Hey, check it out! I got rid of my header information. It will come back eventually, but it's been so long since it's seen an update, that it's no longer doing what it should, which is motivating me to read, write, and edit. And there are more important things afoot.
If I'm going to start a major writing project in just a few days, I need to figure some things out. First of all, what will my idea be? There's no use being clever and hiding the details on my blog if I'm going to be writing the story here.
Here's what I have so far. The main character is a girl, who at the beginning of the story is 12-14 years old. The exact age may change as I go on, but as the story begins, she doesn't even know her age. In fact, she doesn't know her name. She doesn't even recognize her image in the mirror.
She finds herself in a strange society with a rigid caste system. The highborn control every aspect of the culture, but make up less than a percent of the population. Below them are the middlings, who bear facial tattoos that indicate their assigned positions. Education is strictly controlled in this caste. The middlings speak a different language than the highborn in their daily lives, and this serves as a barrier as well. They are the servants and craftsmen. The highborn call them "the mundane" as a type of insult.
At the bottom is a class I haven't named yet. Their faces are scarred at birth, and they are given other scars later when their jobs are assigned. They are the labor force, and their language is different from either of the other classes. Their education is even more strictly controlled.
There is no mobility--except for down. As the narrator awakes, she finds that she has been sold by an anonymous highborn family to a middling market, one favored by the highborn for quality goods and services.
The mistress of that market is threatened by her, even though she has no clue where she is or what the rules around her are. The first part of the story involves this girl getting her bearings, making friends and enemies, and finally enduring a trial that is supposed to decide her future path.
Blogger is about to go down for an outage, so I'll stop for now and post more tomorrow. But until then, I need to assign a temporary title to this story. So in the tradition of Dairhenien's Library, I have decided to call this story Bryony's Market. No doubt that will change, but it's good enough for now.
Publication Status:
- Submitted: 5
- Accepted: 1
- Rejected: 2
- Pending: 2
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