World-Building, Characterization, Bending the Rules, and an Itinerary on Releases

My idea of world-building in a fantasy novel focuses on leaving a sense of mystery.

Hard, scientific, and rigid rules aren’t always the best approach, though I respect many authors who use hard world-building.

We as writers have everything figured out, but also leave a sense of wonder for the reader.

The fun thing about fantasy worlds is that we get to play with the rules a bit.

In The Symphonist, the world is based upon the philosophical concept of the music of the spheres.

But it’s another universe entirely, so things that don’t exist here, do there. X and Z notes aren’t possible here. Last I checked, anyway. But if you know the rules, bending them becomes possible for artistic purposes.

You don’t find sharps or flats in our world’s key of C, yet in Orchestrylus, there are methods to bend the rules a bit. It’s the Flow of Eyn Soph, with limitless possibilities.

You could say that music was a fully developed idea from the outset, seeing as the world was created by the Conductor, with infinite mastery over music. There wasn’t a gradual progression of development where half-steps and the like came up over time. Stanzielle hunts an echo at the beginning of the novel, and those with a sharp eye will notice that she plays a composition to catch the echo that doesn’t make sense.

But in this world, there’re shifts called alter chromas, which reflect colors and sounds working together that make for compositions that only work using that ability. This echo reflects infinite possibilities, to reflect the Conductor’s nature, as well as his name. Echoes are the shell of that infinite potential, but alas, that’s a topic for another book in the series.

I’ve also come up with a unique way of describing the musical battles that I haven’t seen done before, which will start from the second session onward.

Characterization also helps build the world, and sometimes it’s easy to miss. Starting a book with action is often said to be the best course, and it isn’t the worst idea, but many of my favorite novels start with setting or characterization.

Stanzielle’s language is an example. Her reaction to the whistling porcurats is another. It’s building a history that this person has in this world. How does she react to things while also world-building?

In this first novel, I started in medias res to build that sense of “how did we get here?” “War crimes?” Since this is an Odyssey of light-novel-length books, it won’t be too long before the story catches up to that point.

Upon first glance, you might miss certain clues embedded in the story.

The price of echoes comes to mind.

Without giving too much away, the Bone Flautist mentions a “sanctified space.”

And when Stanzielle leaves that space, certain things are different.

I will explain this in more detail in The Lost Ships of Lim Wierre, which will be out around mid-April.

Events in my personal life have shifted my schedule around a bit, but you can’t avoid emergencies sometimes.

The Last Key of Maestraumus will come out around summer.

This series of books will be my focus as the months progress, though I am eager to get back to my Occultus Ecclesia saga as well with the release of Numinous this fall.

My current normal-length project is Lowella, a dark horror novel about a video game streamer that takes more than just your money.

I’ll let the book speak for itself and not speak on theme.

I may have to push the release date back a bit because of certain events eating into my editing time, but I’m still aiming for an early March release date.

For now, I’ll say that I’m in awe of what the future holds and I’m excited beyond description, though, as a writer, I’d better describe it.