A Fable of Wood & String
by L.T. Getty
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GENRE: Young Adult High Fantasy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BOOK BLURB:
Would it hurt you to just do as you're told?
The O'Connell siblings live in the shadow of their parent's past, held back by obligation to keep the people of Stagmil safe when their father has to lead the non-hunters of their village to drive off a wyvern.
Lily doesn't trust the stranger who calls herself Madeline when she staggers into the pastoral lands. The puppeteer seems to take an interest in Lily's talent with the family mandoline, and she teaches Lily new music. Lily's had songs stuck in her head before, but nothing like this.
Twins Seth and Tiffany however can't wait for their father to return so they can get on with the shearing. Seth should at least be helping hunt the wyvern, and Tiffany wants to take her best friend Molly and head to the nearest city and see the world.
The twins and several other villagers are lured by song into the woods and transformed into marionettes: Seth breaking free before he can be strung, and Lily tainted in a way she doesn't understand. They have the skills to track the woman down, but to restore Seth to his body, and rescue Tiffany and the others?
Tracking the woman takes them far from the familiar woodlands they know, across the sea to an enchanted castle, where in an effort to rescue their sister they'll learn something much more sinister than turning folk into puppets is going on. They'll get help, of course, but not from who they expected.
After all, last Seth checked, foxes are only supposed to have the one tail.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EXCERPT ONE:
The figure in black started to play something else, and the other’s eyes widened. Tiffany shouted something, and they all reached for the soft wax of the candle but didn’t know what they were doing. In the haste of grabbing the candle, it was knocked to the ground.
Seth ignored his companions and nocked his bow. “Stop what you’re doing or I’ll shoot!”
The figure seemed undeterred. Seth knew he was about to commit murder, but he didn’t care and he wouldn’t leave Louis or any of them to whatever that doppelganger was, and this thing was obviously part of this plot. He loosed the arrow, and the figure only stopped playing to bat it away with the sword hidden under the cloak. Impossible, Seth thought, nocking another with a second between his fingers for quick redraw. He might not be the finest archer—but at this range he didn’t have to be, and no one could deflect arrows in succession for long.
Someone screamed. It looked like Rebecca was caught in a web when she tried to bolt from the glen between two trees. Seth unsheathed his long knife and went to help her, but the figure of Not-Lily appeared, taking off her face and standing near Rebecca. The face was completely blank underneath; Seth let out a surprised gasp before she replaced that face with something with six red eyes, two in the normal place with another four running up her forehead.
Then he saw it—her—grow. The lower half of her body swelled and became massive, bulbous, like the back half of a centaur; her body remained about the same size, but rather than fur and four legs, shimmering black hair and eight legs protruded from the torso, longer at the bend than Dale was tall. She towered over Rebecca. A giant spider . . . woman? There was something eerily feminine about it, a sort of terrible beauty that froze him when his instincts told him to move. She stepped over Rebecca, barrelling down on Seth. He loosed another arrow at her head, but she dodged and shot out webbing from her hands that knocked him backwards, pinning him to the grass. More spider silk flew and pinned his arm to the grass.
Seth tried to wriggle free the monster chased after Dale, and to Seth’s horror, caught him with long strands at his wrists, and wrangled him like a marionette. Dale wriggled against the webbing and she dragged him back, and it seemed that he was transforming in the shadow, shrinking and becoming . . . something else. Seth unbuttoned his over shirt to try to free himself.
Dale was reduced to the size of a doll, and the spider had shifted him to a web in the canopy before going after Tiffany. Brigid flailed between two trees, seemingly stuck in a giant web.
Louis cut Seth free and thrust the bow into Seth’s hand. He shouted something and Seth realized that if he got her attention, there wouldn’t be another time. Louis released his sling in the dark. Seth couldn’t see the rock’s trajectory but the spider reeled, leaving Tiffany and moved with intent on the pair of them. They darted in opposite directions, and by luck the creature honed in on Louis, giving Seth enough time to fire. The arrow bounced off the creature’s bulbous body.
Out of the corner of his eye, Seth thought he saw a fox or coyote dart from the bush and bound through the grass. It ran behind the mandolin-playing creature and bit it in the butt. Suddenly there were two people, but Seth couldn’t watch them.
Seth let loose another arrow, narrowly missing the torso, and shouted at the others to run—he wasn’t sure who it had now, was it Rebecca or Molly? The light was too poor for him to be certain, but whoever the spider held she was shrinking fast.
The creature turned, six red and black eyes focused on Seth, and came down on him with full force. Seth found his limbs caught by two bands of silk and forced above his head, and he was hoisted into the air. He locked eyes with Louis who was looking not only smaller, but . . . wooden. Against his control, Seth raised his hands to his ears and removed the wax, and sound same rushing back.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GUEST POST:
Crafting Mystical Creatures
Mythology is full of interesting creatures – from creatures that appear to be hybrids (the chimera) or seem to appear across different lore with bizarre similarities (vampires) so it can seem daunting when you’re setting out world building where to start.
The good news is that unless you’re writing a more scientifically based, hard style science fiction or fantasy style novel, one doesn’t have to explain how they were created or evolved, and I think the average fantasy reader is okay to suspend their belief a little so long as you are consistent in your lore.
For the sake of this article, I am going to be focusing on creatures that can live in our plane and need to follow some sort of basics of biology to survive – so some of this advice may not apply if you are creating creatures that are multidimensional and don’t really spend time slumming it with mortals, or are created golems and do not need to eat, sleep, or do anything we otherwise associate with a metabolism.
Today, science still sometimes has a hard time defining certain species because there is so much variety, especially in the insect world. The world is also relatively well-explored but sometimes microscopic life can still exist in extreme conditions, so if you are interested in creating any creatures who are oddly adaptive to extreme living conditions, I would suggest you research if we have anything like it.
The first thing I would do when crafting mystical creatures is consider the culture they are coming out of. Foxes, for instance, are seen as good omens in some cultures and bad ones in others, so me calling them kitsunes as opposed to kumiho denotes certain connotations of already established lore, even if I chose to make my kitsunes distinct from other works. Many readers might not be familiar with kitsunes per say but many would be even for periphery works, so it would be good to at least be somewhat faithful to some pre-established iteration.
Towards the very end of A Fable of Wood and String, I reference a hippocampus, which is sea creature with the head and front legs of a horse and the back of either a dolphin or fish, and is of Greek origin. I’d be grasping as straws to say we’re in an ancient Greco-inspired world, so I can’t say they were crafted by the gods to pull Poseidon’s undersea chariots, but I can come up with another suitable explanation. You don’t have to tell your readers, in fact it can be a lot of fun if the characters in the story argue about how certain creatures came to be and there is no consensus.
The next thing I would consider is how these creatures would affect their territory, and how that might alter the local ecosystem. The obvious thing would be how much food something large like a dragon needs to consume, and explain why they need to be in areas where they can obtain enough meat. Don’t worry too much if you are worried that you want an ice dragon and you’re worried that most lizards are cold blooded, most readers understand this is a cold-adapted dragon; in this instance I would probably suggest a sea-dragon and suggest the leviathan has a healthy layer of blubber.
I would then consider limitations or other hindrances. For my kitsunes, I followed traditional lore but took some liberties. It was said that for every hundred years, the fox would grow another tail until he had ten then and then would ascend to the heavens. Also, foxes could not take human form until they were about a century old.
I was mostly good with this lore until I wanted to introduce a teenage kitsune and, making him 117 didn’t seem right so, I gave myself some rules: He can shapeshift, but not very well and not for very long. Also, they have a limit as to the size they can become; at one point Seth asks point blank if one of them could become a large hulking monster and attack the castle, to which they point out that even if they wanted to it’s not an option.
I would also consider my audience when I am crafting the mythological characters for my story. For instance, the merfolk in A Fable of Wood and String are as far as I’m concerned are humans living below the sea with fish tails. Conversely, in my Rogue Healer trilogy, I never confirm mermaids actually exist but they are referenced in art and dreams, with them behaving more like predators, because the sailing culture would be wary of monsters and the deep. The difference is A Fable of Wood and String is a YA high fantasy, Rogue Healer is a Sword and Sorcery novel aimed at an adult audience.
There’s more to it of course, but we don’t want this article to drag on. What are some of your favourite mythical monsters? Any specific iteration one author does differently that you’d like to share? Comment below!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR BIO:
L.T. Getty is a Manitoba Paramedic. She received her degree in English in 2006 from the University of Winnipeg, and has gone on to write several novels. Her latest title, Titan’s Ascent, is a sword and sorcery forthcoming from Champagne Books for 2025.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CONNECT WITH L.T. GETTY:
Goodreads:
Twitter/X:
Blog:
Instagram:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BOOK BUY LINKS:
Amazon US Kindle eBook:
Amazon US Paperback:
Amazon CA Kindle eBook:
Amazon CA Paperback:
Kobo eBook:
Barnes and Noble NOOK eBook:
Barnes and Noble Paperback:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GIVEAWAY:
L.T. Getty will be awarding a $25 Amazon OR Barnes and Noble Gift Card (Winner's Choice!!!) to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.
**This post contains affiliate links and if clicked and a purchase is made, I may receive a small commission to help support this blog. This does not cost you anything, it just helps pay for all those fabulous community outreach projects and awesome giveaways on here**
This contest is sponsored by a third party. Fabulous and Brunette is a registered host of Goddess Fish Promotions. Prizes are given away by the sponsors and not Fabulous and Brunette. The featured author and Goddess Fish Promotions are solely responsible for the giveaway prize.
.jpg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
