The stage is just a world. And all the players? Merely men and women.

I remember sitting down next to my dad as he was watching Under Siege 2 which was playing on television. Without fail he was able to predict Seagal's next move before he did it.

"So is he gonna punch him again, dad?"

"No. He'll use his knee."

And he was right. I asked him if he had seen it before, to which he replied, "No." During those few minutes of watching that movie and my dad in an almost reverent fascination, I had an epiphany: my old man was finding the movie absolutely hilarious. Yes, there was the smirk. (Often hard to see because it was hidden by his beard.) To him, this film was high comedy. Unintentional comedy is often the best kind. This may have been the first time I truly appreciated how much dad liked to watch movies just to mock them. I like doing it too.

There is a challenge to writing anything that falls into the fantasy genre because it teems with cliche and absurdity. It turns out that life does as well (more absurdity and less cliche in my opinion). But while we have to put up with it from life, we don't from our chosen forms of entertainment. One former roommate pointed out specifically why he hated certain types of movies: the heroes were unrealistically good and the villains were unrealistically evil. The saviours for a story are always the characters and we should feel able to step into their shoes as we join them in their struggles.

Pratt and I spend more time discussing them than the story, and I suspect that this is the case with any storyteller. The general shape of the story takes place, but ultimately it becomes warped around the cast, not the other way around. What I initially believed would be a straightforward tale has become twisted by the cast we created to fill it.

-Lio

A Wife's Perspective

Our posting has become more sporadic as our lives have increased in business. I’m working to rededicate myself to posting regularly. We have the first five chapters written as a rough draft and are currently going back through them. We are editing and correcting a few mistakes as well as make sure we are doing the characters correctly. It’s an interesting process, although very challenging. My wife had a chance to read the first four chapters (before we had really gone back over them) and she provided us some valuable feedback. I’ll give her a chance to write out her thoughts below:

"I have had a chance to read the first few chapters of the story Pratt and Lio are working on, and enjoyed it very much (I keep bugging them to finish the next chapter so I can read it, but they’re currently too busy polishing the first few chapters). The crew of Maso’s Trick is especially fun and it’s easy to get attached to them. I also have something of a love/hate relationship with Mateus, because he’s very interesting and yet so freaking evil.

Because these chapters are still in progress, there were a few things that needed clarification or additional details (which is why Lio and Pratt are going over them again), but the overall story is good. It certainly managed to keep my attention, and anyone who knows me will attest to what an accomplishment that is. I can’t wait for more! *nudge nudge*"

-Pratt and Je-Vé Despain