As I’ve said before, the story is now far enough along that it can largely write itself. I know what needs to happen next plot wise–but whose point of view will shine the best light on things? In the case with this chapter, I needed to have follow through with burning down the Royal Forest. So, first I asked myself, “Who will be there to ‘witness’ it?” Ohrder and Dougerty, for certain, but what about Shahdow, or, even though it would take some hoop jumping, Juhstice or possibly Chahrity? But, I knew that if I decided to stretch it beyond the likely candidates, there had better be a good reason; which, after thinking it over, there really wasn’t one. One factor stood out to me though; I didn’t want this to be just another encounter with the vile creatures. That that would have been redundant even if necessary. So, the question became, what new information/twists and turns could I build into the chapter? The idea that came to mind was to bring the prophecy vividly into play. And because Dougerty is the only ‘believer’ I had ready at hand, the point of view fell to him. I also wanted to make it clear that even Ohrder has his hands more than full just dealing with the vile beasts, before a certain lizard even makes his appearance. Okay, that all sounds promising, lets see how it played out.
EHLSEWHERE Chapter Twenty Seven
I think that was a mixed bag. The writing itself started off choppy and never got great, though it did start to flow better once we finally got to the Royal Forest. Starting off, I really like the idea of the Dougerty’s dream/vision, but it certainly needs some polishing. Still, I think it’s a good reminder that we’ve got a supernatural event unfolding here, not just an adventure story. Then the writing gets ‘strung out’, I don’t know how else to put it. I was trying to cover a lot of ground, joining Dougerty and Ohrder up, laying out how they were going to manage to both fight monsters and burn down a forest at the same time, plus, throw in the slaughter that resulted from Sir Behkworth’s first encounter with the vile creatures. All that before I even get Dougerty and Ohrder into the forest. Did I bite off more than I could chew…almost certainly; especially when you consider that I basically just chopped the chapter off without reaching a good ending point. As far as the story goes, I want to keep almost everything that happened here–I’ll have to take a hard look at the whole Behkworth at the city gate scene, but I’ll probably have to do some pretty significant rewrites, either adding, subtracting or rearranging some scenes. And that will likely carry over into the next chapter as well. So, final conclusion? This chapter is a mess, but it’s a promising mess–or at least that’s what I’m going to tell myself.
May the Lord’s love and light shine upon you,
Mike
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