Based on the book that sold over 2 million copies; Huston Smith’s ‘The World Religions.’ Find your true Christmas Spirit! As we move into this Holiday season and New Year let us create peace within our own selves and understand the Oneness in World Religions…..We are One Humanity, and breath connects us all!

See and hear Archbishop Celestino Migliore, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, address climate change in “The Lord God Took the Man and Put Him in the Garden of Eden to Till It and Keep It (Gen. 2:15),” offered as part of the Ethics, Religion, and Society Lecture Series.

The eagle and the nopal

So I am writing a book – the basic premise is a typical medieval-type fantasy world, except there is no magic – like in our world, magic is just a legend. The book starts out with the main character (Kael – a 17 year old boy) and his father trekking through a forest, escaping from their hometown which was just raided and destroyed by an uknown group of people – presumed to just be raiders. Kael’s father goes off to get wood one night and is ambushed, Kael rushes to the scene to find him dueling the leader, his subordinates laying dead in the dirt around him, and watches his father get killed. Here’s an excerpt to give you an idea:

Kael could discern growing frailness in Garin’s voice, “It’s too dangerous! Keep ba..” He was interrupted by a tremendous “clang!”, as the raider delivered a herculean blow, sending Garin stumbling backwards, and slicing open his shoulder. Tripping on a dead raider, he landed flat on his back. The warrior seized the opportunity, bringing his dual-bladed scathear head-high in a death swing. The blade effortlessly sliced through the body of a raider carcass, as Garin nimbly rolled to the side and back on his feet, oblivious to his wound. Fully using the split second he was given as the warrior dislodged his blade, he struck like chain lightning, delivering a blow in between the raider’s shoulder armor and neck armor. An appaling groan erupted out from beneath the black, ghastly helmet as the warrior stumbled backwards. With a maniacal yell, he threw his weapon, gashing Garin’s leg as he attempted to block the projectile. Bringing his sword back up into play, Garin charged the warrior, who had unsheathed twin scimitars. Three blades slashed the rain-pelted air as Garin jumped on his opponent. One found its mark.

From there, Kael wanders off into the wilderness on his own, confused and tormented by the loss.

Now, here is where I got lost. I originally had Kael meet little dwarf-like people that live inside hills (like hobbits) and realized I was being far too typical. So I wrote a section where Kael gets ambushed by this group of renegade hunter-type men who carry him off etc., wasn’t satisfied, so I had him get attacked in the night by a cougar, still not satisfied, and I eventually realized I had no idea where I was going with this.

The reason, I came to understand, was that I didn’t have a solid plot to work off of. So I generated plot ideas – series of events, etc. – stories of Kael’s father’s brother running off and starting a gang that takes over a city and forcing them to become a warrior league that he uses to capture other cities, in the process killing Kael’s father’s wife, Kael’s father takes a quest to find her only to find her dead body and a newborn son in an abandoned jail cell, and then I go on from there to describe a pretty typical fantasy battle of good vs evil story. But this didn’t really satisfy me – when I was done, I realized I didn’t have anything particularly unique or compelling.

It was about then that I got the advice that rather than just laying out plot events, I should first develop a central theme (or couple) that I want to relay through my telling of the plot – and that the plot will unfold itself from there. But I’m stuck! I can’t think of any compelling theme(s) (really) that I would want to use.

Here’s where you come in – do you have a good idea for a theme for my book? Or maybe an idea for a character? Or a setting? Or a race? Or a method of explaining some phenomenon etc? Share them! If they’re good they very well may end up in the book.

Enjoy.