Well, I prefer to have whatever comes closer to easiest to understand. A point of view both from outside and the inside, more like Flanery O'Connor... I have been inspired a lot by her technique. As well as by Bernard Werber, Terry Pratchett, Terry Gilliam and Guy Ritchie. Their storytelling techniques are VERY close to what I like: a whirlwind of information that seems to make no sens at all until you're so close to the whole picture that you feel like you're going to crash into it... But honestly, I don't think I could be able to hold more than TWO POV at one given time. It is so easier to swap them around when needed, and keep the external focalization as a normal discourse...

I admire Terry Pratchett, but I would have a lot of difficulty writing like that. I'm much more comfortable writing from inside a character's head, or several characters' heads, and much less comfortable writing as an uncharacterized objective narrator.


Anyway, here's an idea I've been playing with. One of the traits of the dragon race is that they are more logical and orderly than humans. This is shown in the fact that their language is so orderly it seems more like a created language than a natural language. It is very easy to learn, but its long compound words take a long time to speak, and it is very rare for new words to be created, so the language evolves very slowly, which in turn contributes to their culture evolving very slowly. Merru, OTOH, represents creativity, the ability to think outside the box, imagine the impossible, and adapt quickly.

So I was thinking about how all this might fit with my decision to go with the fantasy/magic approach, and what the climax might be. I've already mentioned the idea that humans, i.e. Merru, might be the 13th soulbreed necessary for the dragon race to take the next evolutionary step toward being godlike. Logically, the key trait of the human soulbreed might be creativity. So how would the addition of a few creative individuals enable the dragon race to evolve?

Maybe, the dragons' use of magic is currently restricted to what is real and has been known to happen before, while Merru's creativity enables them to attempt anything remotely possible (like 4 males making an egg). I'm not sure if this is too cheesy though - not all humans are creative, and I don't want to make dragons seem like Vulcans or something...

Well, sorry about that, but "extreme logic" sounds very much like Vulcans...

Anyway, I'm sure something can be done about that.

Let's say that, as it has been imagined times and times again, the dragons' magic lies in their ability to give their true names to things. Only they tend to lack imagination. They know how to name things they have seen, or maybe heard of, but not to give a soul and a shape to a thought. Merru, as a human, knows how to dream (maybe the dragons don't?), and to imagine things. Having learned their language as well as the basics of their name magic, he is able to invent new things, and to innovate in their ways, to beat them to magic duels if need be.

Anyways, as Lieann initiates the spell supposed to make them share their respective strengths, Merru gets a word wrong, although he thought it might improve the spell. Instead of bonding their physical prowesses, it bonded their physical BEINGS into one new being. This result still needs to follow the laws of nature, and takes the shape of an egg, needing to be heated and hatched. (first one to go cluck-cluck deserves a slap...)

Maybe their extreme logic indeed has naturally evolved from their dreamless sleep? This is the only way for them not to turn crazy? Maybe they had evolved this extreme logic long before they had turned into bipedal animals? Hence their "created" language? Or maybe the language they speak now is a modification of their original magic language? Maybe the have evolved into their very policed society because once, they were very powerful sorcerers and battled on epic scale to gain some room, and the psychic echoes of these battles are the reason of the humans' fears of dragons, which had never before been seen on Earth?

What about if the construct's soul had to be trapped by the future owner? In this respect, Attranath (I think this is the one), being young and naturally hoping for something new or a way to modify the society in which he lived unhappily, would have called for a soul which would be alien to his homeworld?

Next thought?

Hmm, true names. Is a dragon's soulbreed their true name?


If the construct's soul had a connection with the person who trapped it, this would have to be Lieann, not Attranath, because Lieann is Merru's soulmate. But I think that would seem to destined, I don't like destiny because it implies that the outcome is not really a result of the characters' striving and conniving.


Also, I'm kind of wondering how Merru, who started out as a human with no magic, fits into the idea of the clan doing spells together.


Ok, for the next idea I'm going back to work on the concept of the nesting room which is at the heart of the clan:

Since dragons have the rather odd-combination of laying eggs in nests, and scent-marking their territory, the nest ends up being symbolically connected with identity, as well as more normal connotations like safety and sleep. The nesting room (need to think up a snazzy name) where all the clan's eggs are incubated and hatched is the heart of the clan territory, and symbolically connected with the clan's identity. So, I think that creating the nesting room will involve creating a magical gestalt between the people forming the new clan, where the love between them in its various forms (friendly, romantic, brotherly...) is what powers the protective, healing, and other special powers of the nesting room (don't know what these are yet, but they must play some role in the climax). Creating and maintaining the room probably includes a scent-marking ritual; in point of fact, all regular scent-marking rituals could be carried out there.

Since the mythology states that it is the combination of different totems that creates civilization, the circle of totem animals is probably involved in the room's appearance (magical wall paintings?), and recitation of the myth cycle might be involved in its creation. Being a big nest, the room is presumably circular with a bowl-shaped floor, always warm, and insulated from the outside world by being in the middle of the clan house, with no windows or walls bordering the outside world.

Now, lol, if only I could figure out what creating a nesting room has to do with the result of the climax, which is theoretically that the society stops fearing and persecuting the weirdness new clan...

Maybe the new nesting room has an open shape? Maybe instead of a bubble isolated from the rest of the world, it is more like a kangaroo's pocket, with an opening towards the rest of the world.

Maybe giving the world a possibility to lok at what is happening inside is a way of geting rid of the préjugés?

Intimacy is essential to people being a family - I can't see them opening the most private area of their clan for the whole world to leer at. I dunno, maybe the fact that they have created a child would be enough to get society off their backs, because what society is worried about is protecting families, and if the dragons are a real family they can't be considered a threat to families, can they? I think that a big part of the prejudice against beta males is that not only do they not fit into a family structure, they are seen as stealing alpha males away from their proper role in a family. But if a beta male and his alpha mate are part of a clan and have a child, it kind of makes them normal and not a threat... I dunno, is that strong enough to build the climax of the story on?

In other news I handed out my synopsis to my writing group today - now I get to wait anxiously for 2 weeks to hear what they have to say about it. ;)

Honestly, I think that you'll have to include more ill-repute to it than that.

Maybe you are aware of a crisis of a sort in Europe, abour legitimizing the rights of homoparental families to adopt children. If you only understood one word out of three, that's pretty normal. The trouble people are having is about two male persons adopting a child and educating him. Or two female persons, at that. The saying goes that they will educate it with loose moral standards, and will create depraved children, which is not what is wanted.

And I think that most of the problem here comes from the fact that people don't know much about the behavior of homosexuals, nor about the way they would raise kids, because it hasn't been done much before.

Hence my invitation to opening the private sphere. I think it could be an invitation for the world to come in their family, or at least come and have a look. Keeping it tightly shut is an attitude that expresses fear from the other. The way they could be the next evolutionnary step is "open-mindedness", because they think open is better than shut...

Of course, on a strictly defensive level, an open area is absolutely stupid, because you have so much more to defend yourself from. But if you could just imagine what kind of revolution it would be in their minds to see a clan OPENING towards the others, instead of preparing for a fight, I think it could be different enough to make it worth a climax.

Admittedly, I am always thinking in terms of unhappy endings, so what I had in mind is other clans learn about them (possibly the father telling) and some other clans decide to wipe this one out and to fight. When they reach the nest, they don't find the fortress and the fighters they had imagined, but four males waiting patiently for them, right BEHIND an egg, like the egg would be protecting them instead of the opposite, and smiling. They are not anxious about this encounter. One is positively jumping up and down, convinced that everything will stop at that.

Some groups wonder and ponder, some others grin at such roothless stupidity, some others seem worried ("no traps? no warriors? what kind of warfare is that? smells awfully bad...") But the brutes win the argument by throwing themselves forth, and killing the four waiting confidently smiling males. They win and destroy the nest, but get the egg. A dispute falls over the egg, and one of the most moderate clan wins the egg because "it is worthless junk". They decide to nest it anyways. Now evolution is pacing forth, a new kind of child will be soon born...

Sorry, climaw sounds like awful death to me. Can't help it. But it would be a good one, I think. Too bad it doesn't fill your criterias...

Rotfl, no, I would never ever end a story that way.

RL prejudice against gay parenting is not really the same as prejudice against homosexuality in LTKD, mainly because in LTKD there's no such thing as Christianity. IRL some types of christianity preach that homosexuality is inherently sinful, so homosexuals who believe it isn't sinful must have loose morals and be unfit to be parents - it's a particularly vicious belief structure because if people believe homosexuals are by definition unfit parents it doesn't matter how much they prove themselves to be good parents.

In LTKD on the other hand people believe homosexuality is dangerous because it is bad for families - not because homosexuals would raise kids badly, but because they wouldn't have kids at all. That kind of belief can at least be argued with, people's beliefs can be changed by seeing that when left to their own devices homosexuals will create families, not destroy them.

As for whether this is strong enought to build a climax on... What if one reason dragons live in communally-nesting clans in the first place is that dragons have a high infertility rate? And the fact that 4 males, absolutely infertile together, managed to figure out how to use magic to create an egg would mean now anybody could use this technique to have children, so all the previously infertile people would want to be nice to my characters so my characters would teach them how to do the spell. What do you think, does that make it stronger?

Hell, yes!! It does explain a lot of things!! Even more than what you may have figured yet, I would bet...

But then, you would have TWO climaxes, if such a thing is possible. The first one being the magical hatching of the egg, and the second being them being visited, probably with bad intentions, and overcoming the prejudice. I'm terribly sorry I can't help you there, because for me, a story without a tension building cannot reach a climax. And the tension can only build because it is unreleased, and it cannot be released because the fight which would let it loose is never happening, or any such trigger. In your story planning, there is no opposition per se, therefore no tension building, in my comprehension of things. Even if it was the apprehension of Society destroying them utterly, there would be tension building. If it was a problem of them bonding or being thrown to pieces, it would work. But a question of them being recognized or not when there is nothing at stake, it seems to void for me, I just don't buy it. It sounds like they are doing this out of spite, because they have nothing better to do at the time. They fall in love because they reach the right person at the right time, but there is no reason for them to remain on the proving field once they have been thrown out, except for their own personal reasons, which do not equate to much.

Ravennin has been disinherited? Big deal, what is there in the world that won't let him live happily, even if unwealthy or not full member of alpha society? Any man or dragon can survive that, even if it be through alcohol and sour attitude.
All the others have non life-threatening hungers, which can be maintained even if not fed. There is nothing in staying for them that would pay enough to balance the trouble in which they would land if they were not only dismissed from the new clan, but also dismissed from Society at large...

I still think something is missing, but I can't quite place it...

Hmm. How about if you picture it this way:

- The magical creation of the egg is the start of the climax.
- Caring for the egg while being in conflict with society (Ravennin's Father? Attranath or Lieann's older brother?) raises dramatic tension.
- The egg's hatching is the peak of the climax.
- The acceptance of the baby by an authority figure with a symbolic kiss (learning to kiss dragons!) is the resolution.

Personally, I'm not sure whether it's actually necessary that dramatic tension increase from the beginning of a book to the end of a book; it might be ok for conflict to stay at a fairly even level from the middle of act one to the middle of act 3.