Exile Chapter 4 rewrites

The next chapter of the second draft of Exile can be downloaded at the bottom of this page.

This chapter is new to this draft of the story. I felt that I needed to introduce Malcolm and Lilia in a diferent way, and better show how torn Mal is over what he's going to do to pay the bills and care for his ailing father. Also, I wanted to better tie it in with Silmera's storyline, so I added this little introversive introductory part to say here's Mal, these are his problems, and this is happening at the same time that Silmera is fighting for her life in the forest below the pass.

I also wanted to have a chapter of Silmera returning to the place that she grew up. She was not born in Zion or the Hidden Valley, but she spent most of the first twenty years of her life there, during the last days of the war and afterward. She was born in Avalon shortly before the fall of Asgard, capitol of the what the people now call the Old Kingdom, and stolen away from the Demon Queen Marael by the Oracle, whom I've only mentioned once so far in the story. Oddly enough, the kidnapping happened on the night of the Exile's Moon, then called the Demon Moon, because that is the only time that the Oracle can take on physical form. Of course this is all just back story that i've come with up to explain the world and everything in my notes for this story. Most of it will never actually make it into the finished project. I have plans of eventually writing this back story out, but it will be far in the future when I am able to get to it.

One thing that i've learned not to do is dump a huge history lesson on the reader. It's usually boring and superfluous. However, I wanted to get a bit of the back story of the War of Zion, the Hidden Valley, and the Exiles into the story near the beginning, because, while not really vital to the story, they make it a little more full and rounded. So, what better way to give these elements of the plot than from the memory of a thousand year old demon wolf? Plus, I never did really explain much about the Exiles and who they're descended from and why they're called Exiles in the first draft, and I wanted to remedy that oversight.

One other thing I wanted to add in earlier in the story was an explanation of Leypoints and the effects they have on magic. I didn't get that in until about a third of the way through in the previous draft and as I read through I was like, well this is dumb, how could this guy not have been found yet, I need to explain this more.

So anyway, this chapter was added to bascially fill a lot of the gaps in the plot in the early portion of the story, and I think it does its job pretty well, without pounding you over the head with my worldbuilding and infodumping.

The first draft of this story ended at 117,352 words.
The second draft is currently at 124,895 words.

I've basically only gotten past the prologue and first chapter of the first draft and I've already added over 7500 words. Man, that first draft was REALLY crappy. It's going to be a lot of work, but I think I might actually be able to make something presentable out of this story.