Happy Easter

Happy Easter all.

I'm taking the day off from writing to watch General Conference and do family stuff, but I figured I'd give a little update on what it is I'm actually doing to Beyond the Lost Horizon/The Eternal Chain/Memories of What never Was/whatever name I think of to call it next.

When I realized that the story was, indeed, a bit too long to make the standalone novel that I wanted it to be, I also realized that the first book was going to need to be extraordinary in order to be able to sell not only it, but the other two books that finish the story.  I started looked for good places to cut the story, and found two very good ones that do divide the story into pretty neat thirds.  Each third would have a pretty decent climax IF I did a bit of reshuffling the characters, viewpoints, motivations, and other such things.  I came up with the idea that the three books of the trilogy would each center around one of the three characters dealing with their respective baggage.  So, the breaking point where I'm planning to end the first book centers around Kriss doing something awesome.  Which means that the first book really needs to be her story, who she is, why she is the way she is, and what will drive her to do this awesome thing at the end.  Which meant that she needed to have an actual character arc, rather than just sort of being there, and she needed a reason to be who she is, which meant that my awesome prologue was, unfortunately, about the wrong character.  I've decided that each of the three books would begin with a flashback to what the character that the book centers around was doing on that night seven years ago when the world basically went to hell.  And so, I moved my original prologue to be the prologue of book 2, which will be Brand's story, and wrote a completely new one detailing what happened to Kriss seven years ago.  Which meant I needed to develop a more in-depth back story for her.  The bask story I came up with didn't really fit her personality... so I did something sneaky.  I switch her personality with Brand's angry, sarcastic personality and made him a bit more upbeat and altruistic.  Now I have a great beginning for her as a character, I have a pretty good journey for her to go on in terms of character development, and I have a excellent climax where she overcomes some pretty nasty things in her past and does something completely freaking awesome that basically single-handedly saves the world from utter destruction.  Oh, and I also gave her the magical power to manipulate the emotions of others too, which was kind of the missing piece to her as a person.  I needed a reason for WHY all of this happened to her, and this ability, completely unique to her, became it.  It also ties in deeply with her character arc, her struggle and torment as a character, and her eventual ability to overcome it and become what she needs to be in order to be incredibly awesome at the end. 

Anyway, I'm still doing some work on my new prologue and rewritten beginning, but as soon as I deem the first draft ready for human consumption I'll be sure to post it on my site.  Until then, enjoy your Easter weekend all =)