Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Graveyard Wednesday

Graveyard Friday kinda failed, so I'm changing the rule to Graveyard Whenever.

I wrote this really sweet scene today, but I have to take it out because it's filler and filler is bad, so I'm putting it here, because it's sweet. Maybe someday when someone cares, people will find this section and a couple of the details will become fringe canon. Huzzah

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They stopped briefly back at the Fiammetta's inn for supplies. The town gate sat wide in the wake of the mob who'd ransacked the barn and busted open the front door. Sharon and Kindle went in to pack and assess the damage. Cat and the Curses waited in the garage. Ildri sat with her head bowed and Aiden's arm around her back. Cat approached with a heavy heart, "Hey."

Ildri glanced up. Aiden eyed her steely, "Hey."

"Um," Cat cleared her throat. "I wanted to thank you both for being so brave. I know it's not easy..."

"It's not," Ildri said. "But you guys are right. The rest of the world is afraid of the truth but you're facing it. My mother has never been able to cope like that."

"It's a lot to ask of someone," Cat agreed. "We'll make the best of it. You'll see. It won't be too bad."

"Hey Cat," Peter called. He was standing near the broken stable door staring out at the ruined sculpture. "Take a look."

The square was covered in evidence of the fight, but was no longer burning. She checked the rooftops briefly for strangers but saw no one. Instead her eye was drawn to the plume of fire in the Goddess's amputated hand. The base was covered in red jewels invisible from the ground until it fell; a mournfully poetic detail meant only for God. "I still don't think I can do this."

"You can." Peter said. "You were meant to."

"Was I meant to leave a trail of hate and destruction in my wake?"

"Don't blame yourself for that," Peter said. "You're the messenger. People always try to kill the messenger."

"That pretty much sums up Fire Town." She griped.

"Yeah and look how well that worked out!" Peter nudged her encouragingly, "You asked for one Fire Curse and got two. We'll ask for a Water Curse and get a dozen. By the time we get to Wind Town you'll be beating them off with a stick."

"The Brushcasters will try and stop us." She said.

"We'll beat them off with a stick too."

Cat smirked up at him. "You're faith is unshakable."

"Of course it is," Peter answered. "I believe in you."


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Fire Town update: 2

The hard work continues. I'm knee deep in a third drafting of this sequence of events. It's a complicated mess, but I know it's required. The hard part is making it interesting.

Some of the decisions I'm making seem like a stretch to the canon. I'm making excuses and coming up with awkward solutions to make the events fall in line. At what point does logic become lazy? When does watching people argue turn boring? At what point does "okay we'll do it" seem like a logical solution?

I'm at kaldi's right now. I plan to keep going. I'll report back when I can.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Fire Town update: 1

Update on attempted rewrite:

Changes aren't as dramatic as I first thought.  I'm moving the focus from two minor characters who were bogging everything down just to prove a point.

I introduce this little Fire Curse girl: (seen here): to show how tragic it is for kids to be abandoned to different element towns. In previous drafts, Edana was more an adult than a child - forced to grow up and be the parent to her grief-stricken mother who is coping with loss in an unhealthy way. This was very interesting but stretched the time before we get to our first Curse Town out really wide when I needed the plot to start rolling on.

Intermediate plan was to make her cheerful and curious so as to give her the secondary roll of explaining both hers and Peter's symptoms in a colorful way. Her friendship then helps us get to places we couldn't before ... which was all well and good except I found myself stretching for ways to include her.In the end there was far too much emphasis on this tiny character we already know isn't coming along with us for the long haul. It was causing me a lot of stress so I decided to take it out.

New and updated plan is to make Edana very timid. Her mother is a force to be reckoned with... she's a conflicted person who needs to be developed far more than her daughter. I will use Edana to describe how Fire Curses degrade, but Isolde is the one who'll be doing all the talking and making all the decisions. I feel much better about this. It'll take some rewrites, but it'll put the emphasis in the story in a more adult place and keep stuff from getting too cute or confusing overall.

I'll report in again when rewrite on this section is finished. I'm salvaging most of it, I hope to report great success by the end of the day.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Possible rewrite: the trouble with Fire Town

The trouble with Fire Town is that it's a lot of talking and a lot of rehash. I'm wondering if I need to change it... all of it... and very dramatically at that.

This is a horrible time to come to this conclusion. I'm past Fire Town, I'm just putting the spit polish on it... but I'm discontent because It's boring. Its a lot of talking and exposition. The more I think about it the more I don't like it. This is bad.

So this is my new strategy. I'm going to dissect Fire Town out. I'm going to remap replan and rewrite all of Dire Lonato. I'm going to do it tonight and if I don't come up with something promising from the cobbled bits I've built then I wont continue tomorrow and I'll go back to my previous plan. I hope it works. I hope it'll work. I hope it'll work fast.

Author out.... see you all in the morning.