Friday, October 15, 2010

Exile Part 1 Draft 4 completed

So I've finished the fourth draft of Part 1 of Exile and it can be downloaded at the bottom of this page

Part one consists of chapters 1-4. When I wrote the first draft of this book the prologue covered all of the events in the prologue and part one of the fourth draft. There is a fourteen year gap between part one and part two. Basically the only changes made were refinement of language to make it easier to read, with the addition of a few things to make certain things make more sense when we get to them and to flesh out the story.

Chapter four was new to draft 3 and has been expanded in draft 4 a little bit. In this chapter you meet the villian far earlier than in the second draft. This is something that really needed to happen, because Fayt Nightfang just sort of showed up halfway through to be his bad evil self. You now get to see him, and know that he's planning something nasty at the beginning. I needed there to be a clear villian rather than a vague threat, even if the characters themselves have no idea that he exists or who he is, the reader does need to know.

There's a basic rule that I always like to follow while writing a story, start with a bang to get the reader interested, then take a step back and start building the world and the characters after you've hooked them. Part One is the bang. There is a lot of action, a lot of switching to different viewpoints, and virtually no explanation as to what is really going on, but in a good way that kinda sweeps you up into it rather than a confusing wtf is happening sort of way.

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