Before I wanted to start writing, I read lots of fanfictions already written for Twilight Princess to give me an idea of how to begin, and also to prevent writing the same as others already did. Next to many oneshots and individual stories before and after TP, I read two entire novelisations, Selphie Kinneas 175's great work which I follow eagerly every chapter, and la crème de la crème, the novel by Stephonika Kaye. I literally ate her story page after page, and it was her great work that made me re-learn English and start writing. Before, I was a real nut in English, but now, after about two years of hard work and reading her wonderful chapters, I improved a huge lot. I loved her story so much that I wrote some of my own chapters which I wove into her story, a little like an offspring. I don't know yet if I will publish them, in fact they're still in work progress. But I'll think it over.
The only thing I will be taking from Stephonika Kaye's story is Link's origin, being found by Rusl as a baby, however newborn in my version, not a few months old as I believe is the fact in her version. That has always been the only possible origin of Link for me, I can't befriend myself with any other I've already seen, like his parents lived in Ordon or Hyrule. For me, Link's provenance and family is and stays a mystery, thus the baby abandoned in the woods by a mother unknown.
My novelization will be, of course, based on the events of Twilight Princess from the beginning, so everything that happens in the plot will find it's way into my story. However, since the world of Hyrule is also touched by magic and a lot of actions, such a cannon-travelling, which simply don't work in real life as it does in Hyrule, I will focus on the realistic side of the kingdom and make the changes necessary in the plot (don't worry, the magic will remain.)
Since I'm a bit of a reenactor myself, I'll also do a lot of research in medieval life, for example about agriculture, medicine, clothing, building and travelling. I'll do my very best to be as realistic as possible but still keeping the magical charm and supernatural of Hyrule.
What I will not be doing as well is copy the exact text from the game and put it in the interactions of my characters. That's copy-paste and boring. I will invent new conversations, new scenes and events without leaving the game-based story.
Oh, I almost forgot! I'm currently playing Hyrule Total War, the amazing fan-mod created by Undying Nephalim. Since I need some names for characters and cities, I will base them on the ones found in Hyrule Total War, to stay in the Zelda franchise, but not completely.
I already made a sketch of Hyrule's map which I increased in size drastically for better realism, adding new places and cities as well as re-placing the waterways and the two bridges to fit the new size of Hyrule. Here my sketch, but I will draw a better version on Photoshop in due time.
I'm sorry for the quality, I hope you'll see something. The bar at the bottom of the map is equivalent to one day's travel with a horse at a steady walk, converted to about twelve hours.
If you can see it, I also made a bar for only one hour. This was quite important for the two bridges, for I wanted them to be visible but not so big that you have to ride one hour to cross them ... don't worry, it will all be clear once I've done the photoshop version.
Okay, that's all for today. I've got a chapter to finish and a sketch to draw, so see you later!
