Saturday 7 January 2012

Magic, dragons and puzzle pieces

Yesterday I finished the last book of the Inheritance cycle, written by Christopher Paolini. Most people know the books if you say the title of the first book, Eragon.
There was also a movie made but it pales in comparison to the book.

I have some advice for you. If you are a writer (or just simply writing a book) do not, I repeat do NOT finish the final book of a brilliant series at 1:30 am. You will not sleep untill after 3 am I promise you.
Thinking about the great depth of the Inheritance series, I thought about my own stories. And then mainly about one I've been struggling with a lot lately, it was still a puzzle with wrong pieces.
You see, there was one place that didn't quite fit in the world of the story, It had to be there, but it wasn't entirely logical. That piece was one of the biggest, and finally that night I had an idea that made it fit, almost and not yet completely, perfectly. I still need to change some details and add and remove some but the general idea now fits and I'm happy about the change.
That's maybe another advice I can give you, if you're not happy about a change, don't do it! In the world you create anything's possible. The hard thing is to make everything fit, like a puzzle of a million pieces. (depends on how deep and big the story is though.)

So yeah, at 2:15 am I was writing ideas down on a post-it note by the light of my mp3-player. I fell back in bed and I began thinking about my story again, somehow I got to another story of mine that was also not yet complete, and guess what, at 2:30 -somewhat- I reluctantly pulled out another post-it note and began writing, again, by the light of my mp3-player.
After that I refused to get new ideas to I just kept reliving the certain parts of my story, the ones I wouldn't change. Still, I saw the clock say 3:00 am, lucky me I fell asleep not long after that.

Anyhow, I can only wish that I'd be able to ever achieve such a great depth as Christopher Paolini, or Tolkien, for the two are closer by ability than time.
I only feel right to say that Christopher Paolini is, without a doubt, the Tolkien of the 21st century.
At least, until now ;)

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it.
(maybe I'm also hoping a little that the ones who haven't read the Inheritance cycle, go do that right now, go go go!)