Reader Question Day #45 – was Caina inspired by Frank Miller’s “300”?

Lollipop asks:

 I need some help. I want to write a book but I’m stuck. I need some advice. Please help.

Sure!

Bear in mind that all stories must have an opening, a climax, and a resolution. Every story has essentially three parts. 1.) Protagonist has problem. 2.) Protagonist attempts to deal with problem, while suffering setbacks, complications, and new side problems. 3.) Protagonist overcomes or resolves the problem in some way, with or without grave personal cost and sacrifice.

I also find that it’s a good idea to outline a story thoroughly before attempting to write it. That way I’m not flailing around halfway through the story trying to figure out what happens next.

The key to writing believable characters is to remember that real people frequently want contradictory things. Like, a man could want to spend Christmas with his parents or his wife’s family, but he can’t actually do both and has to choose. (This can help set up the conflict in the story.) In a fantasy story, for example, the protagonist might have a spell to save the life of his brother or sister…but he can only pick one. His efforts to deal with this can form the backbone of the story.

Your protagonist must take action (even if it backfires) – he or she cannot wait around for things to happen to him. Passive protagonists are boring. Additionally, a villain should not be evil just for the sake of being evil – the villain should have a goal that (immoral or not) puts him in conflict with the protagonist.

If you’ve never written a novel before, it might help to try a few short stories or novellas first. They’re good practice for things like plot structure and characterization.

Hope that helps!

N asks:

In GHOST IN THE STORM, Caina fights the Immortals, elite warriors with skull helmets and glowing blue eyes. This reminds me of the Immortals from Frank Miller’s comic book “300”. Were they your source of inspiration?

Good catch, but I’m afraid not.

Frank Miller’s 300, both the comic and the film, is a highly stylized retelling of the historical Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC, when 300 Spartans (aided by their allies) held off a much larger Persian army for three days. During the film, the Spartans repulse an attack by King Xerxes’s elite Immortals.

Historically, the kings of the Persian Empire* actually had an elite force called the “Immortals”, a standing army of ten thousand men who acted as the king’s personal guard and an elite military formation. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, when one of the Immortals died or was killed in battle, he was immediately replaced, thereby keeping the Immortals always at ten thousand men, hence the origins of the name. However, of all the ancient writers, Herodotus was the only one who actually called the Immortals “the Immortals”, so it’s most likely that the Persians actually called them the “King’s Companions” or something similar.

The Immortals in GHOST IN THE STORM are a bit different. They’re elite soldiers and bodyguards of the Padishah of Istarinmul and his favorites, but Istarinmul’s College of Alchemists pumps them full of sorcerous elixirs. The elixirs give them superhuman strength and speed, but also increase aggression and general sociopathy, and also induce that blue glow in the eyes. The skull helmets are an intimidation tactic – that way the enemies of the Padishah will see their fate whenever they look at an Immortal.

When I created THE GHOSTS setting, I wanted Istarinmul (and Anshan) to be based a bit off the ancient Persian and Sassanid empires, so I added the Immortals for the Padishah.

So I think Frank Miller and I both drew on the same historical source material. Since history is in the public domain, writers like to do that. 🙂

-JM

*Also called the Achaemenid Empire, named after the semi-legendary Achaemenes, an ancestor of Cyrus the Great, who founded the empire.