How does a young boy save a kingdom? There are a number of different ways that might play out…in this case, the boy–Shahdow needs to slay a dragon. There’s a lot more to it than that, but the battle between boy and lizard when it eventually happens needs to be epic. I know this even though I haven’t written it yet, just like I knew it the first day the story came to me. What I hadn’t figured out at the time was how to make that happen in a way that didn’t seem farfetched, or like it was a completely lucky fluke that he somehow pulled it off. Now, since this is a Christian story, I could have simply had God intercede, which would have been fine, but I would much rather have Shahdow rise to the occasion because of his faith and God-given talents, much as David was able to slay Goliath. When I asked myself how that might play out I came up with what I felt was a very plausible answer, and that’s what this next chapter addresses–the next two actually, but for the time being we’ll just focus on the groundwork I tired to lay down in this one.
If you could have watched me read this chapter you’d have seen me grimacing a lot, but also nodding quite a bit. Let’s focus on the nods first. It’s an action chapter, which is always welcome since Ehlsewhere is largely an adventure story at heart. On the lore side of things, the whole Honor Garden and Master at Arms works well enough I think and I also like how Sir Grahson is developing. The introduction of Reginhald as a minor antagonist has promise too. And most importantly, we can already see that there is a legitimate reason that Shahdow will someday be able to pick up a sword to fight a dragon. That’s all fine and good, if the writing hadn’t read like I’d just picked up a keyboard for the first time. Very poor, disorganized prose overall. And here’s the worst news…it’s another half-chapter”. Chapter Fifteen will pick up right where I left off–because I didn’t really leave off, I just quit because it was the first semi stopping place I could see happening for quite some time. Will I do some pruning to merge the two chapters together at some point? I don’t know yet. I like everything that takes place, even if I’m not happy with the way it’s written, so I know I’ll be hesitant to do too much cutting. I guess we’ll see what happens when the time comes.
Blessings to you and yours always,
Mike
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