I won’t lie. Originally I had planned to have posted a lot more around these parts by now. However, writing got in the way, and then world-building, some map making, and you get a general idea. But in this post, I will give you a well-deserved update on Project Spellbinder—the upcoming Tales of Ylliora novel I am currently working on. 

In January of 2021, I had this concept pop up in my head for the second book. It would take place in the Confederation of A’shu. A place where magic is heavily regulated ever since the non-magi uprising in 1568 KR. 

A’shu used to be a kingdom ruled by a sorcerer bloodline for at least six generations. It is the place that the humans like to call the Birthplace of Magic, which is incorrect if you ask any high elf and human hubris at its finest. Among the human populace in the whole world of Ylliora, A’shu remains to have the highest percentage of humans with a connection to the Arcane Wind. The relations between non-magi and magi is tense at best, and dates back to a time before the civil war in 1568 KR. Therefore, A’shu is the best place to talk about magic. The nation’s populace resembles the full spectrum of opinions when it comes to magic, and it’s easier to spot members of the opposite sides within the same street.

At the time the light-bulb popped above my head, I was waist-high in work surrounding the launch of my first novel, Blood & Tradition. Due to a lack of time to really work it out, I jotted down a note and continued with the pressing matters at hand. Two months later I found the time to work on the next project, but then I ran into a problem. I couldn’t remember the real driver behind the original concept. I had called it “Project Spellbinder” because I had originally planned for a spellbinder to play a big part within the story. It would’ve allowed me to explain more about this outlier of magic practitioners. But it just didn’t make any sense when I gave it a second glance. I read through my notes and several blurbs I wrote at the time, but the basic idea just didn’t come back to me. So, I did the only thing I could do. I sat down and wrote a new synopsis for the novel, but after three weeks had passed the story still didn’t  come alive.

My writing process is highly dependent on the concept’s survivability. Once the main pillars are in place — with which I mean the protagonist, antagonist, setting, and general topic — I let the concept fend for itself. I let it simmer in that brain-pan of mine, and if it is something worthwhile, it will come alive. I will be able to see fragments of how some characters would react to specific situations, how that area of the world would look, smell, and feel, and so on. Three weeks after the synopsis revision, I realized the story in its current form wouldn’t be able to come alive. My creativity had hit rock-bottom, as I became too fixated to make it work. I needed a creative spark! So, I returned to the beginning of it all, the world map.

When I created the world of Ylliora it had a different purpose. It was going to be used primarily for a tabletop role-playing game setting. In my opinion, it didn’t need the same level of detail and realism it requires these days. The rule of cool was leading in most cases when dealing with the tabletop role-playing map. We just needed to have fun and many laughs at the table. There was no need to build a complete political system, with laws, regulations, hierarchical systems, and so much more. 
But Ylliora had grown up to become a full-blown world, and the world map needed to resemble that. The nation of A’shu especially deserved an upgrade. I had to hit the books again, and learn more about climates, Teutonic plates, political systems, and combine it all into a new world map while retaining the identity of the locations described in Blood & Tradition. The world of Ylliora is now a lot larger than it was before, and it has enough open sea to discover new continents at a later date, but more importantly, the existing areas have more soul. It’s less “Here be dragons”, and more “Here lives a people that due to their dry climate have to resort to a specific building material, and uses X as an export product to purchase Y from their neighbor.”.

Project Spellbinder will still take place in A’shu! The only big change is that the “Spellbinder” part within the title no longer applies. Considering the political climate within A’shu, it would be unrealistic and misplaced to use a spellbinder within the role I had planned for it. In 1587 KR, all magic practitioners are so heavily regulated, that their laws are borderline oppressive. And yes, the story will take place 32 years before the events of Blood & Tradition.
With the detailed map of A’shu in hand, multiple creative sparks started to pop off. I gave myself a clean slate, well for 80% that is, and I managed to create a whole new story. I had fallen in love with the main protagonist of the original concept. The new concept fits her a lot better, and it addresses both sides of this conflict between non-magi and magi more in-depth. It doesn’t feel as forced or ham-fisted. I always attempt to give you, the reader, multiple perspectives about the topic at hand. I don’t care about which side you will align yourself with in the end, as long as you had an actual choice to make. 

When this post comes online, I can tell you the first draft of Act I and about one-third of ACT II has been completed — or at least what I believe most people will call the first draft. It will require a lot more fleshing out, wordsmithing, and dialogue to come to life but we are getting somewhere. It took me a little over three mornings to complete the first draft of Act I, which shows there is a strong will to live with this story. I am excited to find out what kind of adventure the protagonists will have, even though I know what happens in the upcoming chapters. 

But another thing I learned is to get less descriptive project titles. Because there is no spellbinder in Project Spellbinder… Yeah, Project Tusks was definitely better when working on Blood & Tradition.

//Marc