And to anyone who thinks that I forgot to actually reveal the title yesterday - I didn't. It's tucked in with the inspiration pictures.
Onward to today's topic. Books and other such that have inspired and/or influenced elements of Water Princess, Fire Prince.
Narnia. This one is obvious. After all, the series itself was born of my desire to write a better version of the movie. Indeed, I consider Narnia to be part of the same world system I have placed Rizkaland into, though I'll never outright state it in the books. Copyright and all that.
Middle Earth. This is probably where the elves came from. Not in a literal sense, because Rizkan elves are very different from Tolkien's elves, but it probably wouldn't have occurred to me to include elves if it weren't for middle Earth. Also, I learned deep worldbuilding from Tolkien, something I've put a lot into for Rizkaland.
Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins. This is a specific influence. Mostly I just stole the idea of a room of stuff, though I did use it as part of my study of fantasy prophecies. (For the record, I rank Underland's as being well-written, and well executed, but the books could have probably gone without, because they don't have a solid backstory imho).
Blood of Kings Trilogy by Jill Williamson. Again, a specific influence. These books are the reason I chose to split parts 1 and 2 into separate parts rather than switching back and forth between Andrew and Clara's stories at a dizzying speed.
Oz. How I divided the isle of Klarand ... and it had influence on the color scheme.
The Nine Gems of Virtue. This is a book my mom started back when I was a baby but didn't finish. I found it on her computer one day and fell in love. It had a rainbow world. I naturally had to steal the idea.
Tales of Goldstone Wood by Anne Elizabeth Stengl. Another rather specific one, but this series had a lot to do with my decision to make Laura the actual main character of the series, much as I consider Eanrin to be the actual main character of the Goldstone books.
Doctor Who. More specifically: River Song. I won't say that she inspired Laura, because Laura is actually based on a character I created AND RETIRED before I even heard of Doctor Who, named Sandra. However, while studying the show as part of my Sci-fi study two years ago, I found myself fascinated with River's timeline, as it reminded me slightly of Sandra's, and I found myself wanting to bring Sandra back. So I recreated her into Laura.
My Geometry Answer Key. I love math, but me and Geometry didn't get along (I blame the theorems). However, in the back of the teacher's book there was a story about how a 3D sphere was talking to a 2D square and trying to convince the square that a third dimension exists. And it was a rather mind-blowing moment where everything in my world system just clicked together and made sense.
The Nutcracker. Clara's name. I won't lie.
The Unicorn Chronicles by Bruce Coville. These books led to my obsession with unicorns, which led to my creation of the Harandas for Rizkaland.
Time for Yesterday. This is a Star Trek novel, sequel to Yesterday's Son, which are about Spock's son, and are a sequel to the episodes "Guardian on the Edge of Forever" and "All our Yesterdays." In TfY, Zar (said son) gets married - and I was extremely intrigued by the marriage custom of the culture he was in - tying the forearms of the couple together. Hence, my decision to create the Tying Ceremonies for Rizkaland.
An English Worksheet. So I'm heavily influenced by my schoolwork. I was doing an English worksheet one day, and I was editing (I believe it was editing that day) a paragraph about water. And I was so intrigued by what was said in this paragraph, I let Andrew give it as a speech in Water Princess, Fire Prince.
And now, Stops on the tour:
Interviews:
Scattered Journal Pages - Clara
Read, Write, Laugh, DANCE - Me
Writing in the Light - Me
Reviews:
Anything, Everything
writinganyone
Written Rest
Free Books! Currently, the following books are free:
Do You Take This Quest? http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CFDHFT4/
The Ankulen: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EZAXWYM/
Saffron’s Big Plan: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008HYS9W2/Attention! It has come to my attention that CinderEddy is not actually free!! It shall be free tomorrow, I just went and fixed it. I honestly thought I'd set up its promotion!!
And Water Princess, Fire Prince is now on sale for just $1.99! Get it while it's hot!
Giveaways! I have two. The first is a rafflecopter giveaway with the prize being a signed physical copy of Water Princess, Fire Prince and a bottle of Citrus Bliss, which is a essential oil blend of about seven citruses and vanilla extract - and as readers of Water Princess, Fire Prince know, that's the smell of warm bathwater in Rizkaland.
The other prize is for the person who leaves the MOST comments during this tour, be they here on my blog, on my posts for the tour - including the countdown posts I was doing last week - or on the interviews and reviews and such on other blogs. (And yes, you can comment multiple times on the same post, but there must be someone else commenting between your comments, or you must be replying. And constructive comments, please. Don't be commenting just to be commenting, or I won't count it.) I'm not entirely certain what this giveaway's prize will be, but I'm kinda leaning towards a chance to Alpha read book two. If so, if there's a tie, then I'll award the prize to both people who tie.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Funny. I generally don't like math, but I did like geometry- mostly because of theorems and proofs. I liked doing proofs. It was like solving a mystery, sort of.
ReplyDeleteBut my brain just didn't function according to that logic!!! I love math, the beauty and pattern of numbers, but I fell apart with theorems.
DeleteI agree! I love math, but never really connected with theorems.
DeleteAnd I consider most of your influences influences of my own for my writing.
Oh, and I should have the review done by eleven.
Alyssa
Theorems and proofs, yes! I love logic, but proofs in logic make so much more sense than proofs in geometry.
DeleteMy college calc prof told us that math story, and related it to how hard it is for us to comprehend Heaven. Thought it was awesome!
ReplyDeleteLove hearing about all the influences for this book, cannot wait to read it! So busy these days, though, just not getting as much reading done as I want. (Case in point, Do You Take This Quest is still sitting in my nightstand waiting to be read...)
I know I missed the sign-up for this blog tour, I figured Aug/Sept was going to be crazy (and I was right), but I'm so excited for you and your newest release!
It is an awesome story. I love thoughts that make my brain hurt. Although, it was this story that led me to retiring Sandra as well, because I made her a 4D person, and she just got SO complicated.
DeleteEh, you're forgiven. It took me forever to get to Second Son after I won it in its release giveaway.
Interesting list of influences. Even diverse.
ReplyDeleteI've noticed that you like using the word "steal" a lot in life... :)
Now I'm trying to imagine what WPFP would have been like if Part 1 and Part 2 were interspersed... sounds messy. :)
Yeah, I'm a literary thief. I always put my own spin on it, though. But you know what they say - "Steal like an artist"
DeleteIt was messy, and it was hurting Andrew's side of the story. I did post the first chapter of one of the drafts where I did that, though:
http://knittedbygodsplan.blogspot.com/2014/07/water-and-fire-chapter-1.html
Wow! That's actually amazing. Yes, the writing isn't as polished and descriptive as the final version, but those are intriguing ideas. The funny thing is that I'm sure I read that post way back when (can you believe I don't even remember how and when I found your blog and started following you?), but it didn't stick out then. The whole volcano/lava and giant waterslide Doors - that's a dramatic idea, and the volcano thing actually makes a lot more sense than the random sudden forest fire (I did think the forest fire scene felt abrupt).
Delete“'They sure made it realistic, there at the end,' she said aloud. Then she opened her eyes." That's such a perfect line!
I'm not good at cutting scenes and deleting things in my writing because it's all "good" in a certain sense and I like it all... my reaction to that post is "HOW COULD YOU JUST GET RID OF ALL THAT and rewrite it like you can tell the story ten thousand ways...?" But I get it. :)
And I see how interspersing them hurts Andrew's story. It just doesn't flow the same way.
Also, it's neat to glimpse Andrew as a younger brother... it just doesn't work. And Nicky... I mean, Nicolas...He's NOT Andy!
Thanks for the link! :)
Sometimes change is hard, but since that particular draft had stagnated at Andrew's breaking point, I needed to make changes. Honestly, I loved the waterslide and rockslide, and was sad to see them go, but I believe what I have now better showed Clara and Andrew in their natural environments.
DeleteAnd the forest fire was supposed to feel abrupt. That's how doors work sometimes.
Kendra was/is an interesting child to raise. Living with her, is like living with a dancing rainbow with occasional thunderstorms.
ReplyDeleteThat is a very interesting analogy. :P
DeleteIt's fun to read your inspirations! Especially the Doctor Who stuff. Hurray for River Song!
ReplyDeleteInteresting! I'd wondered if Oz had influenced you. :D
ReplyDelete(I got my days mixed up and thought I was doing my review tomorrow. Yikes! *rushes to post review*)
You've definitely got the art of stealing ideas working well. I wish I could do that well.
ReplyDeleteWow! That's a big...diverse...collection of literature and fantasy.
ReplyDeleteYou like math? Good for you. I'd like to stab and burn my books.
I just read the first chapter of the intertwined draft. Wow is it different. I like it, though I do like the final version better. But I love the part about Clara and the books. That's so me when I go on vacation.
I re-read WPWP the other day, and listed down all of the references that I could find. I think I got them all, and there was only one I didn't know......until I watched The Princess Bride (for the first time) a week later!
ReplyDelete