Greetings, fellow humans. I’m Caroline and I write fantasy and horror—my debut epic fantasy novel, The Obsidian Druid was released in April 2024. This is my newsletter.
Before I get into the planning of my new novel, I wanted to let you know that the newsletter might get a bit spotty for the next month or so. My kids break up from school this week, and between keeping my small business running and making sure my offspring are fed and moderately happy, I can’t promise to keep up with these weekly essays. If you’re following along with my serialised novel, don’t panic. I’ve written the chapters in advance so the adventures of Tattiana the Blood Seer will continue. (I can hear the sighs of relief from here! Okay, maybe not…)
A Cosier Corner of Joria
Planning a slice-of-life fantasy about a travelling merchant and her ex-adventurer best friend.
Last week, I worked on creating the protagonist of a cosy fantasy novel. Fenri is a tall, catlike bledwek wedded to her life on the road as a travelling merchant. So far, so good, but Fenri’s going to need some actual roads to travel on. I love a good inspiration board, (you can call it a mood or vision board if you like) and when I was planning The Obsidian Druid, I made an epic one on Pinterest. It helped me crystallise how I wanted to describe character groups like the satyrs and the Wild Scrat (hardy forest warriors who make their homes in the trees), but more importantly, it helped me establish the mood of the novel and nail down details of the world I set it in.
Fenri shares this world with the characters in The Age of Aikana, but her novel is heading into unfamiliar, cosy territory. Joria, my pre-built world, has underground dungeons ringing with the screams of ill-treated prisoners. There’s a dilapidated witch’s cottage decorated with bone shards and forests shadowed by trees that drip blood. That stuff’s fun, but it’s not cosy. I need to think about Fenri’s particular corner of Joria differently, so it’s going to need its own inspiration board.
No one needs to see my ancient messy boards full of children’s craft ideas and garden design inspiration, so I set up a new Pinterest account for this experiment. I started off by slipping into my old ways. I searched “dilapidated fantasy tavern” with a vague idea about Fenri arriving at a familiar tavern on her merchanting route, only to discover it’s been ransacked. I think this would make an interesting opening, but I’d like to veer away from that and curate some cosier vibes.
From the series “tavern_before after” by Yura Gvozdenko
Searching for “cosy fantasy” threw up a lot of Legends & Lattes fan art, but it also provided some solid ideas. This image of a sorcerer’s laboratory made me start wondering about Fenri’s stock supplies. Maybe she sells herbs and potions, and if she does, she would need to buy them wholesale from someone. A talented sorcerer with a huge inventory would fit the bill, and perhaps his store cupboard would look something like this:
Sorcerer's Laboratory by The Graphic Collect Art (AI-Generated)
Apologies for the AI art of it all. I made The Obsidian Druid’s Pinterest board years ago, long before AI was a thing. While making this new board, I discovered that AI-generated images on Pinterest are now very hard to avoid, and they’re not always clearly tagged. Maybe if it sparks inspiration while I’m planning my own human-created art, that will negate some of the negative, spammy aspects. Maybe I’m just fooling myself. But look, pretty potions!
I’m not sure if this next image is human-created or not (the online world is a confusing place these days). I pinned lots of libraries just like this, full of books and plant life. I think Fenri might have to take a detour to visit a botanical library. Perhaps there’s some vital information she has to unearth.
“Reclaimed by Nature” by Lulumoonowlbooks
Such a library would fit right in amongst the city I’m imagining, nestled at the head of a valley in this unexplored part of Joria (unexplored by me, at any rate—Fenri will know it very well). It will be far away from the dungeons of Armoria and the beasts prowling the forest of Nymed, perfectly situated to be the halfway point on a travelling merchant’s route. Perhaps she can time her visit to coincide with a festival where she can earn a few extra coins hawking her wares.
Art by AlekSunDoor
I’ve come up with quite a few plot points just by combing through Pinterest and adding items to my Cosier Joria board, and that’s one of the reasons why I love doing this. I’m a visual writer, inspired by all sorts of images and the particular moods they invoke. If you’d like to see the mood I’m going for with this novel, feel free to check out the inspiration board.
Micro-SPFNO - Week Seven
Shining a light on some excellent indie fantasy novels that weren’t chosen to compete in the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off by reviewing their first chapters.
Shadows of Old Town by T. Olsen
Shadows of Old Town is an adventure fantasy written in the first person and the Amazon page has some really promising reviews. Here’s the blurb:
Gray is a thief, and a good one. He has the guildmaster’s ear, the hearts of the ladies—and the gentlemen—and the loyalty of all the thieves in Old Town, the largest district in Sangarie. His reputation is poised to bring him infamy.
Or ruin.
When he finds the body of a fellow guild member in his district and rumors start to spread that he’s the killer, he does what he does best—ignores authority and trusts his gut. Pushing the limits of his favor with the guildmaster, he investigates on his own and finds that the more you dig, the more you wish you hadn’t uncovered.
Between the list of bodies being attributed to his name, the irritating adoration of his plucky preteen apprentice, and an attack on his dearest friend that leaves him searching not only the city streets but his own heart, his luck is wearing thin. Then he screws everything up.
On the run from both the guild and the guards, the real killer blackmails him into one last heist in Sangarie. One that will take him into the bowels of urban legend and force him to face his own traumatic past. The city’s future depends on the wit and bluster of the greatest thief ever to run across its rooftops.
The novel starts with a fight on a dock. This isn’t just any fight, though. You’re immediately made aware that Gray is luring these two “whiskey-riddled, stiff-legged dock workers” into a darkened dead end so he can give them a proper thrashing for insulting the local sex workers. So, this guy’s a skilled thief and an able fighter who casually throws out snarky quips while protecting his Old Town friends: “I couldn’t not get involved. This is my district.” I think I’m going to like him.
Speaking of Old Town, I can already tell this district of Sangarie is going to be as much of a character as the protagonist, which makes me a happy reader because I love fantasy cities like this—cities with grimy, cobblestoned districts bordered by docks and bristling with bars and brothels. Later in the chapter, there is mention of an underground area where people live in apartments. This all makes me eager to read on. What else is underground, and why are people living there?
The chapter ends with Deidre arriving back at the underground apartment she shares with Gray. I enjoyed the chemistry between these two. They’re supposedly roommates, but Deidre chides Gray for getting into a fight, and he takes no care to disguise watching her undress. They act like a long-married couple, and I would lay money on their having a romantic past. They have me intrigued, at any rate, which is an excellent way to end a first chapter.
My first impression of this novel is that it’s going to be a fun ride. Give Shadows of Old Town a try if you enjoy gritty fantasy cities and snarky thieves.
Favourite line: “Honestly, it was amazing they were still running. I’d been worried they were going to get tired and find a bar somewhere before we even got within sight of the river.”
Shadows of Old Town is available in paperback and on Kindle.
Midnight Metropolis is a sci-fi/fantasy novel about daemons, hallucinogenic mushrooms, and the neon megacity sprawled on the blackened backside of a sunless planet. New chapters are posted every Friday and you can read all available chapters for free.
That’s it for now.
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