Healing Lance - Writing the Story
Originally posted during Healing Lance blog tour.
The final version of this story was not an easy thing to achieve. The first draft was decent but minimal. It was short and straight to the point. Then I wrote the second book and realized what I needed to add to the first. So I went back and tweaked. Then I wrote the third book and realized I had even more to add to the first. So, really, “Healing Lance” wasn’t done until I’d finished “Avenging Lance.”
This is my first trilogy, therefore I had no experience to draw from. I’ve written single titles, and I’ve written series, but each book is mostly self-contained. However, in my opinion, a good trilogy contains strong stories that can stand on their own, and yet effortlessly mesh and flow together. While I had an idea and solid outlines for the conflicts of each book, I couldn’t see the entire picture until I’d written the entire thing.
“Healing Lance” is the foundation and if it couldn’t stand on its own then there wasn’t any hope for the next two. This is where Lance and Gust meet and form a friendship that as the potential for more. This is the start of Lance relearning who he is and who he wants to be. This is when Gust realizes he wants more than a simple life in a simple town as a simple healer. He wants to see the world and learn new things. Both men are at a crossroads in their life, which makes their meeting, and the consequences of their friendship, cause a ripple effect through their world.
I play with the themes of fate and choice throughout the trilogy as well as forgiveness and redemption. The mythologies in the world were taken from real world mythologies that I enjoy the most. There are three kingdoms that make up the overarching Nifdem Empire. Each of the kingdoms, Cairon (south), Grekenus (west), Swenen (north) have their own culture, society, history, and myth. I drew inspiration from Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Greece, and Old Norse for the respective kingdoms. By doing so, I made the world more real for myself, and I hope that translates to my readers the way I intended. I certainly put my own spin on things and enjoyed modifying aspects to fit the narrative.
I have always enjoyed dissecting, discussing, and analyzing the ancient mythologies and looking at similarities and differences to other cultures/societies. This was my chance to “play” and make the setting feel more like another character than just a place for my characters to run around in.
Our cultures, societies, history, and community, influence who we are. Gust and Lance have wildly different backgrounds and that made it so interesting to push them together. The play between the characters came naturally, and I didn’t have to struggle as I sometimes do with their interactions.
And yet while Lance and Gust are certainly the main focus of the trilogy, I include perspectives from other supporting characters. That was one of the things I had to go back and add to “Healing Lance” after I’d finished the first draft of “Avenging Lance.” I realized I was putting too much on the third book to explain things when I should have introduced certain aspects in Book 1. Once I did that, the third book was allowed to breathe. However, “Avenging Lance” is still about 40K words longer than the first book. That just seems to be the way conclusions happen.
I’m also well aware that oftentimes the middle book in a trilogy is awkward and feels like there’s no real beginning or end. I strove to let “Forgiving Lance” stand on its own. It has its own conflict and resolution and carries the story far past the events in “Healing Lance” and yet sets up the conclusion in “Avenging Lance.” If you think about it, the first book is a foundation pillar, the second the bridge, and the third is the pillar on the other side. Each has to be as strong as the rest to hold the weight and not come crashing down.
Whether I achieved any of the things I mentioned above will be left up to the readers. All I can say is that I did my best, and I am super proud of the end product.
May dragons guard your dreams,
M.D. Grimm
