A little "concept art"

[ZEGH8578]

writing books, well, theyre written, 1300 pages im correcting and correcting lately.
i will NOT include any art, but out of boredom and curiousity i make some for myself,
here goes!


Lozoro, the captain. Hes your no-bullshit sort of guy. He will never die. Ever.
He will easily let his own troops perish, just to save his own ass, but DAMN is he effective in turn.
in 1000 years he doesnt take a single hit, but singlehandedly kills over a million sentient beings on his own,
then he gets imprisoned for 5000 years, and takes it like a man! he crashes in the ocean on the return home, wades through the fucking sea, and has a beer, all naked, full of seaweed, with his commander/friend/ally/etc
Juhultebraan:


if you get her drunk, youll get laid. you too bint!
she doesnt give a shit. that blood is from the heart of some beast she just killed, she grew up hunting, so its something that takes her back, whenever she has the time, and whenever she isnt battling stuff, nuking stuff, conquering stuff, or just getting into stupid drunk fights w cinema-guards. when lozoro wades up from the ocean, after 5000-year peace-negotiation, she laughs at him, and gets him a towel and a beer.


general rifle-concept

[DukeNukem]

Gay instructions?

[SleepyDragon]

Zegh, it's probably wise not to include art with your writing; it gives the readers the opportunity to imagine the characters and settings in their own minds. Maps, glossaries etc. can be helpful, especially in epics that span centuries, or several generations of a family.

It's great, however, that you have your own idea of what your characters look like. When the movie is cast, you can go, "No way in hell!! does Björk get to play Juhultebraan, unless she agrees to change her hair colour to red."

I showed my boys your drawings, and they were quite interested in the weapons (as you'd expect).

Do you have any particular drawing program you favour?

[ZEGH8578]

Zegh, it's probably wise not to include art with your writing; it gives the readers the opportunity to imagine the characters and settings in their own minds. Maps, glossaries etc. can be helpful, especially in epics that span centuries, or several generations of a family.

It's great, however, that you have your own idea of what your characters look like. When the movie is cast, you can go, "No way in hell!! does Björk get to play Juhultebraan, unless she agrees to change her hair colour to red."

I showed my boys your drawings, and they were quite interested in the weapons (as you'd expect).

Do you have any particular drawing program you favour?

at the beginning of my message, i specifically say that i will "NOT" include any art ;]
i got maps, but i wont include those either. none of it.
i dont even do detailed descriptions, the captain and the redhead are both depicted from the few descriptions i give, red hair, sharp eyes, mustache, stern look.
as you say, i want the reader to imagine the characters out from mostly sensations and vague descriptions.

and the weapons are based on german G11 experimental caseless rifles, and belgian P90, both featuring a very compact design, and magazine feeding on top. the G11 has, as the name suggests special ammo w no casing, fitting much more per magazine than normal ammunition.
i like bullets!

[SleepyDragon]

at the beginning of my message, i specifically say that i will "NOT" include any art ;]

Yep, and I'm agreeing that that's a wise thing. 

My older boy will be interested in the gun specs. That, and car makes & models, are things that he picks up on when he watches movies.

[ZEGH8578]

at the beginning of my message, i specifically say that i will "NOT" include any art ;]

Yep, and I'm agreeing that that's a wise thing.  

My older boy will be interested in the gun specs. That, and car makes & models, are things that he picks up on when he watches movies.

oh well, then i must dissapoint him. the storyline taking place in space, w other cultures and technologies, none of their weaponry is compatible w earthly models. they DO find earth-rifles among rebel forces, but even those are kept nameless, for realism. its unlikely that the specific gun names would be kept by alien races in space, centuries into the future.
also, "aliens" is a very... loose term, being strict realist, its one of the gravest realism-errors i even do, theyre all humanoids. both the characters above are aliens.
the very presence of person-like aliens is joked about in a 4th-wall-breach, and also fruitlessly debated by three characters, as some sort of a "joke".

since they use mostly "sci-fi" equipment, and "technobabble" is highly risky, i tend to just avoid most technical explanations, instead giving rather vague ones. i enjoy details and realism where its safe tho, i always remind the reader how deafeningly loud projectile weapons can be (in movies gunshots are always toned down, so not to damage the hearing of moviegoers;D ), so in the story i try to sortof bring the noise back
it IS mostly revolved around characters, and their individual ways of adapting to abrupt change upon abrupt change. in earlyer abandoned drafts i did, i did indeed invent many technical gun specs, but with the timespan and cultural variation within the story i figured it made no sense. the reader is allready aware of a continous updating and variation of new equipment, and weaponry and ships etc quickly sortof fade together, w the only differences being various advances as they come.

[SleepyDragon]

Zegh, have you read any of Neil Stephenson's books? I'm part way into Anathem right now. It's set on a sort of parallel Earth, and the familiar (clocks that are wound mechanically by pulling on weights) combines with the wildly unfamiliar (an artificial substance called "newmatter"). There's a lot of inventive wordplay in it.

Do you still plan to release your work, once it's finished, in Norwegian only?

[ZEGH8578]

Zegh, have you read any of Neil Stephenson's books? I'm part way into Anathem right now. It's set on a sort of parallel Earth, and the familiar (clocks that are wound mechanically by pulling on weights) combines with the wildly unfamiliar (an artificial substance called "newmatter"). There's a lot of inventive wordplay in it.

Do you still plan to release your work, once it's finished, in Norwegian only?

oh i HOPE for translations, i hope for a lot world peace etc
im firstly hoping it will be accepted at all, the story isnt very... typical, so im fully aware it will never sell WELL. i just hope that it will be accepted and published, and well see from there.

and what i do is similar, i deal w several planets, and give these planets a very generic and varied personality, similar to earth itself. theyre just means of exploring culture and human behaviour. space is excellent for human behaviour, cus theres no islam is space. no christianity. no buddhism vs hinduism etc. space is vast.
so behaviour comes down to the core of whats human. they drink and curse and fuck, cus they desire it, between killing and laughing and conquering and actually wetting themselves in an occation or two

[renaeden]

I like to have pictures because I am not very good at imagining people or places. I can't read Terry Pratchett's books - the descriptions aren't enough for me.

I like what you have drawn.

[ZEGH8578]

I like to have pictures because I am not very good at imagining people or places. I can't read Terry Pratchett's books - the descriptions aren't enough for me.

I like what you have drawn.

aw, thanx, i still wont include them i guess i describe these two well enough, but never down to detail. i dont think i mention lozoro's hair color (brown) untill the 3rd book or something
sucks if the reader imagined something else for that long, snicker

i try to implement _Sensations_ tho, as much as i can. give a "vibe" of a place, rather than say exactly how it looks.