Writing an Interwoven Tale

There are many different approaches to story telling, and not every story necessarily lends itself equally to all approaches. How a story is told is often integral to the experience of that story by the audience - and is part of what the author must decide upon when they go to write that tale.

Many works of fiction, including fantasy fiction, will be focused on the story as experienced by a single, individual character, or sometimes by two leading characters. This approach allows the readers to experience a closer, more intimate portrait of these one or two characters. The audience will naturally tend to grow that much more attached to them in the process. My own short stories (which can be accessed on my blogsite) similarly exercise this writing approach.

For the Stormfall Chronicles, however, the story which I was attempting to convey required a much broader cast of characters - wider than that found in many of its counterparts today. True, there are the main characters, Baxter and Lynette who reappear throughout the story. But there's also a broad selection of supporting characters, from the gnome Eirlon, to the mage-turned-swordsman Garth, to the fae princess Elise, and many others.

This was not a haphazard decision, but an outgrowth of the story which I was trying to convey. Like our real life world, I wanted this story to reflect the complex, interwoven tapestry of people and events. A world where many different threads will combine and interweave to form a broader picture, and where no single thread could claim to represent the overall pattern of the tapestry. True, there will be some which will stand out more prominently than others. But they were all required to make the picture complete. Like a grand orchestra, from the violin to the bass, and from the flute to the trumpet, every participant contributes to the larger melody.

This is not to say that I do not appreciate stories that are more narrowly focused onto one or two leading characters. Quite the contrary - I very much appreciate many stories that happen to follow that paradigm. For the retelling of a great many tales, this approach is aptly suited.

For the Stormfall Chronicles, however, I needed to convey the epic sweep of the tale. It was therefore essential that I relay some sense for the many individuals who both experience and participate in the broader chain of events. This was not an accident, but a choice.