The Strange Tales of Peter James Martin: #24 It Could Be Wrong + Avalon Tales

Happy Blog Day Everyone!

So today I want to share some brief words about a new(ish) project of mine. There's not an awful lot to say about it, but sometimes talking about these things helps me focus on it more. Before we get to it, there's just the small matter of Rose's continuing adventures, and everyone's favourite pair. Speaking of...

The Comic Tales of Brennan and Riz

Next week is issue #25 and the start of a little experiment, is this Comic teasing that or just how odd Brennan and Riz life is? Maybe I'm trying to have my cake and eat it to?

Still odd to think that I'm on the edge of my 25th strip.

Phantom Dawn: Memories of a Rose

Today I'll be covering the first few entries from April 2021. This is definitely a long haul project for the blog as there was initially 100 entries in the story.

(First posted April 1st 2021)

The old man then noticed the rose, a sight he wasn't #prepared for, the young woman spoke, interrupting him.

"I'm sorry, I don't know my name, or anything at all. Only thing I remember is the garden of roses, and the shadow with the mask."

(First posted April 2nd 2021)

"A rose garden? Maybe find a #painting, but real ones are long gone." The pig like creatures next to the old man started squealing at the sky.

"Guess it's time already eh?" He murmured.

"Time for what?" The young woman asked, turning in surprise.

(First posted April 3rd 2021)

As the young woman looked up, the sky began it's display. With the sound of breaking glass, an ghostly orb cut its way out of the night sky, gaining an ethereal halo. There was no where to #hide from it's malevolence.

The ground started rumbling.

Hopefully I'll have more time next week to finish this little arc in one swoop.

Avalon Tales

Some where in the last decade, I had worked on expanding the world of Daemon Soul, doing a lot more world building on it than I had previously.

Part of this led to the creation of many fictional organisations, after all demons would be confidential information in all countries, so it stood to reason that most, if not all, would have measures in place. Some smaller countries might band together to tackle the threat but not the UK, no, it has its own group, an old one, and its name? Avalon.

While brainstorming, I knew I wanted each countries group to be borne from their myths and legends (or in America's case, their urban legends as I gave them Majestic). Some cases it wasn't easy but for the UK it was relatively easy. Assigning the UK the Arthurian theme opened some doors on how they were ran, their organisational structure to recruitment. Back then I only touched on these things lightly because they were never going to get a major focus surely...

Also at the time, I didn't have many characters associated with the group, other than walking clichés. So there were still a low level threat that would be minor annoyances. They were introduced into the first Daemon Soul story in a throw away line by Serena in the 2015 redraft.

In 2017, when I started working on a completely redone 2nd book, Avalon took on a much bigger role, even gaining the title. With it came a bigger focus on the characters that would be in charge of this organisation...enter this lady:

I should point out I guess that this picture is more recent than 2017 (being from 2021)...anyways, this is Isabelle Blake, commander in chief of Avalon at the tender age of 33. Slowly the story started to come into focus and a major part was about how Avalon reacted to the new Daemon Soul while hinting at past incidents with Serena.

Work on that story stalled as Brennan and Riz came along and pulled focus, proving themselves quite quickly. Isabelle and Avalon weren't forgotten and in 2021, I started work on a spin off delving into the organisation better than what I could have done in the 2nd Daemon Soul story. The star of this story would be Isabelle and instead of being one novel, I decided it was to be three novellas, allowing me to focus on three periods of her life and charting her rise to the tol of Avalon. The rest of the cast started to rise out of the depths of my mind, with her father settling in a big role and casting an even bigger shadow over her. She needed allies of her own so in stepped Robyn, an archer inspired by an obvious namesake, Rei, a mad scientist type on steroids and Cade a 2nd in command to keep everyone else doing what they were supposed to be doing. Originally the plan was for the first novella to show how they came together but things changed a lot.

Seeing as it was connected to Daemon Soul, I sprinkled in some other characters, strengthening the connection (and my plan was to do it lightly so prior reading wasn't necessary).

Amazingly, this draft of the story (all 3 novellas) was completed...but I wasn't happy with it. There was things here and there that stuck out to me, plot points that just happened, characters doing odd things because that's what I needed to happen. So I quickly started rewriting it, trying to make things more cohesive.

Character designs for Isabelle

First character concept for Robyn Gouzen

One of the bigger changes was to Robyn. In the original first novella she wasn't part of Avalon, being just shy of their minimum recruitment age at 17. Instead she helped her best friend Isabelle whenever, however, she could. They were incredibly close, with Robyn being the only person that Isabelle could open up to, and this led to them being together in the 2nd novella. I moved that fact into the redraft having them start at the same age, and already being together. Given all the crap that Isabelle was about to go through, she needed that rock. I also made several plot changes, dropping a character altogether because he just wasn't needed at that point.

Things were looking up for the project, till my time was diverted away and it went dormant again. However that changed recently when I re-read it. I knew I wanted to do it justice this time so I went heavy into the research of the Arthurian myths and stories, which is something I should have done a long time ago. There was a wealth of material there and its enhanced what I had before.

So yes, I've restarted work on Avalon Tales.