Choose Your Weapon - The Sword

The Netflix Witcher based on novels by Andrezej Sapkowski

Welcome to the third instalment in the series Choose Your Weapon. Today we are talking about the mighty sword, an implement used in human history for thousands of years. But no matter how long the blade has been with us, it can't compare to the glorification it receives in novels, films, graphics and the gaming industry. 

There is nothing like it in real life!

From the mythos of Excaliber to the wonders of Sting, Glamdring and even the Witcher's Zireael,  Fantasy swords are often written with an elaborate history and purpose. They are literally characters themselves. 

Consider Andúril, the Flame of the West. This is the broken sword that Aragorn carries, the very one that is eventually reforged from the shards of Narsil in Rivendell. Andúril, even when broken, is the mark of the heir of Isildur, but isn't it interesting we know more about it than the history of hobbits?

Why the Popularity in Fantasy?

The Fantasy genre, especially the subclass of Swords and Sorcery, initially derived from life in the Middle Ages, a time when carrying a sword was a sign of power and command. This holds true in Eastern stories of the samurai, depicted in Anime for their prowess, skill, grace and mastery in sword fighting.

Jin and Mugen from Samurai Champloo - CBR 2022

We can say that writers like David Eddings, JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis, Anne McCaffery, C L Moore, Tanith Lee, Terry Goodkind, Marsaru Gotsubo, Kazuo Koike and our own Helen Lowe and yours truly, helped to and continue to help fix this weapon firmly in the Fantasy genre. But why this weapon in particular?

The Archetype of Truth

As said, the sword symbolizes power, protection, authority, strength, and courage. The connection is obvious, but metaphysically, it also represents truth, discrimination and the penetrating power of the intellect. Take the Suit of Swords in the Tarot (Tarocchi) deck, a metaphorical card 'game' with us since the 15th century.

Keywords for the suit of swords from http://learntarot.com/less3.htm -  

The Swords are the suit of intellect, thought and reason. They are concerned with justice, truth and ethical principles. Swords are associated with the element Air. A cloudless sky, open and light-filled, is a symbol of the mental clarity that is the sword's ideal. This suit is also associated with states that lead to disharmony and unhappiness. Our intellect is a valuable asset, but as an agent of ego, it can lead us astray if it is not infused with the wisdom of our Inner Guide...

Writing Sword Scenes Successfully

I've shared my struggles with sword fighting scenes early on in my career, but will summarize again here, especially for writers just starting out.

From The Way of the Sword – Voyager Blog.

... (twenty-five) years ago, I showed my first manuscript (The Spell of Rosette), to an author friend who was also a weapons black belt. She came back a week later saying Brilliant story Kim but you don’t know shit about the sword.

Oh boy... as if form-rejection letters weren't demoralizing enough.

But hang on! I thought I knew plenty about the sword. I’d watched ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ at least ten times and saw Kill Bill on the big screen twice. Could my sword scenes really be that bad? 

She assured me they were. She also invited me to join her Iaido (ee-eye-doh) classes and learn the ancient Japanese art of the samurai. 

Over years of training, I became fluent with techniques against single and multiple attackers, against spears and armour, and horsed riders. Sure enough, my fight scenes improved as I choreographed each one from scratch and when I finally found a publisher for the series (Stephnie Smith as HarperCollins Voyager), her first comment was "Great sword fighting scenes, Kim."

Truth is, it's one thing to slip poison into a cup, or even brew a magical spell to control the weather, but you just can't fake a sword fight.

Do you have a favorite Fantasy story that includes a swordfight or two? We'd love to hear about it in the comments.

Happy reading and writing!

xxKim

Choose Your Weapon Series 2024

Poison

The Perfect Storm

The Sword

Firearms

Ranged

Spells

Unarmed

Curses

Time Travel

Invisibility

***

About Kim Falconer

Kim Falconer, currently writing as AK Wilder, has released Crown of Bones, a YA Epic Fantasy with Curse of Shadows as book 2 in the series. Currently, she is working on the third book, out in 2024.

Kim can be found on  AKWilder Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. 

Throw the bones, read your horoscopes or Raise Your Phantom on the AKWilder.com site

 

Supernatural Sidekickin'

Hello Sup readers and writers!

Before we begin, remember everyone, the Supernatural Underground "Never Have I Ever" giveaway is still on. Pop into the comments and be in the draw! 

This month, I'm blogging about sidekicks! I want to explore the qualities of a 'good' sidekick/wing woman/man, what traits they have, their roles in the storytelling and how to write them. Re-blogged from the 11th House. 


What Sidekicks Are Good For

Back story: A well written, three dimensional sidekick can help with back story, allowing the reader to see and hear about things that came before page one without wading through heavy exposition. We see this in Star Wars with the sidekick Chewbacca, where his adventures in the past with Han Solo help shape our understanding of the man. Also in the sidekicks C-3PO and R2-D2. We learn much about the world through their cometary.

World Building: The sidekick can represent a culture or social group as Gimli and Legolas do in Lord of the Rings. Gollum, a 'minor' character, but with a major goal, provides a talking point for the long and complex history of the ring. What life was like in the past, the roots of the hobbits as a people. He is kind of an 'anti-skidekick' to the anti-hero Frodo.

Contrast: The sidekick can have different values, ethics, goals and motivations, making for a contrast to the main protagonist. Damon Salvatore in The Vampire Diaries, for example, hasn't much of a moral compass. At all. His buddy Alaric Saltzman, however, does, and watching that friendship grow is a measure of the main character's arc and emotional evolution.

Humor and wit: The protagonist has to be pretty serious at times, playing it 'straight' as they work out how to fight the baddy, retrieve the lost treasure and save the day. The sidekick, however, is free to use wit and humor at times when the hero cannot. We see this in Buffy the Vampire Slayer with Xander (one of Buffy's many sidekicks). She may be in deep emotional angst and he can pop a one-liner that lifts the moment without throwing away her feelings.

Throw-aways: Similar to wit and humor, there are times when a scene is too intense, deep or meaningful and the sidekick can be just the one to lighten it all with a 'throw-away' line. Clive and Ravi do this on iZombie when Liv is too deep into the fact that she is dead, turned into a zombie and has to eat brains to survive. It can turn a scene around in a flash.

Freedom of Speech: The sidekick can say things the hero might be thinking, or wish they could say, but can't. In the Quantum Enchantment Series, Rosette has a sentient familiar, a temple cat who links with her telepathically. She might be having a conversation with a mentor or rival while her familiar does a running commentary on the whole thing, adding a new element to the scene.

Sympathy: The hero may also relate to the sidekick in ways they can't to others, allowing the reader to gain more compassion or understanding. This works especially well for main characters that are not fully sympathetic. Eric Northman's compassion for his progeny, Pam, is an example from True Blood, or Charlain Harrie's Southern Vampire Mysteries.

Writing the Sidekick

The first question to answer when developing a sidekick in the story is why are they there? They have to move the plot forward, be part of the part of the story. They also have to have their own GMC - goals, motivations and conflicts, internal and external. In a shorter work, these won't be explored to a great depth, but with novel length stories and series, there is room for these subplots to be woven.

In Lord of the Rings, Gollum is a shadow figure of Frodo, a kind of "anti-sidekick" representing the "anit-hero's" darker obsessions, passions, and also his instinctual side. Gollum knows natures ways, leads Sam and Frodo into dark places, with darker designs. Gollum's inner goals, in the end, aren't any different than Frodo's, but he still has his own history, motivations, conflicts, and outer challenges.
  
Further questions to ask when developing a sidekick:

• How do they move the plot forward?
• What do they contribute?
• Do they have heart or at least evoke an emotional response?
• Are their stakes genuine?
• Is their dialog strong and juicy?
• Are they redundant in any way?

When getting the story down, the writer isn't usually thinking of all these things. I know I'm not! Still, it's a useful checklist for the next edit, and the next.

How about you all? Who are some of your favorite sidekicks?

Writers, how to you approach these types of Characters?

Comments are always welcome!

Kim Falconer is a Supernatural Underground author writing paranormal romance, urban fantasy, YA and epic science fantasy novels.

You can find out more about Kim at the 11th House Blog, and on FaceBook and Twitter.

She posts here at the Supernatural Underground on the 16th of every month.

Her latest release is"Blood and Water" in Supernatural Underground: Vampires Gone Wild.

Writing Fiction vs Fact

La-memoria-de-los-peces by Chelin Sanjuan

Fiction and non-fiction, fantasy and reality, they have a lot more in common than we think. On the surface, they seem like polar opposites. One is real, the other not, right? But given a large enough perspective, both are simply stories that we tell, and those stories have a way of swapping places over time.

For example, we've all heard this one: the world is flat - fact or fiction? The answer depends on 'when' and 'where' you ask it.  In the 6th century BC, Samos, the world is spherical, thanks to Pythagoras. Middle ages Europe, flat or round, it's a toss up. 16th century China, definitely flat. Stories change. What's real changes,and sometimes imagining something new can open doors to its existence.

We see this all the time when science fiction that becomes 'science fact'. Here are a few examples:

Edward Bellamy’s 1888 novel Looking Backward introduced the notion of 'debit cards' in a financial era that had no models for this kind of exchange.

Ray Bradbury's 1953 classic Fahrenheit 451 describes the earbud headphone perfectly, when that technology that didn't appear until 2000+.

Hugo Gernsback’s ancient serial Ralph 124c 41+ publised in 1911 included the 'telphot', basically SCYPE, or video conferencing.

Jules Verne, who wrote in the 1800s gave us everything from submarines to lunar landings.  The Earth To The Moon predicted Apollo 11's lunar landing in 1969 - from the launch from Florida to the amount of force that needed escape Earth’s atmosphere.

And Philip K. Dick's 1956 Minority Report portrayed multiple 'fictional' technologies that have since become reality, including facial recognition software, personalized advertising and gesture-based user interfaces long before touchscreens and motion-sensing inputs became common.

The Spell of Rosette, a story about DNA,
strange attractions and other forms of magic.

One of my favorite recent 'stories' from neuroscience is that meditation alters gene expression. It means that our thoughts (mantras) have a direct effect on our DNA, changing our physical make up. Of course, Vedic masters have been telling this story for thousands of years, but now researchers in brain science are saying it's 'real'.

The notion of altering gene expression with our thoughts is the bedrock of my Quantum Enchantment Series, a science fantasy whose hero is a quantum computer who thinks himself up a Tulpa body and gets out of Dodge before they pull his plug. I wrote that before the recent breakthrough . . .

Do you have a favorite 'fiction' you would love to see come true? A story that seemed outlandish at the time but is commonplace now? We'd love to hear about it.



Kim Falconer is a Supernatural Underground author writing paranormal romance, urban fantasy, YA and epic science fantasy novels.

You can find out more about Kim at kimfalconer.com or on the 11th House Blog, and on FaceBook and Twitter. She posts here at the Supernatural Underground on the 16th of every month. Her latest release is"Blood and Water" in Supernatural Underground: Vampires Gone Wild.

You Plus One

Black Unicorn by Michael Parkes

You Plus One Giveaway!

Thank you for all your BFF contributions and testimonies. That lights me up! The winner (selected by a random draw from the hat) is thatoneindiecindie. Congratulations! Please email Kim with your preferences  - book or Kindle, 2 titles and address/email. 

Thanks again!

To celebrate our theme of friendship, in and out of fiction, here’s your chance to win two books from any of my series, one for you and one for a friend.

Paranormal Romance? YA Dystopia? Science Fantasy? Pick your pleasure.

This is the opportunity for you to win a book for yourself and introduce a friend to the world of speculative fiction!

To win, leave a comment naming one of your BFF's or a fiction friendship that you love. That’s all you have to do, and I’ll send the winner two book, or Kindle versions, you decide.

Click on a cover to read the blurb.

Let’s all take a moment to celebrate our friendships! How wonderful is it to have them in our lives!

Blessings,
Kim

 

 

 

 

Kim Falconer is a Supernatural Underground author writing paranormal romance, urban fantasy, YA and epic science fantasy novels.

You can find out more about Kim at kimfalconer.com or on the 11th House Blog, and on FaceBook and Twitter. She posts here at the Supernatural Underground on the 16th of every month. Her latest release is"Blood and Water" in Supernatural Underground: Vampires Gone Wild.

Happy Friendship!

Syked! What's New for Kim Falconer

Girl Warrior by Shurjo

Thank you everyone for jumping in with your comments and posts! The WINNER of the draw is Michelle! Congratulations and please email me (enchantment AT kimfalconer DOT com) your postal address so I can pop your book in the mail (if you want a different book in the series, that's fine too). Let me know! xKim

I'm amped sky high! So excited about a new series I'm writing. SYKED, you might say, and that isn't because the main character's name is Ava Sykes. This is all pure and natural adrenaline coursing through my bloodstream, keeping me up late at night and launching me out of bed at dawn. What a kick! This is the kind of thing that happens when a story takes hold, and won't let go. Who needs coffee? I'm already out of this freaking world, over the moon!

I'm not supposed to say much. Right, like that's going to happen. Here is the blurb for book one, and my working titles.

Series Title: Eyes of a Demon  (Ava Sykes Novel)

Book #1 The Blood in the Beginning
Book #2 The Saint in the Sacrifice
Book #3 The Savior in the Sea

When a girl with unexplained powers uncovers her past, she falls head first into a world darker than any imagined.  

* * *

Book #1 The Blood in the Beginning (Ava Sykes Novel)

Some things are better left buried . . .

When a tall man dressed in Armani, smelling of cologne and faintly of blood, tells Ava Sykes, twenty-four, student by day, bouncer by night, they’re hiring at a new club, she’s glad for the tip. The job looks promising, until the place turns into an underworld so dark it’s all she can do to keep from screaming. Ava runs like hell, killing the muscle they send to stop her. But when his body disappears before her eyes, Ava’s sure she’s losing her mind. The stalkers don't give up, and she finds herself in the hospital, under the care of Dr Miguel Rossi, a man who reveals her origins - Ava Sykes is the half-blood child of a Shen Mar, the vampiric race entombed beneath the sea. Shocked to the core, Ava searches for her birth mother, and the truth, but time’s running out.

The police want to arrest her, the Shen want to kill her and Miguel wants to awaken her powers. Ava used to dream of knowing where she came from; now she’d give anything to forget . . .

* * *

To celebrate this new vision, I'm giving away a signed copy of The Spell of Rosette, for all you science fantasy lovers out there.

Just pop in a comment about the last thing that had you SYKED and your name will go in the hat.

Tweet and FB comments get double the chance, so let me know if you do that too! This is worldwide, so don't hold back!

Kim Falconer is a Supernatural Underground author writing paranormal romance, urban fantasy, YA and epic science fantasy novels. She also co-directs Good Vibe Astrology, an astrology and law of attraction school.

You can find out more about Kim at kimfalconer.com or on the 11th House Blog. She posts here at the Supernatural Underground on the 16th of every month. Her latest release is Supernatural Underground: Vampires Gone Wild.   

It's all in the Name

The menu is not the meal. - Alan Wilson Watts

Back in the 16th Century, early critics cautioned against reading too much into a title, saying,

The title is usually received with mocking laughter and jokes. But it's wrong to be so superficial when you're weighing men's (and presumably, now days, women's) work in the balance. Good advice, but don't titles sell books these days? I think it pays to consider them carefully.

The purpose of the title is to attract, intrigue and compel. It’s the headline, the very first sentence and it must hook the reader. It wants to sound good, to roll of the tongue, but not be overly predictable or clichéd. 

A good title can have double meanings, though it’s best to be careful there. For example, Mouse Work’s 1995 title, Cooking with Pooh is questionable, though funny.

Catchy titles can work, like Big Boom’s If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start with Your Legs but that’s not quite the style fantasy and paranormal romance readers are after. Maybe.

There are other considerations. Titles have to fit on the book cover. I’m not sure how Crown got ‘Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam’ squeezed together with the author's name, Pope Brock, and a billy goat (I’m serious) but they did. 

Short titles can be preferable. George Orwell first called his masterpiece The Last Man in Europe until changing it to 1984.

I did a search and found there are rules to follow for selecting titles. Some writers ignore them, to their great success. For example:

Rule #1 – Don't use noun-adjectives, like Pamela Palmer's Desire Untamed (NY Times Bestseller)

Rule #2 - Don’t use proper names in the title, like JK Rowling's Harry Potter . . . right.

Rule #3 - Don’t use words like Lord, Magic, Moon, Sea, Wizard, as in bestselling JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, Ursula K. Le Guin's The Wizard of Earthsea, or Patricia Briggs' Moon Called.

Rule #4 - Don’t use adjective-noun titles like Jeaniene Frost's bestselling Once Burned, Twice Tempted Or Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games.

Rule #4 - Don’t use needless complexity, like Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

Rule #5 – Don't be ironic, like Kerrelyn Sparks' bestselling Eat, Prey, Love, or Charlain Harris's Dead and gone.

Rules aside, there is a website where you can put your title to the test. This program generates the odds a title has of becoming a bestseller. If it’s accurate, my next book is going to sell a zillion copies! However the Dead Until Dark, Charlain Harris's book that spawned True Blood shows only 10.6% chance of succeeding, so maybe take it with a grain of salt.

My first two books were named organically, like pets. Book #1 in the Quantum Enchantment Series, The Spell of Rosette was just ‘Rosette’ for years. She got ‘The Spell’ as the story matured. 

Book #2, Arrows of Time was named for the narrative structure. It’s based on the theoretical notion that time is fully symmetrical - arrows going both ways and around in circles. I named Strange Attractors before I wrote a word of it. The idea of ‘strange attractors’- a pattern that appeared chaotic until seen from the right perspective - intrigued me.  

My most recent release, the novella Blood and Water in Vampires Gone Wild, was originally the idea of a series of books in this genre (paranormal vampiric romance) called Of Blood and Water. Those who have had a look know why!

Has anyone a favourite ‘title story’ to tell? Is there one that particularly compels or repulses? I’d love to hear about it. Comments welcome!

* * * 

Kim Falconer is a Supernatural Underground author writing paranormal romance, urban fantasy, YA and epic science fantasy novels. She also co-directs Good Vibe Astrology, an astrology and law of attraction school.

You can find out more about Kim at kimfalconer.com or on the 11th House Blog. She posts here at the Supernatural Underground on the 16th of every month. Her latest release is Supernatural Underground: Vampires Gone Wild.