The Demon King... Saga?
Sep. 29th, 2020 04:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingWhat if the novel were an octology of novellas?
Balthazar’s goal is to become powerful enough to prevent an apocalypse that happened during what he considers to be the present, but which occurred long in the past of the story’s setting. He has a rare (and probably singular) talent for time magic, but it’s not particularly useful on its own. He therefore locates and explores six “lost” temples to grant himself abilities related their respective elements, all for the purpose of being able to access the seventh, which is the most useful to him but is protected by Ceres.
Each of the first five installments will be centered around a specific temple. Each will also focus on Balthazar’s relationship with a specific character. Over the course of these first five parts, the reader will gradually pick up on the fact that the “temples” are relics of the ancient world Balthazar comes from, as well as the fact that he’s been time traveling.
This isn’t a story about adventure, but rather about Balthazar being lazy and difficult and not having any patience for high fantasy tropes. I’m yet not sure how to explain this in a way that makes sense, but this initial phase of the story is kind of like a workplace comedy about monsters. Like if Sauron were Michael from Arrested Development?
Anyway, the sixth part will be something like a flashback to the first temple Balthazar visited previous to the events of the story, along with flashbacks to the first five installments, wherein the reader will see just how horribly Balthazar fucked up and how many times he died.
The seventh part will be about Balthazar finally snapping and going full evil, which prompts Ceres to discover the temple underneath her kingdom, thus allowing her to finally understand what exactly Balthazar means when he says that he intends to destroy her world. She’ll gain access to time magic herself in a very roundabout way, and she’ll see where the legend of “the demon king” comes from, as well as all of the alternate pasts in which she killed Balthazar.
The eighth and final part will be about Ceres rescuing Balthazar from himself and taking them both back into the past to save each of their respective worlds. For the sake of maintaining the temple theme, I’m going to say that the eighth temple will be Balthazar’s own.
In addition to the Plot A relating to the overarching narrative, each installment will also have its own Plot B involving fantasy bureaucracy and office politics. This will take the form of a series of short and (hopefully) humorous conversations that will help to pace (and serve as a counterpoint to) the main action. Besides being a good way to the highlight the charm of the characters, the purpose of these episodes is to help convince the reader that Balthazar is in fact misguided in his determination to destroy the world.
All of this will be interspersed with excerpts from Balthazar’s field notes, with the conceit that he is a Very Serious Writer™ who gradually gets better as he learns to stop being so pretentious.
I hate how it feels to put this in writing, but my main inspiration for the tone of the story is Homestuck, which starts off being ridiculous and goofy but gradually turns into something much larger and more serious. What I mean to say is that it’s entirely possible to balance the character comedy and worldbuilding marginalia with a sweeping epic romance in an interesting and appealing way that makes sense to the reader, and I think releasing the novel in a series of eight novellas would serve this tone much better than trying to fit everything into a giant 250k-word behemoth.
Balthazar’s goal is to become powerful enough to prevent an apocalypse that happened during what he considers to be the present, but which occurred long in the past of the story’s setting. He has a rare (and probably singular) talent for time magic, but it’s not particularly useful on its own. He therefore locates and explores six “lost” temples to grant himself abilities related their respective elements, all for the purpose of being able to access the seventh, which is the most useful to him but is protected by Ceres.
Each of the first five installments will be centered around a specific temple. Each will also focus on Balthazar’s relationship with a specific character. Over the course of these first five parts, the reader will gradually pick up on the fact that the “temples” are relics of the ancient world Balthazar comes from, as well as the fact that he’s been time traveling.
This isn’t a story about adventure, but rather about Balthazar being lazy and difficult and not having any patience for high fantasy tropes. I’m yet not sure how to explain this in a way that makes sense, but this initial phase of the story is kind of like a workplace comedy about monsters. Like if Sauron were Michael from Arrested Development?
Anyway, the sixth part will be something like a flashback to the first temple Balthazar visited previous to the events of the story, along with flashbacks to the first five installments, wherein the reader will see just how horribly Balthazar fucked up and how many times he died.
The seventh part will be about Balthazar finally snapping and going full evil, which prompts Ceres to discover the temple underneath her kingdom, thus allowing her to finally understand what exactly Balthazar means when he says that he intends to destroy her world. She’ll gain access to time magic herself in a very roundabout way, and she’ll see where the legend of “the demon king” comes from, as well as all of the alternate pasts in which she killed Balthazar.
The eighth and final part will be about Ceres rescuing Balthazar from himself and taking them both back into the past to save each of their respective worlds. For the sake of maintaining the temple theme, I’m going to say that the eighth temple will be Balthazar’s own.
In addition to the Plot A relating to the overarching narrative, each installment will also have its own Plot B involving fantasy bureaucracy and office politics. This will take the form of a series of short and (hopefully) humorous conversations that will help to pace (and serve as a counterpoint to) the main action. Besides being a good way to the highlight the charm of the characters, the purpose of these episodes is to help convince the reader that Balthazar is in fact misguided in his determination to destroy the world.
All of this will be interspersed with excerpts from Balthazar’s field notes, with the conceit that he is a Very Serious Writer™ who gradually gets better as he learns to stop being so pretentious.
I hate how it feels to put this in writing, but my main inspiration for the tone of the story is Homestuck, which starts off being ridiculous and goofy but gradually turns into something much larger and more serious. What I mean to say is that it’s entirely possible to balance the character comedy and worldbuilding marginalia with a sweeping epic romance in an interesting and appealing way that makes sense to the reader, and I think releasing the novel in a series of eight novellas would serve this tone much better than trying to fit everything into a giant 250k-word behemoth.
