Works in Progress: The Blundering 7

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Long ago in a high school too close for me to be included on a bus route, I created my first fantasy series.  I called it the Race War where all of the races of this world chose sides and duked it out for supremacy.  It was a simple world called Mylrix that would eventually become Pre-Cataclysm Windemere.  The villains were evil and the heroes were noble with no flaws . . . it was my first attempt and it became a part of Windemere history.  This caused a problem since the Race War gets mentioned a few times, so I felt like I had to write a series on it.  The answer came from returning the heroes to their original forms.

The seven heroes were based on the original Dungeons & Dragons characters that my friends and I used in high school.  We had very little concept or care about the rules, so it was comedic chaos.  For example, the dwarf was turned to stone by a cockatrice and had a chicken phobia after we revived him.  The warrior had 4 intelligent swords and each one was twice as smart as he was.  We were a crew of idiots and that’s what the characters returned to.

How does this fit into the Race War, which is a horrible event in Windemere history?  I’m still working out the kinks, but it begins with the only surviving villain from the original version of the story.  Casandra is a channeler who works with some of the heroes to defeat the dragons that began the war.  Seeing that the other species continue fighting even after the dragons are dead, Casandra decides to side with the destroyers and work to cleanse the world.  Yeah, she’s driven insane by the end of the first book, which is why she goes dark side.  The heroes take on mission or get involved in various plans of her’s, usually by accident and foil her in some way.  I guess I wanted to go for a comedic series that also explained this serious event.

This isn’t too say that it’s true idiot zaniness.  It’s a lot of odd events and accidents, but the heroes aren’t inept.  The warrior is the only true idiot.  The sorceress has bad aim thanks to the game character killing our horses in EVERY adventure.  The elven warrior is really evil, but always ends up causing good to win.  The dwarf has a long list of phobias.  The gnome thief is cursed to tell the truth.  The priestess is addicted to potions.  The martial artist is a blatant womanizer.  Each with a major flaw, but they’re still skilled at what they do.  I hate to use this example, but Scooby Doo and Shaggy type characters.

Here is where the challenge is: use comedy to show a dark event in Windemere history without either side overshadowing the other.  I think it can be done with deep characters and not going too far with the comedy.  The heroes shouldn’t screw up every time, but they should have a constant level of ignorance and confusion.

So, has anybody tried to write a story like this or know of one?

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About Charles Yallowitz

Charles E. Yallowitz was born, raised, and educated in New York. Then he spent a few years in Florida, realized his fear of alligators, and moved back to the Empire State. When he isn't working hard on his epic fantasy stories, Charles can be found cooking or going on whatever adventure his son has planned for the day. 'Legends of Windemere' is his first series, but it certainly won't be his last.
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7 Responses to Works in Progress: The Blundering 7

  1. Jade Reyner's avatar Jade Reyner says:

    No sadly, so I am no help whatsoever… (what’s new!). But it sounds fascinating and I love the fact that you are still able to include all of your ideas that started this process off when you were a boy. Good luck with it Charles.

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  2. Papi Z's avatar Papi Z says:

    It sounds interesting, though with a serious issue like a race war, I wonder if the book shouldn’t be serious with a sprinkle of humor here and there. You could also eliminate some of the fantasy readers gripes about politics by including it in this series. This planet is rife with fodder to be “fictionalized” and made fun of. Just my 2 cents.

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    • War of the Tainted will handle the politics thing. Honestly, the Race War wasn’t really political. It started as a contest between manipulative dragons and then it simply became a pride-powered slugfest. Now, I’m not sure how comical this is actually going to be. There is a limit to how goofy I can make it before it loses all credibility. The trick is to make sure they don’t come off as inept.

      I wouldn’t even know where to start with the overall Race War. That’s why I’m using it as a backdrop for this one set of stories.

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  3. I’m not of any help either, but sounds interesting.

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