Exile Chapter 51 Draft 4

I've finished Chatper 51 of the fourth draft of Exile and it can be downloaded at the bottom of this page.

Ok, so far all of the main characters have had their own little epiphanies about why they're going on and doing the things that they're doing, except for Patrick. It's his turn to come to a realization and become something better than he was before. It was Weasel's words way back half the story ago about having a conscience that did it for him. I toldja that would come into play later =P. Anyway, he does something very uncharacteristic and charges down into teh battle to save a man that he hates after coming to his life changing realization.

Another thing that I do in this chapter is that both Patrick and Mal have things to do here that are very heroic and self-sacrificing. Usually in books and movies you see heroes doing heroic things and they never hesitate or stop to think about the consequences before they do them. I think that's complete and utter BS. There's no one in the world that's going to toss themselves into the middle of a battle they're almost certainly going to die in without considering that possibility first. So I had both of them hesitate before doing what they do to reaffirm their reasons for doing what they do. It's something that I would do if faced with either situation, and as these characters are really just extensions of myself, they've inherited that much from me.

Another thing to note is that this story has had three completely different endings. The first ending was the one in the first draft which was rather anti-climactic, unfulfilling, lazy and really kind of nonsensical. It basically tied up most of the loose ends in the easiest way possible and was really kind of dumb. It was a bad ending for a poorly written story.

While writing the second draft I had two different endings in mind, the one I went with, which is decidedly more exciting, and another which I decided was somewhat over the top and not quite as fulfilling. This is the point in the story where those two endings diverge. The unused ending would have had Fayt Nightfang using Silmera as the core of a new Gate that would serve only him, giving him power over time and space, and Mal would set the Dark God free to break her out of the crystal the was forming around her, becoing the core instead, and then they'd both fight the Dark God, and Mal would use the Dagger of Binding to trap him again. It left a few things unresolved, and wasn't really as fulfilling as the ending I chose. I really couldn't decide between the two until I actually got to this point in the second dreaft and started writing it, and I went with the one that felt right. Much of the work I did in draft three was going back through and changing a few small things here and there to point toward this ending, because I was really leaning toward the other until I got to this point.

And HOLY CRAP it's cold today!!! I should have waited for it to warm up a bit first before getting my hair cut haha.