Spires of Infinity Chapter 11-15 Draft 2

I've finished chapters 11-15 of the second draft of Spires of Infinity and you can download them at the bottom of this page

Moving right along with this draft, i've got five more chapters done. as a whole, not much has changed here, but in a side by side comparison you'll notice that a lot of the text has been rearranged, or paraphrased.

Here's an example from teh first paragraph of chapter 15

Draft 1:
The first thing that Kari noticed after stepping to the next world on the quest to find adventure was the noise. There was so much noise coming from all around, even above her in the sky. The second thing she noticed was a sort of acrid underscent that, while not overpowering, seemed to permeate everything. It had her sensitive nose on the edge of burning, but not quite.

Draft 2:
Noise beat at Kari from all directions, and an acrid underscent, while not overpowering, seemed to permeate the air. It came close to making her sensitive nose burn.

Draft 2 says the exact same thing as Draft 1. You get the exact same information in both, but in draft 2 it's far more compact, it gets to the point faster and removes all the superfluous junk you don't need to know, or already know. And Draft 2 does the same job as Draft 1 in half the word count.


One major change made to these chapters was the removal of probably the biggest and most distracting contemporary cultural references where I went on a three page long rant about what a jackass George Lucas is. That TOTALLY had no place being in this story, and it's much better off without it. In its place I added quite a bit of backstory for Gabriel and Sam, resulting in a huge step forward in their character development and the development of their relationship with each other. These were things that I had later on in the story but really, by the time you get taht far, the figurative ship has kinda sailed, and I like it a lot better with these moments earlier on.

I've also dropped a few vague hints in here as to what REALLY happened the night Gabriel threatened his father with a knife. I've never actually said in the story what really happened there, but in this draft I'm going to have the Apostle drag it out of him and use it against him in their duel to distract him so she can stab him.

If you care about spoilers stop reading now. Gabriel killed his father. When his father told him he didn't have what it takes to kill him, he snapped. He'd heard that far too many times and it literally drove him crazy. Because of how horrible this event in his life was he blocked it out. He doesn't remember doing it at all. What he remembers is that his father got up and left and then never came back. His mother was so horrified by what happened that she never spoke of it again, and the police determined that the killing was justified because he saved his mother's life by doing it so no charges were ever made against Gabriel.

So far I'm down almost 9000 words in this draft too ^^V

After 11 straight hours of editing work, i'm going to bed before my brain melts.