Munnari Chronicle #1
I’ve often been asked, “What motivated you in writing The Munnari Chronicles series, and where do your ideas come from?” The first part of the question is easy to answer. My children challenged me to write a book.
They enjoyed my stories when they were growing up. When I was in high school, one of my interests was becoming a writer, but life and responsibilities precluded me from going down that path. But when I was asked to write a book, I was retired, and I had the time. I wondered if I could do it, so I accepted. I had no idea at that time that I’d write a story in excess of 720,000 words.
This brings me to the second part of the initial question, “Where do your ideas come from?” One of my part-time hobbies was Dungeons and Dragons. I played the game, as time permitted, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I then had a long hiatus from the game that lasted over two decades. I got re-involved in 2008 for about ten more years before retiring, hanging my dice bag up for good. During my gaming years, I was often the dungeon master, creating game scenarios or modifying published modules. I enjoyed those times because they tasked my imagination and required me to present an interesting, challenging, and most importantly, fun game. Creating my own game modules was the most interesting and enjoyable aspect of the hobby. I could then present my creations to the players and see how things went. I received good feedback and modified my future creations accordingly. I even created a series of modules with a common theme and increasing difficulties as the players’ characters advanced in levels, powers, and abilities.
During this time, I began formulating some ideas for a story, but I kept them tucked away in the recesses of my memory. When my children asked me to write a book, many of these ideas became the framework that eventually evolved into The Munnari Chronicles. When I began writing, the ideas just flowed from mind to typing fingers, although the grammar was quite atrocious at first. As I wrote, more ideas poured forth, and I soon found it necessary to record my ideas in a file in bullet point format. At last count, that file was about 100 pages. It took me about five years to write the first draft and another two years to write the second draft. I wrote them in three large volumes. One of my beta readers referred to the first volume as a tome. It was then that I realized I had to break the story into smaller chunks. I decided on seven novels, and that required me to modify or add first and last chapters to each novel to improve flow and maintain interest. I also included illustrations, maps, glossaries, and pronunciation guides because these are things I’d like to find in adventure fantasy novels.
The story framework was only the beginning. The devil is in the details, as they say. This is where my seven-plus decades of living comes in. Many of the bizarre and crazy things that happen in the story are based on events from my own life, either as direct transfers or modified and enhanced for the story. I’ve also included many Easter eggs that are scattered throughout the series. These Easter eggs are based on historical events or quotes taken from history. Between my personal experiences and the Easter eggs, there are nearly 100 items.
The first personal experience occurs in the opening pages of novel one, The Man With Munnari Eyes. ‘Slowly, the curtain of rain lifted, and Coleman saw a horde of insects disgorge from the undergrowth. Quickly, they took to flight, and he became engulfed in a fog of flying creatures.’ A similar event happened to me in the early months of 1966. I was in the Army, serving with the First Cavalry Division (Airmobile) in the central highlands of South Viet Nam, near the Cambodian border. The monsoon season was ending, but we still got heavy rainstorms from time to time. There would be clear skies or partly cloudy skies most of the day, but in the mid-afternoon, dark clouds would roll in, and we’d get a heavy soaking. The rain would last a couple of hours and end as quickly as it began. The sun would shine brightly through scattered and puffy white clouds. Suddenly and without warning, a huge swarm of flying termites would take flight, and the air would look like a fog from ground level to eight to ten feet. The creatures would mate and drop their wings. The whole area would become covered with crawling termites and discarded wings, which fluttered down into everything, equipment, weapons, and mess kits. This went on for several days in a row. It became quite annoying.
In my future blogs, I will share more of my experiences and Easter eggs that made it into The Munnari Chronicles series. Until next time.
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