Author Kody Boye's Blog Tour Stop-Plus a FREE Dark Fantasy Novel!!

Kody Boye is one of my dearest friends. He's absolutely brilliant and his writing improves with every new work he puts out. Consider his very young age (20) and be prepared to be amazed!


Kody is a much more literary writer than I am. He can weave words together into beautiful descriptions that can steal your breath away or scare you silly.  There are times when I read his work and wonder what his literary voice will be like when he's my age.  Honestly, I believe there are great things ahead for this young writer.


Today his blog tour stops here. I am thrilled to be a part of the promotion for his new dark fantasy novel, BLOOD: The Brotherhood Book One.  I've witnessed his tireless work on this series for the last three years or so and I'm impressed with what he has accomplished. At this point he has written all of the series except for the final volume and is working hard on the editorial notes for the second book SWORD: The Brotherhood Book Two. It's hard enough to write one book, but an entire dark fantasy series?  Wow!!!


When I saw the physical copy of BLOOD, I was just stunned at not only the amazing cover, lovely interior design, and overall massive size (you could kill someone with it), but at the fact he had finally brought his vision into reality.


I am so proud of him!


Now to find out how Kody learned that sometimes writing an unlikely scenario can be a total bitch, but can also create a fascinating plot.

Author, Kody Boye

How to Make A Peasant Boy a Knight

I think it's fairly obvious that a peasant would never be allowed to serve as a knight in the royal army. Due to status, only royalty are allowed to become knights because they are 'the king's personal army' and are revered as the 'best, well-trained soldiers within the entirety of a kingdom.' To allow a peasant in would diminish the role of the knights in an army. That forced me to think outside the box in order to get my character into the royal army.

But when I wrote Blood for the first  I chose to bypass this hurdle by using what my editor considered the 'Harry Potter and Dumbledore Syndrome.' 

(Rhiannon’s Note: In other words…MAGIC!)

This, however, was quickly targeted during a first round of edits.

(Rhiannon's Note: Editors do tend to snag you on stuff like that)

I had to tackle the question as to why a peasant couldn't become a knight. 

Why I didn't just have the main character serve as a member of the military? The answer: it wasn't supposed to be that way. The main character was always, in my head, a peasant who was supposed to become a knight. To remove that from the equation would have required an extensive rewrite that I couldn’t do without changing the story entirely. That was something I didn't want to do.

Finding a way around such a loophole in logic was a bit frustrating, I will admit. 

So, how did I make a peasant boy become a knight?

Simple--I made him a mage.

It’s  a chance meeting with a high mage and the revelation that the main character happens to have the Gift that allows the hero of Blood an audience with the King.  An extraordinary feat considering that royal delegations and planned meetings usually take weeks, if not months or years in advance to arrange. 

It makes perfect sense that a potential soldier of such a caliber would be given special attention. In a world where magic users are sparse and where the need for a military with an advantage is a necessity, it is only in the king's best interests to specially-train soldiers who bear a gift that others do not. Putting one soldier against another soldier with magic automatically puts the soldier lacking such a gift at a huge disadvantage.

So the peasant boy becomes a knight!

I think that's what makes the main part of the beginning of the story fun--it's unexpected! 

BLOOD is now FREE on Kindle, so make sure to snag your copy today!

 

Lean More about Kody Boye at his website.