So, there I was looking at the last version of this book, and at my outline. We have our characters in one place in one chapter, and in a completely different place in the next doing something completely different without much explanation of how they got from one to the other. So I sort of improvised a new chapter to go between them and sort of bridge them together. Plus Raven was in need of some character development so I figured it why not do both at the same time, use a chapter of character development for Raven to bridge the gap between the two disconnected chapters. Anyway, since this chapter wasn't planned at all, it's probably not exceptionally well put together yet, but it gets the job done for now. If you feel the great urge to read it you can find it at the bottom of this page.
In this chapter Raven basically just sits alone and thinks about all of the horrible, awful things that have happened to him in his life. All the things that set him on his path, and made him who he is. He's a bit selfish and melodramatic about it, but I figure he's got a right to be. I also decided to give one of the characters that gets introduced a bit later in this book, a character that has appeared all all versions of this story before this one, a genderswap and changed the relationship that Raven had with him/her from friendship, to teenage love. It doesn't really change the story in any meaningful way, but it adds a bit more depth to the relationship between these two characters, and gives more opportunities for conflict and misunderstanding, which, as a writer, is always fun stuff.
And yes, I had a 3 day weekend off of work and I only got one four page chapter written. Oops. But man. It sure was nice laying around all weekend without doing anything productive. I suppose everyone should get to do it every once in a while.
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
Memories of What Never Was chapters 16-19
And here's the rest of the chapters I wrote during NaNo, 16-19. If you feel the great urge, you can find them at the bottom of this page.
These chapters are a sequence that was in the Beyond the Lost Horizon version of this story, but cut from the Eternal Chain version. I really liked the setting, and wanted to use it again, and the idea of having to run from the Crusade too. A lot of the story elements leading here and away from here are different though, but the gist of it is the same. They go to this city for something, and are chased out of town by the Crusade. And I used this sequence to add in a pretty large patch of character development for Brand and Kriss, and set a few things up for the climax. There's a lot of Brand being Brand, which is to say, him saying any weird or random thing that comes to mind to get a rise out of Raven. And also a bit of set up for the next book in the form of the letter. Some of Brand's past and ultimate destiny is alluded to here as well.
These chapters are a sequence that was in the Beyond the Lost Horizon version of this story, but cut from the Eternal Chain version. I really liked the setting, and wanted to use it again, and the idea of having to run from the Crusade too. A lot of the story elements leading here and away from here are different though, but the gist of it is the same. They go to this city for something, and are chased out of town by the Crusade. And I used this sequence to add in a pretty large patch of character development for Brand and Kriss, and set a few things up for the climax. There's a lot of Brand being Brand, which is to say, him saying any weird or random thing that comes to mind to get a rise out of Raven. And also a bit of set up for the next book in the form of the letter. Some of Brand's past and ultimate destiny is alluded to here as well.
Tuesday, February 2, 2016
Memories of What Never Was stuffs
So I fell about 5000 words short of the 50,000 for NaNo in November. I was pretty busy that month... and in December... and in January... Soooooo I'm just getting around to posting the rest of the stuff I wrote in November.
So yeah, for those of you unaware, from about Veteran's Day to the beginning of February is the Christmas rush at the post office. We deliver about 50% of all the mail for the entire year in those two and a half months. And it's absolutely horrific. And on top of that, I had a kidney stone so large at the end of December, that I had to have surgery to remove it. So I haven't exactly had a ton of free time until now.
Anyway, so, I'm posting first drafts of Memories of What Never Was Chapters 10-15. I made a few changes to chapters 10-12, hence the reposting of them. I've also got a few more chapters that I wrote during November that I'm not posting at the moment because they need some more work before they're actually readable. That's the problem with writing 50,000 words in a month. A lot of the stuff you write is kinda crap.
Anyway, we've got the destruction of Florentine and the aftermath of that in these chapters. Some world building in chapter 15 where I explain a bit about how my spiffy new magic system works in what i think is a bit of an interesting way that shows a bit of the bigger picture of the world itself. And Chapter 14 is about a character that is new to this version of this story, though he's based on a character that was briefly in the very very first draft of the version before the last version. I needed a way to show the conflict between the Crusade and the Black Tower, and to do that I needed a new character outside of the core group of characters that I could use to do this with. Plus there's a rather large scale battle that takes place at the end of this book, and I needed a character that was outside of the town that it's being fought around to give perspective. Through him I have a bigger opportunity to show just exactly what the Desolation and the Dark Times did to the world and the people living in it, as he was an adult at the beginning of it, rather than a child growing up in the aftermath like the other viewpoint characters. He'll also play a very large role in the next two books of the trilogy.
So, if you feel the great urge to check out these chapters you can find them at the bottom of this page. And I'll get the rest of the chapters I wrote in November up ASAP, and then continue on to the end. There's not too terribly much left, and now that work is FINALLY dying down a bit I hope I'll actually have the time to finish up the first draft in the next month or two.
So yeah, for those of you unaware, from about Veteran's Day to the beginning of February is the Christmas rush at the post office. We deliver about 50% of all the mail for the entire year in those two and a half months. And it's absolutely horrific. And on top of that, I had a kidney stone so large at the end of December, that I had to have surgery to remove it. So I haven't exactly had a ton of free time until now.
Anyway, so, I'm posting first drafts of Memories of What Never Was Chapters 10-15. I made a few changes to chapters 10-12, hence the reposting of them. I've also got a few more chapters that I wrote during November that I'm not posting at the moment because they need some more work before they're actually readable. That's the problem with writing 50,000 words in a month. A lot of the stuff you write is kinda crap.
Anyway, we've got the destruction of Florentine and the aftermath of that in these chapters. Some world building in chapter 15 where I explain a bit about how my spiffy new magic system works in what i think is a bit of an interesting way that shows a bit of the bigger picture of the world itself. And Chapter 14 is about a character that is new to this version of this story, though he's based on a character that was briefly in the very very first draft of the version before the last version. I needed a way to show the conflict between the Crusade and the Black Tower, and to do that I needed a new character outside of the core group of characters that I could use to do this with. Plus there's a rather large scale battle that takes place at the end of this book, and I needed a character that was outside of the town that it's being fought around to give perspective. Through him I have a bigger opportunity to show just exactly what the Desolation and the Dark Times did to the world and the people living in it, as he was an adult at the beginning of it, rather than a child growing up in the aftermath like the other viewpoint characters. He'll also play a very large role in the next two books of the trilogy.
So, if you feel the great urge to check out these chapters you can find them at the bottom of this page. And I'll get the rest of the chapters I wrote in November up ASAP, and then continue on to the end. There's not too terribly much left, and now that work is FINALLY dying down a bit I hope I'll actually have the time to finish up the first draft in the next month or two.
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