Paksworld

This morning I was goofing off by starting book three,  which meant I needed to check a few things from one and two.

It’s a fairly minor plot point (so far) so I don’t think it’s hugely spoilerish to reveal a little.    Some of Our Folks are in Aarenis, on a contract with Cortes Vonja to deal with brigands.  Standard, ordinary, until they find some swords.  One of the swords is a  Halveric sword, which is odd because the Halverics were careful to recover the arms of their wounded and dead.

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Though Paks is not a POV character in this group of books, she’s still a catalyst and, as such, quite busy.  I don’t know everything she’s been up to, but some of it I do, and it’s been fascinating to see how she operates, as a paladin.

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4800 words so far today.

164,800-something for the book.

And two pages into the next chapter, I realized I had written the end, at the end of the previous chapter.  It may grow or shrink some, but the skeleton and most of the flesh are there.

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Book continues its happy gallop down the to the finish line, paying no attention to its writer.

I will say it’s interesting.   Though the newly introduced “character” has a regrettable tendency to spout infodump, I think it’s telling me, and it will be easy to prune that away so readers don’t have to deal with it.   (You think? comes the little voice in my head.  One of the little voices.)

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Make for exciting stories.

Today, when I planned to do a whole lot of other stuff, has produced, so far, 2600 words and a character I did not anticipate in any way.

In other words, another plot bomb.  A BIG plot bomb.  A big enough plot bomb that I’m questioning whether it’s really a plot bomb or maybe I’ve gone totally bonkers.  True, books do produce more plot bombs toward the end (usually, if they have any…) but this…

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Just over 155,000 words.    I have another two days and then the copy edits should be here.   The more I can get done before they arrive, the better, but it’s almost 1 am and I have to sleep…

The plot bomb is now written out; the scene I needed research for is done, and some after-scene scenes as well.   In addition, the stuff 100 pages back is done, all the ends tucked in (well, for now) and all the on-the-spot-thought processes tidied away (thanks to Mr. Delete Button.)

Incidentally, we had a record high today (well what today was in the daytime, not today-by-the-clock) and the day before, and are expected to make a record again tomorrow (today-by-the-clock.)  Yes, it’s been well over 100F and no, we don’t like it.  Nothing likes it.

Not an easy day’s work but a successful one.

A small plot bomb exploded today and showered plot-fragments all over this end of the book.

I’m not through writing out the whole plot-bomb, but it’s definitely lively.   (This plot bomb came with a research assignment…”Check with D about the performance of this weapon…”)

There was a good guy and a bad guy.

I was trotting briskly along yesterday,  with Book indicating it meant to break to a canter any moment now.  The moment came,  action took off…and then, at an about-to-be-really-exciting moment, it bucked off the writer and disappeared.

It then offered a competing scenario, with a different and equally interesting possibility, and disappeared again.

So, I said to it, which path is the real one?   Book chuckled evilly and refused to answer.

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C. S. Lewis discussed part of this, in a couple of essays, but I’m going to extend what he said, a little.

Lewis said bad books succeeded, when they did, because they had some literary virtues.   No book devoid of all literary virtues, he argued, would be read–it would be too painful.  (Unless it’s assigned by one’s teacher, I mutter…)     “Bad” writers have to be doing something right–and usually, it’s telling a story.

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The second book has now crossed the 150,000 word mark, with all but one (shortish, probably not useful) outlier chapter braided into it.

At this point, that means I should be shaping for the ending of this volume, and that’s about right.  I expect it to swell out over the length I’ve set (equal to the first volume) and then shrink back down during editing (mine and the editor’s.)  It will be easier to see what really belongs to it and what doesn’t when the kitchen sink and all are piled in there together.

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