Story History

For those of you who know me - and even those of you who don't - this oughta be interesting.

I am working on a major story project, codename 'Sparkle' - this project is a super-epic series of sixteen books, comprised of four different sets of books. The overall 'Sparkle' series name is 'Wizard`s Way' (the actual title, not a 'working title'), with the four subseries being 'The Chosen' (set of five), 'Friendship`s Way' (set of three), 'Children of the Chosen' (set of five), and 'End of Time' (set of three).

The books for 'The Chosen' are (in order) 'Stonecrafter', 'Stormwatcher', 'Earthweaver', 'Fireshaper', and 'Lightmaker'.
The books for 'Friendship`s Way' are (in order) 'Grondohan', 'Ocean of Sand', and 'Barvazhan'.
The books for 'Children of the Chosen' are (in order) 'Traveler', 'Prophetess', 'Wizard', 'Land of the Elves', and 'Land of Death'.
The books for 'End of Time' are (in order) 'Time of Trouble(working title)', 'The Final War', and 'End of Days'.

Now that you've seen the absolute monstrosity of it all, let's see how it all began.

In 2002 I came up with the idea for a boy from our world, by the name of Ryan, who was thrown (by the power of a stone with a flame inscribed on it) into another world filled with nymphs, centaurs, talking beasts, and vicious men who were out to destroy said creatures. A prophecy told the animals that four companions with powers would join together to destroy the evil and restore the land to its previous peacefulness. Ryan was the fourth, and the most powerful, with the power of fire (the others had plants/healing, water/storm, and stone/earth). He had to go on a quest to retrieve the Sword of Ages, with which he could defeat the enemy's most powerful fighter, a mage by the name of Romayin. This series was named (working title) Firestone: Ages, project name 'Starstone'.

Although certain philosophical problems could not work out, a great many elements worked their way into another story idea which followed. The project was codenamed 'Startrip', and the series was named 'Reymai'. The idea was fairly complicated, with a great many philosophical issues and theological analogies. It revolved around a boy named Martin, who was destined to free his country from an evil king, his wizard friend, and their mercenary army. With the help of the Three, three prophetesses destined to wield the Fireswords, Martin was able to overcome the enemy and throw them out, but died in the process. Since I couldn't abide leaving the story right there, he came back to life, married one of the Prophetesses, and they went off in search of new lands, and new injustices to conquer. Reymai got away from the original central characters, but it kept a great many names - Romayin the evil mage became Romayin the evil wizard, and so on and so forth. The thing that was dropped entirely from any plotline was having someone from our world go to another - it's been done, to perfection, by C.S. Lewis, and no one else will ever be able to come close.
Reymai was really quite impressive, considering my age at the time (11-12-early 13), but it fell short on really capturing the feeling of the story. Sadly, it, too, died, only to be resurrected later for a friend to read. But it's dead forever now - it will never even be considered for finishing.

However, I gleaned a great deal out of Reymai (most of which was in the way of experience), and I put that to use in a new project, codenamed 'Starfriend' - the name of the series was 'Friendship`s Way', and it followed the travels of a boy named Myran, the son of an innkeeper, to the Temple Academy where he trained as a wizard, made friends by the names of Garin, Kyra, and Rosy, and made enemies, by the names of Brant and Xendar. Romayin, the one name that had stayed from the original Starstone project, became Myran's mentor, a good wizard, instead of an evil one. Brant was a rival from the Temple Academy, and Xendar was an evil wizard from the south. This story combined elements from both Starstone and Startrip - it was a single-country story, focusing on internal difficulties, but it had four elemental power sets: the first, Earthweavers, focused on plants/healing; Stonecrafters dealt with earth and stone; Stormwatchers, with the elements of weather; Fireshapers, with fire of all types. Like Startrip, the enemies were mostly from their own country, but, like Starstone, their was a quest involved to defeat those enemies.

I'll post again soon, continuing the saga with project 'Starkindler'. Reference this to your friends; maybe one day you'll actually get the books and be able to say you know all the history behind 'em!