Fire Emblem Fan Fiction ❯ A Trip to Market ❯ Acknowledgements ( Chapter 3 )

Thank you taking the time to read A Trip to Market. This Afterword is simply a little something extra that I wrote out of enjoyment and for the pleasure of those who are curious into the creative process behind what they read.

Set-Up

This is my second fanfic attempt and first from the Fire Emblem universe. The road so far has certainly been twisted, but it has been interesting. As I mention in the introductory snippet, this story originally found its motivation as a school assignment for my Creative Writing class. An English Major I am not. Actually, I’m a Fitness Specialist (personal training basically) whose true goal is to become an Army officer through ROTC then hit Special Forces. However, Creative Writing is a required course and, more importantly, I love to read. Along with many others, I occasionally try to write because I can’t find what I want to read. Now this originally was going to be some original comedy, not an FE fiction, but for whatever reason (probably because of Samuraiter’s awesome One Year) , my muse hit me hard over the head to do an FE fanfiction and before long, the wheels were turning.

Pre-Writing

As a hack hobbyist who is content to remain said hack, but would still like to improve his writing skills, I noticed that one that one thing that really hurt my past writings was the lack of any sort of pre-writing, which generally led me to simply right stream-of-consciousness and force things when they didn’t work. It was probably because I got sick of pre-writing in grade school. In any case, I vowed to do more of it for A Trip to Market and it has made an appreciable difference. Mostly this consisted of me carrying a notebook everywhere I went and jotting down plot and character ideas as they came to me. As it is, I have a pretty substantial list of bits that will either never be used or incorporated in later fanfics within the same continuity. Initially I spent almost all of my time with Lucius. I pulled all of the information on him that I could from the support conversations (why he’s an orphan, speech habits, personality, relationship to others, etc.) and then proceeded to make up my own facts. Amy followed shortly after, although her personality and past were largely developed in-process through her interactions with Lucius and internal monologues/flash-backs, I did get an early base established. I knew from the beginning I would try and avoid common conventions. One was to write romance, which this is not and although it is possible that romance for these two may come later, I hope to never make a story only a romance, which is something fanfictions in general tend to do. The second convention is that I didn’t want Amy to simply be the traumatized orphan or the brilliant, audacious orphan who also happens to be traumatized. Although the degree to which her past negatively effects her in the form of mental problems (such as the smoke triggering bad memories) only increased with time, I always wanted to keep her as essentially a “happy” character. Yes, she has had tragedy and it has left its scars, but she is still able to skip along the road and make fun of Lucius without it being pretense.

Plot Development

The scenes from the first few pages have barely changed in their initial essence from when I first put ink to paper, or pixel to LCD in this case. Originally my idea was to place Amy with Lucius in his newly finished orphanage in Araphen and there they could have some sort of yet-to-be-thought-of adventure. Thus, the first scene where we follow Lucius was born sans Amy waking up in the middle of the night. This already being very much a slice-of-life story without any huge disasters or devious underpinnings, I quickly realized that it would be difficult to write anything even remotely exciting if I remained in only one fixed location. Thus, we have our two heroes going on a trek. Said trek’s purpose would be to go get something from the bakery. Said bakery did not last very long either because, sadly, there wasn’t much to do at the bakery besides get Amy hyped up on sugar so the local bakery became Graouesendre, which BTW, is simply a spin off the French words for “gray” and “ashes”. I used to study French so voila. Not only would a massive market place be more interesting within itself, but it could also serve as a greater hazard for Amy, who I had determined would be troubled by flash-backs/panic attacks resulting from certain physical sensations, such as the smoke from the blacksmith. My next major hurdle would be to somehow use these forced flash-backs in way to develop a crisis for the characters that wouldn’t seem contrived. This was probably the biggest single challenge of writing the story.
A big problem with how I ended up writing this was that I discovered pretty late in the process that I couldn’t just start springing these mental episodes on readers. One minute Amy is right as rain and the next she’s having panic attacks. Thus, I basically had to rewrite the whole story in order to successfully integrate her panic attacks into the story. This involved introducing her troubles in the beginning via the dream and waking up scene, thinking up how I could elevate her level of panic so that the reader can see a clear progression from the first inklings to when she finally freezes up completely, etc. Although I often enjoyed the results of the process, it was just plain drudgery at times. Nothing new for someone who writes regularly, but when eight hours work is your previous cap on working with a story, then its an unpleasant shock.

Voices

As a driving force behind this piece was characterization, I really wanted to nail Amy and Lucius as individuals. The actual Lucius from Rekka No Ken is, IMO, a very weak character…fictionally that is, gameplay-wise he’s a beast…yet, I was intrigued with his potential to be unique. For one, Lucius might as well be a freaking woman. He’s obviously got the looks and they make it so obvious that he’s got something for Raven that I’m surprised his over-abundant hair hasn’t caught on fire: completely, flaming gay…and yet, we have Raven being portrayed as mostly unaware of this attraction and interested in the ladies. Even more interesting, Lucius is devotedly religious. Since the religion of St. Elimine as an extremely watered-down Christianity, I assume that it’s not considered proper for this attraction. This opens up the possibility of guilt. I find this even more fascinating since I am myself what you might call a Fundamentalist Christian. This character then, gives me an interesting playground which I intend to use to its fullest in later stories.
::flameshield!:: No, I shall not be engaging in “gay bashing” nor will I make some simple love fanfic where Lucius either runs off with his gay lover or gets turned “to the lightside” by some hot chick. Homosexuality is a sin, but so is adultery, heterosexual lust, and verbally tearing down your fellow man. I fully intend to do justice to real life as much as I am able. ::flameshield!::

Another thing is I have a natural soft-spot for the (usually) wise, caring mentor. Sometimes I find the cynicism of the world weighs me down and although all people fail horribly at being perfect, I celebrate it anytime I can find someone, fictional or real (I’ve seen examples of both), who is simply being a loving role-model. I imagine Lucius being this to many people, not just Amy or Raymond. In order to facilitate this, I wanted Lucius to sound thoughtful and wise, but not be the typical “wise man”. To do this I have him explain things in detail and never use contractions along with the occasional insights into himself and others. I also gave him genuine humility and a bit of that guilty streak that I mentioned earlier. It is an observation, originally others and also mine, that the humility is simply knowing your proper place in the world and that the closer you get to true godliness the more aware you become of your faults. Lucius reflects these observations.

Amy now, she is a different creature altogether who is, nevertheless, a compliment to Lucius. I almost think of her a butterfly: a naturally buoyant and energetic personality who’s attentions flit from one subject to the next, a personality that dwells in a frail body. Her very fragility helps to make her more precious to me and to Lucius. For Lucius it is also a source of constant worry, especially since he might be one that we would describe as fragile. Yet, as I talked about earlier, I did not want to make Amy a cripple, mentally or physically, and neither did I want to make her the “handicap hero” a la Daredevil who routinely accomplishes the impossible when, considering their handicap, they really should not be able to. Another thing that I really focused on with Amy was trying to realistically portray what an eleven year old blind girl might actually pay attention to and how she would speak. Both were, I felt, vitally important to making sure Amy was not simply a hollow support for Lucius’ character. To that end, I have Amy using contractions in addition to shorter sentences. The cursing is a part of this as well, in addition to being a small comedic device and a nod to realism. Perhaps the most crucial device I used was the seemingly random changes in Amy’s line of thought when she became bored. Lucius’ little speech about “the sword lady” is boring to Amy as well and it isn’t long before she tunes out the rambling bishop and goes off into her own world, something I and many others did when we were younger.

Wrapping It Up

Because of deadlines set by my professors, the ending, and therefore the climax and resolution (very important parts obviously), sort of got the short shrift. Although I finished the plot, I am sure that I will be revising it long into the future in order to perfect the ordering of events and what I focus in on. Figuring out how these two different characters would feel when they were separated was a fun exercise, especially Amy. Like all of us, I have had times where my mind was seemingly wiped clean and all I could feel was a screaming panic. Smaller children have been the cause of this several times so I can sympathize with poor Lucius. What is tricky though, is the reuniting. I want this to be Amy’s big “confessional” where she spills the beans about what she’s been filling and I also wanted this to be her big payoff as well, when she finally gets those blasted shoes she’s been lusting over for who knows how long. As I finished the first completed copy exactly five minutes before the turn-in time, I never got around to a lot of that so there’s more for the revision process. Yet, I did succeed in one manner (besides getting it in on time) and that is showing their (NOT FREAKING ROMANTIC!!!) love for one another. It is almost a second climax in a way because it showcases that feeling, that mindset that one person can have for another, regardless of emotions. To me it is almost a repeat of the scene where Amy is thinking about Lucius’ voice, only on serious steroids. And though it can always be worked on more, in this subject I can rest easy.

Deleted Scene: The Inn

I spent about an hour and half writing this scene because I thought it would be a good opportunity to show how Amy is beginning to effect Lucius and also to reveal a bit more of his past and his tendency towards guilt. As soon as I finished, I made the decision to cut it for the sake of maintaining momentum. However, I like it too much to allow it to disappear without one last hurrah.

A quick side-step and a jerk of the hand saved Amy and himself from being run over by an impatient nobleman and his horsed entourage making their way through the crowd. Lucius fought down the urge to cry out and rebuke them for their thoughtlessness. He knew it most likely would not be heeded and if it was, he risked a confrontation which he could not win.

A sigh escaped him as he continued to work his way through the mob. He had always been somewhat timid, but lately he had found himself becoming more confrontational. It had come to a head almost a week ago in their travels. Tired and worn after a long day’s walk in the hot sun, they had been extremely lucky to find an inn before nightfall. The owner, well aware of the location’s advantages, had taken full advantage of their desperation and had demanded a ridiculous sum for a single room, not including a badly needed meal. Ordinarily Lucius would have simply slept outside, but his concern for Amy, whose was only just getting over a spider bite that had left her unable to walk for almost a day, trumped his economic sensibilities.

“Kind sir, I must beg you for a lower price. I cannot afford what you are asking. I have nothing more of worldly value to offer, but a few more silver pieces, which are needed to get us through the remainder of our travels.” The man simply stared smugly at him. He had been through this many times before and knew how it would end. “Please reconsider though and allow us one night for the sake of the Holy Lady”

“As much as it pains me to say it, your grace will have to find another place for himself and the lady to bed.” the man had said, aping his polite words, but twisting it with a condescending tone. It did not take as shrewd a man as this one probably was to see their condition. One had only to look to look their trail worn robes and the painful lilt in Amy’s walk

“I wish that I could accommodate you and your charge. I’m sorry, truly, but I am only a poor businessman and I have many customers this time of year.”

Lucius’ only response had been to stare at him, his blue eyes darting like a hornet over the tailored robes and glow of good health that no man in poverty could ever possess. Lucius had seen what poverty was: he knew it all too well. Growing up in an orphanage, he had lived off the charity of society, lucky to get one hot meal a day. As a teenager, he had often toured the country side with the friars, helping the, poorest of the poor. If anything had shaken his faith, it had been those lonely tours.

For over two years he had fought the endless battle against the brute ignorance and despair brought on by poverty and its attending woes: helping starving farmers gather crops that they must gift to their lords, saying prayers with young children before their parents were forced to sell them over to servitude in the hope that they might live, comforting those in city debtors’ prisons. Yes, he knew what it was to be poor.

The inn’s owner continued, speaking with a practiced accent that, for some incomprehensible reason, infuriated Lucius, “However, for your grace I might be able to procure some sort of special deal. Why, for only..” he paused, eyeing Lucius leather purse as if weighing its contents in his mind, “twelve silver pieces I can get you and the young Lady a nice single room.”

Lucius’ reply came with calm disbelief, but his were starting to burn, “Twelve silver pieces for a single room and not even an offer for breakfast? This, sir, is robbery.”

His only answer was a smile.

The fire in Lucius’ eyes was rapidly spreading to his face. He opened his mouth as if to speak again, but then suddenly closed it and became mysteriously calm.

“Very well then, we will take our rest somewhere else, but know this good sir. St. Elimine and her servants do not smile kindly on those who take advantage of those in need. I ask you for final time, please reconsider. If you do, then blessings shall be upon you, but if do not, then no pleas of forgiveness from me shall appease the Holy Lady when she seeks her retribution.”

The man started chuckling until he realized that the previous dull buzz of conversation had suddenly become very quiet. Casting a surprised glance around the hall, he noticed his other patrons hurriedly turn their heads back from when they had been throwing concerned looks their way. A few others were hastily making the sign of the Lady or silently mumbling, seemingly in petition to an unknown listener.

It was now time for the owner’s face to angrily burn. Yes, Lucius knew poverty and he it well. He also knew the superstition that is spawn of poverty.

Lucius sighed unhappily, recalling the incident. Yes, the inn keeper had deserved to be chastened and Amy had her room that night, but what he had done had been wrong, was wrong. He had played off of the townspeople’s fear and superstition of the clergy, helping to inflame the very things he had fought so hard all those years before.