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Fiction
Dathril
(a writing exercize)
A few words of explanation and instruction:
This is the fruit of a writing exercise I developed a while back, though I've sadly not gotten back to it in a while. The exercise works like this: write a "seed" scene, something that sounds as if it could be an excerpt from a completed story, but don't plan or think too much--just basically make it up as you go along. Re-read that "seed" scene once you've finished and write a list of questions the scene raises for you, things you'd like to know more about. Pick a question from that list, something that particularly intrigues you, and write another scene as an "answer" to that question--another scene that seems as though it could have been excerpted from a completed story, and that illustrates or somehow answers the question you're asking.
From there, you can proceed down your list of questions and write more "answer" scenes, or you can make a new list of questions based on the new scene and write "answer" scenes from those questions. In fact, you should probably do both. Each time you write a scene in answer to a question, you've created the possibility for several more questions based on that new scene, so the exercise multiplies exponentially and works as a sort of web of "seed" scenes and "answer" scenes.
This exercise can help you flesh out a character (or several characters), and it can also help you flesh out a plot and its details. You can use this exercise merely as a starting point until you've given yourself a solid foundation on a story and its characters, which you can write starting from scratch using the exercise as "source material" or "notes," or you can even construct an entire story by "stitching together" these scenes into a coherent and complete story, rewriting, editing, and adding where necessary for flow and continuity.
The character I used in this exercise ended up becoming the protagonist for a novel idea I've had banging around my head for a long time. I had known since I came up with the novel idea that the protagonist was a thief/rogue sort of character--a drifter wit h a chip on his shoulder, a set of sticky fingers, and a surprising hint of a moral center for someone in his, erm, line of work. But I didn't know anything else about him--I didn't even know his name.
I actually wrote the original "seed" scene in this exercise in response to a completely different writing exercise for an online writing class I was in at the time, and shortly after I'd written it, I knew that the character I'd written about was the protagonist from the novel idea I'd had in mind. It was a little while after that that I created the "scene webbing" exercise outlined above (which other writers have probably already tried in some form--it's not really that mind-blowing an idea, I've simply never heard of it before from anyone else), and I chose that old scene as my "seed" scene to begin exploring a bit more about the character. And the rest is history.
A "seed" scene:
The damp leaves crunched and crackled under Dathril's boots as he slowly made his way through the creaking trees, each of which was edged in faint silver light before fading into blackest shadow. He hadn't brought a torch so as to keep his approach secret, so the dim and half-covered moon was his only guide through the dense thicket of trees and underbrush and other unknown silhouettes that he kept a good distance away. It had rained all evening, and the rainsoaked lea ves underfoot had a damp mustiness about them, the sickening sweetness of decay and rot and things better left out of mind. The dimness of the moonlight made it difficult enough, but every breath brought a billowing cloud of mist right in front of his eyes and his shivering unsteadied his vision. A creaking pop behind him made him reach reflexively for the sword at his hip as he stopped still and silent, listening. He held the supple, comforting leather of the hilt tightly as he peered around, remembering the last time he was ambushed, and still tasting the bitter blood and bile that h ad welled up in his mouth from the dagger to his gut, an incident he'd just as well not repeat. His knuckles ached from his grip on the sword, but he held tight and waited.
Questions:
What happened the last time Dathril was ambushed?
Hiding in the corridor, Dathril measured his breathing and kept his body so rigidly still he might have looked like a statue if he could have been seen at all. He heard raised voices coming from the large room ahead, but he dared not venture any closer. Instead, he focused all his mind on those angry voices and listened hard.
"You've been stacking the bets, Kirgan-don't think I haven't noticed!" said the burly voice of one man. "But that's not what angers me, since I never held any sentimentality toward running a lawful establishment. What angers me, Kirgan, is that you've been stacking the bets and then awarding yourself all the overflow, leaving me completely out of the loop!"
"Ah, yes, sir...I, ah...," stammered the voice of another man, though this voice was thinner and oilier.
"And on top of it all, Kirgan, I've discovered that a number of items are missing from my offices, and I've heard tell of similar items being sold by Damerge's quite recently. Besides myself, you are the only living soul with a key to my offices."
"But sir, I would never...that is to say, I couldn't have...." The thinner voice was rapidly increasing in pitch.
"I cannot simply let a thing like this go, Kirgan. They'll think I've gone soft, and then every jack in town would be trying to take advantage of me."
"B-but sir, you couldn't possibly harm me--I am promised to your sister. I am nearly your own family...."
"I'd do in my own mother if she overstepped the bounds, but she's smart enough to know better. You, my boy, obviously are not, in which case you would have made my sister a very miserable lady-and I'd simply have to take care of you at some point in the future for that. This is a win-win situation, friend. Well, for everyone but you--but then, it was your own stupidity that got you here. Galdean!"
This last the burly man shouted quite loud, and in response, a new voice answered.
"Yes sir?"
"Take Mr. Kirgan here down to the cellars for a bit of stretching. If your men get a bit...carried away, and a limb happens to pop off, just toss it to the dogs, they're probably quite hungry. When you've finished with him, tie a block round his neck, toss him in the river, and get him out of my sight."
"Certainly sir!" said the new voice with a bit more excitement than Dathril was comfortable hearing under the circumstances. There were sounds of a slight struggle, Kirgan's thin, oily shreaks of protest, and finally the heavy closing of a stone door. Dathril listened very closely to determine whether the burly-voiced man was still in the room. A few heavy footsteps on the stone floor told him the room was indeed still occupied, so he settled himself in to wait.
No sooner than he had shifted his weight slightly from his rigid position, he realized he was not alone. Half a second later, he felt a dagger sink into his stomach like a slab of ice, his knees failing him. He looked up into the face of his attacker and felt a wave of surprise surge through him as he peered into the eyes--feminine eyes. The lower half of the face was covered, but the eyes were unmistakably those of a woman, pale blue-grey and hard. He tasted the blood as it welled into his mouth, mingled with bitter bile from his impaled innards. He slowly slid down the stone wall and collapsed into a bleeding heap on the cold floor. His attacker crept quickly away with the ease of a cat and approached the room Dathril had been listening near, finally disappearing out of his darkening sight. He was on the verge of blacking out, but he fought the waves of inviting darkness as hard as he could. He got unsteadily to his feet and weakly made his way through the shadows, back out the way he'd come in.
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