Chapter Two, Who's That Pokémon?

I love cheesy titles, don't you? The best part of BNL seems to be the opportunity to create titles for the Apocalypse without fear of diluting the atmosphere (as this title certainly would have).

I mentioned that writing action scares me because I don't want to slow the pace of the story, but on that same token I fear writing waits as I need to make the reader feel the pause. An example of a failure to write a wait well follows:

Red waited for an eternity, then Pikachu came out of the cage and zapped him.

As you should be able to see, the above sentence mentions a wait, but the wait doesn't feel like a wait. A good wait should have sentences detailing it. Possibly parallelism as well, but multiple sentences at the least. I believe I created the proper feel using both. The first action that wasn't an act of waiting occurred in the ninth sentence. I used the phrase nothing happened twice, to give a feel of redundancy and lethargy. Yes, lethargy is communicated. Lethargic people are woefully repetitive.

Here was the first sign of a reign of terror that lasted for nearly a month. Firefox's spellchecker refused to accept the word leapt and it convinced me that proper English speakers would only dare use leaped instead. I prefer leapt in this case as it has a more powerful reactionary feel. If you think leaped works better you are not only wrong, but possibly suffering from a contrecoup. Please see a doctor immediately.

The sentence about a tentacle-beast seems a bit of a run-on. No, it can't be. Commas fix everything, right,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,?

I'm never typing that again. I feel dirty after such punctuation abuse.

I thought the abrupt change from tentacled horror from Rl'yeh to wet sponge created a delightful contrast, forcing the reader to change their newly formed notions completely.

Hopped was the wrong word for the way Nyoromo moved. It should be tumbled. Poliwag don't do well on land.

Note how I said some caterpie. The larvae grow. Quickly. Blood is very nutritious. Whatever it lacks, flesh makes up for. Yay science!

A poliwag's spiral is its intestinal tract. It's official. Nyoromo isn't starving. Much.

I quake at the thought of using hyphens in writing. I always think I'm doing it wrong.

Glorious Guardian is alliterative and thus good writing.

The ending makes me smile. Every time.



Does any of this sound narcissistic? I hope not. I'm only being honest.

Reflections of Recent Writing

I have just finished writing the third chapter of the second Tale. I invite you to see my thought process.

Wait, how do I title these? I should check.

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Oh, story number comma chapter. Got it.

Can a screen so faint it's all but imperceptible flash? No, wrong implications.

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Flicker! It implies darkening as opposed to brightening.

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I hope.

No, idiot, s THEN apostrophe. There are multiple shadows.

Does he type for the screen? No, he can point. I can imply age through finger description. Wait... I can do that? I love writing.

Wait, rather than enlarge the screen, imply advanced technology by having it approach the man. In midair.

Old people in shadows always have hooked noses. It's a fact.

How many words does it display? Three is a good number.

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What words are they?

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Oh! I'll figure out what it says, then write how many words the screen displays.

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Well this deals with last chapter, so the Speaker's fondness for regulations carries over.

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Is Speaker capitalized?

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I should check.

No? That's stupid. I should've capitalized it.

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I could fix it without a word. No one needs to kn-

No. I am infallible. Changing the word would admit fallibility. Which I lack.

I like the way I described the smile.

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Wait... tightening means stress. I need to lift the corners of his lips too.

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Is that clearly a smile? No, remember that idiots might read this. Cater to all fools.

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That should be Reoganworks' motto. 'Cater to all Foo-

Stay on track! You're almost done.

Ooh, yes. Mention how he stretches out his fingers. Details make the story.

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I really wish I capitalized speaker. It would so much better. Oh well.

The Odor of Tuesdays

The second chapter of the first of the Tales followed the same style as the first. This one, however, focused on smell. While the first spoke of buzzing, here I spoke of ozone. Things are no longer in pristine condition. As I progress, I try to communicate that something is horribly wrong with the world. Burning Fields can only be the product of some horrible event, be it polluting wildfire or massive funeral pyre. Then I tried to give the reader a sense of the alien nature of this world by referring to what I now call the Vortex. I make it an ever present spectre. I give death form. I make the world farther from the light in which you live, but I give it dwelling in the dark recesses of your mind.

Did it work?


And, yes. Today was the last day of the first tale. I was delighted with the ending. I hope you liked it.

The Sorrows

The Sevenfold Sorrows of the Lord is not going to be religious, despite the presence of a character named the Lord and the appearance of a Lucifer.

It came to me in the early morning delirium just before bed. When I started, all I had was the first line. As I wrote, I arbitrarily chose seven to be the number of kings. Then I had the Lord ask a question any Lord might.

It took me a long time to write the next part. I needed every king to have something different to say, something different to rule, and to have a name. I chose names I found delightfully archaic, and I chose lands that I could see people of those names ruling. As it stands, we have six domains (plains, trade routes, forests, oceans, caverns, and mountains)and Lucifer's prophethood. Each king was given a clear standing in respect to the others. The story is not yet completely written, but it's planned. I think I know what will happen, and be assured that it will be sorrowful.

For the Lord, at least,

Chapter One, The Lab

I began by describing the Lab. I saw it in a vision, and I made it be. That's what I love about writing. I can build a world with nothing but will. And I did. I spent a large paragraph on it, so that you might see as I do. Here I made sure to introduce the reader to the idea of the pokémon being feral and huge by saying how they were once domesticated and small. I tried to show that this isn't the pokémon everyone grew up with by mentioning that magikarp were food not companions.

Yes. Magikarp are still useless. I just couldn't make them powerful.

I placed the society on the edge of a knife, always close to falling, by limiting their sources of pokémon to eggs found in the wild. This creates a more maintainable universe, because it let's me endanger the society if I need a plot device. The Seven were a spur of the moment addition, but I was easily able to knit them into the universe.

I made a little inside reference to the opening of the pokémon animated series here, waking Red too late to make it to the calling. Unlike Ash, though, Red is sixteen. It would be stupid to send someone of the age of ten into the world. They would die. In many cultures, though, sixteen is old enough to be considered an adult, and I thought most people would be physically and mentally able to survive at that age. I made the hill steeper here than I previously had imagined it, in case I ever had a siege-like battle at it (I had little of the story planned out here). Red was awed to communicate the grandeur of the lab.

The Guardian was on the roof. This was completely for dramatic effect. Luckily, I justified it to myself by deciding they could see better from up there. Here, I also revealed that the Seven are neither all male, nor all female.

Oak scares me. Once a mild-mannered professor, he has become a muscle-bound leader. Here is a man who can fight off a creature made of rock. Yes, he's tall. Yes, he was adrenaline-fueled. But rhyhorn are canonically over one hundred kilograms, and in my universe they probably weigh far more than that. Also, horn drill. 'Nuff said.

After mutilating the man, I had him give Red a pokémon, say something vaguely ritualistic, and get rid of him. Oak does not like people. People listen to Oak. Oak > Chuck Norris > you.

I ended by murdering Red's childhood, just how I murdered yours by writing this piece. Satisfied, I ended the chapter.

Conclusion

The Lament of the Winged ended today. Its story was told, and it somehow was difficult to write. Despite its low popularity, I felt I accomplished something powerful. Nevertheless, I had nothing more to tell. Maybe one day I'll return. Maybe there's a world to be discovered. Maybe the story just needs to sink into the depths to become diamond in the furnaces of the dark. We shall see.


Note the tenses. We were the winged ones. They are the ascended.

I still have yet to divulge the thoughts behind the tale yet. I intend to, though. Soon, as it's ended, and obviously not eternal like the first Lament. Next week, we will fill the slot with The Sevenfold Sorrows of the Lord.

The Beginning of the First

I wanted to create something that could go anywhere, even though I had an outline from Light up Your Room for the first Tale. I wrote about one thing, using only one sense. Sound. The sound of humming wires. I wanted a sound that pervades everything; something that is background yet never fades from one's notice. I wanted to place a hint of madness in them, an eternal despair. I wanted to create an open-ended world, built upon madness, with only the sense of sound. The next few chapters were built by the same formula.