with one another.

Next go through your descriptions. Things like how characters look, how settings are described, etc. You'll probably want to spend a lot of time here, as descriptions are a huge part of fantasy and you'll want to be sharp with them working them and reworking them over and over again.

Last is narration, and by this I just mean sentences that describe what is happening but don't necessarily represent a characters 'speech' in the story. Just go through it and make sure it all looks good. Be sure that when you are describing actions and events that you are concise so the reader can understand.

Once you've done that, you should have a very strong idea of the story, it's contents, and how it presents those contents. The themes and symbols that have arisen from the natural writing process will slap you in the face during the above steps. Trust me, they'll stand out and you'll see them.

Now you do Editing step 2;

Enhance those themes and symbols (not too much) when you rewrite the entire thing from start to finish. Keep your print out and notes with you while you do this. I'm not saying completely restart from scratch just type the entire story out all over again. You will find natural points to enhance your theme while doing this, as well as stumble into many ideas probably that will help improve your story.

Trust me. Writing a story is the easiest part of writing. Editing the story is the nightmare (and yes, you will want to edit, the story and your work will benefit amazingly).

Ah okay.

I will be writing more, and just trying to finish it. And the once it is finished, I will edit it over and over.

I will focus on the story and then go back to read over it.

And I agree the way we are taught in scholls about writing characters and themes is stupid.

*removed*

*removed*

*removed*