Haven't had many of them recently, so haven't blogged much. In truth, I haven't got many more today, but it's time to say something, so...
I've put up two sections recently and want to think about what is going on in them and why, so 'scuse me while I muse a bit.
The first part is the trip down the river, where Adam meets with Miya. There should be a background feeling to this. There have already been two attacks, one each on Adam and Phoebe which you can see here. Neither of them really know about this though. Adam was told that the chimereagle was spying and Phoebe was blissfully unaware that the Vish had shot the Shedu chasing her out of the air. Both would be lots of dramatic music, but little real action.
Phoebe is aware of the fact that this is a place geared up for war and about to have the thing break loose. In a way, that's the problem for me, as she's so aware of it that she's barely going to say a word about it. She's happy to show off her knowledge of the Land, but I'm against her sitting down and expositing to let the readers know what is going on here.
Adam can drop hints that things are not as rosy as the weather seems to suggest, so he gets press-ganged into it. Mostly these are small things. He talks about the walls around the settlement, the Bastles which he sees on the trip down the river and speculates just enough on the reasons for them. My hope is that a reader will either get this clear, or at least pick up the hint that we are in a war zone from him.
There is a thought in my mind that someone who'd grown up around this time in the UK, which is in the process of spending billions on preparations for terrorist attacks on the Olympics, would have a heightened awareness of threat and preparations for it.
The fact that Phoebe doesn't is meant to show her as being an idiot or naive - she's got different priorities and references here and a lot of different expectations.
I wanted to introduce a note in the river trip, though. They are both aware of being in a story. This story is going to be very different from the one that either would expect. That's partly because of things that I can't discuss yet, but also partly because Adam needs to be caught up in this tale. That's an imperative for the whole thing and not just from my side.
I'm not the only author in this story. My concern is to keep the person reading the pages turning them over. This story, though is being generated around the two who have come in to play this game, and the writer of that story is much more focused on Adam and Phoebe. Think about telling a bedtime story to a child and think about it being a story about that child. The story has really got to engage the child, otherwise it doesn't work at all. This story is that personal.
So the reader gets to see that things are changing in this story and one part of the reason why. With luck, that sets up a lot of things that will come later and help to make sense of them.
Right, I had meant to go on about the initiation, but I've had enough for this post. More in the next one.
I've put up two sections recently and want to think about what is going on in them and why, so 'scuse me while I muse a bit.
The first part is the trip down the river, where Adam meets with Miya. There should be a background feeling to this. There have already been two attacks, one each on Adam and Phoebe which you can see here. Neither of them really know about this though. Adam was told that the chimereagle was spying and Phoebe was blissfully unaware that the Vish had shot the Shedu chasing her out of the air. Both would be lots of dramatic music, but little real action.
Phoebe is aware of the fact that this is a place geared up for war and about to have the thing break loose. In a way, that's the problem for me, as she's so aware of it that she's barely going to say a word about it. She's happy to show off her knowledge of the Land, but I'm against her sitting down and expositing to let the readers know what is going on here.
Adam can drop hints that things are not as rosy as the weather seems to suggest, so he gets press-ganged into it. Mostly these are small things. He talks about the walls around the settlement, the Bastles which he sees on the trip down the river and speculates just enough on the reasons for them. My hope is that a reader will either get this clear, or at least pick up the hint that we are in a war zone from him.
There is a thought in my mind that someone who'd grown up around this time in the UK, which is in the process of spending billions on preparations for terrorist attacks on the Olympics, would have a heightened awareness of threat and preparations for it.
The fact that Phoebe doesn't is meant to show her as being an idiot or naive - she's got different priorities and references here and a lot of different expectations.
I wanted to introduce a note in the river trip, though. They are both aware of being in a story. This story is going to be very different from the one that either would expect. That's partly because of things that I can't discuss yet, but also partly because Adam needs to be caught up in this tale. That's an imperative for the whole thing and not just from my side.
I'm not the only author in this story. My concern is to keep the person reading the pages turning them over. This story, though is being generated around the two who have come in to play this game, and the writer of that story is much more focused on Adam and Phoebe. Think about telling a bedtime story to a child and think about it being a story about that child. The story has really got to engage the child, otherwise it doesn't work at all. This story is that personal.
So the reader gets to see that things are changing in this story and one part of the reason why. With luck, that sets up a lot of things that will come later and help to make sense of them.
Right, I had meant to go on about the initiation, but I've had enough for this post. More in the next one.
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