Channelknight Fadran

Author F shakes the narrator's hand. "Pleasure to meet you, sir."

"I didn't blackmail you to do anything." "Great. We have this soulstamper person, so we can bust them out." Fadran turns around to face everybody. "Alright, guys. Here's the plan: First, we break Mist, Eric, and Baahlan out of prison. It's possible they've been enthralled; I don't think we can save them from that, but we can prevent the holed from relaying orders to them if we make a coppercloud. From there, we need to regroup and start making the Portal. I can make the portal to Roshar, but I'm going to need everyone to either enhance it or do random magical things in the background. With luck--and a lot of it--we should be capable of getting everyone through." He sighs. "I just wish we had that gemstone... it would make this so much more managable."

"I'd sooner have us all captured than only some of us escape. I'm not leaving anyone behind. Besides, this plan only works if everyone's here."

"Great. Spin, can you tell us where they're being kept?"

"Most of them are right here, right now, but some are... in prison. I'm pretty sure Vapor was just released, but we need the gemstone to escape. So if you want to do something... I don't suppose you could break someone out of prison, could you?"

I agree. Lift is awesome. What about outside the Cosmere? Sparks, Scud, Blood and Ashes... whatever they said in the Rithmatist?

What's your favorite Cosmere curse? Here's a list that Truthless of Shinovar has obligingly provided: "Stormfather, Lord Ruler, and Colors, by Kelek's Breath and Kalad's phantoms, I will use all of the rusting Cosmere curses in one storming breath!"

"What?" Fadran whips around to face Spin. "No, this is bad. This is very, very bad. We needed that."

Rhea is a demon.

What I was saying in my last post was that action is conflict is a common misconception. I guess I worded it wrong...? This is actually a little piece of plot convenience I threw in for one reason: To have them sitting outside, cold in the Waterlight rains. I wanted to develop the fact that they only really had each other to rely on. I also want to build up a "life is easy" thing for the two of them by having a bunch of helpful people so I can BRUTALLY SHATTER THAT later on with a massive plot twist that I dare not mention here.

Is there a question you've been dying for us to ask just so you could answer it?

Oooh, cool! This thread already exists! I don't have to start one! I have hundreds to share... I'm going to start with the one about the giant man-eating spider, though. So there was this mansion place that I was chilling at with--get this--the Dursley's, that doubled as a restaurant that specialized is exotic foods. I don't remember what I ordered, but Dudley ordered the giant amazonian spider thing, because who doesn't want to eat deep-fried demon? In any case, this spider was sentient, and not particularly jazzed about being eaten, so it did the most rational thing my mind could concoct: Eat Dudley Dursley back. I honestly don't know how it accomplished such a feat, but I was out of there and booking it as fast as my own two legs could carry me. The spider wasn't exactly done, yet, and being a spider, it wanted to eat everybody (don't ask me how it would manage to fit Vernon, Petunia, the servants, the waiter guy, and me after swallowing an obese british kid who was literally "wider than he was tall," but I guess it wanted to try). In any case, I was having none of that, so I booked it to the backyard, where a bunch of people were setting up a scaffholding for... something. I hid out here for awhile before I decided to go back inside and find the spider, because... logic, right? In any case, I started sneaking around the mansion, looking for the giant man-eating spider. I decided to check a door to the basement, and lo and behold, I found it. I found the demon spider, letting his last meal sit by... watching Netflix on an iPad. It was the single most hilarious thing I've ever seen. It was even wearing headphones! Headphones, on a spider! However, it spotted me, and soon I was running away from it again. I shut the basement door on it, and that seemed to trap it well enough. I woke up sometime around then, but that's not the end of the story, because the dream repeated itself the following night. It began the same way (Dudley orders spider, spider unofficially orders Dudley and eats the child), but this time I knew exactly how everything was going to unfold, so I got out of there as fast as I could, and now I knew where the spider would be once it was done eating the waiter; in the basement, watching Netflix on the iPad. All I needed to do was avoid it, right? Right? WRONG!!! For some strange reason, my dream chose to derail sometime around now. When I was waiting outside, I encountered this group of people on horses (I'm pretty sure they were knights), one of whom was holding a large spider skeleton. In retrosepect, I have no idea what was going on there, but basically all that meant was that these knight people had taken care of the spider for me. How kind of them! However, these people were also looking for this five-year-old girl, and apparently I knew this individual. Therefore, I took this five-year-old girl and began to run away, because obviously these knights were looking to kill her or something, rather than... you know, take her back to her parents? My dream ended with Hagrid and I (dunno where the half-giant came into this; he just did) about to embark on a quest to save this girl, and then I woke up and immediately thought something among the lines of "that was weird."

"They don't necessarily have to be memories, as far as I know. I mean, Tchanta's not a memory... he's right here, right now. So to enhance someone else's magic... I have a vague idea." He starts nervously fiddling his fingers. "Try using us as a source. Kindness, Truth, Vapor, Eric, Ember, Nath, Baahlan, Ene, T, this servant guy, and, uh..." Fadran swallows his pride. "...me."

"So, Queen... I think I've figured out a little more about how your magic works. I think that the source creates the outcome; which makes sense, I think. For example, if your source was a happy memory, then your magic would create something lighthearted and fun."

Top-notch peer-editing! I like this one. You're probably right about my lack of conflict. However, in a fantasy story, the conflict is almost always some invading monster army or a big bad wizard--it's a cliche, and it's a good cliche. Because of this, its expected of a fantasy author to write in a bunch of action scenes with good versus evil in them, but I find it more important to develop characters first and move to conflict second. Not saying that you're wrong, of course; I haven't had any suggestions like that for awhile. I also look forward to seeing where my story goes. I have a basic plot outline--even a chapter-by-chapter map--but writing is as much an adventure for the writer as it is for the readers.

So I tag you while you're sleeping. And then you wake up to fifteen notifications, all of them "Channelknight Fadran mentioned you in a topic The Game and its losers!"

That's an expression I haven't heard for awhile...

Hey, I made sure of it while she was gone.

I have an idea, but I'm not one hundred percent sure of it yet. "Chill, Truth. That's just Queen practicing telepathy."

Lesson 2: WAIT, INTRODUCTION FIRST!!!! *Takes deep breath* Today, we Worldbuild. It is not easy. It requires every ounce of logic, reasoning, thematic recognition, and common sense of you person! Furthermore, if you do it wrong, people will laugh at you... unless you intentionally do it wrong, in which place people will just laugh at no one in particular. No stress, though, and without further ado... LESSON NUMBER TWO!!!!!! *applause* Lesson 2: Worldbuilding. So my lovely students/shardbuddies/randompeopleIknowfromtheFellowshipoftheThingthread have given me no shortage of stuff to work with. We'll be using these as examples for this lesson, and if you want your world to be used throughout the entirety of the... what do we call this, seminar?... then let me know. Maybe I should've put that in the introduction? Eh, I'm a teacher; I'm not allowed to take stuff back. So, as I mentioned in the previous lesson, there are five things you want to focus on in worldbuilding: Geography, History, Society, Economy, and Religion. However, because we're doing fantasy, you also have to incorporate Magic into it; or, at least, whatever you have that makes your world "Fantastical." Again, I won't get to all of these in detail right now, but we can scratch the surface. Worldbuilding serves three purposes: The "cool" factor, plot and character development, and realism. What I've been given from all of you is that first thing: The "cool." The thing that makes your world super unique and awesome. The second purpose Worldbuilding serves is for character and plot development; you either sculpt your world to fill in plot holes, or sculpt your plot to fill in the world. I find it easier to do the first one, because no one is going to look at your world as it is on paper and be like "they only have this worldbuilding thing so that this character can do that thing." That's another important thing to note; people can't miss what they never had. No one's going to know that the Iconar Collective once only had five Channelknights, or such a complicated series of magic systems that I couldn't keep track of them all--no one except you guys, at least. The last purpose Worldbuilding serves is realism. You look at how things work and what people do to make a world that make sense given the parameters you've set. You've no doubt heard of people that tell you that an unrealistic world is "dumb" or something, but that's completely untrue. A world that doesn't make sense can be fun and engaging; you just have to be careful. If you create an incredibly hard and rule-set world, then having an unrealistic setting for your characters will make your book seem immature and... well, "bad." However, if you don't set a ton of rules or develop anything, then a world that makes no sense actually does make sense. This is called Soft Worldbuilding and I am terrible at it so... maybe I'll do a mini lesson later on. So, I'm making this a four-part lesson; the basics of worldbuilding. You may have noticed that I told you what worldbuilding does but not how to do it. Therefore, I'm going to throw up a poll about which thing we do first: Developing the Cool Factor, Sculpting around Plot and Character Development, or making your world realistic. Aight. Don't die. -Fadran. Mini Lesson 2: Plaigarism versus Inspiration So you've got a great idea and you really want to write something about it, and then suddenly you realize that it's already been done. I have a magical portal called the Parallarity, and then suddenly I read Cosmere and I'm like, "frick, Perpendicularities are a thing?" I also have an order of knights that swear oaths to get their powers... geez, nobody's ever used that one before. You're worried that you'll write something, and some other author is going to sue you for stealing their ideas. Well, get this, everyone; that's not how it works! If we're talking on a legal scale, then it is possible to sue somebody, but I doubt anyone would go out of their way to do it unless you were obviously stealing. If you wrote a story about a boy named Parry Hotter who goes to Wartsgog School of Witchcraft and Warlockary, who has to fight off the evil no-nosed Dark Warlock "Holdocart," then... well, first expect no one to publish it, and then expect Warner Bros to start breathing down your neck. However, you can't trademark the contents of a book; well, maybe you could, but that would be really difficult. Rather, art things that people made are automatically copywrited; not trademarked, copywrited. Copywrited means that you created the painting, or the book, and if someone copies it down in a very obvious fashion, then you could probably sue them. However, when you copywrite something, you unconsciously make the agreement that people are allowed to be inspired by your works. @DramaQueen wants animagus-things; so as long as she doesn't steal the term "animagus" from J.K. Rowling and allows other people to also write books about people who can transform into animals, then she's good. By creating something, you have formed a circle of inspiration; you drew inspiration from somewhere, and people are going to draw inspiration from you. Did that make any sense? I don't know if that made any sense. Ah... what's a simpler way to put it... "Most people are nice and will let you write a book that has ideas that vaguely imitate their own." One more thing to note before I close off this not-so-mini lesson: It's better to be paranoid about something you wrote than oblivious. Oblivious people are more likely to run into something that someone could actually sue you over, while a paranoid person is more likely to be better-studied about what they're drawing inspiration from.

In my opinion, there aren't enough generic fantasies out there. All of them are super well-developed and original, and there's nothing wrong with that, but let's face it, good 'ol fashioned adventure and fireball stories are the best.