This is the first in a new series of posts sharing some behind-the-scenes details about the creation and writing of my stories and books. I hope you enjoy them and if you have any question, feel free to contact me directly.
The initial idea behind 'The Burden of the Protector', my first published book, was vague. It went something like this:
A primitive civilization (or not so primitive) discovers a strange bench in the woods. The object is made of some kind of metal (or silver). It stands out. When someone sits on it, he or she sees through branches the summit of a faraway mountain. There is something on the top of the mountain, something to either protect or help the civilization. Or something else completely.
As you can see, there were many unknowns and many directions the story could have taken from here. It was a fairly raw idea. I don't remember where it came from, but I scribbled it down in my notes on July 25, 2012 (exactly as I wrote it here). Then, I forgot about it until December of the same year, when I first started writing 'The Burden of the Protector'.
I started writing this story from the idea mentioned above. I sat down with my laptop and the first scene I wrote was the discovery of the strange bench. The bench quickly transformed into a square and mysterious object. The protagonist had no name at this point, but it was a man. In the scene, he was scared of the object, because it didn't belong in the woods and he had never seen anything like it before. He sat on the object and as he looked upon the mountains of Ul Darak, I (as the author) saw another mountain range, one from a story I had written in French many years ago. This came as a surprise, a very good surprise. Until that moment, I thought the story was happening in an unknown and uncharted world. But the realization that the character, now named Dàr, was part of one of my existing worlds, Tyronia to be exact, was very exciting.
Now having much more context and background, another character came to mind: Vìr. He was first introduced in a short novella that I wrote in French titled "L'Étranger". In this early story, his name was Gigas, a name I didn't and was glad to change. At this point in time, I was already planning on re-writing "L'Étranger", but I had little details about what would become a huge epic fantasy series (yes, I'm talking about The Lost Tyronian Archives, of which 'The Stranger of Ul Darak' is the first book).
The themes of friendship and self-doubt came from some quotes I had scribbled down, and helped me define the relationship between the main protagonist, Dàr, and Vìr. After many drafts, around 10 to be exact, I sent the story to my loyal reader Gaetan, because I felt that something was wrong with the text, but couldn’t figure out what it was. As I had hoped, Gaetan found some weaknesses, some of which were important enough that I needed to rewrite big portions of the story. It was a lot of work and took a while, but it was the only way forward and well worth the effort.
I had the pleasure of working with Tom Edwards on this cover. It was my first experience at collaborating with an artist to create original art. Tom's professionalism made the process easy. I sent him background information about the story and two ideas I had in mind for the cover. I had a preference between the two, but thought that it was almost impossible to achieve. Well, this impossible idea is the one Tom picked to work on. He quickly sent me a first sketch, that I loved. When he sent me the final version, I was blown away with the details and precision of the art. I particularly like the profile of Dàr and the forest and branches.
I never planned to have this story be my first self-published book, especially because it was always intended to be an introduction into the world of Tyronia. My plans were to publish a longer novel, but that story was still in development. I could have delayed the publication of Burden, but preferred to complete the project and put it behind me, allowing me to concentrate on new stories. This is a good example of an author not deciding what to write, but working on what flows easily into words. I had a lot of fun writing Burden and expanding the world of Tyronia. My hope is that the story, although short, is half as intriguing to you as it was to me.
As you probably know by now, 'The Burden of the Protector' is a prequel to The Lost Tyronian Archives. It was published in 2016 and the first book of the series, 'The Stranger of Ul Darak', was published in December 2023 and is now available. This is an ambitious project, with many more short stories and books to come. The journey in Tyronia is only beginning.
Keywords: Dystopian , Fantasy , Life , Tyronia , Writing
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