New Embers, New Fires

WorldEmber 2023

We are once again back to World Ember! I love this time of the year. I love the holidays and who doesn't love a fire-themed writing competition? or rather a fire-themed worldbuilding competition. Either way, this gives me a good amount of motivation to actually get stuff written down.

This will be my first year where I do my WorldEmber Homework. Maybe this will help keep me from burning myself out again. Lets get into it!

Week 1

Area of Focus

Currently, my mind is around they characters and story they will tell. Perhaps I could build up culture and the main Kingdom setting. Perhaps I could tell of the significance of a tradition craft and artform. Perhaps I could actually build the characters themselves. Who doesn't want to hear the tale of a depressed prince trying to re-discover hope in his life?

Maybe I shouldn't give away an entire plot, but I kinda really want to build this prince and his family, along with the symbolism and significance in their clothing/whatever other form of textiles I can fit on these characters.

This will be my area of focus:

I will build up the Crown Prince Valeriu Vasile and his family, along with the art and symbolism of Catrinel's textiles

That may be a lot of words that have no meaning to you, but they will. As long as you stick around ;)

My Pledge

Week 2

Mini-Meta

A mini-meta is pretty fun! I've already started working on something similar I suppose, so it'll be good to actually get to it and review it.

The Scope

For my current story and characters, it will most be within the castle of the Kingdom of Catrinel. Catrinel is a mid-sized kingdom located north-east of the Cyntal mountains. It's mostly a farming nation with an emphasis in textiles. The neighboring Empire of Dymitr and Republic of Electra are also a part of the story, but aren't truly visited. Dymitrian royalty makes a visit to Catrinel and theres a rather messy altercation with Electra, but the story takes place within Catrinel.

The Royal Castle of Catrinel is the primary home of the Royal family, but they also have northern and southern estates. Vali ends up visiting both.

Themes and Mood

The mood of Catrinel itself is rather colorful, but with a dark undertone. Symbolism is a big part of Catrinel, especially within all the textile works. What people wear and what tapestries they display show a lot about their character, or how they wish to appear to be.

Vali has a colorful and lavish life, yet he is troubled. Troubled in the sense that he is struggling with the weight of expectations from his parents.

False appearences is not the only theme I want. Actually it’s not even the one I want to focus on. I want tell the story of someone who lacks hope is shown how to find it. But how do I incorporate this into the theme? (This will be a WIP for now)

Goals and Inspiration

My goal for this World Ember is to develop Vali, Sandu, and their parents. I'm already working Catrinel's page, but there's still several things within the Kingdom that need work. My main focus is Vali, though.

The whole reason I created this world was for the stories I was inspired to tell. I want to tell stories about great leaders being shaped and molded by their pain. I know that sounds harsh, but truly great leaders went through something like that. They have to face the darkness of their souls, and break it, to find the treasure within.

This is a lesson my Bible teacher is has taught me. Unfortunately that class is going to end soon, but it has given me everything I need to know about facing the inner self. This class is a leadership class, but not focused on strategies. Its focused on how God shapes his leaders. We've been shown how many of the great Biblical leaders suffered to become leaders. From their suffering they found their purpose, and they found how to use their own darkness to bring light to the world. This is the kind of story I want to tell, how a broken is shown how to bring light to the broken like them.

Organization

Frankly speaking, I've already figured this out. I have a category for the entire Kingdom of Catrinel (along with a category for all the countries), which will have everything for that country, except for people. All characters go under the human or dragon categories.

Organization for anything relating to the countries or kingdoms: Kingdoms and Countries > Kingdom of Catrinel (or other country name) >Article

Organization for Human Characters: Peoples > Humans > Articles

Organization for Dragon Characters: Peoples > Dragons> Articles

Week 3

Homepage Review

It doesn't take much to see that my homepage is quite pathetic. I know its harsh, but how am I supposed to get people interested in my world when there is nothing there?

I guess its a good thing WA has a helpful blog post they linked on the competition page.

Who is my Audience?

A delightful question. Readers looking for stories of great kings, princes, and nobles learning how to be great leaders. Someone who wants to be immersed in a fictional world with great wars, dramatics, and, of course, awesome dragons.

Why should they care?

If Pride and Prejudice has taught me anything, its that first impressions mean everything. I know thats not the central idea of the story but thats all I can understand from that book so far. For our Worlds, our homepage is the first impression. How it looks and, for this case, what it says. So, time to create an elevator pitch.

Genre, Mood, and Themes

Cyntal is a fantasy world with little magic, but it is still present. It’s not so dark like Game of Thrones, but it’s not bright like the Princess Bride. It’s something more in-between, it can have really dark elements, while having bright fantasy ones to contrast. I want readers to be able to see how the characters react and conquer their faults, then apply it to themselves.

I guess my world is a sort of gray fantasy, telling the tale of kings facing their inner-self.

Core Conflicts

I already mentioned part of it before, self conflict. Besides that, theres some tensions between and within many of the nations. Dymitr is on the verge of an inevitable civil war, Catrinel will probably end up in a war with Electra (no thanks to Catrinel's King and Queen), Ragindolf and Volker might end up in war, again, and Maytal and Viktors are arguing over who deserves to have ownership over a trade pass through the mountains. Theres also great tensions between Dymitr and the Dragons of the Atoll, relating to the coming civil war.

Theres a lot of conflict in my world, it isn't perfect after all. It forces leaders to learn how to lead themselves and others through these conflicts.

Where does the Audience fit in?

One day, I want to people to be able to read a novel with all this in it (Well, not all of it, I'm mostly referring to the themes). They are like aliens to the world, they are reading and learning about it in a similar way we do with history or literature in general. I want it to be a fun but serious sort of thing. Like Kingdom affairs.

It could be Princes or Kings in battle, it could be assassins hunting the death of a noble, it could Princes meeting Princesses, it could be exposing the corruption of political figures, it could be someone standing up against the very person who could order their death without reason. Any of this could be told in Cyntal. Actually, I think all of that ends up in Vali's story, everything except the assassins.

The Pitch

Now that I have all of that, it is time to write the pitch.

Things I want to include

• What Cyntal means (of the character of Kings)
• That leaders have to face themselves to lead
• The darkness of the world and the darkness of the heart
• Which is easier to face?
• Which is the one you should face before all else?
• Dragons that can shape-shift into humans
• That Humans practically rule the world
• That Dragons used to rule the world but don't anymore for some reason
• Overall Humans and Dragons have a positive (peaceful-ish) relationship, of course there are exceptions, but its not like Humans and Dragons wish to go to war with each other
• That the primary focus is on Kings, Princes, Nobles, and political figures
• That Cyntal is not just a bunch of Kingdoms copy and pasted all round.

Things I don't want to include

• Specific Character names
• I have many story ideas, not just Vali's
• The name of every single country
• Theres 10, plus an entire other continent and a bunch of islands worth of countries. It would just be a really boring and confusing list

Basically, I want vague detail, if that makes sense. Details, but not attached to specific names or places. It has details that can be applied to any of the nations, though it may show up in different ways.

With all that out of the way, here it is...

Cyntal, a vast planet, holding all kinds in its gentle hands. It only means good, but it may not be easy to see it. Particularly for the Kings… All can be Kings in Cyntal, no matter your magic, no matter if you are human or dragon, no matter your status of the world. But to be a King, you must see the faults of your character, you must see the treasures hiding behind it, and you must face the absolute darkness of yourself. A test of character. A study of character. Enter Cyntal, enter to see the test of the character of Kings.

Cyntal, a vast planet, holding all kinds in its gentle hands. It only means good, but it may not be easy to see it. Particularly for the Kings… All can be Kings in Cyntal, no matter your magic, no matter if you are human or dragon, no matter your status of the world. But to be a King, you must see the faults of your character, you must see the treasures hiding behind it, and you must face the absolute darkness of yourself. A test of character. A study of character. Enter Cyntal, enter to see the test of the character of Kings.

Im now starting to think the font I picked for my quotes might be a bit to unreadable. At least it gives me an excuse to look at fonts again.

Update: I did indeed change my fonts.

Week 4

World Ember is here!!

I'm so excited I almost forgot to finish my prep! I don't exactly know how or what to prep. Following the ideas on the main page, I should clean up and prep my writing space and make a schedual. There were other ideas but those were really the only ones I could apply.

Preping the Area

I don't have much of a writing space or area. The closest place I have is my desk in my room. It's quite messy, but I can fix that.

I have heard that it isn't a good idea to work in your room, and you should have a seperate work enviorment. But I will say, my desk feels like a different enviorment. It may be because I'm hardly over there, or that I only ever work on it. It may be the lamp I only turn on when I'm working. It may just be the overall feeling. Regardless, my desk is my workspace, even if it's in my room, I'll use it for the work of World Ember.

A Schedule

A Schedule is hard to make and to keep. Its even harder with School. To work around this, I have set a goal to write at least an hour a day, 3 to 4 days a week. It doesn't seem like much, but with my crazy days it works perfectly. I won't set a word goal for each day, or force myself to work on an article I have nothing for. I'll write what I want, when I want, in any order.

Music!

Music is a big part of my life, and is one of the few ways to let me focus. To drowns out the background, and lets me hear myself. At least, instramentals do. Lyrics drown out my thoughts, but instramentals are just my own background music.

I've chosen an amazing artist, Alexander Nakarada. His music is almost cinematic, with lots of fantasy elements, mixed with metal as well! The way the music blends is fantastic. It works perfect for me.

You can find the playlist here, and listen to a preview below.

Conclusion

World Ember is here, and I'm so excited for it. I'm sorry if Week 4 isn't as nicely done as the rest. I had to redo it completly after losing all my progress.

Have fun and Good Luck! (And try not to lose progress like me!)

World Ember Articles