What Was I Saying...?

I finished rereading my fantasy novel yesterday, and then last night I found a slightly revised version that was roughly 800 words longer.

The main thing I notice about it, five years later, is that it seems rushed. You know how the Harry Potter movies sorta feel like they're racing through the plot and only hitting the high points? That's my book. It's entertaining enough, but overall seems rather superficial. It lacks depth. The 800 words I added (changing the background of the protagonist Lyonne a bit) does help -- makes it a more personal conflict for her -- but it's got a long way to go.

The problem for me there, of course, is how to deepen it? The Harry Potter movies feel rushed 'cause they cut out about 40% of the story. In my case, what I have is all the story I wrote, so it's not like I'm leaving things out.

I have some ideas for ways to address it ... I'm thinking of going through for each named character and writing up a bio sheet, so they can get more background and personality. I need to find some way to make the villain more interesting, too. While he gives the main characters of the story quite a pounding, I'm not sure he's a strong enough threat as written to warrant the lengths the various characters go through to fight him.

In short, the story feels like a prologue, rather than the "main event," but I don't have a main event to follow it up with. I don't have any epic "THE story of Ethangea" (or even just "THE story of Lyonne") to tie this into, I just don't think that way. I kinda wish I did ... that would give me a framework to put this story into.

EDIT: It occurs to me that Lyonne is part of the problem ... she hasn't quite gelled into a real character for me yet. I simply worked out the elements required for this plot, put them into a character, and called 'em Lyonne. I need to either work on her to flesh her out, or come up with another hero who speaks to me more.

ANOTHER EDIT: Something I remember doing (or at least intending to do, whether I actually got to it or not) is going through and chopping out any block of elvish that was more than two sentences long. I came up with a serviceable elvish language and in my rough draft had fun writing stretches of dialogue in it, but realized later from a story point of view that most readers were going to skim over that anyway -- so it didn't actually add anything. While it would be nice to think that 20 years from now there will be clubs of geeks speaking to each other in my elvish, frankly I don't believe it. There is only one Professor Tolkien, and I am not he.

-The Gneech

"It won't be easy," Soloman said. "The Branapari worship the Black Prince as they would a god."

"Worship him!" Trammus slammed his fist on the table. "Blasphemous! He's a vampire!"

Soloman shrugged, slowly blinking his turquoise eyes. "Blasphemous it may be, but there it stands. Consider it: he is immortal. He has vast sorcerous powers. He rules Branapar with disinterested severity and is above the squabble of mortal politics. He brings them peace and prosperity and all he asks in return is the occasional human sacrifice. If mortals will worship graven images that do less and demand more, surely they'll worship a god-king who is manifest before them."

"Watch your talk of mortals, elf," Trammus said. "Don't paint me with the same brush as those animals."

"I beg your pardon," Soloman said, nodding. "Let's not argue over it. We have a common goal, and should focus on that."

"Hmm," Trammus replied, and looked again to his tankard.

-The Gneech

Haven't had a nice, long, rambly post in a while, so I figure ( I'm about due! )

Most of the changes are near the beginning. The original can be read here. Still trying to come up with a "Part 2." ;) I doubt I need to say this, but just in case: copyright ©2002 by me, all rights reserved, etc. :) ( On with the story... )

This morning, it suddenly occurred to me that there's a perfect person in the Vault of Lost Characters for me to play in NWN, who is ( Theodore Stormhaven... )

Sauron, the dark lord of Middle Earth, exists in Lord of the Rings only in spirit form, as an enormous round eye ringed with fire, an all-seeing eye that sees more than just the physical world.

And what is the physical manifestation of Sauron? The One Ring ... a round circle of gold that reveals runes in fire ... the wearing of which hides you from physical sight and lets you see into the spirit world.

Man, there's a lot of symbolism packed in there. I don't know how much is intentional and how much just naturally came forth from Tolkien's mastery of literature, but it's an amazingly compact, tightly-constructed image.

And, it has some humorous side-effects. I have this mental image of Frodo's occasional donning of the ring (by slipping his finger through it) to be something like poking Sauron in the eye. >:) But that may just be my perverse nature. ( Thoughts re: The Brotherhood )

Well, since sitting around and thinking doesn't take much physical energy, I did some writing-related thinking tonight ... particularly thinking about the epic form, what it means, what its purposes are, and how to use it. ( An essay of epic proportions... )

The chainmail outfits in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" were actually knitted wool painted gray. This reminds me of the fact that when I was in Camelot in high school, the chainmail was thermal underwear, painted gray. :) ( It just gets sillier from here... )

Hurf. So much to do today. Gotta draw, that's a big one. I also need to try to put together some kind of "About the Strip" stuff for the SJ page before tonight, for "The Big Meeting." I also need to deal with the VEC -- which has a habit of eating whole days itself, the bastard.

Of course, my jealous muses being what they are, this is Ethangea's cue to jump out and demand attention again. This month's Dragon magazine has a large and in-depth article about world-building that reminds me of my "play out history like a game of Risk" idea, right down to the "Random Events Generator." It's designed to go forward on a season-to-season basis assuming a world that already exists, but that could be tweaked. It definitely bears investigation -- later.

Yeah, scream and yell Ethangea, I know you want to distract me from the stuff that needs to be done today -- just like my comics would scream and yell to keep me from working on you if there was a deadline involved. You guys are going to need to learn to get along inside my head, if either of you really want to get anywhere. Of course it's possible that neither of you really do -- in which case, I'll dump the both of you. Life is very short, and I'm not going to waste any more of it on neurotic dithering. It's time for my muses to put up or shut up.

-The Gneech, off to work now

Sometimes, a project just grabs ahold of me and won't let me think about anything else ... and even just the action of trying to think about something else causes something akin to a spiritual pain. Some writers love it when that happens ... they feel "taken over by the muse" or lifted out of themselves or some such. Personally, I hate it; it feels remarkably like an addiction, and I hate feeling like I'm not in control of my own behavior.

Ethangea has done that to me in the past week; NeverNever and The Suburban Jungle have both been forcibly shoved to the wayside by this overwhelming desire to do this RIGHT NOW! -- and little things like schedules and commitments be damned. Le sigh. I have been happily puttering around on this setting off and on for over 15 years now ... why it has to suddenly flare up and take over my attention span right now, is beyond me. (I'm betting the Lord of the Rings movie had something to do with it -- damn those great-movie-making bastards!)

FWIW, NN and SJ have both done this to me in the past, as well, so they don't really have much room to complain, but I do feel bad about letting down the readers, and more importantly, letting down Vince, who is kinda depending on me to hold up my end of the crossover. I'll fix it somehow, as soon as I am back in the creative driver's seat, so to speak. ( Yeah, yeah, cry me a river. Are you going to say something substantive? )