The Unwritten Novel #101

Some ideas you think are great don’t always lead to “that story”. I have this idea (I haven’t given up on it yet!) for a story that features harpies. Just to make sure the reader got it upfront, I provisionally titled it, “The Harpy’s Song” though it is a bit corny as a title.

It was going to be one of those crossover stories between fantasy and science fiction. The basic idea is that it is about a colony of harpies living on some weird world with two suns and fantastic fauna and flora. Hence, there would be sky whales, huge creatures that drift on the winds and use their tentacles to feed off what they drift over—including harpies, if they manage to catch them. Equally, the harpies also hunt these creatures.

My main character is the de facto ruler of the colony. It is made up of several tribes. His isn’t the biggest but through (backstory here) his cunning, he’s managed to take charge. The largest clan is resentful since until he took over, they bossed the smaller tribes. But what my MC has been able to do is to bring a degree of peace to the colony and hence it is thriving. So much so, it has set up a settlement.

The story as conceived sees my MC the subject of an assassination attempt when visiting the settlement and he flees only to be caught up in the very violent storm that is a feature of the wild environment.

Well I could go on. But this isn’t really about providing a synopsis. What I wanted to get across is that this story has a lot of potential. The reason it features harpies is that I was reading a critique of the fantasy genre where the author lamented the settings for most novels. Some version of Medieval Europe or Middle Earth. The author argued that fantasy was crying out for something different. Well, harpies are different. First off, they are flyers. Second, they look like gargoils. Yes, one could have pretty ones, I suppose; but then they wouldn’t be harpies, but something else. Sphynxes, perhaps? Also, as they’re not human, they should have both different behaviours and motivations. Tricky since if they are too alien, the reader won’t relate to them. My solution here is to give them non-human behaviours, such as a foul temper and so on, yet retain enough recognisable characteristics that they are relatable.

So, why hasn’t this novel been finished?

The short answer is the story. It just isn’t good enough. The MC gets attacked, flees, finds a lost tribe of harpies that evidence different behaviours to those the MC is used to. This is evident from his rescuer, a huntress. Together they set out to reclaim the MC’s position as leader.

I don’t think its that great a story, really. Hence, it languishes in my bottom drawer. In fact, I' think the prequel might be a better one. This is where the MC comes to lead the colony. But it still lacks something.

What to do? Great setting. A different environment with a lot of potential. Non-human characters. All these are most definitely positives. The weak link is the story. It either needs junking and with it the whole setting or major, major alteration.

So far, I haven’t made much progress with the latter; so it looks like this will languish unwritten for the moment at least.

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The unfinished novel

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The Black Company