As soon as the scholar-warrior idea surfaced, I knew the entire story had changed. What I didn’t know was the extent. Of course it’s more than I thought it would be, and really, how could it be any other way and still be called writing? The original protagonist in early versions of the treatment (abstract?) was the Dreamwalker girl, hence the title. Now, the main protagonist is a young man sent as part of a scientific team to investigate the Dreamwalkers.
These investigators are nothing like the nerdy scientist stereotype: they have much more in common with explorers or spies than “lab rats.” Where does the “raw material” for people like this come from? It can come from anywhere, from all classes, but the street-smart types tend to do well. They’ve had certain survival skills taught to them from the very beginning, which is of great help for this kind of work. Everything else they can learn in their training.
So it is with the protagonist (as yet unnamed) of this story. A street gang of kids is pressed into service for the Crown Library (I’m still calling it that for now). They know loyalty and brotherhood. It’s the binding force in their lives. The original loyalty they have for each other is nearly unshakable as they are transplanted into the scholar-warriors. They have a loyalty to the Crown Library, too, but their first loyalty nests within that like a curled, sleeping dragon. I can see that themes of loyalty, of brotherhood, of tribe, and family are going to dominate this story.
The other picture painted of loyalty and tribe will come from the Dreamwalkers, because, unlike the street kids who become investigators, the Dreamwalkers are in tightly knit clans or tribes. So we have non-blood-relative tribes and we have blood-relative tribes both. The utter lack of loyalty or tribe within political systems will be the counterbalance in all this. They’re going to be the antagonists. The antagonists view any system as useful so long as it supports them in their quests for power.
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