Time for some snippets, yeah?
This one will not be in the final book….it is the original start of the book:
Camwyn had no memories of his childhood, only those begun in a dark cave, when he woke from grievous injuries. He knew of his past only what he’d been told by Dragon.
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This was followed by pages of past-history stuff and landscape descriptions that (aside from describing a gorgeous view of the Vale of Valdaire and a good opening shot for the movie, maybe) have nothing to do with the story because he’s never there again. Also, there’s no tension. People who’ve read the Paladin’s Legacy group know who Cam is, what his injuries were, and that he’s lost his memory. People who haven’t will be thinking ‘How many pages of infodump before I have a reason to care about this character?”
Worse, the next person being shown is thinking about how disappointed he is that on his last trip over the mountains, there’s fog and he can’t see his favorite view. Interior monologue with nothing happening but the fog lifting and a horse whinnying. Ho-hum, ho-hum, the starting point is dumb…and then it goes into pages more of trivia that’s interesting to ME, because I was working back into this invented world, checking that Fenis Kavarthin & Sons were still in the building they’d been in that previous book, that this and that were in the right place and the right kinds of interactions were going on. Fine, for a book on the economics of merchant-run late-medieval cities, but this is supposed to be a story.
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So now we have the result of a complete mental reset: When the problem is a static passage, nothing really going on, AND it’s in the POV of a known character who’s a protagonist…don’t whittle away at it hoping for something better. Take a big leap.
The blade lay lightly, but dangerously, on his neck, just under the side of his jaw. “You haven’t paid your bill,” said the voice in the dark.
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The next sentence tells you who “he” is…Ilantides Balentos. Those who’ve read the short story “Mercenary’s Honor” may have a vague memory of an Ilanz Balentos who was Aesil M’dierra’s uncle and the reason she became a merc commander. Ilanz in that story is a middle-aged merc commander who helps a village win independence from its greedy neighbor city, and when that city hires a much younger Aliam Halveric to attack, and Aliam sends out his squires to a recon mission, Ilanz meets Kieri Phelan for the first time. Between then and now is a story of the young Aesil M’dierra and how she met Aliam and Kieri in dire circumstances–unfinished, still. Maybe now I can write it. Ilanz left his company (and some money) to M’dierra when he died.
This isn’t Ilanz; this is Ilanz’s much younger relative (and thus, more distantly, M’dierra’s relative.) You don’t yet know who the other person, the voice in the dark, is (and won’t, thanks to, ummm, errr, mmph, and mumble-mumble-writers-keep-secrets.) But you know, every one of you, that you do not want that voice in the dark in YOUR bedroom, and you already suspect Ilantides may have a shady side. You also want to know if the guy gets his throat cut and what happens next.
Does this 13 page segment connect to anything else in the book? Yes, it does. It foreshadows events already written some chapters later (and thus was easy to think of and write) that make other connections…and so on. So when mmmrff happens, readers (the more astute ones) will be thinking “It’s those Balentoses!” while at the same time wondering if fffnnf can possibly make it out and can vlkksr get there in time.
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But remember the entire first chapter had problems of insufficient forward motion and insufficient tension. Yet certain precursor things had to happen before other things could. A had to meet B. B had to not meet C. D had to misjudge a situation. And so on. So what should come after that 13 pages that makes it clear the initial engine is putting tension on the same overall plot, getting the whole thing rolling? Who gets the next POV slot, and why, and what do they do with it?
To keep the tension on, the next logical POV will be either the other conspirator or…another potential victim. The other conspirator has no further appearance in this book, as who he is, at least. Readers are free to think he took part in a certain nefarious deed, or to think he was in another part of the same organization. Doesn’t matter. Another potential victim is already in the book, several chapters ahead, and was going to be in chapter 1 anyway, but from a different angle. Well, then…make the next POV that of that potential victim’s POV and take a first look at Protagonist through that potential victim’s eyes…and at Balentos through that victim’s eyes as well. Another big leap.
So the next POV is Aesil M’dierra’s but not in an exciting moment, though exciting moments are referenced, and a Significant Moment occurs in that POV segment when she walks into The Golden Fish and sees an obvious newcomer.
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She noticed a striking young man at the front window table, richly dressed in yellow and black over mail and–her experienced eye recognized the way the cloth laid over it–breast and back plate.
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Other necessary nubbins have been dispensed in this POV section before this moment, relating to the matters her cousins have kept bubbling on the legal stove, adding to the tension of *that* plotline, but this is where another and major plotline’s rubber hits the road. The naive reader (the one who hasn’t read the previous volumes) doesn’t know who he is, and even the experienced reader–though perhaps guessing correctly–isn’t sure either. The last black and yellow colors shown so prominently down here were–as far as readers know–on Siniava, the Honeycat. Who IS this fellow? Why hasn’t he doffed his heavy-weight armor, or taken the coif off his head? M’dierra (experienced readers will know) knows every merc commander in Valdaire…this isn’t one of them. So who and what is he, and what is he up to? That’s revealed in their conversation, or the part of their conversation that’s shown, so the main direction of that plotline seems to be clear and straightforward. The book is going to visit a place none of the previous books have shown, but that’s been mentioned a few times.
Another POV section is coming, which introduces two well-known characters from previous books but in different roles, and foreshadows (obscurely) a major road-block in the major plotline that’s just been shown, though the actual roadblock isn’t at all clear. One of those two is the second, co-equal protagonist. And Dragon, who, though a plot-mover, isn’t a protagonist, and gives readers the chance to question Dragon’s good will, sanity and, um, “wisdom.” If humans have holes in their logic, and gaps in their knowledge, how is it possible for a creature of such length of age and vast experience and desire for all to be wiser…to be so blind to certain things? Why isn’t Dragon the perfect deus ex machina, instead of…well…fallible? Or are the humans just misunderstanding the nature of the beast, so to speak?
But that would be telling, not showing, says the mischievous writer, running off to work on other chapters.
Comment by Annabel — September 17, 2022 @ 11:40 am
Um – I know you’ve deleted this – but didn’t Camwyn wake in a cottage, rather than a cave?
“a striking young man at the front window table, richly dressed in striking yellow and black” – I expect you’ve already found another adjective to replace one of the “strikings”.
Comment by Michele — September 17, 2022 @ 12:01 pm
Mercenary’s Honor
How do I get to read this please? Is it available in eBook form?
Comment by elizabeth — September 17, 2022 @ 3:52 pm
No. Camwyn first woke in Dragon’s cave in the Western Waste, in Crown of Renewal, chapter 28, p.365 in the UK edition, the one I have at hand. He didn’t know who (or even what) he was at first waking. It’s several pages (and wakenings) later that Dragon tells him what his name is. Some pages more before Dragon flies him to the valley in which his healing continues, and that’s where he wakes up the first morning of his stay in the little stone cottage to see a horse whose whiskers are tickling his face…his future horse, though he doesn’t know it yet.
Comment by elizabeth — September 17, 2022 @ 4:03 pm
It’s in Operation Arcana, an anthology edited by John Joseph Adams, from Baen Books, 2015. Most Baen books are available in e-form, but you’d have to ask them. I was planning to put it in the next Paksworld short fiction collection I did, but came the concussion and nothing got done. Sorry. I really should try to get it done now, before this book comes out. Having that story available in the meantime would be useful to readers who’ve missed it so far. I should’ve thought of that; thank you for mentioning it. (Note to self made. Finding it may be another issue later.)
Comment by elizabeth — September 17, 2022 @ 4:18 pm
And also….thanks for pointing out the two “strikings”. I don’t look for overuse in the first two revision levels, though I will fix one that catches my eye…that’s what I call the “top layer” or “curb appeal” layer when I’m mumbling along reading every dadgum word under my breath. However, fixing it now (just did…and I don’t think the sentence needed that adjective anyway–black and yellow is a high-contrast combination and can’t be dull) saves me having to fix it next week when I should finish the level three. If all goes well in everything else. (No more dental work PLEASE!!) So thanks for telling me, glad it’s fixed now.
Comment by Caryn — September 17, 2022 @ 7:08 pm
Sounds marvellous.
Comment by elizabeth — September 19, 2022 @ 10:17 pm
Thanks, Caryn. God willin’ and the crick don’t rise (or the dental stuff continue to make work difficult) I should have this thing done sometime in the next 2 weeks.
Comment by Nadine Bowlus — September 20, 2022 @ 5:51 pm
“Mercenary’s Honor” is one my favorite “re-reads”.Enjoyed this latest set of snippets and commentary. I was chuckling when you exited. May things go well with you and New Book.
Comment by Eowyn — September 22, 2022 @ 3:05 pm
Hoping the crick stays down and the teeth behave and your only distractions are some lovely equines. Thank you for telling us the name of the anthology … I just bought it.