The Treasures of Carmelidrium Book Tour HERE today

Playing the What If Game.



Today, I am very pleased to welcome N R Williams to my blog



Nancy is here to talk about her exciting new high fantasy book "The Treasures of Carmelidrium." It really is a great read with a well judged blend of action, suspense, romance and humour.

Over to you Nancy ...

Thank you Dominic for allowing me to grace your post in my blog book tour for, “The Treasures of Carmelidrium.” I appreciate it.


Playing the What if Game. You’ve probably heard of this even if you’re not a writer. I’d like to say that a set of dice are involved, but unless you’ve created a board game called 'The What if Game', I’m afraid not.


The what if game is simply asking yourself, 'what if'. What if Harry Potter was a real person? A child raised by an aunt and uncle who should have taken parenting classes. Would he have really turned out as compassionate as he did in the books? Or maybe, Harry was raised by a wealthy family and lavished with gifts. Harry’s mother or father survived and lived to raise him as a single parent. No one in Harry’s family had any magical gifts including Harry. What world leader would Harry have to find and kill in order to save those he loved and himself? Why?


In your book, your character has a dilemma. What is the dilemma? What type of personality does the character have? What type of world does the character live in? Who is the character’s helper and who is the villain?


These are critical questions and the reason an author plays the what if game.


In “The Treasures of Carmelidrium,” I wanted a unique villain. That’s a tough challenge. Every possible villain has been created and re-created endlessly in countless books. I also didn’t want a “god.” There was a period recently in fantasy, where all the villains were “gods.” I hated those books. Mostly because the villain can’t help it. They were what they were. There weren’t any decisions that could have been different for them. To me, the creepiest villain is a man or woman who has chosen to go into a life that most of us would classify as evil. Their decisions are based on their code of right and wrong. Remember, the villain is the hero of his/her own story.


So what is Renwyk’s personality? He is domineering and wants world dominance. A tried and true villain type that we sometimes run into on the street, sad to say. You know, the boss who wants you to do fifty things at once with a smile on your face. Or the abusive partner. This personality is well defined. So now I must play the 'what if' game.


What if Renwyk is born with special abilities? What if Renwyk has an abusive childhood? How would these two things combine to shape him? Why does he want what he wants?
Renwyk is an abusive, dominating man who believes he is justified in his actions and that everyone owes him something. He is obsessed with, and jealous of, Prince Healden, (pronounced with a silent “a” like Hel-don), simply because Healden is the prince. Renwyk is born with the ability to communicate and control the symberveen, a monster. (See Creating Monsters at Nicole Zoltack’s blog, Where Fantasy and Love Take Flight).
Because of this talent and the use of black magic, Renwyk can control (literally) people’s minds and bend their wills to his own. (I had this idea before Harry Potter came out so any similarities are coincidental). Do you see how the 'what if' game helped me to craft the villain I wanted?


Another area where I played the what if game is the world of Gil-Lael, my alternate world. It is French. Why? All my life I have been told that the French do not understand us (Americans) because of our Christian morality. Whether this is true or not, I don’t know. It is common knowledge that the French have a different set of moral values that govern their society. I wondered, what if I flip that? What if I have a crisis in their past that has caused them to be over the top in their morality. What would that crisis be and how would it affect their society and the laws that govern them. To find out, you’ll have to read, “The Treasures of Carmelidrium.”
The what if game is a critical tool for every writer.
I think I will get the patent on that game. LOL


N. R. Williams (Nancy)

Thank you Nancy for sharing the 'what if' game with us!

Don't forget to add a comment with your e-mail address so Nancy can enter you into her contest. Nancy is giving away 3 e-books to 3 winners. Drawing is Feb. 1, 2011 after the book tour ends. She will post the winners on her blog (N R Williams) and will email the lucky three people.

Don't forget to sign up to my blogfest and to post your No Fear stories this coming weekend

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