Just Be There Blog

New Enthusiasm--Old Character

Last week of December and I think I am finally getting my act together in the writing department after a long break in routine starting last August or a little bit before. Disruptions in my daily life with job loss and then internet loss really dampened my drive to create. However, since once again getting an internet connection in my own home, the need to create has blossomed. I have spent some time perusing through the Marchlands accounts and with the spur of PatrickB 's Symposium Topic 30, I have settled on a project to start the year 2015. Actually, I will be returning to an older project--some ten years older--in which I will be editing Malyn's journal as written around 2001.

"Malyn Kept a journal--Raw resource to Verloren wip"  of my book "freewrites: prompts, scenes, or teasers"  is now priority. This is a WIP as I am changing the original text from the author's translation of the character's words into how her words would actually appear from an "in character" reader's viewpoint. It is a character's journal and should be written from the character's pov in the character's voice. The original drafts were written as a bard or scribe of the D&D fantasy genre would have written an 'as told to me' or 'as read from' account; with the educated scribe's grammar corrections.

Basically, I hadn't visualized the full characterization of Malyn or how she would speak at the time of the first drafts. Now that I've lived with the character for going over fourteen years, her voice is quite clear. She is articulate and educated even though she came from a backwards village in barbarian country. Her ability to learn quickly is due to a racial anamoly. Her mother was Vosian--barbarian, sort of a cross between Cossack and Mongolian. Her father, however, is Sidhelein--or Elven from the Forests west of Malyn's home village. She is physically larger than the average Elf or human, yet a head shorter than her Vos cousins. (Vosian females are typically from 6'5"- 6'9" and men are from 6'8"-7'5". Malyn is a puny 6'1".) Her broken speech is due to the fact that she is writing in a second language, which she was never properly educated. The common trade language was picked up over the years through her interactions with Brecht traders traveling through her village maybe four to six times a year. She is the only half-elf existing in the Rhzlev Vosian domain due to an historical mistrust between the two races. She has endured the existence of not quite belonging since she was raised by her mother among her mother's people. However, Malyn earned the respect of the Sandorev villagers through her loyalty to family and home. Then her mother died and she has taken up the journey to discover something about her father's people. (Her father disappeared with the remnants of the Sidhelein lands falling into the plague of shadow.)