Thursday, May 5, 2011

The Storyteller

So this morning as I was burning through breakfast, running late for work and catching snippets on the net, I came across a new post from Ama concerning her ideas about writing. I enjoy Ama's writing by the way but it piqued my interest even a little more today. Here is why, I enjoy being a storyteller. I love to read and hear stories from others, but I love being a storyteller, creating a world around me. I think it started back when I was a young kid, when I first read the Chronicles of Narnia, the Taran series( loose welsh myth/fanatasy) and the Hobbit. After reading those fine books, I wanted to be the one telling the story. I loved dreaming up new worlds and creating my own heroes. Time passed, I started playing old school D&D, I started living those adventures.

Times jumps forward now and I live in Azeroth currently. I still am living and creating stories in my mind. I love getting immersed into the adventures of both my Alliance and Horde toons. Though neither of the guilds I belong to are really RPers, I still get "into" by most beloved heroes. Of course, many of them die a permanent death if I don't feel them come alive. But I still always have a few here and there that I see come to life. I can envision them both in the heat of battle and in the mundane daily life as well. This is where I see them bloom. If I can watch them grow and ask questions as to why they do the things they do, I keep them. Some I don't revisit for quite awhile, others I watch regularly.

My wife hates this sometimes because I'm always bouncing around. Well she doesnt hate it per se, she gets frustrated. But in a way I am tasting the lore from so many angles and allowing Azeroth to actually come alive for me. It does live and breathe in my mind. So I often ponder, why don't I write about it? I mean I got a ton of material, so why not? Well, part of the issue I think is that I'm so busy living the dreams that I rarely find time to write about them. The other issue often is that I understand the lore of Azeroth is extremely complex, and where my hero actually falls in on it needs to be somewhere balanced between making a difference and not blowing the entire storylines that greater heroes have already been written about. So for me, it's been really hard to create fan fiction that is enjoyable to write and will get the interest of fellow readers. I could care less about money, I make enough in the real world. I just like sharing stories.

But then comes the next idea, I do enjoy writing, and as a wannabe fantasy writer I can't write about Azeroth. Why? I need my own personal touch. My own world. It doesn't have to be epic in nature though I often think on the grand scale. It can be small, one person and their view to start. Tolkien once wrote in an essay that's how the Lord of the Rings came about. He started with just one leaf in complete detail (the beginning of the Hobbit) and then let it grow, till he saw a tree and then the world around it. Interesting thought. Well, I haven't quite gotten to where I am going and it may take some time before I get where I can write about it. I can say I might regale in a fe written pieces of the exploits of my brothers and sisters in Azeroth, I'm just having too much fun living their dreams now. If you have read this far, thank you. Take my advice, write for fun but write for you. If you ever plan on writing for profit, make it your world, but write for your audience. Anyways, have a great day out there, and Happy Hunting in Azeroth!

1 comment:

  1. Glad I could help get the ideas spinning. This is exactly how I am in game, and it is why I make and delete so many toons. Sometimes they stick and sometimes they don't. For me too, it is the story that keeps me playing and writing.

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