The first chapter of Horngard I is now tighter, cleaner, more direct, less allusive.\u00a0 Starts in POV of major character.\u00a0 Sets out the initial situation directly.\u00a0 Introduces second POV character, hours later than the original start. \u00a0 Better, in other words.\u00a0 I’m now charging through the other chapters (agent had a copy I’d sent him in October; I’d lost my copies here, as you know, so it was seeing it very fresh indeed.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Every place that my eyelids sag (before midnight; sagging at midnight is normal.\u00a0 Right now I’m waiting for the dryer to finish with a load of wash that suddenly had to be done at about 10:30 pm.)<\/p>\n
For instance, Gwennothlin Marrakai is taking her youngest brother Julyan on a trip and includes moving some horses from the Marrakai estate somewhere else.\u00a0 I had, in the previous file, a sketch map of the journey, a timeline, a note of every horse, its name, its breeding, its color, its size. \u00a0 Today I was reading along, early in that journey and they stopped for lunch and then…I spent most of a paragraph on the horses.\u00a0 Not interesting stuff about the horses, not enlivening details that also show I know what I’m describing, but…she helps Julyan get on the horse she wants him to ride that afternoon, and in the process of that tells the reader (only some of whom will care) the horse’s name, breeding, color, and size.\u00a0 Does any of this matter at any point in the story?\u00a0 No. Does Julyan care?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 I found myself mentally staring at the 11 year old kid, who darn well ought to be able to mount that horse without help, and at the horse (which is not going to DO anything remarkable at any point!) and erased a paragraph.\u00a0 After lunch they started off upstream on the trail. \u00a0 It’s not about a mare named Daisy.\u00a0 It IS about one of the horses in particular, but right now they’re going to ride south, upstream, day after day until they’re….never mind.\u00a0 Lips are sealed.\u00a0 THAT bit has details that matter.<\/p>\n
More of that section–the travel–will also come out because it’s a separate sort of sequence that ties into the main sequence down the line.\u00a0\u00a0 “The Chainsaw of Correction…” is snarling in my ear.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, I’m still very happy with the battle scenes.\u00a0 Gritty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The first chapter of Horngard I is now tighter, cleaner, more direct, less allusive.\u00a0 Starts in POV of major character.\u00a0 Sets out the initial situation directly.\u00a0 Introduces second POV character, hours later than the original start. \u00a0 Better, in other words.\u00a0 I’m now charging through the other chapters (agent had a copy I’d sent him […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[129,61,128,127,5],"tags":[22,62,20,107,50],"class_list":["post-3084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-characters","category-craft","category-horngard","category-progress","category-the-writing-life","tag-characters","tag-craft-of-writing","tag-progress-report","tag-the-writing-life","tag-writer-as-editor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3084"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3084"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3087,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3084\/revisions\/3087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}