Welcome!
Today I'd like to talk about Laeryk's Proving, my first novel, and how I conceived of it.
The seeds for Laeryk's Proving first came to my mind as part of a scene which popped into my head one morning. I visualized a group of fantasy characters in the midst of a climactic battle with a horrific monster. The main character, who was little more than a random image in my head, was charging headlong into battle with the beast, while a supporting character flew around the monster's head, riding on the back of a wyvern and shooting crossbow bolts at the monster from a crossbow mounted to the gauntlet on his right arm. It's been so long now that the original scene is fuzzy and hazy. I don't think I can accurately describe it any more, so you'll just need to take my word on this: It was a really cool action scene.
This scene grabbed my attention and demanded that I figure out the story which came before it. I went to work trying to piece the story together. I decided that the best place to start was that central hero charging the monster. Who was he? Why was he fighting this monster? What made him interesting? What were his goals?
To this day, I have no idea, because I never solved any of those questions.
See, my mind refused to focus on what I thought of as the "main character." It centered on that wyvern-flying knight. What was up with the wyvern? The crossbow on his arm? What did he want? Was he part of a knightly order? If so, what were the goals of his order? So on and so forth my thoughts went, until I realized the reason why.
The knight was the main character, not that other, nameless guy.
That was when Laeryk Thorn was conceived.
Flash forward a bit. I'm a Star Wars geek. I love the movies, I love the games, I love the roleplaying games. The books... well, let's just say that my Expanded Universe is a little more "conservative" than what the literature would say is cannon. Anyway, that aside, I was watching a lot of Star Wars with my kids. They were getting into the Clone Wars cartoon and I was showing the films. One day we were watching Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith back to back and I realized something.
I fundamentally hate the way Lucas turned Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader. I hate it. I loathe it. I cannot believe, for an instant, that no one on the Jedi Council didn't recognize that Anakin was completely and totally damaged goods. I can't believe that Obi Wan was supposed to be SHOCKED by Anakin's transformation. Maybe it was the acting. It wasn't... well, let's just say that "range of emotions" does not describe that character. I found it hard to believe that there was anything ever worth redeeming about Anakin Skywalker, which really upset my love for the original movies.
"There has to be a way to show the fall of a hero that makes the audience sympathize with the villain he or she becomes in a way that they don't feel the villain needs redeemed," I thought. I didn't want an anti-hero. I wanted a villain, a bad guy, unrepentant, unashamed, firm in his conviction. I wanted someone an audience could root for while simultaneously wanting him to lose.
Meet Laeryk Thorn, a guy whose destiny does not end in anything resembling "nice." But how will the audience sympathize with him? How will they think that he's anything but a jerk who needs to be taken down by another hero?
By making him a hero first. By showing the readers and the audience why he was a hero and why he fell from grace.
That was when Laeryk's Proving started taking shape, as well as the rest of the Saga of Thorns. This will be a story told over four books which will show Laeryk's rise to being a hero, and his fall into villainy. But more on all of that later.
Next Time: The current status of Laeryk's Proving, and what's going to happen next!
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