The “Shapers” Project.

I’ve mentioned in a few comment replies that I can be occasionally found (in the wee small hours) working on an outlandishly ambitious written project called “Shapers”… below is part of a response to a comment by ~sebyyc that explains the idea in a very basic way.

The "Shapers" idea was to produce a story set in a Viking village where a "Thingmeet", or lawgiving meeting is to take place.

The event draws traders from other towns and locals alike.

Within the general description of Viking life (part of the reason I started this was to give a down to earth account of day-to-day life in "Viking" Scandinavia) a storyteller or “Shaper” recounts a old tale to the guests in the Jarl's Hall...

The tale itself is told over several nights.

The story told is a reworking of Beowulf, expanded upon and de-"Christainised", beginning at the end of the first war of the Aesir (Viking Gods) with the Giants and is heavily interwoven with the Judaeo-Christian creation story... (The extant version of Beowulf that has come down to us is in fact a "Christianised" version of what must be an older Scandinavian story, in which Grendel, the monster is referred to as a descendant of Cain, the biblical "kin killer." It says, "From him (Cain) sprang many a devil (monsters such as Grendel and his mother) sent by fate.")... I'm even going as far as to have Lilit as Grendel's Mother...

The links below take you to some “in progress” pieces… The first 3 are set in the village… (the second part of the third link is where the Shapers tale begins)

[link]
[link]
[link]

The last 2 links are deep in the tale itself…

[link]
[link]

I've always been interested in comparative mythology, and this is an exercise in that... And sure enough a lot of what I'm working on is now almost writing itself... I’m by no means a “real” writer I know that, and as I’ve said before I’m primary doing this to provide me with some cool imagery to draw… but I’m having fun and hopefully learning…

And as with all my stuff that I post criticism will be welcome especially from you writers and poets out there.

The other motive behind this project was to build a website around it on which designer colleagues and friends could showcase there own work via the storyline, ie sculptor friends could make an artefact from the story and have a link to it, musicians could write a piece based on a part of the story and have a link to it... and illustrators well, y'know... all with links to there own websites.

At the time I started this I was freelancing and thought it might be a cool way for potential clients to see groups of people who could work together and already new each other allowing them to potentially employ us in groups as ready made “teams”…

The impetus is lessened by the fact that I now have a full time job, but the will to finish it (and lets face it, who knows how long I’m gonna be full time?) is still there and I think it could be an interesting project…

As an annex or sub-section of the project I was thinking that once the first (written) section is done, to begin to post it piece-meal on DA and have anyone who is interested to illustrate any scenes they like... I fact that would be very cool...

...and when and if the "Shapers" site goes live, I could put in links to participants galleries...

What do you think?