Write your own Conan-style novel

Discussion in 'Art & Culture' started by GeoffP, Aug 27, 2009.

  1. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,087
    Hullo.

    You may not know this about me, but I do like the pop fiction. R.E. Howard (poor, misguided bastard, beloved of the world - why, man, why??), Burroughs, Doyle and the lot of them, Myuu bless them. Anyone interested in starting a you-go-first-style Conan novel? Just for writing practice, mind. I'll come on later and try to excrete a few paragraphs. We can make up characters and everything.
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,910
    I think you should probably start with a list of characters and attributes and a general plot outline.
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    19,252
    You just long for the old days, when men were mighty-thewed barbarian men and women were scantily-clad-but-oh-so-appreciative playthings.

    ERB, REH, Doyle?

    Sherlock Holmes of Mars?
    Professor Challenger and the Women of Lemuria?
    Conan the detective?
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. Orleander OH JOY!!!! Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    25,817
    has Conan ever fallen through a hole and landed in a forgotten world of dinosaurs?
     
  8. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,087
    A couple of times, I think.

    OK, let's see: per joe's suggestion, how about a plot? And I like the dinosaur suggestion a lot.

    Let's see:

    In a Hyborian-type land named Shal, a king's mistress goes missing. Her history isn't well known and so no one knows where to look for her except a man called Grond. (I'm tempted to revert to the Conan-style hulking barbarian, but maybe he could be more of a thief and exceptional swordsman...although Conan is also these things. Well, Grond isn't as huge. So, different. There.)

    Grond knew the woman - Yasmina? - when she was but a dancer in the Leering Eye, a brothel and dancing girl beerhall of ill repute. She, too, was a thief perhaps - and Grond is mightily angry with her, for he and the wench had plotted for her to draw the eye of King Ilyrian of Shal with her dancing, to be brought before him, then to drug him and let Grond into the palace so that he and she could rob it blind. But, though he has been to the small, quiet Water-gate behind the palace at the appointed hour - and every night after as the moon grew high - she has not appeared.

    Now, the King's Guards are everywhere in the city, searching for a woman. He thinks the girl has betrayed him and escaped with the goods herself, so he, too, is searching. He knows an old hedge-wizard of some skill in scrying, and so he goes to see him.

    Now how do we get to the dinosaurs? The wizard accidentally - or deliberately? - transports him there? Or has the king learned that Yasmina was a thief and banished her there? Does Grond then feel the compulsion to save her?



    Does anyone have better suggestions on the names? Grond sucks.
     
  9. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,087
    I miss those days.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    Hmm. Your ideas interest me greatly, Brythunian. Mayhap Erwol the Sorceror might be of use in cross-purposing such tales.
     
  10. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    19,252
    Fafhrd?

    Given that Conan at least was supposedly set pre-any-known-human-civilisation the dinosaurs are probably still knocking about somewhere, maybe in the foetid swamplands of a lost continent. Obviously this will need to be visited to get the seeds of some obscure plant which happen to be the only cure to the deadly poison that has been given to Grond by... whoever.

    Sounds more like a Soviet orbital observation platform than a barbarian hero. Maybe his mother was a big fan of The Adventure Game.
     
  11. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,087
    Death to the lunkheads of Lankhmar.

    I like it. He's poisoned by the king (a subtler way of killing him than just chopping his head off, eh, outlander?) for his plot and has to go get the seeds. Is Yasmina sent there also? Naturally the chick has to be involved.


    Maybe the monster guarding the seeds could be a giant teapot.
     
  12. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    19,252
    It's a given: how else are we going to fit in lascivious, prurient plot-forwarding scenes featuring her hot sweaty body showing her lissomness through the thin wet fabric of what remains of her costume after the monsters have attacked her and yet again needing to be rescued? How else would Grond be aware of her erect nipples as she breathed her gratitude into his ear, promising that she'll do anything to thank him for saving her from those awful fangs? Heck, her gratitude would be worth a six asterisk break!
     
  13. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,087
    LMAO.

    If I can tonight I'll try a first round. Maybe 3-4 paragraphs.
     
  14. shorty_37 Go! Canada Go! Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,140
    I am surprised Nietszchefan isn't all over this one...
     
  15. nietzschefan Thread Killer Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,721
    lol I had typed something out, then I saw they hadn't started yet so I deleted.
     
  16. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,087
    Go for it. I'm completely blocked with stuff here.
     
  17. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,087
    What the heck. I'll start. I did say I would. Feel free to edit.

    *******

    Lanic of Gral wiped the ale from his face and stared at the wide blue tower rising above the city of Dirain.

    The God-Emperors of Dirain and all the land of Alizar had ruled the land for a hundred tens of years, deities in all but name, and the Blue Tower had stood for more than half that time. He glowered at the blue stone edifice, shimmering azure in the early morning light against the darker blue of the sky, at its white lattices and the red colonnades that sprouted around its base like fire. Three days and four nights it had been since the girl, Yasmina, had disappeared into that cyan keep, and he was beginning to wonder.

    Their plan had been simple, but driven by the demands of urgent greed and an empty belly: the girl, Yasmina, had danced for a certain baron of Dirain of no subtlety and low preferences in his entertainment. Her curved form and skill with the dance had brought her to his attention, and from his to the Emperor, whose appetite and tastes were also well known. Yasmina had been 'invited' to the Blue Spire three days hence and there she had remained since. The plan had been for the girl - an accomplished thief as well as dancer - to lower a rope from the lowest of windows to lift him up, and that together they would plunder the lower levels and steal away to the furthest corner of Dirain.

    But the promised rope had not appeared that night, nor the next, nor any after, and Lanic in his heart began to suspect that she had made other plans. Still, he knew nothing for certain and he felt even so a little responsibility towards her, or even a sullen protectiveness stirred by her dark, entreating eyes and bare, dusky arms.

    He stood. He would go to Erwol the Sorceror, a hegde magician and dabbler of some acclaim in the Low Quarter. Erwol owed him a favour of no small measure and could be counted on to assist him so far as there was no danger to himself. Her fate weighed heavily on Lanic's mind; and, not least either, he wondered if perhaps she had said overmuch and their compact discovered. If so, it would be a good time to revisit his homeland in the far north. Lanic drained the last of his alepot and tossed a copper coins onto the table; the ale had had a funny taste and he would be damned if his Acanthian sensibilities would let him reward the swill. He shifted his swordbelt and stalked towards the Low Street, never noticing the man, cloaked and hooded, who rose from the shop across the street and slipped through the crowds after him.
     

Share This Page