u/CalligrapherThen4033 — reddlx

Chapter 7 is out! I thought I wouldn’t be able to make it till my own set deadline

I had absolutely no chance if not Grammarly 🫪

Previous ones I have translated by myself and some of the chapters with prof translation into English by a student (but still). However I took the advice from Reddit and used Grammarly a bit - it really helps a lot. Still you can find several mistakes, nevertheless at least it makes the process easier 🫩

I guess I really need to read more English books and try to write in English rather than translating into it from the language I am usually writing in.

Meanwhile I have 4 more chapters to translate and 1 more to write 😅 Here is the chapter in case if someone would be interested in a grounded dark fantasy mystery with psychological horror and ancient mythic undertone:

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/161978/the-voice-beneath-the-ashes/chapter/3403926/chapter-7-what-remains-of-blood

u/CalligrapherThen4033 — 6 days ago

▲ 6 r/royalroad

I have a problem which might many have - writing in one language and wanting to be published for wider audience

I am wandering how do you handle this? English is my third or maybe even fourth language so the level I have is not the same of many of you, of course. 😅 Everything I write I need to translate into English so more people would be able to access it - it is about the broader audience - and that’s how I got to RR. Writing a post is not a problem at all, but a whole story - it will take ages to finish anything.

RR was something new for me. I translated the first 3-4 chapters, published them and then the realization came - I don’t have enough time to properly translate my texts between chapters (once in a week), and that’s when I quickly got a professional translation. However it was quite expensive (and maybe not what I was expecting in terms of the text quality). So my only way to release the chapters is forgetting about my plan “a chapter per week”.

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u/CalligrapherThen4033 — 9 days ago

▲ 54 r/royalroad

One thing I really miss in a lot of modern fantasy is the feeling that the world exists beyond the main story.

With Tolkien (and not only), even when the characters stayed in one place, you could still feel that elsewhere people were trading, migrating, fighting wars, speaking different languages, carrying old grudges and histories. Middle-earth felt inhabited.

A lot of modern fantasy feels much smaller to me. The plot happens in one important location, while the rest of the world exists mostly as names on a map or background decoration.

Maybe I notice this more because of my own life. I was born in Armenia, grew up in Russia, and now live in Spain while constantly switching between Armenian, Russian, English, Spanish, and Ukrainian every day with 24/7 knowledge of what is going on right now in every part of the world I’ve ever lived in.

Moving between cultures makes you realize how differently people think, speak, behave, joke, even argue. And I think fantasy worlds feel more alive when those differences actually shape the setting instead of everything having the same “generic European medieval” feeling.

That’s something I’m trying to bring into my own writing. Maybe I am failing right now - you tell me but I feel WHAT EXACTLY I wanna do with my writing. Maybe I will work it out.

Curious what fantasy worlds made you feel this sense of “largeness” beyond just geography.

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u/CalligrapherThen4033 — 10 days ago

▲ 51 r/royalroad+1 crossposts

I finally started publishing my dark fantasy story after years of worldbuilding

For years, I kept building worlds instead of actually publishing anything.

Maps, religions, various magic systems, possible political conflicts… Entire family bloodlines that never left my notes. I guess there are plenty of us who are suffering of that ‘illness’.

A lot of modern fantasy draws from the same Western medieval archetypes, so I am building my own world inspired primarily by Armenian folklore and mythology, while also mixing in (in a lot ways) Finnish and sometimes Celtic and Scandinavian influences. I guess that is probably a quite unexpected mix but, hey, it works for me.

Long story short.

A few weeks ago I finally forced myself to stop “preparing” and actually start posting my story on Royal Road (which I honestly have discovered by accident since I come from a non-English part of the world and living now in another such a place).

So the story I want to share with you is about a city haunted not by ghosts, but by the things it tried to erase. It follows a former city guard named Torgom as he investigates a fire in an old tower and slowly uncovers fragments of forgotten history and repeating events the memory of which may never have truly disappeared.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/161978/the-voice-beneath-the-ashes

u/CalligrapherThen4033 — 12 days ago