Aculeo & Amunet | Karavansara

6 January 2014
by Davide Mana 2 Comments

Providing continuity

Today I’ll mix nostalgia with hype, if you don’t mind.

When I was a kid, say 15 years old, I discovered Robert E. Howard and Conan the Barbarian through the Italian editions of the Lancer Books collections edited by Lyon Sprague de Camp.
My first was Conan the Adventurer, and I was hooked.
Also, I decided this was the sort of stuff I wanted to read, and possibly to write.

The little hardback book had a wonderful dust jacket (by Dutch artist Karel Thole), and it came with a gorgeous map of the Hyborian world.
Then there was a fun introduction by Italian critic and translator Riccardo Valla, and then the stories.
And each story was introduced by a snippet of text by L. Sprague de Camp, providing some sort of continuity to the series.

Stuff like…

After escaping from Xapur, Conan builds his Kozaki and pirate raiders into such a formidable threat that King Yezdigerd devotes all his forces to their destruction. After a devastating defeat, the kozaki scatter, and Conan retreats southward to take service in the light cavalry of Kobad Shah, King of Iranistan.

It was fun, it gave me a sense of history. Continue reading →

3 January 2014
by Davide Mana 3 Comments

Writing Prompt – Ruins

From a Distance

Something different, for the first prompt of the year – a digital image I actually used as visual reference for the next Aculeo & Amunet story.
As it usually happens, I start with some image references and then my story and my description go in quite a different direction, but it is all right this way, I guess.

29 December 2013
by Davide Mana 4 Comments

Sagging in the Middle

I wrote a short story, a new Aculeo & Amunet adventure, over the weekend.
It was fast and rough – I outlined it on a copybook while my brother drove me 80 kms to Turin on Saturday morning, I jotted down additional notes on the way back, checked my facts before dinner, and then wrote the first third after dinner on saturday night.
Yesterday I went and hammered out the rest.
8000 words story, nice and smooth.
Sort of.

Fact is, my story sagged in the middle.
I had a strong start, a big wham-bang! ending, but the middle was highly unsatisfactory. Continue reading →

2 December 2013
by Davide Mana 4 Comments

Historical Fantasy – Fleshing Out the Background

Sometimes being too clever is not so clever in the long run.
When I first sketched my characters of Aculeo and Amunet, I was not actually writing a story.
I was explaining how to play fast and loose when putting together a very basic sword & sorcery plot.

So, when sketching Aculeo, it felt like a good idea to make him a veteran of the Siege of Palmyra, AD 272.
Sounded cool.

Fast forward 12 months, and Aculeo & Amunet had their own story – which is set in a swamp somewhere north of Menphis and south-east of Alexandria, Aegypt, AD 276.
Total background research required – one afternoon, plus one evening watching two old peplum movies.
Nice and smooth.

Another six months, and my heroes have their first ebook, a number of nice reviews, and their own series, with two other stories being written.

And here’s the problem – because it’s all right playing fast and loose when you are writing a one-shot short story.
But when you start handling a series, and your characters start exploring their world, you need to put down something more than six paragraphs of notes. Especially if you are using a psaeudo-historical setting.
The historical part is the one which requires some care – you can still improvise in the psaeudo- sections*.

And here’s the big surprise – choosing the Third Century AD in the Mediterranean area was either very smart or very stupid on my part. Continue reading →