A personal challenge

Well things have slowed a little this month at Zatobo, with the programmer having other commitments for several weeks, and the business guy out of the country, the decision was taken to halt development work for two months.

Of course I am sad not to be hurtling forward with our new project(s), but the big upside is that I can get back to working on the book full time for that period. My plan is basically to undertake the National Novel Writing Month (but in September), and challenge myself to write 50,000 words, and hopefully bring Vinland to a conclusion in the process.

Things have been fairly slow so far (but then for me, the beginning always is) as I try to dive back into the fascinating world of the Vikings. Thankfully my reams of notes have served me well in reminding me just what was happening, and what is to be occur in the future. The book is currently in two parts, the early stuff in Greenland and then their sailing to Vinland without anything really connecting the two events. My ambition therefore is to fill this in, introducing another character or two and filling those who already exist in.

Throughout work on Vinland, there has always been one major antagonist, but without spoiling too much, they are at some distance to events directly going on with the people in Vinland. I have therefore created another character (or rather re-written one) to full fill a more direct conflict with Leif and his crew who I hope will spice things up rather more. It’s been a while since I have shown things off, so here is a little slip that I have recently been working on. Please bear in mind that this is still very much a part of the manuscript and as such has not been treated with the spit and polish of a published work;

“Citizens of Hvalsey!” Thorstein began, a warm smile on his face which Iva immediately hated.

“I come here before you today, not to complain about injuries received during my duties as an enforcer of peace in the town, but rather to ensure that this man is never again allowed to perpetrate such violence. I am a fighter, a man well used to taking blows from my foes, but next time we may not be so lucky. Imagine, if then it was your wife, or your son, or even gods be so cruel, your daughter.” As he said this, Iva noticed her father sitting on the other side of the room, watching the proceedings with a frown on his face. He was so intent on the words of the young noble, that she was sure he had no idea that she was present.

“My mother and I were doing our rounds of the town, but hearing a commotion in Gorran’s home decided to investigate. On arrival, we encountered a brawl going on between two strangers to the town. We managed to stop this in short order, and determined that the cause had been women, not just any women but a mere thrall and a wayward girl.”Again Iva looked over to her father, and saw that now his fists were balled up, and a vein was throbbing in his neck. Clearly he had understood whom Thorstein was talking about.

“I am sorry to inform you all that this girl, a daughter of Hvalsey no less, was the spark that caused an argument to descend into violence, with her misguided attack on our guest...” Iva tried to shrink further into the shadows, but it seemed that still no one had noticed her, all were intent on Thorstein’s words. She observed however that Thjodhilde threw her another glance from her place at the table, but she made no indication that she had recognised the young woman. While she was watching Thjodhilde, she felt another pair of eyes on her, and looking up the table saw Gorran was also watching at her, and as their eyes met, his widened in recognition. Meanwhile Thorstein had continued his speech.

“Perhaps we are wrong to lament so about her actions however. How can we hope to protect the young when there are all these foreign interferences coming to Greenland, there seem to be more strangers in town at the moment than citizens, and this my friends worries me greatly.” Thorstein said, beginning to pace in front of the table, using his hands to articulate his points. He had dressed this up in such a way that the audience failed to realise that he was of the same age as the girl he was chastising. At these words, the massive thrall lifted his head to regard his accuser, moving for the first time.

“It is not on this lady’s misdeeds however, that we are here in deliberation about, but rather on the aftermath of her actions. I was busily restraining her, prepared to make her put things right like a good citizen of this fair settlement should, when this barbarian launched himself from the shadows and went at me like a savage animal.” Thorstein observed, watching as the captive began to struggle against his bonds, clearly becoming more agitated. From the audience there were a number of jeers, which only incensed the thrall more, much to Thorstein’s obvious satisfaction.

“With such influences as this, how can we expect better from our children? It is clear that this creature here before us has no morals, no conception of good or evil. He is an animal and deserves to be treated as such. When a dog bites its owner, we put it down, and so it should be here. Put this mad beast down!”Thorstein instructed.

The thrall began making moaning sounds, his jaw working furiously but unable to make any comprehensible sound. The attempt just made the calls from the crowd worse, a sentiment that Thorstein was quick to seize upon.

“Rruf! Down boy!” he called out, making a growling noise and snapping his teeth together like the jaws of a dog. The crowd responded wildly, many barking at the thrall, making him twist and bend with fury.

“And what if you kicked the dog, and it bit you then?” Leif interjected, rising from his place. Thorstein turned to face him, but said nothing. The thrall seemed to calm a little, but continued to make whimpering noises.

“On whom would the fault fall? Surely then, the dog has been provoked, and is only then acting in a manner that is natural. Are we so different? Many fights begin because one party feels threatened, can they then be held accountable for the attack? On whom does the blame lie?” he continued, rounding the table to join his brother. Iva raised her head on hearing this, pleased that the man was putting up such an eloquent defence.

“The blame brother, lies with the one to strikes first. Words are bandied around like ale, men like banter it keeps their minds sharp, but only rarely does it descend into violence as we are describing here.” Thorstein responded, clearly warming to the intellectual cut and thrust. Iva felt sickened, it was clear he was doing this for the sheer pleasure of watching his victim writhe. The difference between the brothers could not be more pronounced.

“You ask many questions brother, but answer few questions. Riddle me this; what separates us from the animals?” Thorstein continued, his smile still fixed, but the warmth in it was gone. When Leif did not immediately reply, he answered for himself.

“The difference, lies in that we can separate words and actions. You accuse me of being a liar...” Thorstein began, then seeing Leif was finally about to rally continued, purposefully cutting him off, holding his palms up to his brother.

“...yet here I stand, my hands are empty of weapons, neither have they formed a fist with which to strike you. You come before us to defend this animal, why? Can he not defend himself? Father said we were both to speak our parts, yet instead he struggles against his bonds. Is that the mark of a civilised person, or a beast? ” Thorstein exclaimed, his argument hammering home, his smile had faded, replaced by a look of expectation, smugness even. Leif remained silent, his face stony.

“Your arguments seem to claim that he was provoked to violence, why then did he not call out a warning first? Viking law states, does it not, that the difference between a sanctioned killing and that of murder is that a killing requires both parties to be willing combatants, on an equal footing when neither man’s back is turned. Otherwise, it is murder. Could we not apply the same logic to assault?” Thorstein continued to press his advantage. Turning, he had addressed Rhuntyr directly, as if to get confirmation. The lawspeaker was quiet for a while, considering the implications, and Iva watched the man closely, trying to read some kind of emotion from his flat face.

The room fell silent, waiting for the decision.

After a pause, he gave a nod. Iva felt her chest seize up at the judgement, knowing in her heart that the priest had just issued the brave thrall’s death warrant. The room erupted in shouts, men calling to their neighbours about the outcome, while others yelled for the slave’s head.

Leif, his face still like rock, walked down to the thrall and the voices in the room fell quiet, waiting to see what the heir would do. He crouched down in front of the German, and the slave raised his head to regard his defender. Iva could only imagine the anguish on the poor man’s face, and was touched to see Leif’s own cool exterior shed some of its ice at what he must have seen in the thrall’s eyes.

“Can you understand me?” he asked softly. The big man was still for a moment, then slowly inclined his head.

“I know you have a secret, it may save your life. Can I share it?” Leif continued, his voice still gentle.

Image courtesy of; http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-4122434587

The Prestige

And behind this curtain...

“Every magic trick consists of three parts, or acts. The first part is called the pledge, the magician shows you something ordinary.”

-The Prestige

History is the same way, through the writing left at the time and archaeology unearthed by historians, we are able to discover what happened, the pure solid facts. We might be able to see what the people of that era did, with an idea on how they might have lived and what tools they had but is this really true life? Is this really seeing what their lives were all about? Can we truly think like they did, and understand what they do?

“The second act is called the turn, the magician takes the ordinary something and makes it into something extraordinary.”

-The Prestige

Next came the novels, the work of historical or even true fiction. These stories take the truths gleaned through historical artefact and theory and turn it into something understandable, something that we can relate to. We begin to see the people living their lives in our minds eye, we begin to become attached to the people and characters of that era. This is what I have done with the Vinland book, I have taken the world given to us by history and transformed it into something real. The bones in the ground now mean something to us, the small combs found at nearly every Viking grave come to hold new meaning. The people  begin to come to life, each with their own ambitions, vices and virtues, they have in a word become human; but none of this is really tangible. We cannot touch this world, we cannot change it, we cannot live in it.

“Now you're looking for the secret. But you won't find it because of course, you're not really looking. You don't really want to work it out.”

-The Prestige

Then comes virtual media, or more specifically computer games. Suddenly we are a step closer to living the life of a Viking, to bringing the struggles, the woes, the glory, and the wonder of this lost age to life once again. We can now walk among the Vikings, we can interact with them, we can see the world through their eyes, with their ideals and impressions. The hopes and fears of the common man become real, the desires and eccentricities of kings become important once more.

“You want to be fooled.”

-The Prestige

Books have always been a very important facet to humanity, either through revealing the thoughts of those long dead, or by providing a glimpse of glorious worlds forever lost to us, or on idea of worlds which never even existed, they are an important aspect of remembrance, else the personal triumphs of those who came before us would have been lost to time. However they have that one essentially fault of the written word; once on paper it cannot be changed. Through the dynamism of digital media, we are able to tell numerous stories with a visual representation of how things would have looked, better yet we are able to interact with the tale, to change and mould it depending on our desires, and it is this ability to change things which allow us to really get to grips with how things were, to understand what it was that drove these enigmatic people. After all, the best way to learn, is by doing; and until humanity develops a time machine which will allow us to live among our ancestors in person we will need to settle with being fooled by an animated digital image.

And so, may I present to the world, the new computer game studio Zatobo. This is a company I have set up with some very talented people from across Europe, the name itself meaning “Storyteller” in Japanese. This in itself should give you enough of an idea of what I am hoping to achieve with this enterprise. First, I start by writing books, this creates the foundations of a new world and now add in the games, which brings it to life. The first project we have begun is “Arctic Assault” in which you take the role of the intrepid explorer, Leif Erikson, and must work to get him safely to the fabled lands of the west, to his destiny, to Vinland.

Buy Vinland: Arctic Assault, our first release now with the button below!


Find out more at Zatobo.com
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Curtains courtesy of Pixel77.com

The Importance of a Belt Buckle

I write this leading on somewhat from my earlier article “Bringing the Vikings to Life”, as I wish to talk about the experience I have had in injecting detail and description to my writings. Now, firstly my background as a writer is as a game designer, writing either fiction based on a world that I particularly liked or later on writing the script for the adventure itself, either as background lore, quest detail or interactions between the players and the denizens of the land.

Part of this has meant my developing style is very blunt and concise, with a heady amount of action driving the plot forward. Working in such a visual medium as this, it was usually better to leave the optical features to the artists, because as they say, a picture tells a thousand words. Now, that I am writing a book it has come about from frequent critiques that I need to add more detail and atmosphere to the text, as I can no longer rely on the visual feedback from the graphics.

My experiences of this have been widespread, ranging from finding certain aspects really interesting (the weather and environment in particular) and therefore easier to write about. For some reason I find it very easily to properly visualise and then put into words a description of weather and its effects, be it bright sunlight on a mid-summers eve to a blizzard in the middle of winter, however detail of the land is rather more difficult. This is part of the reason for my attempts to get as much visual feedback on the Greenlandic terrain, which led to my discovery of the real Hvalsey in the article mentioned above.

Then there is the part of descriptive text which I find near impossible, and this most likely stems from my own (very) casual attitude to the subject, and that is clothing. I realise that what people wear can be as important to their overall characterisation as their actions, but I find it nearly impossible to connect the two. Does it really matter if Gorran wears a blue tunic or a green one? What about Thorvald’s trousers today? Is it enough that I simply dress up the characters in personality and then let the reader imagine for themselves what exactly it is they wear. I hope so, because this is what I intend to do.

This leads very nicely on to my final point, the nature of novel writing is a very different beast to master compared with script or lore scribbling, and it requires different skills and techniques to pull off; but should I really mould my entire writing style to suit this, or would my book come out as stronger if I write along my strengths rather than weaknesses? Perhaps I should start to concentrate more on Leif’s voyage of discovery and worry less about the shape of Erik’s belt buckles...

Playing chicken, with a horse

So it has been over a week since my last blog post, and I can only apologise for that. I just came back from a holiday in Wales in which we saw many castles, waterways and best of all sampled many different beers. Now, you may be wondering how on each does this relate to the Vikings and how does any of this fit in with Vinland?

The secret to Viking power?

Well, firstly there was life on the water, clearly this wasn’t somewhere in the North-Atlantic during the mid-winter storms but still one had to consider the etiquette on the canals and generally ensure that you do not crash into the banks, or worse another boat... this is harder than it sounds. On the first day we managed to get wedged up with another boat just outside of a bridge, then a couple of hours later nearly crashed into another boat in what became a rather amusing game of chicken, in which one of the chickens was actually a horse.

Eh, what!? I can hear you exclaim, well a boat was coming right at us, and our pilot was adamant that the oncoming vessel was on the wrong side of the canal and that it would move. Unfortunately he did not reckon with the fact that it was being pulled along by a horse on the towpath. It had no motor and was entirely unable to avoid us, and apparently it is too much to ask a horse to get in the water and swim in order to move the boat aside. Finally seeing the problem our helmsman swerved the boat off to the far side of the canal after having scared most of the passengers nearly to death. He did this not once, but twice. On the same day. With the same boat. 

Thus you will see that life in the water-lane is actually quite stressful, I can only imagine how the Vikings felt when they were not only dodging other boats, but pirates, icebergs, seagulls and the dragons at the edge of their maps. 

Now to become a little more serious for a moment, I took a book called “The Hammer and the Cross” by Robert Ferguson with me on the trip. It is at its heart a exploration into the relations between the Christian missionaries and the Norse heathens, and how the Christians tried to convert the Vikings for nearly 200 years with often catastrophic results. Now while this was interesting, it was the little details that he highlighted which were the most interesting to me, including a very in depth rendition of the buildings found in Greenland which was a major revelation to me.

The Vikings basically lived in bunkers, yes, bunkers! Essentially they had massive houses which eventually reached something like 60 rooms. Due to the lack of wood in Greenland, they tended to be built out of stone and turf, and were built a little into the ground in order to conserve heat. There is far more to tell about them as they really are fascinating structures, but to find out, you will just have to read my book!

 

With thanks to : http://planetoddity.com/russian-world-war-2-bunkers/

Tales of a land far, far away.

So this week my writing has taken a rather different turn to the usual, rather than concentrating all of my efforts on Vinland or even direct development on the mod I am working on, Prophesy of Pendor, I have been working on something related, yet very different. We have a large and very active community of fans at the Tale Worlds forums, and one of them asked me if it would be OK to run an RPG based on the lore of Pendor. This was something of a nice endorsement for the team, as I know that James Landes and I (along with a plethora of other writers and contributors) have invested a massive amount of time into producing the backstory for Pendor and fleshing out the world in which hundreds of thousands of characters live in.

One of the hallmark features for Pendor are the “Knighthood Orders” which are essentially organisations inspired by the Knights Templar or Knights Hospitaller. The reason I joined the Pendor Team after the release of Prophesy of Pendor 2 was to flesh these Orders out, and give them a real sense of being and belonging in the world, because before they were simply normal knights pimped out in some rather sweet gear. Part of my work on joining the team included creating a rivalry and conflicts between the various Orders of Pendor, and generally bringing them to life, they now act as non-state military forces, each with their own story, goals, objectives, heroes and of course a political agenda.

The result of this was a nice range of different Orders, each with their own personality and individuality. A few examples follow below;

The Order of Dawn : A fanatical Order dedicated to the ideal of justice and to the mission of destroying the evil cult of Heretics that plagues the realm. Over time their execution of this sacred duty has turned them into zealots and they will punish anyone for even the smallest of crimes or even by the tiniest affiliation to the heretics. This is truly a story of evil encroaching on even the best of intentions.

The Knights of Eventide : As the Order of Dawn becomes increasingly paranoid over the effects of the Heretics, there remained a small faction who believed the way to fight the heresy was to understand them properly. However as part of Dawn’s slide into zealotry, they banned any manuscripts or items considered heretical in order to stave off corruption. A schism occurred and the Order of Eventide was formed by those who sought to use their knowledge of heresy against the perpetrators. The irony now being that the Order of Dawn’s greatest fear seems to be realised as there are rumours that the heretical corruption has spread to the inner circle of Eventide, and threatens to undo all the work they have done to destroy the heretics.

The Order of the Ebony Gauntlet : There is an ancient race of beings that live just outside of human society known as the Noldor, or more colloquially as the elves. The Ebony Gauntlet believe that the Noldor want only the complete destruction of humanity and fight to promote human supremacy in the world, using any tools at their disposal to achieve this goal; xenophobia, racism, genocide. After all, the Noldor are not human, which makes them mere animals that deserve to be trodden under the iron-shod feet of humanity.

Now the players of this RPG have taken on a role from the various Knighthood Order’s that both appeared in Prophesy of Pendor 3, and will be appearing in Prophesy of Pendor 4. The setting is immediately following the events of Prophesy of Pendor 3, where the one hero prophesied has risen to power and united Pendor under one sovereign. Prophesy of Pendor 4 is occurring in another war torn continent which is home to Pendor’s greatest enemy, the Snake Cult.

Not much work had yet been done connecting the events of end of Pendor 3 to those in the beginning of Pendor 4, but now the results of this RPG could well bridge the gap, and better yet it has been done by the community itself so that they have more of an emotional tie to the game; it is even possible that their characters may appear in Pendor 4, who knows?

Oh, yeah and in a little aside, they made me play the King...

The end of the beginning continues!

Welcome back! I know that I meant to publish this next part last week but with one thing or another it kept being delayed, then with the riots being rather distracting over the weekend and into this week it just kept being sidelined. Without further ado, here is the rest of the planning process;

Last week we left off creating the overview of what each character does, and put them in chronological order. This is essentially the very framework of the plot, in a somewhat readable (albeit bare bones) format. You could actually read this tale now, and be able to understand what is happening but it would not be much fun. The next step is to add flesh to these bones, and do the actual writing that turns a plan into a story.

I

·         Bjarni finds America

o   Bring out the superstitious element

o   Make Bjarni appear a coward to his crew

 Becomes;

A raven black as midnight flapped weakly onto the beached ship and hopped on to the mast which was now leaning on the rocky beach. Its strength left it then, and it tottered and fell to the small stones below, wings outspread in a grisly parody of flight.

“Odin has sent us a warning” murmured Snorri softly, eyes not leaving the corpse

“An evil omen! The gods are warning us that this land be cursed!” said Jorvik, his voice high. The superstitious crew all stepped back from the dead bird and then stood regarding it with their mouths agape. 

Bjarni, still in a trance was once again heaving at the ship, trying to push it back to sea. His crew needed no second urging and added their strength to his. Slowly the ship, timbers being eviscerated under the grindstone effect of the shale beneath uttered tortured screams and slid slowly back in to the ocean.

Now we have the manuscript in rough comes the part I am dreading most the editing phase. It is here that I call up all my friends and beg their help as I am well aware that spelling and grammar are not my strongest suits. We then go through the text with a fine toothed comb and make sure the final copy is readable, and that the messages it presents are those I intended. I bring out my notes on the characters and ask my guinea pi... err volunteer editors for their impressions on the cast and see if the two are more or less the same. From there I intend to get some professional editors involved so as to give me a full critique on what is good and what is not. These criticisms will then need to be acted upon and changes made to the script.

Once all of this is done, I should have something that I actually feel comfortable in selling to the general public, and the book is done.

The end of the beginning

“This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. It is, perhaps, the end of the beginning” is one of my most cherished Churchill quotes, and rings very true of the status of Vinland at the moment. Following my foray into the countryside of Dorset last week, I have been surprisingly industrious in working on my novel.

As you know, I met with the editor, Leila Dewji some time ago now, and have since then been refining the plot of the story to be rather more dramatic and less epic in scale. This process is thankfully nearly done, and I will soon be returning to what I enjoy the most anyway – actually writing the book!

I am sure you are getting rather curious about how I actually go about writing the book, I have given many hints over the months of my blogging here, but have never actually gone over the process. To start with, I have my notebook (a tool most good writers will have on their person at any one time) which is filled to the brim with ideas, people that i’ve met, strange situations. Anything really that crosses my overactive mind every single day. I then go through this notebook and take out anything which could be suitable to the plot, and note them all down in another, bigger notebook. This I entitle “Stuff to happen”. 

Example;

• Discover America
• Game of Hnetafel
• Warrior arrives
• Sit in hall eating meal ignoring enfolding drama
• Merchant thrown overboard
• Find prince
• Find natives

As you can see this is pretty basic, just an overview of things that could happen. The next step are the characters, and very unlike the plot these are remarkably organic, beyond some general traits and noting down major events I do not plan them overly much. Instead I go through the “stuff to happen” and apply those events to the characters, or if something especially good needs to happen, I create a suitable character for it to happen to.

Example;

• Erik the Red
• Central character. The reason Vinland succeeds
• Thorvald
• The voice of the warrior spirit
• Leif
• The voice of intelligence and reason

See, even the character overviews I have posted on this blog are more in depth than the notes I followed initially. Now we have the rough story and the characters, we need to turn this into a plot. Therefore I cut the events up into “sections” and arrange these sections into a chronological order. This is what we are left with;

I

• Bjarni finds America
• Bring out the superstitious element
• Make Bjarni appear a coward to his crew

II

• Leif loses to Erik at Hnetafel (Viking chess)
• It is a very close match. Mock anger from Erik to display his pride in the skills of his son.

IV

• Kai arrives
• Sits in hall eating meal ignoring enfolding drama

VI

• Edvin, Rorik and Anneliese arrive
• Edvin thrown overboard by Rorik

Addendum

• Find prince
• Dropped, terrible idea and horrifically cliche.
• Find natives
• ?

But how does this contribute to the finished script? Find out on Thursday!

Pyrotechnics, sirens and sleepless nights

So the last week has been rather... invigorating. Several weeks ago my old Scout master phoned me and asked me to return as an assistant leader to which I agreed to. The last few days I have been away with the Scout group on their annual summer camp, at which I have quelled the pyrotechnic in me for a week or two.

Stupidly I set off with all my various notebooks and plenty of paper, expecting to have lots of spare time while the kids were off on one adventure or another, time that I could use to catch up on the recent lull in working on Vinland. How very wrong I was, I got back on Wednesday evening and checked through my notes to find that I had only one new entry (spoiler alert): “The sirens were really whales”. There we go, all my hopes of an industrious week essentially came to just that one sentence.

Going on this camp however did bring back many good memories of my own childhood, and made me remember just how tough it can be to survive in the wilderness, skills and insights I fully intend to incorporate into Vinland. Just how will Leif and his crew feel in the middle of night, with the creatures of the night creeping all around them, wondering if their hidden watchers were walking on four legs or two, having no idea if this new world is inhabited or not. Just how tough is it to survive on what the land can give, the identification of edible plants and skills at hunting and tracking – and the bane of all backwoods campers; finding enough dry firewood to burn in order to cook at all.

Shelter is of course another concern, and while we came packed with nice modern tents, the Vikings would be left with making do with what they could. I saw a number of bivouacs in the forest by our site, none of them looking particularly healthy. Bear in mind that the Vikings of Greenland have no forests in which to acclimatise themselves, and the dense woodland of North America would have been entirely alien to them.

Finally there are the social implications of living so close together which must be considered. While true cabin fever can take weeks to set in, living in an enclosed space with only a few other individuals can quickly lead to conflict. With the Scouts we came away with only a bloody lip or two, but how would the heavily armed Vikings fare, especially when they come to Vinland already packing all the problems from back home.

What will become their greatest enemy? Will it be the ruthless natives, the uncompromising land... or will it prove to be themselves?

Conflict of... Conflicts?

During the creative writing course at university, and while working as a writer in various games something has been rammed into my skull over and over, this is that there needs to be conflict or drama in a story to make it really interesting. Although most people like a happy ending, no-one would read it if that is all that it is. People want to see the characters facing down problems and overcoming them (or not), and this is something I had partially left out in the first rendition of Vinland.

Now that I have completed the character overviews that I had started some time ago (curse you Pendor, for taking up so much time!), I am going through and devising every kind of conflict that I can dream up between the characters. Things are currently going from greed to humiliation, jealous love to lovers being spurned, regicide to mutiny and everything in between. That is not to say that the book with be a cacophony of conflict, as many of these problems will not be introduced. My aim is to take the most interesting and then devise ways in which these problems transpire and see how the characters deal with the situation.

Some authors sell books based on the mantra “whatever can go wrong, should” (with George R. R. Martin being the classic example. Just beginning to like a character? Great, he dies soon). I do not intend to follow this trend, if something is always going badly then it does get a little predictable, it also prevents you from getting too attached to the characters, as the cast is continually changing because they keep dying.

Instead, my plan is to create an overview of each character which lists their personal traits (height, hair colour), general personality (practical joker, warrior, merchant, monk), and what they want to gain out of life (power, happiness, love, money). They are then pitted against a number of problems, the solutions however will devise themselves organically – I can only plan so much, for the characters to really be believable the way that they handle themselves should evolve as the character does. What might be a good solution when first planning the character maybe completely unrealistic in 100 pages when their personality has been bent and twist by other issues.

Once I have the character drama in place, I can create a rough time-line and begin writing once again.