Maintaining this blog stands among my highest priorities, yet it is imperative that I continue to work on my story.
Being that it will be my first substantial endeavor in narrative writing, it’s funny that it should be an epic. Usually an epic is something that a writer builds up to within his or her career–something that follows a series of shorter, single-volume pieces. This story will not merely be epic in length, however. It will be so in nearly every sense of the word, from its focus on the themes of the hero’s journey and good versus evil, to its descriptions of elaborate and expansive settings.
Its evolution has been slower than I could have imagined. I wrote the first few sentences a little more than a year ago, as I was finishing my junior year in college, and I had roughly 30 pages completed two months ago. The exact sequence of events within the narrative has proven somewhat difficult to at least get down on paper. I have merely a rough outline of how the story will begin and of how it will end. Yet even the beginning I find to be somewhat foggy–particularly, how the protagonists first meet.
That may be one of this story’s most distinguishing features. That is, the fact that there are several protagonists, several epic heroes on their own separate journeys. There is, nonetheless, one that is featured more prominently than the others.
What I do have is a clear idea of who these characters are, along with their respective motivations throughout the story.
Thus far, the most difficult character to develop is the main, or most featured, protagonist. This may prove to be among the most difficult of trials I am forced to endure as a writer. Perhaps it is natural that a character of such importance to the narrative seems the most complicated, both to me and perhaps to my readers.
This character, this hero. His name is Michael Phoenix.
I have come to a general conclusion that Michael will begin as something of a free-spirited, or freewheelin’ (I just like that expression) ragamuffin of sorts (another word I like very much).
“The ragamuffin’ gunner is returnin’ home, like a hungry runaway. He walks through town all alone. ‘He must from the fort,’ he hears the high-school girls say.”
Anyway
Michael Phoenix, he currently strikes me as something of a James Dean meets Steve McQueen sort of reckless wanderer. My hungry runaway. He is thrust into a series of circumstances that eventually catapults him into being the primary hero of the story.
Yet, in the end, only one of what may turn out to be four epic heroes.
Therefore, he cannot be the character of the highest interest and significance merely because he is featured most prominently.
I have been considering the idea of writing his point of view in the first person. Perhaps this might make relating to him easier for readers, much like it is with the young Jim Hawkins, the hero of ‘Treasure Island’.
**This entry being the first concerning the adventures or Michael Phonenix, all further entries regarding the subject shall be dubbed ‘Epic’**
Ren Michael 