After Alice reads a book that tells of an adventure she, her brother, and his girlfriend embark on, they are suddenly pulled through a portal to medieval land, and they must defeat the evil Lucifer in order to return home. Written by Ricky from October 11, 2006, to December 09, 2006, this is his first fiction to make its way to the Hall of Fame!
Do you want to read the fiction? Come on, you know you do! You can download it here, and read it at your own leisure.
Feel free to comment on the story, and tell us what you liked, didn't like, and
your overall opinion of the story! To comment, simply send
me a private message. You'll have to register at the RP Haven forums
to do so, but is that really a bad thing? Didn't think so.
You may also send me an e-mail with your comments, if you prefer.
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Some general information regarding Jageheti |
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| This fiction was written by Ricky. | The story is a fantasy. |
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This fiction was started on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 |
This fiction was finished on Saturday, December 09, 2006 |
| This fiction was 35 posts long. | The story is 27,636 words long. |
| This story took 59 days to complete. | On average, 468 words were written per day. |
Here we have an interview with the writer of Jageheti, Ricky; questions were asked by Trauma Advocate. Warning, there are some spoilers here!
| Interview with Ricky |
| How did you come up with the idea of Jageheti? I was lying on my back, staring at a ceiling fan, and my eyes started playing tricks with the spinning blades. This prompted the idea of the fan acting as a portal. Granted, due to my rewrites of the story, the ceiling fan was removed, but that's how it pretty much started. Heh. And this was back in 2003? 2002, actually. I got my date wrong in the intro post. Geez, that was a long time ago. What made you sit down and write it for real this time? Well, actually, this is the third completed version of it; there are also three incomplete versions. But what made me sit down and get it done? I didn't want the idea to go to waste, I thought it was a great idea to use for the Zelda Universe 30000-words-in-a-month event, and I really wanted to finish it. Ah right, their novella event. Did that mean the story should relate to the Zelda universe in some way? No, actually. You were allowed to do a Zelda fan-fiction, or an original fiction. The only difference was that the fan-fiction had a chance of appearing in the main site's fiction section. So, I went with original fiction I get you. So over all that time, do you think your writing style has changed much? Do you think someone looking for the breaks would be able to find them? Geez, that's a good question. Hmm. My writing style has changed- the fact that I pushed on through the story, despite wanting to rewrite half of it already, is a definite change for the better. A change for the worse would be that it sounds somewhat like a video game, partly because it's forced and partly because two years of doing nothing but role-plays will do that to you. :P Heh. So is this your first real fiction then, or just the first you posted on RP Haven? Just the first I've posted on RP Haven. Trial of the Disciple's original version, "Spaceway of Destiny", was my first one... though I spent five years of rewrites working on it. Man, talk about loyalty to your projects... Yeah. Strangely enough, whenever I get ideas, I tend to connect them to what I'm currently working on. Role-playing actually managed to fix this for me- prior to 2004, Destiny and Jageheti were all I had. Branching out was something I wasn't good at. Are the two fictions connected? Yes and no. Alice, Alvin, and Ginger from Jageheti make an appearance in Disciples. However, it's not necessary to read one or the other. It's more of an Easter egg than anything. Ah, yeah, I've read books like that. So tell me, what's your favorite genre? Fantasy, definitely. I think it shows... is there a specific kind? Um... not really. Anything with magic and swords, eh?  Heh, yeah. Do you ever try to combine genres though? Actually, yes. Spaceway of Destiny was primarily a science-fiction, but I put several fantasy elements into it (such as a magical scepter and such). You might see some science-fiction elements appear in Disciples. That's cool, I really enjoy when writer's do that. So what's your favorite fantasy book then? The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathon Stroud is at the top of my list, followed by Eoin Coiffer's Artemis Fowl, followed by my favorite-for-years, Brian Jacques' Redwall. Why would you say they represent fantasy so well? Basically, Bartimaeus and Artemis take place in the "real world", and put spins on the established elements of fantasy, such as magicians summoning djinn to perform their magic or fairies using high-tech weaponry. They are also written very well, as is the Redwall series. Essentially, they refresh the fantasy genre. And who's your favorite fantasy author? Jonathon Stroud and Eoin Coiffer. Brian Jacques is good, but he became formulaic. Yeah, I know what you mean, there. Do you think you know how to keep a series from going stale like his did? Or just any ideas, for that matter? Cut it off at a certain point, try something new, put your ideas or characters in different stories. And always try something new Sound advice for our television industry. Heh, no kidding So getting back to Jageheti, are any of the characters based off real people you know? No. Do you think you learned anything while writing Jageheti? Yes. I learned how much more productive it is to just forge ahead even when I really want to change something I've already written- there's always the next draft, after all- and that I can actually write a 28000-word story in a month if I push myself. So then what did you do about writer's block? Pushing yourself that hard usually results in some hard speed bumps. Just kept going. Even if what I was writing was pure tripe, I was still writing, and getting myself to a point where I'd become interested. The tripe will be fixed in the next draft.  Heh, is there no end to the drafts? I will always make a new draft until I can look back on what I've done with a sense of pride and a feeling of "I can't make it better than this". That's pretty cool, but remember a writer's worst critic is himself. And if you keep improving... I figure I'll eventually get to a point where my improvements just can't or won't help the story anymore. Basically, my talents will be needed elsewhere. That's what I'm shooting for. So what was the hardest scene to write in Jageheti? The final battle with Lucifer. I was hoping I could stretch it out since I had already realized the story was falling short of the 30000-word goal, and plus, I found myself having difficulty with the battle in general. That must be the worst... I've been stuck in "neverending" battles in RPs, and even with other people helping they are not too fun Yeah. No kidding. So what was your favorite scene to write in the story then? The stone gargoyle guard at the door, actually. I really want to give him a follow-up in the next draft. So you're finally finished with this bad boy. How's it feel? Awesome. Of course, I'm not actually finished-finished, but to have a new draft complete and under my belt is really cool. Anything else you'd like to say about it? There's definitely room for improvement, and I am going to go back and improve it, but I hope everyone enjoys this draft regardless. And I'm really glad I pulled it off. Well congratulations, man.  Thanks |
Here we have comments from the people who have read the story.
| Name | Comment | Date |
| Elec |
The storyline was good; the saving-the-princess thing was a bit cliché
but that wasn't entirely what the story was about. Besides there were
some interesting plot elements such as talking cats and disembodied
spirits. None of these were anything entirely new but they were recycled
in a way that made them interesting. I also really liked the ending.
This is proof that a story can have a happy ending that doesn't look
like it's from a kid's movie. It was well written and though it was a
fairly happy ending, it wasn't the least bit corny. In addition, the
characters were fairly well developed. |
December 12, 2006 |
| GeminiSaint |
I liked it. Jageheti certainly is an interesting, enjoyable story. It's also well written, and it keeps a good pace, so that it never gets boring. The fact that it isn't overly long helps a lot too. The basic plot layout seems quite formulaic at first, with a bunch of teenagers fighting against an evil wizard. Thankfully there's more to that, and it actually makes sense in the context of the story, to some extent, of course. It's that I still have my doubts regarding how three inexperienced teenagers from our time -the story makes it look like they're from our time, but I might be wrong- can turn into such capable fighters, swinging swords and shooting arrows with such a mastery that they accomplish what entire ranks of soldiers and a wizard couldn't, all in about a week or so. Yeah, it isn't very plausible, but you can turn a blind eye on that, I guess. After all, even Zelda games do it (Link, who has never touched a sword before, suddenly becomes an expert swordsman right after getting one). There isn't much else to criticize, unless I become nitpicky. |
December 25, 2006 |