# Greetings



## Gold Bearer (Apr 20, 2017)

Hello forum.

I've had an epic high fantasy style story and characters in my head for a long time and I've had a few false starts in trying to actually start writing it but recently tried again and now I've managed to put something together. I decided to go the route of writing a short intro chapter for each of the eight characters that will be bound together by fate and I'll go from there.

I haven't done any creative writing before and don't know anything about it but maybe that's a good thing as it means I'm free to write without having any habits or rules to follow. I'm looking for feedback so I'd love to know what you think of it. It's called The Circle and will be in the fantasy section.


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## bdcharles (Apr 21, 2017)

Yay get it posted! I love a bit of epic high fantasy, I do.

Oh - welcome to the forum by the way


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## JustRob (Apr 21, 2017)

Hi aurum toter. You should feel at home here with your high fantasy, but first post some opinions on other people's efforts presented in the forums to get your post count up past ten and then you'll discover our world opening up to you as a full member and be able to post examples of your own work.

I enjoy high fantasy such as in Lord of the Rings, which was read to us in the dormitory of my boarding school back when it was first published. Yes, that would have been in 1956, when our housemaster read it and immediately realised that it was something special. That was a magical way to experience it, in bed with one's eyes closed just hearing the story being told and building the images in one's own mind. Who needs CGI?

I like variations on the basic high fantasy model though, such as _The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant _by Stephen R Donaldson, which combine a fantasy world with our everyday one, and Anne McCaffrey's stories of the dragons of Pern, which is actually a science fiction saga cleverly veiled. I also liked Melissa Marr's _Wicked Lovely _YA urban fantasy series about fairy folk. 

The few readers of the story in my own solitary novel, still under revision, regard it as straight science fiction, but I move it the other way eventually in later novels and introduce scenes with fairies fighting against a manipulative supercomputer and riding unicorns. These are people also living apparently ordinary lives in our reality though. Right at the front of my novel I wrote the words "The fairy tale has started", but I don't think anyone has realised that I meant it yet. There are strange spirits within all of us though, otherwise we couldn't write what we do. The art is in enabling them to express themselves effectively and you'll get plenty of help in doing that here, so dive in.

Take care with the structure of your story though. Don't indulge in introducing your characters too much at the beginning to the exclusion of telling the story itself. It is better to introduce your characters as the story progresses so that the reader has a vehicle to carry them through it. It can be tempting to think of a story as being like a role play game where one defines all the rules and pieces up front before the action starts, but for a reader the story itself is the essential and the sooner you get that moving the better. Also gradually revealing the many facets of the characters as and when suitable opportunities arise tantalises the reader, which is far better than simply informing them before they have any reason to be interested. As with everything here though, that is just my own opinion, that of a novice writer myself. I'm primarily a mentor in the beta reading forum, where members can exchange their full works for comment.

So, welcome and enjoy.


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## Gold Bearer (Apr 21, 2017)

Thanks for the welcome. 

My story actually does combine a high fantasy world with an everyday one in some ways. The way the characters talk to each other is very modern, no well met/thrice/this day dialogue and the people have very modern attitudes. There's also other modern concepts like magic crystals that are basically mobile phones and teleporters.

The intro chapters are written as part of the story rather than as bios. There's one for each of the main characters so that you get to see them in their usual environment before the story starts properly. The idea is that they wouldn't just be waiting around for the main story to start they have their own lives going on. A drawback is that the reader knows exactly who are the eight characters that are going to be bound together are right from the outset but I think it's worth it.

I'll read some of the other fantasy style stories and give some feedback so I can start my own topic.


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## Jamboree (Apr 21, 2017)

Welcome Gold Bearer to this wonderful forum!  

Never fear about the lack of creative writing before. I was essentially the same. As you can see there are some experienced and extremely helpful folks in this forum to help guide us (or in my case slow walk!) to greater things!


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## Gold Bearer (Apr 21, 2017)

Thanks. I just need to get my post count to ten now. One of my posts said awaiting moderator approval. Not sure why.


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## PiP (Apr 21, 2017)

Hi Goldbearer and welcome to WF and our creative community.


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## Bard_Daniel (Apr 21, 2017)

Welcome to the forum! I'm looking forward to see what you will share in addition to what you will critique.

Cheers!


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## Gold Bearer (Apr 21, 2017)

Thank you for the welcomes. I can now post my intro chapters. 

Edit:
No I can't. Ten posts but I still can't start a topic. Maybe it takes a little while or maybe a moderator has to clear it. I'll try logging off and back on again.


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## Ptolemy (Apr 21, 2017)

Gold Bearer said:


> Thank you for the welcomes. I can now post my intro chapters.
> 
> Edit:
> No I can't. Ten posts but I still can't start a topic. Maybe it takes a little while or maybe a moderator has to clear it. I'll try logging off and back on again.



Looks like you good now, green name = workshop access.


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## Gold Bearer (Apr 21, 2017)

Yep, that did it. 

http://www.writingforums.com/threads/171435-The-Circle?p=2078079#post2078079


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## MadMickyG (Apr 23, 2017)

I'm getting there.  Need to get ready for work, but will be adding this site to be Firefox browser, so I can keep posting until I'm allowed to share/post some of my stories.

This makes 4.  

See you all in the funny pages.  Seriously, I live in the funny pages.


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## Matt Styles Illistrada (Apr 27, 2017)

Looking forward to hearing some


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