Imaginary romance is hard

You can write sci-fi even if you’ve never met aliens, so why can’t you write romance even if you’ve never been in love?

Since I first started on the color magic story I mentioned on Wednesday, I have been writing pretty eagerly, and thinking when I was walking and so on.  Walking is the best time for fiction, in my experience, but the walk must not be too long, or my writing buffer gets full.  20 minutes tops.  10-20 minutes seems ideal.

Anyway, the magic is pretty fun.  I write too much exposition, which would have to be fixed if I ever get to editing it.  That is unlikely, given my past history.  I could pack more of the exposition into the classes of the magic school instead of the head of the main character, I guess, but much of it really belongs in a long appendix for nerdy readers.  I know one fantasy series – the Deathgate Cycle I think it was called – that I bought only for the elaborate magic system in the appendix.  I did not even read all the books.  But the magic system and worldbuilding were quite impressive.  I am more picky now. In fact, I am so picky that I am not sure I would even have bought my own stories, even if they got completed… ^_^

Anyway, onward to today’s subject.  Despite refreshing my romantic imagination with moderately harmless anime (such as Final Approach, which also happens to have a beautiful opening song), it is still hard.  It would probably have helped if I knew anything about romance in real life, but who knows.  Perhaps it would have just made me write autobiography. At least this story cannot by any stretch of the imagination be called autobiographic.

Wait, that is not true. People’s imagination is absolutely crazy. But I could not imagine it being autobiographic, that’s for sure.

The main character is Gren, a farmboy. He is strong and rugged, but plain looking. He does well in school because of excellent visual memory and common sense. Because of his good grades, he is sent to West Scandza Youth Academy of Sorcery, but he knows very little about city customs or the world outside his village. Gren is 16 at the start of the story.

His first friends are a pair of twins, brother and sister. The Henspring twins are slender, pale and beautiful, coming from a refined family of intellectuals and more lately sorcerers. When they first meet Gren, they mistake him for a servant, but because he does not mind doing some heavy lifting for them, they become friends when they realize that he is a fellow student.  The three of them spend a lot of time together.

The maid is 19 or 20, with a plain face but a sexy body. She loves to joke and flirt, especially with Gren. She finds him very attractive except for his young age, which is a temporary problem anyway.  (The age of consent in Scandza is the ritual of confirmation, usually in spring the year you turn 15.) The behavior of the maid causes frequent rumors among the more subtle city kids.

Then there’s the ambitious girl, daughter of a regionally famous sorcerer (who Gren has never heard of). She is smart and studious, and is used to being the best in her class.  She dislikes Gren from the start and it gets rapidly worse due to a misunderstanding.

And let us not forget the sexy female teacher. She teaches Green sorcery, the magic of nature, life and fertility. As a side effect of immersing herself in this magic, she has become magically attractive.  Se does not seem to mind this at all. She is however an accomplished sorcerer, teacher and healer.

I’d like to introduce into the story his childhood friend and second cousin once removed, too. (That’s one and the same girl.) For now, I plan to hold her in reserve until the start of the second school year, as she would otherwise simply claim him by default. She is pretty bold, she knows everything about him (or did, until he suddenly went to the Academy) and they have played together since they were tiny.  It bears mention that Gren’s parents were also second cousins, which may be why he got a double helping of their good genes. But other examples from the village shows that this is not always what happens when you marry relatives. The two of them may have different opinions on the matter.

At the beginning of the story, Gren is just a burly farmboy, viscerally attractive to some and disgusting to others.  But as he learns to use his exceptional memory for sorcerous spells, and begins his climb toward the legendary status of A-level student, people start seeing him in a new light. And not just his fellow students, but some of their parents as well.

Actually, if there is anything at all I have learned about romance, it is to not underestimate the role of parents.  Especially for girls.  You don’t really know a girl until you know her mother, and you don’t really know how she sees you until you know her father.  I have not found that information particularly useful in my own life, obviously.  But perhaps someone else will.