Batblog

Dark Wings, Dark Words?

Now, while I have no plans to halt or even slow my progress on The Krimson Traitor, I have been considering starting work on Mythryn (my original detective drama about a talking crow) soon. There's still some prep work to do (notes and research to finish, plot points to outline, etc.), but most of it should be pretty simple to do. There is, however, on fairly major aspect of this story that I'm not sure what to do with; I don't know what sort of tone Mythryn should have.

Now, the obvious main inspiration for Mythryn is Guardians of Ga'Hoole, which is a children's high fantasy series about talking owls. The original intent for Mythryn was for it to be "like Ga'Hoole, but with crows" and to switch the genre from high fantasy to detective noir. Now, a detective noir story about talking animals is actually not a new concept (Felidae), and fantasy noir is also not a new concept (The Steel Remains), so there are plenty of other works to draw inspiration from. It's just that most of those works are very, very adult.

And so I come to my main dilemma; which end of the spectrum do I want to swing towards? Will Mythryn be straight children's fantasy tale with some light noir flavouring, or will it be me doing to talking animal stories what authors like Richard K. Morgan and George R.R. Martin have done to heroic fantasy? And if the second option, how far do I take it? Should I tackle any complex religious or political issues? How much violence should there be? Should there be any swearing? Should there be sexual references?

It's a tough call for me to make partly because I have little preference one way or the other when it comes to my own entertainment; I'm the sort of person who can find as much enjoyment in an episode of My Little Pony as I can reading Game of Thrones. Something being child-friendly doesn't necessarily mean that it can't be dramatic or meaningful, but likewise, something being adult doesn't preclude it being fun.

I was thinking of maybe just splitting the difference and targeting a more young adult/teenage audience, similar to Garth Nix's Abhorsen series, but I'm still not certain.