Fanfic: The Tale of the Provinces

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LuizPedro
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Fanfic: The Tale of the Provinces

Post by LuizPedro »

Hello! Some days ago, I wrote in an 'Introduce yourself' post about a fanfic that I'm writing, and here it's me again.
Well, I am writing a HUGE fanfic about Suikoden, and as I'm having a lot of fun with it, I thought maybe it could be interesting to show it someone. But, being the first thing I ever wrote, I'm not much confident about its quality, and specially of the translation to the english that I'm doing. So, I don't have it published anywhere in the internet, even if I'm thinking on create a blog to put these texts. I hope anyone can help me on this decision.

It is a story that would be a sequence to the series, happening 5 years after Suikoden 3. But I'm not using the name 'Suikoden 6', or anything like that, to avoid conflicts with any similar work, and if Konami decides to (hope!) make a new game, my fanfic will not be so strange. So, I'm calling it only "The Tale of the Provinces".

The story follows the main themes of Suikoden, and inside these lines, I varied each motif, playing with the elements of the games. There is a boy who carry a True Rune, tyrants ruling a country, rebels fighting for freedom, a castle in ruins next to the water, and, of course, 108 outlaws who gather to form an army and defeat the tyrant. The catch is 'how' it happens, and not 'what' happens.

The characters, most of them new, remember a lot the existing ones; a silent leader, a soldier dressed in red and his pal in blue, librarians, mountain bandits, blacksmiths, launderers, a Chinchirorin player... At each chapter, a new element is introduced, worked, and becomes common from there on. As an example, on the first chapter, the center is a fight groupXgroup, with x soldiers against x heroes. In the second, weapons and blacksmiths, in the third monsters, in fourth scrolls, in fifth duels, in sixth elemental runes, on seventh dungeons, and so on. On the end, I will have army fights, dragon knights, kobolds, wingeds, elves..

All that trying to take the Suikoden 'touch' to a text: ALL the fights happen in turns, and I try to make it believable, with one reason each time. The number of items which can be carried is discussed by the characters, as is the limits of use of each rune. I described the inscription process of a rune in the hand of a character, and so on.

The story itself is not that complicated, to say the truth. I tried to focus more on the heroes personalities and in character development than in the plot itself. However, from the half of my idea to the end, things become much more convoluted...

The country:
About the setting: my story happens on a region just south of the Badlands, mentioned in S1 and S2. That is, west of Toran, south of Dunan, southeast of Tinto and northeast of Kooluk. I created in this space a new country, or better, five micro-nations: Rosevear, Cartidan, Talpride, Torchiara and Austrano. These micro-nations are always in conflict (some times politic, others armed). Since they are not completely recognized as independent nations, these regions are wrongly called 'provinces' by the people, explaining the name of the story. The region also have some rivers, small forests (one of them shelter a elf city, Oberon), two mountain ranges (boundary with Toran), a large coast, access to Black Dragon Island and, notably, a big desert, the deadly Nahayl, which has a great importance on the story.

Another interesting treat is the castle next to the water, which will be built over the ruins of a Sindar castle. Wait for a lot of secret entrances...

The enemy will be Kooluk (S4), or better, New Kooluk, an army that was raised over the shambles of the former Kooluk Empire. New Kooluk decides to annex the land to his territory, and even if able to dominate Austrano, they fail on the others. But then arrive Harmonia, which give complete support to New Kooluk, by unknown reasons...

The heroes:
About the heroes: the Tenkai Star is Ardan, a orphan boy who lives in the streets of Cartidan, stealing to survive. He is almost captured after a steal, but is rescued by Gerrick (Tenbou Star), a big and mysterious man from Rosevear. He works as a janitor in the Silverbird Orphanage, to where he takes Ardan, and where he grows up.

The story:
After the events of the chapter 1, Ardan begin to train martial arts (chapter 2). When he is 14 years old, arrives Gavenia (Ten'yuu Star), from Toran, who needs to get to south. Ardan decides to help (chapter 3), and in the way (chapters 4 to 6) he meets nine Stars of Destiny, remarkably Cecília (Tenman Star), a 15 years old girl who lives in the south and is lost. After the events of chapter 7, they go to her home, but Kooluk decides to attack, and they are caught in the middle of the war. They run away, going city to city, searching for shelter. And then, in the middle of a forest, they meet a blind seer, Leknaat, who foresees a clear future for Ardan and a stormy one for Cecília...

And that's it! From that on, the story becomes much more convoluted, but I had not written yet, only drafted it.

I wrote and translated a prologue to the story. You can read it on this link => https://www.dropbox.com/s/73fgpqsh65bd2 ... e.pdf?dl=0 (PDF, link to dropbox), and I would love to receive criticism. The prologue don't have any elements of Suikoden, but it is on purpose. It is a prologue after all, right? But that is the style of the work. This text is on an acceptable quality? It's good enough so I can put it on a blog without (much) shame? Or I should hide under my bed and never post anything on the Internet again? :) Obviously, I don't expect detailed ratings, or anything like that, I only want an opinion on a native english speaker, to know if I should insist on this or learn more before proceeding. I wait for answers!

PS1: Oh, and of course, I had read the posting rules, including about advertising and external sites, and it's not my intent to break it! I only thought that, if I'm having fun writing it, someone could have fun reading it, and thought that this could be a good place to show it. And about Wolkendrache's worry about all my posts being advertisings of external works, I read practically everything which is posted here, but rarely I have any interesting thing to add, so I stay silent! But I will try to overcome my shyness and to participate in other topics too!

PS2: And I promise to write less next post, if I ever write one! :)
Wolkendrache
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Re: Fanfic: The Tale of the Provinces

Post by Wolkendrache »

Some questions:
- Why is the hero silent in a novel?
- I didn't get what you mean by "each chapter a new element is introduced". Do you mean as appendix to the continuous text?
- Will you really describe fights in a game style instead of a novel style? Like, is it necessary to have turns in fights like in the games?
- Why would people refer to their own nation as province? Province of what? Who doesn't recognize them as independant?
- The idea of invaders from the former Kooluk territory is ok, but why are they called (New) Kooluk, what's their connection to a dynasty that has perished hundreds of years ago?

I'm not a native speaker, but let me tell you this: learning more english before proceeding isn't necessary, you'll learn more by proceeding. Pra frente, Luizinho!
"Within the four seas, all men are brothers" Shuihu Zhuan
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LuizPedro
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Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brasil

Re: Fanfic: The Tale of the Provinces

Post by LuizPedro »

Oh, thanks for replying (again!) :) Well, let me try to clarify my ideas:
Wolkendrache wrote:- Why is the hero silent in a novel?
I was not very clear! The hero is not COMPLETELY silent, he just is not really talkative. Since most of time we see the POV of the hero, he don't talk that much, he witness the events. But I don't take it that seriously, or it would be very boring. I just play with it when I can, specially after the chapter 3.
Wolkendrache wrote:- I didn't get what you mean by "each chapter a new element is introduced". Do you mean as appendix to the continuous text?
The plot of each chapter revolves around one element. At the first sight of that element, I make a lot of fuss about it. That thing appears, get a detailed explanation, affects a lot the story. And from there on it's just referenced. It's just a important piece on the plot, not the main subject of the narrative, and each chapter has one. An example: scrolls. We don't hear about it for 4 chapters. Then the plot requires it, it becomes very important, a character uses one, its appearance is detailed described, we see it working, it changes the plot. And in the following chapters: "Guy uses a scroll of x. X happens." I try to do this with every common element of the games. I will write a chapter which is centered in a Chinchirorin game. Another in trading. Another in kobolds. Another in major battles. Another in... baths. Yes. I don't create a full suikodenish story from the start, i assemble it piece for piece.
Wolkendrache wrote:- Will you really describe fights in a game style instead of a novel style? Like, is it necessary to have turns in fights like in the games?
No, no. It's in novel style. It's just the flow of the fights. Each character acts at a time, and we don't see two or three monsters attacking at same time. The text talks about one hero, then other, then one monster, etc, we have a pause, they talk, it restarts. Explaning this way it seems stupid, but I try to write in a way that makes sense and seems natural. If I was able to do that, that's another thing! But, again, i don't take it too seriously, I play with it when I can.
Wolkendrache wrote:- Why would people refer to their own nation as province? Province of what? Who doesn't recognize them as independant?
Well, that's probably the most forced aspect of the story. It's a very unstable area. It was formed by two countries centuries ago. These countries were divided in five, reunited, the regions became independent again, three of them formed a confederation, broke it, the area was divided in three countries, two, five again... So each region was successively called a country, a state, a region, a province, a country again... It is so unstable that we don't even hear about their names or status in other countries, like Dunan. All the area is just called 'the Southlands'. http://www.suikosource.com/history/geog ... tion_id=19 . The people just became tired of changing the status of country/state/region/whatever every time, in space of years, and the word province appeared when they had a big country formed by 3 of the regions. The word became famous, people got used to that, and it just stuck even after the division of the country. It's not a formal definition, just a slang that people found to go on with their lives. That's the idea. It's too lame or confusing?
Wolkendrache wrote:- The idea of invaders from the former Kooluk territory is ok, but why are they called (New) Kooluk, what's their connection to a dynasty that has perished hundreds of years ago?
Well, none. But the area is still known as 'the area of the former Kooluk Empire' by everyone. When someone was able to reintegrate the country, they thought: We need a name to be recognized as a main force of the world. The Kooluk Empire was the best they had, in terms of military success. So, they called themselves New Kooluk. Even the king adopted that as a family name, when he was crowned (not wrote it yet). But why someone would adopt the name of a nation that is best remembered by being defeated and later dissolved? Only stupids would do that. That's because the leaders of that 'New Kooluk' are stupids. Stupids who destroyed their own cities to be able to conquer it, who gathered an weak army, and, by some strange reason, are receiving full support from Harmonia to conquer the 5 provinces. A support that just don't make any sense, after all. To discover the reason of this is the launch of the main plot. That's it. Is it forced too? I can easily change that, it's not that important now, except for the help of Harmonia to the invasion.

Well, you had patience to read the pdf i linked? It's possible to understand what's happening? My main fear is writing something in so bad english that no one is able to see what happens!
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