This book is now on sale! You can read the first few chapters in this thread, and then feel free to go over to Amazon to get yourself a copy.
Thanks so much to those Dakka readers who helped make this possible!
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Introduction:
A few years ago, I wrote a novel. Since then, much of my time spent writing has been taken up with battle reports, both 5th and 6th edition, but since I'm not writing battle reports at the moment (and I just finished my other writing project), this has left me with the urge to write, but not the subject matter.
I've been wanting to write another proper, full-length piece of literature for awhile now, and I've decided to make my second novel to be a sequel, of sorts, to my Hand of the King narrative battle report series. It is going to be necessarily rather light on overt 40k references for legal reasons, of course (I might publish this on Amazon when I'm done), and I'm also intending to write it to be a stand-alone piece. You will probably get a deeper understanding of what's going on if you read the battle reports, but I want to make it so that, as much as possible, you don't have to have read any of my previous work to know what's going on. Completely stand-alone.
I spent the last few days doing my pre-writing (including playing a round of The Quiet Year with myself, which, by the way, is great for this, it turns out), so I'm now set to go into full writing mode. The goal is to make it about 50 chapters and to reach towards 125,000 words (coincidentally, about the length of the narration in the battle reports). Last time I wrote a novel, I got to ~97,000 words in five weeks, so I expect this will take me a bit closer to two months all said and done. I'm going to be moving in mid-June, so hopefully I can get things done before that becomes too much of a time drain.
In any case, I'm going to try for at least a chapter a day, so come back for updates often.
His breath came fast and ragged. Eyes searching, desperate to find a way out. He charged through the underbrush, an endless maze of trees and broken wilderness closing in around him.
“I can’t keep going! I can’t!” a frantic voice yelled behind him.
“You can make it!” he shouted back, but he didn’t care anymore. It was every man for himself now.
He rushed up the side of the ravine, dirt and pebbles sliding out from underneath his feet. Soil tumbled down the slope as he grasped at rocks and tree roots, pulling himself to the top. He scrambled to his feet and looked back, catching glimpses of white uniforms below. The soldiers were still chasing him, still charging through the forest. He had to keep running, or they meant to murder him.
Well, murder was probably the wrong word. They only meant to make him pay for what he’d done.
A gunshot cracked through the air, the red oak next to him bursting out a puff of bark and splinters. Another shot missed with a strange wet braa-AAAAP-ppp as the laser weapon ripped through the canopy above. Shouting followed the gunshots. The soldiers were almost on him.
He turned and ran, forcing his way through the tangled underbrush. Twigs and leaves snapped and scattered, gouging at his face.
Suddenly, the angle of the ground gave way. He gasped, falling forward, sliding straight towards a thicket. He hit the wall of branches, the hedge of sticks and leaves engulfing him. He reached his arm out desperately – clawing, pushing, shoving. Kicking at the twisting bark.
With a shout he burst from the hedge, careening down the rocky hillside. Dirt and pine needles spraying up as he fell, chasing after him in a cloud of dust. He crashed leg first into an upturned root, his hand catching against a sapling, slipping from his grasp as he fell. With all his strength he clawed at the soil, reaching for something to grab onto.
He caught the base of a tree, jerking to a sudden stop. The trickling flood of forest debris joined him, rushing all the way down to the creek below, splashing into the water. The faint noise lost to the shouting behind him.
“Lucas! Don’t you dare leave me!” the voice echoed through the treetops.
“Halt! Stop right there!” one of the soldiers barked in his harsh foreign accent.
“Lucas! Lucas, help! I can’t keep—” Sounds of fighting broke over the panicked shouting. Then a gunshot. Then another. Silence.
He swallowed hard.
He couldn’t outrun them, not like this. There had to be some other way. He tried to focus, his mind and body burning with fear and agony. He tried to remember where he was, to think of landmarks he had passed before. There had to be somewhere he could hide.
Lucas released his grip and carefully slid to the bottom of the hill. With a splash, he landed in the stream, grasping against the shallow, muddy banks. He took off, hobbling down the creek bed.
With a painful grunt, he threw himself down onto his belly as the stream took a sharp bend beneath a pile of underbrush. Fingers raw and bloody, he grasped at the wet earth and stones, lurching forward. Ground cover arched over him, leaves filtering the fading light from the overcast sky, glinting faintly on the clear water below.
He crawled forward, splashing through the tunnel of foliage, his breath seething. The streambed turned, then turned again. A large rock ahead jutted through the underbrush, opening it up to the forest above. He struggled to the gap, forcing himself up to his knees.
Lucas pulled himself up, out of the shrubs and into a wide, gaping hole left in the ground by a massive uprooted tree. The huge disk of earth and roots slanted at an angle over the water. It was the best shelter he could hope for. Sopping and filthy, he dragged himself up into the hole in the earth. The scent of rotting leaves and wet soil filled him. Insects scattered away. He crawled in as far as he could and then collapsed.
His breath came staccato as he tried to hold it, nostrils flaring every time he was forced to breathe. He began to tremble slightly, shaking in the darkness under the roots. He closed his eyes in a wincing grimace. He could hear the soldiers, still shouting. Voices echoing through the trees. They were fanning out, looking for him.
Breath. Breath. Pause. Wait and listen. Were they coming nearer? They were calling out to each other. Some closer, others farther away. The roots and the damp air muffled the sound above him.
And then he heard it: the crunch and awkward grunting of someone working his way across the densely packed forest floor, struggling through the bushes.
“I don’t think he came this way,” the man yelled hoarsely in an indecipherable accent. Whoever he was talking to wasn’t close by. They were already spreading out too thinly.
He waited in silence, eyes closed. Listening to the sounds, hearing them approach. Every snapping twig and bending branch shooting through his mind.
“Well, which way is it do you think that he came?” The reply was distant.
“feth if I know!”
More irritated grunting, more rustling of leaves. The movement suddenly began to slow, and then it stopped altogether.
“Is there anything for you?” the voice nearby came again. It was getting close now. Maybe fifty yards away, at most.
A long moment crept by. Silence.
“No,” came the reply at last, even further off than before. “I think he got away, for now.”
The soldier near him spat loudly.
Silence covered the forest again.
“Well so it seems!” the voice shouted. Even with the heavy accent, the tone of voice registered defeat. “Next time we find you, rebel! Next time we feth you in the face!”
Lucas lay as still as a corpse. His pain-wracked eyes opening up to the sky above him. It was going to mist over tonight. He could feel it. He was going to get away this time. Again.
“Next time!” the soldier finished, followed by a second loud spit. Muttered curses filtered through the air, mixed with more grunting and rustling. The sounds began to fade away, the forest returning to stillness.
To silence.
His chest rose and fell slowly, trembling.
He lay there, frozen. Little grains of dirt and sand working their way into his black hair, which was so desperately in need of a cut. Bloody scratches slowly coagulating on his face amid dark stubble. Mud caking slowly on the faded ruins of his uniform, which was hardly recognizable anymore.
He waited, perfectly still in the quiet tranquility of the forest, not daring to move. The sky began to darken, slowly but surely. Low-hanging clouds began to spill a light mist into the canopy high above. After what felt like hours, a whole lifetime, he finally began to emerge from his hole, crawling over the wet earth.
He had survived, somehow.
His whole body burned in agony as he slowly lifted himself to his feet, leaning on the fallen tree as he crawled out, limping towards the creek. He took a moment to find a stick to lean on, and then walked out into the gloom.
***
The hazy night air was nearly pitch black. Only the last fading glimmer of twilight remained, a dull glow above the treetops. Lucas groped his way forwards, nearly blind.
He had one thing going for him, he thought as he painfully hobbled towards the valley below: he knew where he was.
That was his one advantage. Of all the friends and comrades he had known and lost, he was the only one who had actually lived and worked here before the war. The only one who knew the wooded slopes north of Cupercourt.
Before joining the Defense Service, he had been stationed here as a forester. The ladies in town used to fawn over him, ogling the dashing young man in uniform. He once had food and laughter, his regiment and his friends, a job and a purpose, and a home.
Now he had a stick and a muddy, faded uniform and a broken ankle, most likely. He might not even have friends anymore. Given how badly the mission had gotten screwed up, they were all probably dead now. Certainly Nathan was. White-coats weren’t exactly known for their kindly treatment of rebels.
He still resented the label: rebel. The war had been so bloody, and defeat so certain, that anyone who had any sense had gone over to the other side. No one knew that the Fauleighra would arrive and “save the day.” They certainly didn’t save it for Lucas.
No, now, for no other reason than trying to survive, he was branded a traitor, hunted down by a foreign army. He had no choice but to resist, or die.
And his bloody end would come soon, no doubt. At the beginning, the rebels outnumbered the so-called saviors twelve to one, but all of their support had been whisked away. Their allies abandoned them, retreating into the void of deep space. Marshal Tellis, on the other hand, was as clever as he was brutal, and piece by piece he had broken the rebel army. There weren’t many of his kind left anymore. The wilderness around him was their final dwindling hope.
It had finally become just too dark to see when Lucas limped haggardly into the narrow ravine. What was hidden from the outside gave away its secret as he climbed. A small chem-lamp shined weakly through the mist. He had made it home, of sorts.
Camouflaged lean-tos jutted out into the ravine, mismatched scraps of canvas providing cover from above, sheltering the crude space hollowed out in the dirt. More chem-lamps cast their weak illumination across the support struts and bedrolls beneath the shelter. Battered storage crates roughly covered in tarps lurked in the corners.
A light groan reached him from across the camp, accompanied by a smooth murmur. Well, Paul was still alive, at least. Whatever luck had given Lucas a foggy night now gave him a surviving medic. He moved toward the sounds but then stopped, despite his wound.
He turned instead, moving away from the lights. Returning to his rough patch of dirt under the makeshift ring of shelter, ducking down to enter. He looked down at the row of empty bedrolls. Only two of them were full, their occupants swathed in bandages. Lucas sighed as he limped over to his own place beneath the awning.
He carefully lay down on the ground, closing his eyes, the fatigue and fear and horrible throbbing in his leg crushing down on him all at once. He sat alone in the darkness, trying to think of something, anything to take his mind off the pain. Off of what remained of his life.
Why should he be any different from the rest of them? He had survived yet again, but for what? Why was he the one who had made it? He had asked himself the same questions every night. After every dead friend, and every close call. The question pressed on him as he lay there, staring up at the canvas. Today had been a very close call, and he now had a lot of dead friends.
It was all just brute force. Just making it through, day after day, here at the end. Fate had decided to keep him alive just long enough to bury all the corpses before it shoved him out the door.
“Lucas?”
He snapped out of his thoughts for a moment. The medic was crouching into his lean-to.
“I thought I saw you come in here,” Paul spoke in his smooth voice.
“Yeah,” Lucas replied dully, too exhausted to force a smile. “How is it?”
“Not many who made it back were wounded, so it’s not too bad for me,” the medic replied. “Unless you mean in general, then... Well... I guess you could say I won’t be very busy tonight.”
Lucas nodded absently, staring past Paul and his bloody apron.
“Are you hurt?” Paul asked.
Lucas sighed. Once he had everything, and now he had nothing. Just a swatch of canvas, sagging in the darkness, the sweet night air pouring in through the mist. The scent of a million trees and mossy boulders. The scent of earth and creeping flowers.
Now he had nothing. These last few moments were coming to an end. Maybe tonight, maybe two months from now. He could feel his inevitable demise as sure as he felt the cool moisture on his face. He should enjoy it for whatever short time it lasted.
He closed his eyes and let out a deep breath. No need to bother the doctor. Just say it’s fine and let him move on to those who need it worse. Soon enough, he wouldn’t need anything at all.
He opened his eyes.
“Lucas, are you hurt or not?”
He breathed deeply again.
Finally he exhaled, letting out a long sigh.
“Yeah.”
“Let me get my bag,” Paul replied, straightening up and leaving the shelter.
No, Lucas still had something left, however tenuous. He still had his reputation as a survivor. And he had his boundless hatred for Tellis and the government army.
He leaned back onto his bedroll and closed his eyes.
He tried to shut out the pain. Shut out the lean-to and the medic and the damp, fragrant night air. The world fell away slowly, fitfully, little fragments of memory creeping up from deep inside his mind. Lucas had something else too.
His thoughts drifted to the sounds of laughter and of her special kindness. Her honest kind of strength. The tantalizing hope that he just might make it, and if he did, there might be a life waiting for him on the other side. A way to feel like a real person again.
There was hope, and it came with long waves of curly blonde hair. Of blushing red lips. Of limitless, deep blue eyes.
The most gentle, fragile vision. Lucas was afraid to breathe, lest the gossamer strands of memory blow away.
He had his unyielding desperation and fear, but he also had love, of sorts. He had Claire.
The uniform: bleached to flawless white, perfectly starched. The left arm: steel and gold scrollwork waxed and polished to high-gloss brilliance. Medals, both of them, inset on brightly colored ribbons. Olive-toned skin scrubbed clean and, against its owner’s wishes, lightly perfumed for the occasion. Thinning black hair close cropped. Shaggy eyebrows neatly trimmed.
Melchoir frowned. He glanced at himself in the full-size mirror one last time. His stature only managed to fill three quarters of the glass, and that was being rather generous. He’d had it tilted slightly forward to lessen the effect.
He sighed as he stared at his reflection.
He turned towards his orderlies. Both of them tonight were locals, tall with flowing blond hair. One of them brought forward a small tray with various accoutrements: a small glass of claret, a spare comb, a small pill tray filled with uppers and another with downers. Snuff. Coca powder. That disgusting purple-veined leaf the locals liked to chew while they pretended to be civilized.
He reached out with his gloved right hand and lifted out a pair of stimulants. The small pills rolled around as he eyed them uncertainly. He had been trying hard to stay off drugs, despite the crushing stress he was under. He had recently been nothing more than a junior officer, and the learning curve from company commander to planetary governor was more than steep.
But tonight was special. He was meeting with a servant of the Emperor, and he needed to be sharp. This was too important to screw up just because he was a little tired. He reached for the glass of wine, quickly swallowing the pills before he could change his mind. The fatigue began to wash away almost instantly.
“Are you ready, Governor Tellis?” the trayless orderly asked in the local drowning-in-pea-soup accent.
“Governor Theleos,” Melchoir instinctively corrected, to no avail. “And yes, I think I am.” He nodded to his aides and turned towards the exit.
The door groaned open as Melchoir stepped out into the night air, its soggy, acrid, wet heat pouring down the collar of his perfectly pressed uniform. He instantly broke out in a sweat, the suffocating humidity pissing on his face. It was unbearable out, even at night, yet again. He began to work his way down the stairway, his polished boots lightly clanging on the metal.
He looked out onto the landing pad, the orbital shuttle bathed in the illumination of the spaceport’s searchlights – though calling it a shuttle would scorn lesser battleships, he thought. The Emperor’s envoy had arrived in more of a giant space barge, three hundred yards long at least, barely able to fit in its cramped confines.
It was built like a cathedral, complete with spires and towers. Buttresses flanked its long hull, the floodlights sending deep shadows into the recesses, giving the immense spacecraft the look of a skeletal ribcage. The shining spires along the top of the vessel were crowned with massive anti-ship defenses. The buttresses and wells below were studded with heavy weapons designed to swat away the lesser nuisances. Light beamed starkly on its colossal ramming prow.
Melchoir looked in awe at the interstellar projection of faith and power. At the symbol of something so much greater than he could ever hope to be.
The gigantic spacecraft loomed over him as he walked across the landing pad, passing from light into shadow. The hull showed signs of extensive battle damage and ceaseless repair, a testament to the dangers that even the rich and powerful faced on long voyages through deep space.
He made it to the tall arched entryway, greeted by a pair of servants just as vapid as his own. A fresh breeze flooded over him as he passed through the baroque airlock, mercifully out of the weather, and into the climate-controlled opulence of the spacefaring palace. They entered into a huge front chamber: part grand ballroom, part nave. Fluted columns rising to the high, vaulted ceiling, bedecked with crystal lighting.
The hallway beyond was lined with statues, images of the imperial legate’s ancestors chiseled in marble. No expense could be spared to demonstrate the unbroken succession of authority, the contiguity of power. Even Melchoir’s active imagination had failed to cope with the scale of this place. Once again, he had to force down the unconscious desire to look impressed.
The lightly enchevroned red carped crunched softly underfoot as they made their way to the solarium. The final room was likewise lavishly done, but it reflected the man he was to meet, not merely the position he held. The man, it seemed, had a taste for abstract sculpture, each somewhat less tasteful than the last. The final piece was a plain cube of polished metal labeled “Release, #9,” with a signed artist’s statement.
They finally made it to a pair of polished ebony doors. One of the servants at the entrance gave Melchoir a look, signaling the governor to dismiss his orderlies, before he was politely waved in.
For all the plushness and baroque style without, the sight within was a vulgar shock. The holy of holies was nothing more than a small office with a few file cabinets, a bookshelf, and a modest metal-topped table with a reasonably ergonomic office chair.
He was alone, except for a man standing at the table, stooping over something under his desk lamp. He looked up as Melchoir entered.
With brisk courtesy, the imperial envoy crossed the small room. His bad comb-over was plastered down to his forehead. He was filled to bursting with a nervous energy, as if he were about to fling himself out a window.
“Ah, so you must be the governor – this Malcolm Tellis I’ve heard so much of?” he inquired, the words falling as languidly from his mouth as the hair covering his bald spot.
“Melchoir,” he corrected politely. “Melchoir Theleos.” Even if the locals couldn’t manage it, at least someone would pronounce his damn name right.
“Ah,” the legate replied. “I see. Your homeworld is Folera, yes?”
“It is,” Melchoir replied.
“I see,” the legate muttered again, looking at him strangely.
The room lapsed into an awkward silence. Melchoir looked for a place to sit to get out of the doorway, but there was only one chair in the room – the one by the desk. He wondered if that was an oversight or something calculated for effect.
“You must be Administrator Egiustacious?” Melchoir asked.
“Yes, indeed,” the legate replied, coming back to reality with that anxious twitchiness. “But you were not summoned here merely to exchange pleasantries. This is a matter of business, of course. Much work to be done. You are the governor of this planet, and I am your liaison to the Emperor’s administration, and the two of us, it seems, have a problem.”
“Do we?” Melchoir asked.
“Yes, and a problem with your contract, no less.”
“My contract?” he replied, suddenly nervous.
“Yes. I’ve been studying this world’s case file,” the envoy continued, devoid of emotion. “As you can imagine, it troubles a person such as myself to notice quite so many... inconsistencies.”
“Inconsistencies?” Melchoir choked.
“Indeed,” Egiustacious continued, finally backing up to give Melchoir a bit of personal space. “The Emperor in his wisdom and mercy sent you and your army to this planet to end the rebellion here, was this not so? And yet I see reports of continued fighting here on Geomides, even after all this time. We find this... unfortunate.
“But there is an even graver issue which stands between us.” The legate continued, bringing his gaze to Melchoir again. “We both understand the temporary nature of your appointment as governor, I presume?”
The curious way his voice trailed off sent a chill through Melchoir’s body.
“Certainly,” the governor replied, as politely as he could. “When Inquisitor Quistl Amns promoted me, there were no pretensions of permanence. I am only holding things together while we wait for those more suited to the task.”
“Yes, yes,” the legate replied blankly. “I am intimately acquainted with Lord Amns myself, and I am certain of his wise judgment. And indeed, you are correct. I am here with a great many planet-builders, here to transform this war-wracked world into a peaceful and productive planet once more.”
“Good,” Melchoir replied warily. “Then this to be the end of it?”
“Unfortunately for you, governor, the answer is no.”
“What?”
“This situation is somewhat... delicate,” the envoy continued. “We had certain expectations, you see – a certain vision for how this transition would proceed. Certain things would happen before certain other things. Certain procedures and deadlines and project goals, you see. These expectations have not been met, however, and we have become, shall we say, concerned. I regret to inform you that this entire process has come to a halt. Your planet is currently under interdict.”
“A what?”
“Interdict. You are cut off, so to speak.”
This time the what failed to materialize.
“It is unfortunate, as I said,” the envoy continued. “But it is the natural consequence of events.”
“Events?” Melchoir stuttered.
“Yes, governor. As you know, Geomides is an integral link in the chain of the Emperor’s great war machine – a machine that only runs smoothly when each of the gears is in place,” he said, weaving his fingers together.
“But you see,” he continued, “the Administratum and Munitorum both have a keen interest in making certain that quotas are filled. You must understand this, being a soldier of the Imperial Guard yourself. If every citizen didn’t do his part, then our brave defenders would go fighting the enemies of mankind without food or weapons.”
“We have no intention of withholding from the Emperor,” Melchoir insisted, choosing his words carefully. “I promise we’ve been doing everything we can. If I’ve failed you somehow, I apologize completely. I swear if things haven’t been going to plan, it’s only because of the difficulties we’ve faced rebuilding. Nothing untoward is happening here.”
“That is for me to determine, governor. Given the many recent shortcomings of Geomides, I regret to inform you that we are uncertain whether this is a planet that has merely lapsed in its duties or, given its miserable failures of quota and continued rebellion, one that is in open revolt against the Emperor.”
“Revolt?” Melchoir gasped. “No, it’s nothing like that.”
“Perhaps,” the legate replied, terrifyingly devoid of emotion. “We shall see. So long as you are under an official interdict, I will be here to investigate the matter. To make sure things are running smoothly.”
“Smoothly?” Melchoir said, his mouth agape. “Sir, this planet once housed twelve billion souls. The warfare here has claimed all, save a few million of them. This planet is a desolate wasteland.”
“Yes, we understand that, which is why we have considered being lenient on the lapse of tithes,” came the cool reply.
“You are temporarily relieved of your requirement to supply Imperial Guard regiments, as well as other tax obligations. You are even relieved of your burden for producing flak armor for the Emperor’s armies, which was this world’s primary export. You must, however, give us some token of good faith that you are still willing to support us before we will support you.”
“Anything,” Melchoir almost shouted.
“If you can bring the production of left shoulder pads back up to one tenth of its prewar quota, I believe we can relieve the interdiction.”
“Left shoulder pads?”
“Yes, marshal. Just think of all our poor defenders of the righteous cause. Think how they die in the thousands and in the millions, slain on battlefields far away from wounds taken to the left shoulder and upper arm. I shudder to think.” He didn’t actually shudder.
“Yes, of course,” the governor replied. “It will be difficult. The whole planet is a wasteland, as I mentioned. The repair even of habitation is needed before we can do anything else. And the food situation. The whole countryside is suffering from a serious lack of rainfall, and the locals are near starvation. Please, at least send us food, and we can do whatever you want.”
“You are under interdict,” the envoy insisted.
Melchoir flinched at the madness. He could build them a million left shoulder pads in a week if only they would drop their manufacturies down from orbit.
“I was told something about you, marshal,” the legate continued in an almost conciliatory tone. “I was told you were a man who can take control of things. Certainly the Lord Inquisitor Amns must have thought so to give you such a responsibility in the first place.”
Melchoir didn’t know if that was praise or a threat.
“I will handcraft pauldrons myself, if need be,” Melchoir replied. “Just as I will look forward your transition team doing its job. As soon as possible.”
“Then we have reached an understanding,” the administrator replied, forcing a wan smile.
“Yes,” Melchoir replied in his least-reluctant tone of voice. “We do what we can, when we can.”
“I am pleased,” the legate stated. “I had fears that you would have lingering desires for power or that you would resist the grave reality imposed upon us. You seem to be a very reasonable man, and creditworthy, I hope. I wish you good fortune, Governor Theleos.”
“Keep me informed of your progress,” the legate concluded as means of dismissal. Melchoir took the hint gracefully, clearing his throat and turning to leave the room. The black door opened as he approached, ejecting him back into the plush fantasy outside.
His orderlies sauntered over towards the governor as he approached. Melchoir let out a long breath through pursed lips, as if he had forgotten to exhale for the last ten minutes. The Emperor’s representative had looked limp and weak, but Melchoir suddenly suspected that he had just escaped losing his head.
Perhaps not all notices of imperial censure were handled with such tact. He was suddenly grateful that his host seemed to appreciate soft carpets and abstract art.
“Come on,” he told his orderlies brusquely. “We have a lot of work to do.”
The summer night stretched out before her, the sultry darkness a perfect, silent tranquility. In the center was a globe of light, the spherical streetlamp brilliant against its backdrop. The trees around her stretched up, reaching higher and higher into the shadows, branches fanning out, splitting then splitting again.
The night air above her exploding with detail.
A million leaves splashed across her view, lit from below – a cascade of off-white pouring out over the street, frozen in place, shimmering in the night air. The tiny clusters of light hung on the long, arching branches, a mosaic dome suspended above the streetlight’s glowing orb, leaves fluttering lazily in the faintest humid breeze.
The brick pavement was still slightly warm beneath her bare feet, the smooth clay joining the concentric tapestry overhead. The silence and the darkness and the weight of the perfumed air blotting out everything else, leaving her with only this small piece, free from all the clutter that would drown it out in daylight. She could focus intimately on things that would normally pass by as ordinary, taken for granted.
She took a step forward and then another, watching the monochrome kaleidoscope shift overhead, branches shifting behind the leaves, patches of reflected light slowly obscured and then revealed as she walked underneath, staring up.
She sighed, giving the view a final passing glance as she left the streetlight’s aura, returning to the darkness. Feeling the worn-down pavement as she walked in the middle of the street. There was no traffic tonight, just like there wasn’t any traffic any night. Not anymore.
Her city was in ruins.
The desolation still shocked her sometimes. The crumbling homes and buildings everywhere reminded her of a human skeleton. You knew it was the remains of something real, something living, but at the same time it so faintly resembled the original subject. A strange, cruel parody of what had come before.
Not unlike her life. Or that of any of her little group of survivors, who had somehow made it through the jaws of unimaginable violence. She thought it strange that any of them had survived the war. That any human beings had been left alive, clinging to the ragged byproduct of apocalypse.
She wore a pair of torn shorts, the pockets stuffed with tiny green apples. This was how she got by: foraging from fruit trees in what were once front yards. No doubt they had been planted for how pretty their flowers looked in the spring, nothing more. It was still much too early for ripe fruit, but there was no danger of creating a shortage; she had mapped out every apple, pear, and peach tree within miles. And anyways, it wouldn’t do if she starved to death waiting for autumn.
And so she walked, barefoot over the smooth bricks that paved the streets, hopping from island of light to island of light, the overcast sky blotting out the stars and leaving the world a simple place of punctuated darkness. She scratched her belly, her thin fingers rubbing up against the threadbare, white sleeveless shirt that draped over her petite frame.
Ahead, she could barely make out her flimsy shack, crowded together with the others near the intersection. She sighed as she approached her little community, every step a little heavier than the last. She was returning, back into her own private prison. The doors were unlocked, but she was trapped nonetheless. Stuck with the same stupid people, the same grinding poverty, the same pointless existence.
She had been university educated with rich parents, and now that world was dead, along with the rest of them. What a cruel thing to raise a child to make a difference and then suddenly leave her with nothing but wasted potential.
The worst part, she regretted to admit, was that she was mostly just bored.
“Jaines,” came a voice from the shadows as she approached. She flinched instinctively at the sound.
“Jules,” she replied as the young man emerged from behind a makeshift shelter. He was simple and altogether unfortunate, but a companion, of sorts. The fact that she considered him at all was a constant reminder of her endless desperation. Sometimes she even let him feth her, when the crushing ennui brought her too close to the edge of madness.
“Did you have any luck?” he asked.
“The same as usual,” she replied.
“Apple soup tonight, then?”
“Maybe.”
“We could boil them down again. It’s been a while since we did that.”
“Sure.”
“Or we could come up with something else.”
“Right.”
“At least it’s a nice night to be out. Good foraging weather.”
“Yeah.”
Jaines took a step to the side, trying to rip herself free from the conversation, but Jules moved to block her.
“Hey, are you coming to the meeting tonight?” he asked eagerly.
She rolled her eyes. Why bother? A bunch of sad sacks bitching and moaning. Like she didn’t have it tough too, but she didn’t feel the need to try and group-hug away the destruction of civilization. The only thing worse than a bunch of timid idiots was a bunch of timid idiots with a martyr complex. A bunch of drama queens enabling each other to be pathetic, and not actually doing anything about how awful everything had become. Competing over who could be the biggest victim.
She sighed again. But what else was she going to do? Spend all night with Jules? It had been months since she had last attended the pity party. Maybe there would be some new dirt this time. She could always screw later, if she still felt up to it after the inevitable nausea of one of these meetings.
It would give her something else to do, at least. Mindless entertainment.
“Yeah,” Jaines finally replied. “Sure, I guess.”
“Great!” Jules exclaimed, lighting up. “There’s been so much going on, I’m going to have to catch you up on everything. You’ll never believe what Anna’s been saying. Such gossip!”
“I’m sure,” she replied, forcing a wan smile. “Just give me a second, okay?”
“Yeah, no problem. Just hurry up, we don’t want to miss it.”
Jaines turned, letting her attempted smile dissolve away. She made her way back to her shack, stopping at the hacked-out doorway for a moment, staring into the gaping hole.
She reached into her pockets and withdrew her small collection of apples, tossing them angrily into the small space.
Jaines turned and walked back out to Jules. He held out his hand, which she reluctantly grabbed, following her companion down the street.
***
The diner was a miraculous oddity, somehow completely undamaged by the war. Not a single pane of glass was broken. All the lights worked. The chalkboards behind the counter still showed menu items in prewar prices. It was a strange beacon of normalcy.
At least a hundred people were crammed into the small space. The old and infirm in booths and stools at the counter, while the rest sat on the floor, or in the windowsills. A few more sat on the disused griddles, while even more were forced to stand.
Jaines sat on the air conditioner near the back, under the only fluorescent light that was starting to go out.
“And I can’t even imagine how many children I could have saved if they had allowed me to continue my practice,” continued the old man with a missing eye and a splotchy burn over the left side of his face. Everyone was listening quietly. “But no. They said they had too many doctors and not enough ag workers. A farmer! Can you believe it? They shipped me off here to Boroughcourt without so much as a second thought. Now I’m working my fingers to the bone doing menial tasks when I could be saving lives.”
The room broke out in quiet indignancy, murmuring softly. The doctor passed the talking stick – an old metal spatula – to the person next to him.
“I’m sorry,” the woman replied as she took the baton. “You and me both. I was self-actualized, you know. I was happy enough with my food subsidy and housing, and I was writing. I was creating art. What is the point of surviving if we’ve lost our souls? And now I have to work in a manufactorum, and for what?” she continued bitterly. “Before, they at least gave us dignity. I was free from the fear that I wouldn’t have food or medicine, and I had the right to do whatever I was good at without penalty. Now we have half-rations, and I’m told if I don’t do this or that, and don’t fill some sort of arbitrary production goals, they’ll make me buy my food. They’ll deny my right to bread! I’ll starve!”
The light flickered above Jaines.
“And it’s not like we won’t work,” broke in another, out of turn. “I worked munitions, but now look. Nobody cares about quality anymore. I can’t ply my trade. I’m just a cog in a machine. Now I have to work five days a week, and I get barely an hour for lunch, and I sometimes have to work overtime. This never would have stood before!”
Flicker. Flicker-flicker.
Even Jaines was forced to agree that things were pretty bad. They now labored in barbaric work conditions, under the harsh gaze of those who saw them as nothing more than what quotas they filled by the end of a long day of work. Agriculture was particularly brutal, requiring hours of manual labor – fixing machines, copying ledgers, and transporting produce.
The crowd in the diner was starting to get riled up, others trying to break into the conversation. A few shouts bubbled up over the noise. This was new to Jaines. Before, these meetings had always been so sad. Now they seemed... angry.
For the first time in a long time, her curiosity was piqued. The light flickered above her.
“I know, I know,” someone called out from the middle of the pack, trying to barge his way over the growing unrest. A balding man came forward to the middle of the room, his face badly pockmarked, concealed by a thin salt-and-pepper beard. It took Jaines a moment to recognize him, he had lost so much weight.
Warren had piercing eyes, which he used to stare down the crowd. The flash of rage returned to smoldering coals. Those who had stood up began to sit back down at his commanding glare.
“I have spoken with the scribes of Boroughcourt,” he began, to mutters of discontent. “I have spoken with Superior Gilbert. He understands our grievances.” Warren seemed almost as ill convinced of this as the rest of them. “He understands what we’re going through, but he says that someone has to work the ag-fabs.”
“But why us?” came an angry voice from the crowd.
“It has to be someone,” Warren replied with a pained voice. “Let’s be reasonable.”
“Reasonable?” Jaines shouted, despite herself. “What reason is this?”
She suddenly became extremely self-conscious as a hundred faces turned to stare at her: the scrawny, young, barefoot woman with the slightly see-through top.
She swallowed hard. What was she doing?
“Yes,” she heard herself continue. “The only reason here is reason at the point of a bayonet.”
The room grew silent as the air began to charge up.
“I mean,” she continued, “the only reason any of us are doing what we’re doing is because of force. But what’s the worst they’re going to do? Starve us? We’re already starving. Enslave us? We are already slaves.
“Nothing will ever change unless we change it. I say we live our own lives again. You don’t want to be a farmer? Then walk off the farm. You don’t want to be a mech clerk? Put down your tools. It’s your life, people. Do something about it.”
Silence took over the diner.
“That’s all well and good,” Warren spoke carefully, “but actions have consequences.”
“That was my point, Warren,” Jaines replied, slowly growing bolder, swept up in her own momentum. A haze of possibilities engulfed her mind. “What’s going to happen?” she continued. “Gilbert? Is our own superior going to murder each and every one of us for pursuing our rights? Of course not.”
“The Fauleighra,” Warren started.
“Are hundreds of miles away in Cupercourt fighting so-called rebels,” Jaines replied. “But what do they know anyways? It’s their foreign ways of doing things that’s causing us this misery in the first place. If Marshal Tellis stands against us, I say we stand against Marshal Tellis.”
“What are you saying?” someone spoke from the crowd.
Jaines got up from her seat and stood up on the air conditioning unit. The light above flickered over her head.
“I say nothing changes unless we change it. We fight, get what we need, and depose anyone who stands in our way.”
The room burst into a hornet’s nest of shouting. The cacophony knocked Jaines back down to her seat. Yelling, jostling, and pushing crushed in around her in the raucous chaos. She leapt down from her spot into someone lurching backwards from a hard shove, the man smashing her into the wall.
The collective pent-up anger blasted through the tiny diner. All the loss, all the pain, all the degradation. All the yearning and anger at the feeling of helplessness. A year and a half of apocalyptic warfare and brutal occupation. The stirred flutterings of genuine, self-righteous rage.
A tall man tripped over her as she crawled to the back exit, kicking her hard in the ribs. She stifled a cry of pain as she made it the last few feet to the door, shoving her way through a few others who were quickly trying to leave, struggling through the pandemonium.
She popped back out into the sultry night air, staggering away from the scene. The darkness felt warm and soothing, comforting somehow. Alive.
Her dirty bare feet moved quickly over the smooth bricks beneath her, striding out into the night. Things were much more interesting than she thought. Something was about to happen, and she needed to be there when it did. She needed to help take control, or it would whisk away from her all at once. She needed to move up, or else she’d be stuck forever in that shack with half-rations, hard apples, and Jules.
Her excitement built as she walked toward a small island of light, the leaves shimmering ever so slightly. The world was dancing for her. She began to smile, despite herself.
She finally had something to do.
She paused for a moment, listening to the diner behind her. She needed to turn around and go back. She needed to get the people with power on her side. She needed a way in.
What she needed was Warren.
She turned and grabbed her side where she had been kicked, her feet slowly gliding back towards the diner. Walking back through the humid summer darkness.
Claire was up late again. The pile of requisition forms lay unsigned on her desk, leering up at her. She’d been working all day, but the stack didn’t seem to be getting any smaller. It was a losing battle.
She sighed, letting herself gaze out the window again. It was open, allowing the warm night breeze into her office. The sultry perfume of summer gently kissed her face and ran lightly through her wavy blonde hair, tickling the back of her neck and spilling into the collar of her work blouse. The trees in front of her window swayed gently in the evening air.
She stared idly at the chain-link fence up the street. On her side lay what remained of the city of Cupercourt, the part being rebuilt on the hill. Beyond lay the abandoned ruins, stretching down to the river. She looked up at the ribbon of black hills cutting a defiant line against the hazy night sky. A few stars peeked out between the soft, pillowy clouds above.
She stared at the vast wilderness out her window, trying to imagine the forest at night. How anyone could live out there, camped beneath the leaves and the stars. But he was there, right now.
Lucas.
She thought about the way his dark hair fell around his ears. The way his strong hands gently slid around her waist.
She could see his face. The smile in his sparkling eyes. His dark warmth. The way he laughed, even when her attempts at humor fell flat, which they almost always did. The way he kissed her when they finally met, and the way he kissed her when they had to part.
Her breath caught in her throat. She could feel him, as if he were standing right next to her. As if he were there to pull her into his embrace. It had been weeks since last she had heard from him – no, at least two months. She had been waiting so long, without so much as a letter from him. Without knowing... knowing if he was...
“Dead in here tonight, isn’t it, Ms. Rochefield?” came a voice from behind her.
“What? Claire asked, turning suddenly in her chair.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” It was Anna, bringing in another stack of forms.
“No, it’s alright,” Claire replied, trying to clear her head. “Any news from Aurel?”
“The superior of Cupercourt is not to be disturbed,” Anna replied in a poor impersonation. “Rebuilding the city is a task that requires endless oversight. Surely a scribe such as yourself can appreciate this fact.”
Claire sighed.
“And before you ask,” Anna continued, “the vice superior is in another meeting with Marshal Vogel.”
“What is it now?”
“Who knows?” Anna replied. “If you can figure out how to keep the white-coats happy, make sure to let me know. It would look great on a resume. Better yet, figure out how to crush the rebel army. I can’t wait to send Vogel and his soldiers home for good.”
“It would be nice for things to be simpler around here,” Claire admitted, her thoughts turning towards the window.
“Well in the meantime, here you go. Congratulations once again on your promotion to arch-scribe.” She plopped the stack of paperwork down on the desk.
“Yeah, thanks,” Claire replied wryly.
“Hey, when the other two aren’t around, you get to be the one in charge here.”
“And I get all the responsibility that comes with it.”
“And the pay, and the title,” Anna replied. “Not everyone gets to be arch-scribe.”
“I know. I’m sorry,” Claire apologized. “It’s just been a long day. Thanks for staying late and helping finish up.”
“No problem. Speaking of,” Anna replied. “It’s already getting pretty late. Do you think you’ll be able to go out tonight? Some of us were going to a soiree. We might be able to catch the end of one if we hurry.”
“Umm, probably not tonight, sorry.”
“Well, don’t stay here too late, anyways,” Anna replied, turning to leave.
“I wouldn’t have to if I’d gotten my work done faster in the first place,” Claire muttered, turning back to her desk as Anna left. Her office dimmed as the lights in the main room flicked off.
She sighed again, looking at the requisition forms in front of her. They were due by the end of the week. They were her responsibility. She was the arch-scribe now.
Her eyes wandered out the window again. Her thoughts immediately returned to Lucas.
She needed to stop this daydreaming. She was building the future. She was repairing her broken city and making everyone’s life better. She was part of the very system that rebels like Lucas were trying to destroy.
And it was only a matter of time before he was gone anyways. She read the news. She knew what everybody said. Grand Marshal Vogel posted weekly casualty reports, promising he would wipe the rebels out. Sooner or later, Lucas would be killed, if he hadn’t been already.
And she should be glad. She was a magistrate’s daughter, and they were filthy rebels. Her relationship with Lucas was beyond dangerous – bordering on treason. The sooner it was all done with, the sooner she could finally be free of him, and get on with the rest of her life.
But still, she felt a mixture of anxiety and desperate hope. Remembering the flash she felt through her body when he held her firmly against him. The strong fingers bringing her in. Commanding her. Sliding across her until she pleaded for him, her voice choking on the words, her eyes betraying her need.
Her breath began to quicken as the evening breeze filled her. Her mind unconsciously drifting away, bringing to view that night a week ago.
She had stood at the chain-link fence, looking for him. Waiting. Dreading the worst. She had grasped the fence, her slender fingers pushing through the gaps. Letting her face gently caress the wire. She closed her eyes.
Then she heard it. The rattle of the fence, the rustle in the grass. Footsteps. Her whole body tightened up, face going flush.
Lucas approached, coming out of the darkness. Walking up to her under the light on the fence.
“Claire,” he spoke. His rough, commanding voice was soft and gentle. Almost otherworldly.
“L… Lucas,” she replied. A rush of pure, exhilaration rushing up her spine, smashing away everything.
Lucas smiled, a few scratches running down his cheek into the dark stubble on his jaw. “It’s nice to see you again,” he spoke.
“Umm. You... You’re hurt,” she finally managed, noticing how he held onto the fence for support.
“This?” Lucas replied. “I thought I broke my ankle. It turned out that I just sprained it. Don’t you worry, it’s healing well. A few more days and I won’t even notice it. They said so.”
“How did you get in?” she asked, her eyes transfixed on him, drinking in his lean, hard strength. Her whole body was beginning to tingle.
“The same way as usual,” he replied nonchalantly. “Your boss’s security is still terrible. They couldn’t catch me, even if I tried to get caught.”
The two still stood apart, framed by the glow pouring down from the floodlight atop the fence.
“I’m sorry...” Lucas began clumsily. “I’m sorry that it’s been so long. I should have been back weeks ago. I’m sure you were worried sick.”
“Worried?” she squeaked. She wanted to scream. Worried? She had wrung herself to ruin over him, ripping herself to pieces with every missed night. With every counting day of his absence. She wanted to run up to him and hit him. To pound on his chest and his arms and yell and scream at him. She didn’t know what she was thinking. It was all coming to her so fast.
He could see her breathing heavily again, close to tears. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I’ll never be this long again, I promise.”
It was absurd. It wasn’t right. It was so, so wrong. But there he stood, his arms opened up to her. Beckoning to her. She took a step towards him. And then another, and there she was.
The two of them stared into each other’s eyes.
“Lucas,” she finally let out, reaching out to him. His strong arms wreathed around her, pulling her in tight. Her senses washed over with the smoky scent of campfire and the earthy musk of moss and forest.
She let out a sigh into his faded, mud-speckled uniform, rushing with pure bliss, everything else falling away before his embrace. His warmth entered her. Pouring through her skin and her face and deep into her breasts. Her lips were flushed and tingling fiercely as they pressed into his firm shoulders, and the rock-hard cords of his arms. Her breathing became more rapid, and more rapid still.
He was here now, holding her tight. Her body began to fill with tension, with the unbearable thrill of anticipation.
He stared down into her wide, glossy eyes. Endless pools of blue. His face was merely inches away from her. Her fast, shallow, fleeting breath gracing his neck, trembling. The irresistible force pulling them together. Closer.
He bent down and placed his lips gently on hers.
She let out a long, moaning sigh as she melted into his arms. The heat was unbearable as ten iron-hard fingers grasped around her waist to prevent her from falling, each firing a sparking shock into her body.
The lump was in her throat again. The ache was returning, not in her heart, but lower, and lower still. The feeling deep inside betrayed her wetness building, swelling, struggling to free itself. She couldn’t take it anymore. All this waiting, all this tortured agony.
Her eyes pleaded as she reached for the buttons on her blouse, fingers fumbling frantically, helplessly.
Lucas carefully released his grasp, letting her feet find the ground again before bending down to help her. Slowly, he unbuttoned her top button, and then, after an eternity, the second one came undone.
She was standing there, her pressed business shirt clinging to her arms and shoulders. The light fell on her heavy breasts, the brassiere straining with every breath she took. A thin bead of sweat trickled slowly down her cleavage as the humid night air closed in around them.
Her body hungered, every fiber of her being thrumming with sensual purpose. With desperate passion. Her eyes bored into his pants. She was not alone.
“We,” she gasped, whatever sense she had left fleeing her. “We… I…”
“Shhh,” Lucas let out, placing his finger along the bead of sweat, and applying the gentlest pressure into the space between her breasts, tracing down until he caught up with the moisture, and kept on going until he was at her belly. The finger stopped just at her navel.
She wanted to scream. No. No, she couldn’t resist this. She had to have him. She looked frantically around her. Underneath was the hard, weedy gravel. Beyond that, the harsh concrete of the sidewalk and street.
Where? Where?
“Lucas, please,” she choked, staring desperately into his eyes. His steely arm came down across her shoulders from behind, the other wound around her waist. His muscular chest forced itself against her back, pulling her up in an eager, urgent embrace.
She was trembling now, the passion too much to bear as his hand slid down and touched the button on her slacks. With a deft flick of his fingers, it was undone. Her pants slid, inch by inch down her hips and thighs. Without losing a moment, his thumb was in the band of her panties. They stretched open as they reached around the cheeks beneath the tail of her dress shirt, before lazily wafting down her legs.
She let go of the last of her wits as he kissed her on the side of her neck beneath her ear. She felt his strong hands slowly bend her over. She reached for the chain-link fence and grabbed on desperately. She bent all the way over, her hips unconsciously spreading apart. Her face gently touched the wire grid, the crosshatched sensation on her lips and forehead.
She was almost sobbing now. Waiting. Exposed completely under the light, in the open night air. And then she felt it.
His fingers were there again, on her, but this was no longer a tease. They served a greater master and moved only to part her lips away. To make room. She reached her own hand down, sliding over his until her fingers found him, pulling him up towards her.
Slowly, bit by bit, she lowered herself onto him. The whole world spun around as she clung to the fence. She sighed as it all washed out of her – every care, every shame, every feeling but him inside of her – it all cascaded down her body, crashing around his rigid hardness as it flew away.
His hands came down and gripped her by the waist again. Gently, he began to slide back out of her before returning again with a violent thrust. Then another.
She gasped for breath as her face smashed into the wire with every stroke. Every filling moment. The pressure of him increased as his hands gripped harder, squeezing her together, inside and out. Taking her utterly, relentless and demanding.
The feeling rose inside her. Her knees began to give way as the fire spread up her belly and into her lungs. Up her throat and into her lips.
She cried out as she came hard against the fence, a wild rush of ecstasy overtaking her. She gasped for air.
Then she realized: he was still going. How was he still…
She came again, harder and faster than before. His manhood filled her body until it burst into her, the flood of his passion surging through hers. Every muscle quivered in raging passion.
And then he stopped, breathless.
He left himself inside her for a long moment, the two panting heavily, fighting to breathe in the humid night air. Then he gave her one short thrust, followed by another. His size reminding her of what he had just done.
With a breathless moan, she felt her legs give out. Lucas’s slick body escaped from her as she fell to her knees on the gravel below, arms raised as her hands still clung to the fence. Her heart beat wildly as the metal caressed her face.
She had a moment of pure bliss as he stood behind her, gazing down on her half-dressed body in the light.
A moment. Just one long moment until she began to return to herself. Until she began to remember. Until she began to think. The breeze wafted in through the window, papers moving on her desk.
What had she done?
Stupid! Stupid! Why did she keep torturing herself? Why did she keep doing this? It was just a phase, she just needed to be calm. To take control of her mind again. Of her feelings. Of her life.
She sighed, blinking away the memory. She took one last look at her requisition forms, the weight of responsibility returning to her. She just needed to get out of this office. She choked back her emotions as she stacked the documents neatly on the desk.
She stood up and walked towards the door, turning the lights off as she left.
Good stuff, particularly the first and second chapters. As usual, you've managed to add a very human feel to the 40k universe, and the characters are very good so far. It's great to see Melchoir back in action again too.
I liked the satire of the first chapter, the whole 'Left Shoulder Pad' thing, and the general mocking of the Imperial bureaucracy which just about lets enough of the severity through to be threatening. Very well handled.
125,000 words in two months sounds like a lot, but I'm sure it's doable, and you're off to a good start. Best of luck going forward, and I'll be following this. Will you be supplementing/continuing it with batreps at all?
So far, I'm off to a good start, as I comfortably cleared 10,000 words in the first two days. At this pace, 100,000 words will be cleared in fewer than 20 days. I'm also clearing around 20 words per minute while actively writing, so my stats are giving me confidence.
I'm not planning on putting battle reports with this. It's going to be a stand-alone thing. One of the reasons I'm doing it, though, is that it might be a little while until I can get into the next series.
I'm going to be moving in less than two months, and then might well be moving again a couple months after that, but in any case, things are going to be crazy and I'm going to wind up in a new place far away. It will likely not be until autumn, at the earliest before I can start a new batrep series.
So you'll just have to live with literature. Books are good for ya
He was clad in the white uniform he kept for social calls like this. The other two were far too bloodstained for a soiree.
The large, open room was dimly lit, to disguise that it had been a warehouse or a loading dock before the war. Certainly the illusion was improved by the decor. Plush couches richly upholstered sat on expensive carpets. Fluted lamps and a few dwarf palms adding a touch of civilization to the whole affair. Never mind the occasional burned spot or frayed edge.
Damien Vogel stood in the corner of the room, where the people worth associating with were gathered. The vice superior of Cupercourt stood off to his left, followed by his son, the young man ostensibly responsible for the city’s security. To his right was an official from Bellemonde, probably a magistrate’s page sent from the capital to spy on him. The official’s woman sat in the love seat next to him, idly running her fingers through a palm frond with one hand while holding a rapidly emptying glass of red wine in the other.
A few more people stood in the circle, but none of them really mattered at the moment. He only had eyes for one person tonight. The same person whose sheer magnetism and social standing had been drawing more and more of his attention over the past few months.
She sat there, alone, on a maroon and olive-striped sofa, bathed in the light of a stained-glass glow-lamp. She looked almost sad, like the last perfect snowflake to fall before spring. Her blonde hair cascaded down from her silver hairpin in fearsome curls along the side of her neck. The white dress she wore was covered with tiny silver sparkles that pooled around her shoulders and cascaded down her body. The tight-fitting bodice would have spilled her ample figure out but for the clever working of a tailor’s needle.
The moment faded quickly. She was pleasing to look upon, but that hardly made her stand out. He was Grand Marshal Damien Vogel. He was the commander of the entire Foleran Army stationed here on Geomides. The most powerful man on the entire planet, excepting only the governor. He could have any woman he wanted. And he did. Often.
When he commanded, his soldiers obeyed, which was how he had his way with women, too. He ordered them and they presented themselves, whether they wanted to or not. In a way, he almost liked it better when they were a little unwilling. When they were a little spirited.
But the graceful little snowflake sitting on the couch didn’t catch his interest with her spirit. No, it was her pedigree. It was her breeding, not her bosom, that he desired. For she was none other than Claire Rochefield, daughter of Hugo Rochefield, magistrate of finance, and he was as powerful as the locals got. His ancient bloodline, much like the man himself, commanded deference and respect.
Claire would secure Damien’s future here. What that future looked like, he had no idea, but it was certainly going to be better than his past. He had been the son of a shoe repairman on Folera, where he had been sold off to the army to repay debts. Here, by force of arms, he had made something for himself.
A fact which Magistrate Rochefield noticed as well. Damien had begun a conversation with him once the idea of Claire mounted on silk first entered his mind. Their encounters had been brief, however, as the only point of contact was at Council meetings in Bellemonde, and he had precious few other excuses to return to the Geomidian capital city from his gory fieldwork. Speaking of...
Damien straightened out his uniform with a quick tug at the pockets and then put on his best swagger as he sauntered over to Claire and the others sitting across the small table filled with half-eaten hors d’oeuvres.
“Are you enjoying yourself this evening, Ms. Rochefield?” he asked almost smugly. He tried his best to not horribly butcher the strange pronunciation of her name. It was the one respect he gave.
“Yes, Marshal Vogel,” she replied. Her thick, amphibian accent sounded almost cute on her.
“I trust you have heard the news?” he continued. “My men and I have killed over five hundred rebel scum in the past three weeks.”
“Your men, or you yourself?” came the reply, backed by narrowing eyes.
“Both,” he replied. Was she being dense? Maybe she just didn’t understand him. The language barrier sometimes seemed more trouble than it was worth.
“Both you and your men killed five hundred rebels? Tell me then, sir, why do we need all the Fauleighra when you seem do be doing as much as the rest of your army combined?”
Her icy stare met his own. Oh, she was being feisty.
He returned a stern smile, folding his stiff, bristly, authoritarian mustache into its most intimidating position.
“Perhaps, I could let all my men off on furlough,” he replied. “These rebels are so nearly done, I could handle what little is left of them personally. But then, what would my men have to do?”
“Do tell, marshal,” Claire replied coldly. “It does not seem to me that they are doing much of anything now, already. Surely they have even less that could occupy their time?”
“When we’re not fighting your rebels for you, we’re rebuilding your cities and countryside for you as well.”
“I see. That must be why Geomides is such a paradise then. I had noticed a distinct lack of apocalyptic ruin of late.”
“When the rebels are done for, we’ll have all the time needed for your little flower garden.”
“The rebels you’re going to handle all by yourself?”
“The whole weight of the Foleran Army will descend on them soon.”
“Tell me, marshal, when was the last time you handled a rebel? Or do you command the whole weight to do your fighting for you?”
His nostrils flared.
“Just two weeks ago, you will be pleased to know,” Damien replied tersely. “My command squad was in the Arpines Ridges. My crushing weight of solders were doing their crushing, but a few more clever of the rebels decided to raid my very command post. They came out of the bushes, quietly, and overcame my sentries. We only heard them when they were already upon us. They attacked into the command pavilion, knives drawn. One of my orderlies fended one off with the vox-comm, while another was stabbed to death before he could finish his memo.”
She leaned forwards slightly, the sparkles spilling down her shoulders glinting in the light.
“But a talented field commander such as myself does not get caught unawares so easily. My bodyguards were already on top of the situation, lasguns drawn. Shot by shot they hammered down, firing into the rebels. A half-dozen of them were left, charging over the equipment. I could see it in their eyes. They weren’t just raiders; they were there for me, and me alone. It was personal.
“I withdrew my chainsaw sword and revved it up as my guards reloaded. One of them fired and caught a rebel in the throat before two others knocked him down. I braced myself against one that came at me, easily turning aside his clumsy thrust. I brought down my blade in a mighty chop, the spinning metal teeth catching the traitor in the arm, gouging and ripping through muscle and bone until it was shorn from his body. As the blood sprayed on me, a second traitor came in.
“He tripped over the leg of my dying guard and stumbled forward, landing face first into my blade. His screams were pathetic as he eviscerated himself head first, crashing down into me and then down to the ground. The whirring blade splashed streamers of blood and brain onto the walls and ceiling of the tent.
“As I pushed him off of me, the remaining two rebels ran like the cowards they were. We left at least a dozen dead, and those that escaped were hunted down in the forest and executed.”
“Both of them?” Claire asked, a curious expression on her face.
“Yes,” he replied, annoyed. “Of course, both of them. We Folerans know how to do our jobs, and do them right.”
“Both of them,” she repeated, almost as a challenge.
“Of course,” he replied with growing irritation.
“I see,” she replied, suddenly standing up. “You are certainly a man who knows how to bloody himself. Excuse me.”
Claire turned and left, sparkling into the dim light, and was quickly lost in the press of bodies and the general drone of quiet conversation.
“Wow,” came a voice from the marshal’s left as he continued to stare at the spot in the crowd where the last silver flashes had disappeared. “What?” he asked, distracted. He turned.
Before him was a woman whom it would be difficult to call elegant. Her low-cut dress exposed nearly bare breasts, leaving little more than nipples to the imagination.
“Wow, I said,” she repeated, arching her back ever so slightly to present herself further. Wantonness draped in silk vair. “That must have been quite a fight,” she continued, her words calculated as not to interfere with the show of flesh.
“Yes it was,” Damien replied.
“You should tell me more about it.”
It was too easy. Damien quickly began to cool. The soft, bare skin of a woman hungrily exposing herself to him was tempting, of course, and he might just like to wipe that smirk off her face once she understood what leaving herself vulnerable to him would really mean.
He looked back across the room. Claire was nowhere to be seen.
“Some other time,” he replied, scarcely giving the desperate woman a second glance. “Excuse me.”
Marshal Vogel turned and began to make his way through the various dignitaries, nobles, and well-to-dos of this sad little company. His battle-worn boots strode over the plush carpets. Gentlemen and ladies, in what little finery they possessed, parted as he marched through, scarce disrupted from their polite banter.
Within moments, he was out of the circle of glow-lamps, his footsteps falling on concrete once more. He craned his neck briefly to see if she was hiding in the shadows before he opened the front door.
Tonight the soggy, oppressive wetness of the early-evening air was descending as a visible fog, rather than its often-misleading clarity.
There she was, across the street. As he approached her, he could see that she was reading something by the light of one of the few working streetlights, which had blinked on to greet the night. She looked up suddenly as he came upon her, quickly shoving the letter into her bodice, as if it could take any more.
“Yes?” she asked flustered, almost impatiently.
“I see you finally took interest in my line of work, Ms. Rochefield,” Damien spoke, trying to be more polite than overbearing.
“I take interest in many things,” she replied uncertainly.
“Then you may want to know that I have been speaking with your father over the past weeks. I have long had my eye on you, Ms. Rochefield, and your father and I agree that the two of us would make an excellent match.”
“Me?” she replied, as if devoid of understanding.
“Yes. You and I would make a powerful couple. An alliance of old power and new.”
She gasped, a look of shock spreading across her entire figure. “Couple? With you?”
Damien frowned. What wasn’t there to like about this?
“Yes,” he replied impatiently. “You look surprised. Why else do you think I’ve been courting you? It would be most advantageous if—”
“You!” she interrupted, aghast, taking a step back, as if he’d just offered to murder her kitten.
“Yes,” he repeated. “Me. You may try and make this difficult if you wish, Claire, but your father will hear of it,” he warned, unsure if he should bristle at her insolence or arouse at the chase.
“I... Ah... Excuse me, marshal,” she replied hastily. As fast as her dress would permit her, she wiggled away, as if in freight, never turning around to look at him as she made her way with purpose down the hill.
He smirked. Yes, he decided, he would enjoy the hunt. But only for a little while – a few weeks, at most. The rebels were on the brink of complete collapse, his intelligence had assured him. While he was the commander of the army fighting a war, he was a prime husband for a magistrate’s daughter. Once the bloodshed finally ended, what would his future hold? Would he look so attractive if he were reduced to a mere paper-pusher in Bellemonde?
No, he needed to strike, and strike while the opportunity presented itself. He’d have all the time to train his wily bride how to behave once she was safely in his bed and he was safely in Lord Rochefield’s sphere of influence. Between the governor and the magistrate, there would be something sufficiently worthwhile for him to do.
Unless she decided to be more stubborn than he had time for. He was a man with resources, though. He would send a few of his men after her. Try and find some advantage that he could use as leverage. Just in case.
Another good piece, and yet again the characters are incredibly vivid. I imagine I was supposed to hate Damien after just a few lines, and it certainly worked. As far as creating a character that's repulsive but intriguing, you've done a great job.
I hope that vermin Damien gets trampeld by a Canifex, then devoured by a Ork.
Now thats out of the way, this was a very fine read, you have a distinc way to make your characthers come alive and seem belivebal. Well done
The superior of Boroughcourt stood taut, perspiration beading on his forehead. He took a deep breath, trying to force down the riot inside of him. He was doing the right thing, he knew it.
A seething anger boiled beyond the dark velvet curtain. The auditorium usually held only a few hundred, but there were at least a thousand packed in there tonight. He swallowed hard as he listened to the rumbling discontent, dabbing his forehead above his large glasses with a handkerchief.
He turned to the side, looking out onto the stage. A folding table and three mismatched chairs sat under the harsh, directional lighting. The microphone sat crooked in its stand between two glasses filled with water, glinting brightly. Waiting, silently.
He felt like he was going to throw up. Thin shreds of duty held him together where his sense of purpose had fled. In the darkness offstage, the two other men looked even worse than he did.
“Well,” he finally muttered, almost at a whisper. He was met with a pair of wide-eyed stares, begging him not to do it. He closed his eyes and rolled off toward the stage, one step and then another, and he was out.
The lights slammed into his eyes as the auditorium exploded.
“BOOOOOOOOO!!!!!” came the angry roar, cut through with vile hissing. He tried to lift his hand to shield his eyes, the boiling savagery accosting him.
“BOOOOOOOOO!!!!!” the sound of rage hit him like a thunderclap. One of the men walking out behind him flinched, the desperation to escape flashing in his eyes.
He tried to keep his eyes fixed firmly on his target now, walking with forced normalcy toward the chair. He pulled it back and began to sit down when the first scattered pieces of rotten food and bits of trash landed on the platform.
The stage lighting beat down on him with the wave of sound. Another bead of perspiration trickled down, landing on the nose pad of his glasses and running down the crease into his mouth.
He reached out with a trembling hand and grabbed the microphone, pulling it and the stand closer to him. The other two finally found their seats, squirming uncomfortably.
“Thank you,” he spoke quietly into the microphone, the sound of his voice booming into the vast space beyond the wall of light, quickly lost in the general cry of anger.
He lifted up a hand. “Thank you,” he said again. The shouts and jeers were still at full volume, piercing through him.
“Thank you. Yes, I know,” he said, waving his hand down. He knew just how powerless three small men would be against one huge crowd, but his only defense was the thin pretension of power. If he didn’t act like he was in charge, then very, very soon he actually wouldn’t be.
The booing and hissing began to simmer down into a rolling boil, interspersed by the gunshot staccato of individuals forcing their insults above the low roar.
“Yes, yes,” he continued, waving his hand down. They were here to hate him, but he was here to have a meeting. His stomach churned violently. He focused on keeping it all down. On staying in control.
“Boo!” came the continued shouts from scattered pockets of the crowd. Someone shouted something he couldn’t make out, but it was followed by a splash of derisive laughter.
Just make it stop. Come on, just sit down. Please.
I’m here for you guys.
“Thank you,” he said again, waving his hand again to settle the crowd. Slowly they finally began to reduce towards the angry murmuring he had heard before taking to the stage.
He shook so badly inside that he grabbed for one of the two water glasses, hoping a sip of water would settle him, or at least delay the inevitable for one more moment, unbearable as this one already was.
He had called this meeting of his own free will. For the past many months – since the end of the war in Boroughcourt, at least – he had heard petitions, and he had spoken with leaders of the various little communities spread around the ruined city. He had gone out and about, and listened to them in their assemblies, and talked to them in their shacks and in their tents. He was the superior of Boroughcourt. Its citizens were his responsibility.
But something had happened over the last couple of weeks. Starting with Warren from the south side, he had been having meetings with increasingly angry leaders. All of the sudden, this was no longer about desperation, poverty, and grief. This was about something much more sharp and violent taking root. He needed to nip this in the bud, and completely, before the cancer of malcontentment spread to his entire city.
He needed to air out all their grievances at once. He needed to let some of the pressure out. To let them feel heard, lest their shouting begin to sprout bullets and fire bombs.
“Thank you,” he said, one last time into the seething storm ahead of him.
“As… As some of you know, I am Superior Gilbert Allard.”
At the sound of him speaking full sentences, the crowd simmered down to being just quiet enough for his microphone-amplified voice to be heard clearly.
“And this is Vice Superior Daniels, and Sanitation and Waste Management Scribe Tabart.” Tabart was literally the only other municipal official Gilbert could get to be here with him. Just two of them wouldn’t have done.
Finally, thankfully, the crowd seemed to be returning to their seats again.
“We have invited you here tonight to this community forum to speak your piece,” Gilbert continued. “There have been a lot of angry words being said, I know, and I want to do everything that’s within my power to help you all. Please trust me when I say that I care what is going on in our community. That we can work together on this.”
His opening comment was met with a few jeers, but thankfully nothing more violent.
“We want to bring everything out in the open here. We are going to use this time to listen. We can answer any questions that you have, but I mostly want to hear from you. We’re not here to debate. You can say whatever you want. I promise that no Defense Service personnel will come in here and round you up. I just want to hear what you have to say. This might take a while, but we will be here all night for you if we have to. I want nothing to come between us and an understanding.
“Here’s how it’s going to work,” he continued, gesturing towards the center aisle, where a microphone had been set up on a stand in front of the stage. “If we could form an orderly line in the center, you will all be heard. I only ask that you try and keep your comments short enough that people at the back of the line can still get to the microphone tonight. Thank you.”
Gilbert leaned away back into his chair, his head a shredding fog. He shook uncontrollably behind the bunting tacked to the front of the table. He couldn’t believe he’d been able to make it all the way through the speech. His mind had gone blank the moment he’d opened his mouth.
He could hear the shuffling of people moving through the seats and towards the front. He could only hope that a fistfight wouldn’t break out over who got to talk first, sending the whole room into anarchy. For the most part, they seemed to be lining up peaceably. This would all be fine. He’d just need to listen to a little abuse. Just let out some of the pressure. If there were new, real grievances, he could start working with the community leaders to make things right.
He closed his eyes and swallowed some water. Just calm down. The hard part is over. Just have to get through tonight.
The stage lights were murder.
A sound came at him from the crowd – a shout, more of surprise than anger, followed in quick succession by another. He opened his eyes, shielding them to see what was going on. Two men and a girl were striding forcefully towards him. With a shove they made it to the front of the line, but then continued past, marching straight at the stage itself.
“Excuse...” he started until the two men climbed up onto the stage. The larger of the two stared down at him with a steel pipe in his hands, partly clad in flak armor, while the other lifted the girl up onto the stage. It was only then that he saw that the other had a lasgun, and the girl was actually a skinny young woman.
“Excuse me!” Gilbert protested before the woman snatched the microphone away, stand and all. The look in her eyes froze him to the bone.
The two burly men took up positions next to each other, making their armed nature plain while the woman strode in front of them.
“Citizens of Boroughcourt!” she shouted, her voice booming through the auditorium. “I am Jaines Harcourt, last living relative of old Iron-Teeth Harcourt,” she said, her claim supported by the firm, commanding tone of voice that came with noble blood. “Like you,” she continued, “I am a survivor. Like you, I enjoyed the rights that all human beings on Geomides hold sacred. Rights that, like you, I am here to fight for tonight!”
A sudden cheer broke out in the crowd, the situation spiraling out of control with frightening speed.
“Was it our fault that people of means were better able to defend themselves during the war?” she continued passionately. “Was it our fault we survived? Did we do something wrong?”
The crowd began to raise their voices. The match hovered over the fuel.
“If we did nothing wrong, why are we being punished? Why are we being starved? Why are we being enslaved, chained to our ag-fabs and our tools, working ourselves to exhaustion!? Just because someone said so? Allard can’t give you what you want,” she claimed forcefully, pointing at Gilbert. “He’s part of the system keeping us in our place, but I for one am done with it! I say here and now, starting tonight, we break our chains! They can’t force us into the fabs if we destroy the fabs, and they can’t make us work with broken tools. I say join me, and together we will obliterate everything that stands in the way of our freedom!”
Gilbert sat there frozen, in a dizzying haze. As if in slow motion, the microphone fell to the ground and the crowd rose to its feet. The speakers popped as it hit the floor, bounced, and hit again, rolling along the wooden floor of the stage.
The roar was hollow in his ears as his eyes transfixed on Jaines, her petite face radiating explosive energy, channeled by a laser focus. The wall of sound washed into her; she was drawing it all in. Feeding. This was the look of righteousness. The look of a soul filling with power.
The world suddenly snapped back to reality all at once. The crowd began to rush the stage.
“No, please!” he croaked, but his voice was easily lost as hands and arms grasped up onto the floor in front of him. “Please, stop!”
Gilbert sprung his legs out, lifting himself up and away from the table. He fell backward on his folding chair as it closed on his knee, sending it all crashing down. A gurgling cry escaped his lips as he desperately kicked and kicked again, the chair coming free and skittering across the stage. He scrambled backward on his hands and knees, away from the ravening mob, lunging for the velvet curtain.
Darkness swallowed him, as he escaped backstage. He smashed his heavy glasses back up into his face, scrambling for footing. Running, running for his life as the sound of cheers was met with a spray of celebratory lasfire.
He ran hard into a piling in the darkness, partially blind from the glare of the lights. He twisted around and ran until suddenly he was at a wall. At a door.
“Gilbert!” came the shout from behind him. The scribe rushed up towards him from the darkness. “Gilbert!” he shouted again, in mindless terror.
“Where’s Daniels?” Gilbert shouted back, fumbling for the doorknob.
“I don’t know! I don’t know!” the scribe replied, nearly crashing into him. “We’ve got to get out of here. They’re shooting! We need to get help!”
Gilbert turned and with an adrenaline-fueled shove, managed to get the door open and disappear outside. The scribe nearly knocked him over as he ran for his life.
Again, the character is what really makes this work, and I love the contrast between Damien, loathsome but confident, and Gilbert, at heart a good guy but hugely insecure.
Will you be revisiting some characters/narrators for future chapters, or will each one be a new character?
It's interesting, because Gilbert is meant to be the contrast from Melchoir. The next chapter is going to set that up a little more, once I decide whose perspective to write it from.
And there are 7 characters from whose point of view the story will be told. The only missing one so far is Hugo Rochefield. I might... might end up cutting this, though, down to the 6 that I already have. It depends if all the other characters combined can do a good enough job describing the council in Bellemonde.
In any case, yes, it's going to repeat point of view. It hasn't happened yet because I'm still in the introduction. The next chapter is either going to be Rochefield, or the first repetition of Melchoir (and if it's the former, then the next chapter after that is going to be the first repetition of Melchoir). This next chapter (or two) may wind up being a touch exposition heavy, but it's the end of the introduction. After that point, the plots are going to run on their own momentum.
I see what you mean about contrasting to Melchoir as well, I suppose it was more obvious to me as a contrast with Damien as the chapters are back-to-back. I also figured it was a kind of statement on the grim immorality and corruption in 40k: The guy that's genuinely trying to do the right thing is outcast, turned on and insecure in himself, while the guy that's only out for himself exudes confidence, has (almost) everyone on his side and generally had a 'better' (for him) resolution to his introduction.
“All rise for Marshal Tellis, governor by the will of the Emperor, ruler of Geomides.”
Chairs scraped on the linoleum floor as the dignitaries rose around the U-shaped set of tables. Those in the gallery also got to their feet.
Melchoir emerged into the Council room, followed by three Foleran soldiers carrying folders full of documents. They strode towards the short edge of the U, finding makeshift name placards in their proper places. As he approached his seat, Melchoir looked down, and died a little inside.
MALCOLM TELLIS - GOVERNOR
He sighed, dropping his clipboard onto the table with his left arm, the servomotors in his bionic hand clicking softly. He took his seat, followed by his attendants.
“Thank you,” the governor spoke, gesturing with his power first for the Council members to be seated. More chairs scraping on the tile floor. The mutters and grunts of people getting settled in.
This was the first meeting of the Council in its new room. A month ago, they were still crammed into the basement of the administration building. Now, thanks to what was best described as a serious attempt at remodeling, they finally had a room on the ground floor. Light bulbs had been pilfered to create a reasonably lit room, but they still didn’t have real furniture – everyone but him sat on a folding chair. As best he could tell, this place used to be the cafeteria.
Gilbert sat at the other side of the room from Governor Tellis, in the gallery. The small table held two, and his neighbor was a chief recreational facilities manager, or something. He had invited his vice superior to attend, but it seemed that Daniels had taken a certain distaste to public meetings of late. Of course, having his leg broken in three places also gave him a convenient excuse.
He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands before retrieving his heavy glasses from the table. Tension ran through him at a low but inescapable drone. He dreaded what he was going to have to do.
He closed his eyes and remembered the angry jeering of the crowd, and the terror of his flight. He had failed in his first attempt to set things right, but he would make it work this time. Marshal Tellis would know how to fix the problem. Hopefully he’d understand that his citizens were only behaving the way they were out of fear and desperation. He’d be able to come up with a plan to help soothe his hurting people.
The last councilor was giving his report. It dovetailed with the bleak news about the food situation. Hopefully something would happen soon to resolve the building crisis. Tellis took a moment to discuss things with his staff before looking out towards the gallery.
“Do we have anything new to bring to the attention of the Council for consideration?” the governor asked in his alien, chattering tone.
The magistrate of labor raised his hand along with a half-dozen others in the room.
Good stuff once again, and I see what you mean about the Melchoir/Gilbert contrast, what with the two directly juxtaposed. I also liked the use of multiple viewpoints to narrate what is essentially the same scene, it's something I do a fair bit in my own writing.
Yeah, one of the things that I'm trying to do is to set up the contrast of Melchoir and the Folerans vs. everybody else. I felt like what was needed most was to have a scene that plastered the two back to back, so you could see the same things from both points of view.
I'm trying to walk a subtle line between making it real and effective, without making it way up-played and wacky obvious. I'm also trying to make it look like both sides in this are equally respectable. Things are going to be changing over the course of the book, and I don't want to make it look like one group is just there to be a punching bag for the other.
In any case, I have a major misunderstanding sketched out for about 8 or 9 chapters from now that will be drawing on things from these last two
I can certainly see the contrast working nicely, and from what we've seen so far, the inevitable conflict between the two factions is shaping up to be far more than good vs bad. There's decent and not-so-decent people on both sides, it seems, which should keep things interesting.
Marshal Vogel’s stomach roiled as he approached the small mansion at the top of the hill. He had chosen to pass it off as what often happened when he went from eating combat rations to the slimy local fare. Nothing to do with his growing lack of control over his entire situation.
Ostensibly, Damien was paying the magistrate Hugo Rochefield a social call, but in fact, he had been summoned. Summoned! He would dare such a thing! The coin-counter had a great deal of nerve to demand anything from the ruler of the army.
And it was only made worse by his daughter. His recent attempts to pin down Claire had seen failure after failure. She kept stringing him along with her mocking politeness and growing list of excuses. It was turning into less of a sporting hunt and more of a grinding battle of attrition, something his time as a soldier had trained him for, at least. With force of will and skilled determination, every one of his enemies eventually yielded. He would get what he wanted.
If he had enough time. He needed to do something, and soon. He needed to show Rochefield he couldn’t be pushed around, not by a magistrate, and not by his future father-in-law either.
But carefully, carefully, the other side of him warned. He had been at yesterday’s Council meeting, and he well understood just how much Melchoir depended on Hugo and his cronies for the vote. How much Damien himself would have to rely on Claire’s father to insist on the match.
The thought of getting Rochefield to insist on anything seemed tenuous, though, given the magistrate’s reputation and the fragile position he had found himself in.
That wicked grin returned to her eyes again; she was practically flush. It was almost an erotic passion, except that the object of her lust tonight wasn’t a man. It was explosives. Two hundred sticks of cyclonite, to be exact.
She was almost giddy.
She was also smartly dressed for the first time she could remember. Instead of tattered rags, she was now decked out in a Defense Service uniform, stolen from one of their supply depots. The khaki color was a tad too close to white for her comfort, but it made her look rather fetching nonetheless. And she finally had real footwear for once, which accessorized nicely with the brace of laspistols slung at her hips and the bandolier of fragmentation grenades thrown at a jaunty angle over her shoulder. All she needed was a beret. And maybe some really dark sunglasses.
Oh, and it had all been so easy, that was the best part. Word had spread like wildfire among the shantytowns that someone was willing to stand up against their collective wretchedness for a change. The first among her swelling ranks of devotees had been Warren. With his help, she had started to get the message out, and with his administration skills, such as they were, she now had a paramilitary organization, the Rights Watch. She had wanted something with a bit edgier, like the Geomidian Liberation Army, but Warren had insisted the name would be too inflammatory.
But Warren would be gone soon – he was almost used up. He would still be organize things, distribute propaganda, and rally support (as the sour old man liked to call crushing dissent), but she was moving up to bigger and better things. Things with explosives.
So, just a quick update. There will be another chapter or two later, so don't worry.
It's been a week since I started this project, and over those seven days, I now have a document with 25,919 words, which is nearly a thousand words over a time-table to reach my goal after five weeks, which is not too shabby. And that was with taking a day completely off from writing in there - if I'd written at all two days ago, I'd be nearly on track for a less than four week schedule.
I'm also pretty happy with where things are going. The chapters are still a little short, and in editing I'm sure I'll go back in and try and fluff it up a bit, but in the short time, that's sort of just my style. I come from a history of being a very bad reader, so I like to write chapters that sort of get to the point and don't drag on.
Anyways, now that all of the introductions are over, I'm liking how things are going, and look forward to continue to weave the plots together. Plus some more smut. Writing that is surprisingly entertaining.
Which is good, because it's either a Claire or Lucas chapter next!
Things are certainly picking up, that last chapter was the best yet, I think, really good stuff. It was also nice to see Damien on the spot in the previous one as well.
The short chapters work well with something like this that is, in essence, a serialised story, as it keeps it fresh and easy to read. There are certainly benefits to longer chapters, but at the same time, I wouldn't worry too much about length. There's no point adding in filler for the sake of it if it doesn't help the story.
Sickly yellow light from the streetlamp below passed through the partially closed drapes, casting a pale swatch of light across the rumpled blankets. Shifting as she rolled over, facing the darkness of her room. She laid curled up on her bed, her work clothes replaced with a tank top and denims, her poise and grace lost in the tears shed into her pillow.
Her father’s voice rang harshly in her mind. She could lose everything, he said. She was disobeying her father, he said. She would make the match with Vogel, whether she liked it or not, he said. But it was the way he said it. Her father was never content with stabbing the dagger in. He needed to twist and twist until you were writhing in pain, begging for his approval.
She didn’t know how much longer she could withstand his torture. Her father had called her two weeks ago, and last week, and half an hour ago, and every time they had the same conversation. Slowly but surely, he would grind her down. But down to what? What would she become if she gave in?
She sighed, rubbing her eyes, wicking away the last of her outburst.
Rain poured into his face, gushing through his mouth and nose and down his chest. With a grunt, he vaulted over the balcony rail, landing hard on his feet, a whip of gnarled pain snapping at him from his tender ankle.
He lurched backward under the balcony, sloshing through water. Boots stamped loudly on the wood above. Lucas huddled against the sliding glass door behind him. The soldier above leaned over the edge of the balcony.
“gak!” he shouted to the storm before rushing back inside. More muffled yelling followed him.
Lucas turned and ran, rushing along the back of the apartment building and ducking around the corner. He took a moment to hike his pants back up and fix his belt, trying to think. If he left by the back, anyone on the balcony could see him, even in the raging downpour. If he left by the front, who knew what was waiting for him? Whatever he was going to do, he’d have to do it fast.
The superior carefully removed the autopistol from its holster, the strange piece of metal lying heavy in his hands. He had held a gun maybe once before in his entire life.
His fingers wrapped around the device uncomfortably, his mind both repulsed and fascinated by the weapon. He clumsily undid the safety as he was shown. There was now lethal power in his hands.
At his side were two Defense Service personnel, with three more in front of them, all standing in the flickering light of the hallway. He closed his eyes thoughtfully for a moment. Malcolm Tellis was right: he needed to handle this himself. This wasn’t something he could just delegate away. For once in his life, he needed to stand up and just make something work. His stomach roiled. Usually bureaucrats didn’t have to shoot at anybody.
Her wrists stung like fire, a constant throbbing pain with every heartbeat. Plastic zip-cord bound her hands together, unbreakable, no matter how much she struggled against them. Her flesh raw and bloody for the effort, weeping sores cut open against the plastic.
She had struggled a lot at the beginning, sure that she could get away somehow. Furious with herself that she had let herself be captured in the first place. She even tried yelling and screaming for a time, her voice booming loudly in her tiny cell. She had banged and pounded on the metal door. She had wrenched and clawed at everything in the room, hoping to rip something free. She had done everything.
No amount of protest, no action – however frantic – had managed to make any difference.
No one came. Nothing happened. She was alone, imprisoned in the darkness.
StewRat wrote:Excellent pair of Chapters. Looking forward to the next instalments.
Thanks!
I wrote over 12,500 words in the last two days, and I'm going to try and keep up the pace today again, which (hopefully) means even two more installments.
Paradigm wrote:The short chapters work well with something like this that is, in essence, a serialised story, as it keeps it fresh and easy to read. There are certainly benefits to longer chapters, but at the same time, I wouldn't worry too much about length. There's no point adding in filler for the sake of it if it doesn't help the story.
To be fair, I'm not actually intending this as a serial - the intention is to write a novel. I had a good long think about it before writing as to whether I should just sit down and write it, and then be like "here you go, dakka," or whether to post chapters up as I wrote them.
For various reasons, I chose the latter. In part, for people who would be interested in following along (though I now fear this will go on for such a short time that it won't generate much buzz), and in part because the dakka fine print includes such things as "you can't just advertise on this site through forum posts", and I think it will all run over more smoothly if I also give dakka members a chance to read it for free as well. Plus, this thread will probably be my only inlet for comments.
Paradigm wrote:Good (and bloody fast) stuff.
Thanks. At this moment, I'm at ~38,500 words, which is beating my initial expectations. I guess I've become a somewhat faster writer since last time I wrote a book. Perhaps it's nothing more than because it's my second time around. In any case, the writing itself is pretty easy once you've done the pre-writing. Once the plot and characters are sketched out a bit, all I've got to do is say "this plot point + this character + this one new thing I want to say about the plot/characters/setting" and then spend a bit of time imagining up some imagery.
In a way, I'm approaching writing this guard story the way I approached painting my guard army. Do some work in advance, and then it's just sort of plugging in the pieces.
Paradigm wrote:Very interesting to see the plots moving on.
Yeah, now that the intros are over, I'm making a stronger effort to get the characters in the same room at the same time, so that they interact with each other, rather than just interacting on the same plot.
Also, I'm starting to come to the end of part 1. There's going to be a damien chapter, and a melchoir chapter, and possibly a gilbert chapter. I haven't quite decided on that one, yet, though given how easy it is for me to clip things short, I've been pushing myself to add in extra length where I can. I have already added in two whole extra chapters from what my pre-writing has sketched out.
Anyways, once the first part is done, then things will get more tangled and messy. At least, I hope.
She opened her eyes slowly. A kind of fuzzy glow filled her body.
On her left was the window, blinds half-closed. On her right, stripes of soft orange light on the wall. It was nearly sunset. How long had she been napping for?
The gentleness of awakening relaxed her, despite the pain. It hadn’t even hurt that badly after the first couple of days. They told her that lasguns wounded clean – they either killed you there and then, or they healed almost on their own. Mostly she just felt tired, but she could sleep it off back at home.
No doubt there was a massive pile of paperwork waiting for her. Cupercourt didn’t run itself. In a wistful way, it was nice to get a break. All the work, all the drama. Here at the hospital, all she needed to do was to get well.
But that was done now. She should have been sent home a few days ago, but she didn’t want to leave, and her father had pulled rank for her. It was an easy favor. After so much death in the past few years, one couldn’t be too careful with one’s progeny. Certainly not a man as prudent as the great Hugo Rochefield.
She snuggled a little deeper into her soft pillow and looked towards the window. There was a small vase on the sill with a flower in it. They changed the blossom every other day to keep it fresh. How thoughtful.
“No, no. I’m serious,” the voice stammered through hoots of laughter filling the small room. “It was... It was this whole wave of conscripts! Just, psssssshhh! Just like that. It just... It just went over everything!”
The speaker broke down amid the ruckus. Even Melchoir had to chuckle, though he’d heard this story several times before.
“And then,” the officer began again, trying to compose himself. “And then Marshal Tacho turns to me, and says... and says... ‘Well,’ he says, ‘what am I going to do with the rest of them?’”
The room exploded in laughter.
Melchoir surveyed his crew with a smile. The dingy front room of his official apartment was small, and its furnishings lacking, but the room came to life when filled with his general staff. With his friends. It was so nice to be able to just talk with people for a change. People with whom he had a shared set of experiences, and a shared language – literally, as well as figuratively. His kind of people, who he could always rely on.
The laughter began to die down, and Melchoir reached for a small glass of a lightweight liqueur that the locals called gupertan. He still hadn’t figured out if it was made from a local flora similar to apples or if it was, in fact, just made from apples. Attempts to learn the truth from the locals had proven, so he liked to say, fruitless.
A knock came at the door.
“Vogel!” a few of the officers shouted as Damien entered the room with a smile.
The grand marshal sat perfectly still in his chair, scowling slightly. Doing his best to project an aura of grim authority. Of a father disappointed with misbehaving children. It didn’t seem to be having much of an effect.
The Council meeting had been going badly, even for a Council meeting. The magistrates were starting to retrench, and the gallery was flat unruly. It had taken all of the governor’s force of will just to keep things in order. Damien, on the other hand, had completely lost patience about half an hour ago, so he just sat there, seething.
“I have heard your concerns, yet again, Rossa,” Melchoir almost had to shout. “Nothing has changed, so the answer is still no.”
“Our people will be heard!”
“Your people have been heard,” Melchoir yelled. Damien swallowed hard. He had never seen Melchoir this close to losing it before. The governor looked to be on the verge of a tirade, but settled on “When things are different, you will get a different reply.”
“Things are different!” came another shout over the sea of harsh mutters and angry grumbling. Someone in the gallery stood up, pushing his ridiculous glasses up his face.
“What do you want, Bokko?” Melchoir called out.
“Marshal Tellis, my city is on the verge of revolt! I came here last month and I told you about this, but you wouldn’t release any Fauleighra or servicemen.”
“I told you to take care of it!” the governor replied hotly.
Gilbert leaned towards the window, gazing out into the vastness beyond. The great plain was a mottled swirl of gold and brown. Lazy, blobbing shapes winding their way across the remnants of farm fields.
He watched the rippling pattern course by in the midmorning sun. All it had taken was two failed plantings, and the fields were completely obliterated. Instead of neat rows in square plots, it was a waving sea of different grains, splotched with dots of legumes and whorls of weeds and wild grasses that had bounced back from the plow as if the land had never been tamed. Just a year and a half, and the sweeping vista was one of endless meadow. Just how fragile man’s achievements, that they could be undone by so short a lapse.
The mag-train whirred along almost noiselessly, elevated from the scene below. The car a hushed quiet, a calming soundtrack to the placid backdrop. Gilbert stared down at his timepiece. The train would arrive shortly.
He turned and looked out the window again, down at the waving sea of tan. The drought seemed to be no better up here than in Boroughcourt. Usually, the grasses would still be green, not the vast, almost beautiful desolation.
Thin, wispy clouds hung high in the deep blue of sky. There probably wouldn’t be any rain again today either.
His footsteps landed softly, almost timidly, rippling through the near-perfect silence. It was hard not to feel humble here, to feel the austere power of holiness. The air almost shimmered with a sense of the sacred, of a carefully balanced spiritual order, into which he felt almost an intruder. As if his mere presence would somehow pollute the space around him.
He walked forward slowly, the sounds of his feet echoing slightly despite his caution. The cathedral around him was a man-made cave, its stone walls and marble floors darkened in shadow, the low ledge of the choir loft above pressing down towards him. The well-worn pews were outlined in reflected light, hymnals resting in their slots. A small fountain sat low to the ground, a basin of perfectly still water, creating an unblemished mirror before its water spilled out over the edges into catch-channels below.
Outside of this dark enclave stretched the rest of the sanctuary. It glowed a pale yellow from the lights strung above, shining on rows of seats neatly processing towards the altar. The light gently caressing the stone pillars, round surfaces fading to shadow. The ceiling was hidden from his vantage point beneath the loft, but he easily recalled the graceful arches lifting high up to the vaulted ceiling, lost in the gloom far above.
Melchoir gazed into the mirror pool as he quietly made his way forwards, watching the upside-down pillars stretching towards him on the perfect surface. He stopped when he arrived, staring down into his own reflection, shrouded in shadow, barely able to see his own face.
He reached out with his right hand and touched the water. His fingers passed in as if moving through an illusion. As if he had touched air, the temperature of the tranquil water undetectable. As if his fingers hadn’t even gotten wet. The image of the church quivered slightly as he removed his hand.
He turned towards the sanctuary, alight before the cool darkness. The vast space was empty. He was the only one here. He had been counting on it.
Last sunday, I made it to 50,000 words, and in two weeks have landed at 52,076. In week two, I wrote 26,157 despite having to take basically the last two days off, thanks to a weekend visit by in-laws and real world encroachment (signed a new lease on an apartment, for example), and a day spent off doing nothing but pre-writing (moving from the introduction to getting really into the plot). I also blew by a quarter million characters, and passed 100 pages in my office software format.
As mentioned, things are going to get a little bit more plotty now, as Jaines rises and Melchoir declines, as well as more intrigue. The one thing I'm starting to become worried about is how long this is going to be. Up until now was supposed to be just sort of setting the stage, but I'm already nearly halfway through my original word count target. Based on just my rough pre-writing, I should be about 2/7ths of the way through. If that is true, then it means that I'll probably wind up at 180,000 words, not 125,000. Even at this pace, it might take longer than I'd originally planned.
I guess there's just nothing for it but to keep plugging along. I hope you've enjoyed it so far!
I shouldn't worry about word counts/limits. At the end of the day, the purpose of this is to tell a story, and if that takes longer/is longer (Word-wise) then so be it. No point in compromising on plot or character to satisfy limits you aren't being judged on.
A blinding flash split the haze. It strobed again, a burst of light in thick and smoky air, and then again, again, and again. Blasting sound hammered out the beat, bass rhythm pounding at the floors and walls, though concrete, steel, and flesh. The table buzzed, vibrating uncontrollably, flashing in the harshly blinking spotlight.
The writhing pulse of bodies thrashed, jerking wildly in the light, dancing to the crushing noise.
Jaines staggered forward, the experience obliterating. She floated over the ground, awkwardly, stumbling on unsteady feet, a scarcely cohesive sentience disembodied from reality. She could barely feel anything, not the pressure of blood pumping through her veins or her lungs sucking in air.
The table skipped over as she bumped into it, her hands slapping down to brace herself. Empty bottles clanked amid the riot of noise. She looked up, but there was only one person at the table, slumped backwards over his chair, passed out, partly open eyes staring blankly at the ceiling, his flickering form unmoving.
Jaines reeled around and stumbled towards the door. She collapsed onto it, then pounded twice with the palm of her hand. A moment passed. Nothing.
“It’s me, you fether!” she shouted.
The door swung open suddenly, causing her to stumble in. The bouncer caught her as she lurched forward, helping her to her feet. She smiled back at him, reached up, and gave him a kiss on the cheek, followed by a giggle.
Damien Vogel fumed as he barged through the door, bashing it into the wall. He scowled, storming out into the bright afternoon sun.
“Sir,” called one of the guardsmen, snapping a salute as Damien stomped towards the infantry fighting vehicle. The pistachio-gray camouflage radiated heat as he passed by the exhaust, stomping around to the back hatch. He slapped away a hand reached out to help him up, grabbing a tow lug and vaulting into the vehicle by himself.
The heat washed away from him as he entered the passenger compartment. The metal box was dimly lit by small hatches above the seats, wire mesh allowing hot air to escape. At least Folera was a desert planet, or the sweltering heat could well have killed him, trapped in a vehicle less prepared for the climate.
He ripped his hat off and threw it angrily at the seat before stomping after it. Two guardsmen piled in quickly behind him, taking up places at the other end of the cabin nearest the door.
Damien slammed his fist on the wall. “Drive!” he bellowed.
The transmission groaned and the engine revved before taking off at a jerk, trundling slowly down the street.
The marshal seethed angrily. He turned, furiously staring down the other two guardsmen in the cabin. They both studiously poured all of their attention elsewhere, both trying to out-meekly-disinterest the other. Damien leered at them through slitted eyes, teeth clenched. Daring one of them to look at him, feeling them crawl uncomfortably beneath his gaze.
Deafening shouts ripped through the air. Cries of anger clashed with pleas of desperation, outstretched arms pushing and shoving. The massive crowd crushed forward. Howling and gnashing at the one small island of order in the chaos.
“Get...” Gilbert shouted over the raging storm of people. “Get back! We will get... We will get to you all, each in turn!”
“Please!” a woman screamed in front of him, eyes frantic, desperate. “Please! Let me in! I have children! Please!”
“You will get your turn!” Gilbert shouted back.
He paced back and forth under the awning, the one bit of shade in the ruthless summer sun. Trying to command the writhing throng from the open air of the platform. A dozen servicemen and Gilbert were all that stood between them and the mag-line behind them. One tiny plug stopping the mob from overrunning the track.
Servicemen pushed back on the makeshift barricade. Others with truncheons lashed out at anyone trying to climb onto the platform. Only a few had tried, but they were getting more frequent. They were getting bolder.
Paradigm wrote:I shouldn't worry about word counts/limits. At the end of the day, the purpose of this is to tell a story, and if that takes longer/is longer (Word-wise) then so be it. No point in compromising on plot or character to satisfy limits you aren't being judged on.
So, I just did a little research that makes me feel a bit better.
I'm setting this book to be at "epic" pace. A vague emulation of Tolkein or Martin. That is, things happen rather slowly, but that's in part because there's just so much going on. In fact, I designed this book to have roughly as many main characters as I did based on Game of Thrones.
And so I did some research on word count. After all, if I'm pacing things at epic speed, it would make sense that it would take me as long to tell the story as other epic-speed books. What I found out was that the (non-uber-long) Ice and Fire are all about 300,000 words long. That's about as much as you get from two of tolkein's artificially-shortened books. And, let's be honest, if you cut out all of that garbage at the beginning, you'd wind up with about that same number. Other books in the range consistently meet or break 200k. Really, the only problem is when you start getting towards the ~450k range. Dance with Dragons was too long. Cryptonomicon was too long. So is Lord of the Rings when you keep the junk beginning in. Not fatally too long for my ability to read, but that's really pushing it.
So, my concern that I'm going to make the book too long if it gets near 200k is, in fact, completely unjustified.
Which is good, because I just hit 60,000 words, and I still have one more chapter before the next big event that was plotted to be like, 1/3rd of the way through at the absolute latest, but could easily wind up being 1/4 of the way in.
I guess I'm just going to have to abandon the notion that I'll get this done before June, I guess. Before July... perhaps.
Lucas breathed in deeply. Far above, the canopy sighed in the breeze. Sunlight sparkled through a brilliant kaleidoscope of green, the shifting verdant light dancing in the treetops. A domed mosaic of stained-glass leaves shimmering above.
A certain fragrance drifted through the forest air. A week ago, the breeze was filled with the smells of moss and leaves, of life and growing things, but it was different now, changed literally overnight. The trees had just begun their long, slow crawl towards dormancy. The air was no longer filled with water and green, but the scent of bark and drying grass. The visceral mulch evolved to a delicate odor, wafting subtle and complex.
There were other signs as well, for those who were looking. It was still hot out, but there was less sopping heaviness. The wind blew in from the east, now, and when Lucas lay down at night, the faint clicking sound of katydids called to him gently from the treetops.
There was no question about it. It was now late summer in the wooded hills of Cupercourt.
The crowd chanted, a chorus of voices strong in unison, arms pumping the air in time. Drums beat the rhythm, a whistle blowing counterpoint. Shoes pounded the pavement as the mass of people marched up the street. Handmade signs thrust above the crowd, jabbing slogans into the air.
“No Fau-leigh-ra! No Fau-leigh-ra!”
The protesters marched forward, filled with courage and anger and an overriding sense of rightness. They walked in ironclad solidarity. One unbreakable column stretching up the street.
This was it. This was the time when the people spoke with one voice, shouting that they’d had enough. This was the time they were standing up to demand change. Time to rise up and fight for their basic human rights. A simple moral stand against the barbaric tyrant and his illegal thugs.
“No Fau-leigh-ra! No Fau-leigh-ra!”
In the middle of the column, an armored car rose above the crowd. Two large flags stuck out the rear windows – on the left, the sigil of Bellemonde, a fish against a yellow background, and out the right, the aquiline device of the Emperor.
Out the top hatch sat Jaines, tan uniform belted over her petite frame, pistols lashed to her hips. Her fair face and small features completely engulfed by a huge pair of sunglasses, coated with a mirror finish. She had also finally found a beret, which sat at the jauntiest angle on her head, hair pulled up into a bun. She cut an implacable figure, riding her chariot among her army of supporters.
“No Fau-leigh-ra! No Fau-leigh-ra!”
She sat as still as she could, swaying slightly as the car trundled over the brick pavement. Trying to exude the aura of perfect command. Completely unfazable.
Melchoir frowned. He stood firm atop his infantry fighting vehicle, leaning against the tank’s turret to his right, surveying the scene in front of him.
They were pouring in. Shouting, fists in the air, placards raised. The riot of drum beats and whistles and harsh, repeated slogans echoed off the colossal concrete structure of the Central Granary. Hundreds, perhaps thousands funneled into the large paved space.
He stood on the tank, a rock awaiting the waves. Gray armor solid beneath his feet, angled front plate holding a hull-mounted flamethrower next to the driver’s hatch. Two more transports flanked him left and right, their imposing presence cutting off the mob’s advance. Before them stood a line of guardsmen, lasguns and bayonets at the ready. Braced against the force sweeping towards them.
Melchoir looked around. Every avenue of escape was sealed off, choked with soldiers. A wall of white awaiting the worst, whatever that might be.
The rolling wave of fire burst through the crowd, an open furnace slamming into the armored car. The mob broke into a screeching wail as flesh burned. Jaines shielded her face with her hands against the inferno.
“Drive! Drive!” she screamed. “Get the feth out of here!”
The driver slammed the armored car into reverse and floored it, bumper smashing over the terrified crowd with a sickening crunch. Trying to turn around through the flaming anarchy.
Machine-gun fire ripped through the flames, zinging bullets flung through the air. Jaines flinched down as a round smacked into angled steel.
“GO!” Jaines screamed. “Just drive!”
The wheels spun on the pavement, the car jumping forward, whipping Jaines into the back of the top hatch. They plowed straight ahead, smashing the metal grill guard through half a dozen people. The car bucked on its suspension as it ran over limbs and bodies.
“Get out of the way!” she shouted, holding on for dear life.
This week went pretty poorly, as those half dozen of you following along will note. I ended at only 71,933 words, which meant I only managed just under 19,000 over the last week, a quarter shy.
Probably the biggest hinderance was a failure in pre-writing. There wasn't good contiguity between the end of part 1 (the last Council meeting) and the beginning of part 2 (the granary scene). A day spent in pre-writing last week helped fill in this what would wind up being a 14,000 word hole. The end result was somewhat akin to pulling teeth.
Also, of course, some rather important stuff happened in these last few chapters. Things that I wanted to make sure happened in a certain way, and for certain reasons (I'm sure I could give you a several page essay deconstructing why Melchoir's appearance at the granary all but guaranteed the outcome). This meant more pre-writing by-chapter before I could write, which clipped my ability to write two chapters on any given day.
Another interesting note about last week's work is that the chapters are getting longer. The average word length of the last 8 chapters is 2803 which is up from the average of the whole document (minus the last 8 chapters) of 2750, which may not seem like much, but it does mean more breaking the 3k mark.
Story-wise, we've now had the two main events of the beginning take place. As I hit the 1/3rd mark wordswise, I'm also at roughly the 1/3rd mark storywise. From now on things are going to be much more echoes and reverberations and interactions based on what has happened. I've thrown my stones into the pool, and it's time to watch the waves spread out and disrupt each other.
By now, you should be able to start predicting what will happen, based on a knowledge of the characters. Damien is up next, and you know what he's going to have to do to avoid a potential disaster after the massacre, and, Damien being Damien, how he will try to accomplish it.
The only thing I have left to decide is if I need to open up a new narrative line or not. I'd like to keep it just the 6 main characters, and adding in a 7th now would be a bit awkward, but the scope is starting to expand too much, and I think I might just need to have a voice from someone directly on the Council. We'll see.
Anyways, I hope you like the work so far. It would be great to hear from someone other than my one loyal follower (thanks paradigm!). Over the next week, I'm going to redouble my efforts, and try to hit 100k words / the halfway point of the story by this time next week. Wish me luck!
Good stuff as usual (and I'm sure there are plenty of people reading, it's a fact of life down hear in Dakka Fiction that the views-vs-comments correlation is generally lower than elsewhere on the forum).
I particularly liked the (presumably deliberate) symmetry between the Janies and Melchoir chapters, both of them leading their forces, both of them watching as the gak hits the fan. The mistranslations really gave the impression that Melchoir is out of his depth, you can just see the situation slipping out of his grap every time he opens his mouth.
There is actually a lot of repetition and parallels in this story. I'm actually hoping, once the story gets far enough, to be able to achieve chiasma.
You've seen some back-to-backs, like the jaines/melchoir/jaines at the granary and the gilbert/melchoir/gilbert of the Council meeting, but it stretches out beyond that as well.
For example, compare the most recent melchoir chapter to the first gilbert chapter. The two characters are actually rather similar (as explained in the bringing jaines to bellemonde chapter), but their differences are writ large in the way they handle their situations. In both cases the main character (melchoir or gilbert) is confronted with a hostile mob that they are forced to try and placate, and in both cases, they are attacked outright by agents of Jaines charging in and trying to take control of the situation by force.
Both characters try and respond with the best intentions, but faced against such a blatant adversarial response, both have to fall back on their instincts. Gilbert, who doesn't have an idiosyncratic understanding of power, and who wants more than anything else to do what is best for his people decides to flee and regroup. Melchoir, who, being an officer has a very keen understanding of personal power and the willingness to accept casualties to achieve victory, stands and fights, even doing so personally.
And are you ready for the chiasmus? Between the first gilbert chapter and the most recent melchoir chapter, there was one in the middle. Again, it was a mob of people, again, gilbert was gilbert, and he failed to take control, and then, right at the apex, the Folerans (a proxy for melchoir) show up, and take control of the situation by force, lasguns firing over the crowd a foreshadow of them firing into the crowd later (the difference being that melchoir was actually present later, whereas he wasn't in Boroughcourt).
The grand marshal pounded on the door. This was the third time!
His mustache twitched as he ground his teeth, standing before the large slab of studded oak. The great brick house stood uncaring against his demands for entry, dimly lit by the glow of the nearby working streetlight.
Damien seethed, a storm of anxiety and rage. Things were bad enough already, but now they dared to keep him waiting?
He heard a rustling, and a small wooden peephole swung open behind an iron grate, a pair of squinting eyes peering at him from within.
“I am Grand Marshal Vogel!” Damien barked, scarcely below a shout. “I insist on speaking with Magistrate Rochefield at once.”
“I must apologize, sir, but it is past evening, and Lord Rochefield does not wished to be disturbed after dark.”
“Pfft!” Damien seethed. “This... This is an urgent matter of state! You will open this door at once, or I will get my combat engineers to blast it open. I’ll rip it off its hinges myself if I have to!”
“Certainly,” the servant replied, unimpressed. “I shall make Lord Rochefield aware of your request.”
The tiny hatch slammed shut, leaving Damien alone once more.
Melchoir is far from a bloodthirsty tyrant, but in the end it is his fault that the granary massacre happens, and not just because he was the highest ranked person there are the time.
The first cause is one that is so tacit that it's not even mentioned, that is, that Melchoir showed up at all. His original plan only called for them to arrest the protesters - there was no reason he couldn't delegate that. He could have chosen subordinates (in which case he could always save face by punishing whoever was responsible), or he could have appointed the Defense Service to the task, making the massacre less likely in the first place.
But instead he showed up, in person, to handle things. This is typical of the man. It's not exactly explained why (it's not that he doesn't trust his subordinates - indeed, he trusts them with his life as he demonstrates later in the chapter), but it is explained that he has this almost compulsive desire to be in the thick of it. In any case, his mere presence was the start of the downward spiral.
One of the continuing threads to Meclhoir is that he is a good officer, but not very good with people (one of the reasons he's been stuck at a relatively low rank despite his military genius). His attempts to placate the crowd are awkward and clumsy, and it doesn't take long before he falls back on just giving orders, which the hostile crowd was particularly ill-favored to accept.
On top of this, of course, you have the language barrier which obviously plays a key role in the meltdown. It's a common trait for all Folerans, but somewhat moreso with Melchoir. Plus, other officers might have had a local speak for them to iron out any problems, but, once again, Melchoir had to handle this personally. To let his own voice of command be heard.
Another character trait of Melchoir is his naturally trusting stance that other people will always approach him with the same good faith he approaches others. It wouldn't make sense to him that people would come to air grievances, but were in fact there to just cause a riot and to behave in a destructive way that ultimately serves no one's best interest. They were there angry, but there to be reasonable, not mindlessly thuggish.
This premise becomes damaged before the encounter even starts when Damien informs him of the explosives plot. Now, the idea is implanted in his mind that he is not dealing with equals, but with inferiors - with mere criminals. As this good-faithfulness is a rather core principle to Melchoir, so he takes it badly when it becomes less true, almost taking it personally, as if he was being lied to by the crowd. This causes his coarse, language-barriered manner to deteriorate quickly.
Both of these character traits combine in the fact that, in the end, he is a simple soldier. He has little appreciation for the "delicate" nature of politics. Power is wielded chain of command style, and people, whatever their reluctance, would eventually obey. He wasn't there to negociate with a mob, he was there to disperse it, and handle the problems that caused it in the first place one by one, later.
And its that soldier instinct which triggers in the end. He has faced down greater demons and battle tanks. He was armed, and with a fully armed retinue (which might not have been the case in Melchoir's absence), and he was under attack. There was nothing for it but to stand and fight. Once again, personally if needs be. It was a matter of life and death, of victory and defeat. By attacking him, the crowd became his enemy, and enemies are handled with power fists.
Even then, though, there wasn't an indication that what Melchoir wanted was a bloodbath. His pleas for help could well be explained in the lense of simple self-defense.
But he was the commander of the army. He had personally struck down those who were opposing him. Covered in blood, the poorly-phrased cry for help could easily be interpreted as an order to attack, and no one disobeyed the orders of Melchoir Theleos. He was in charge, after all. Not only of them, but of the whole planet. His word was law, and must be obeyed, to the fullest.
As a result, just because Melchoir showed up, things went badly. Not from any particular malice, but just because Melchoir was Melchoir, and that's the way things were going to go in this situation (especially vis a vis Jaines). Placed in a similar situation, things would likely happen the same way again.
Also, I seem to hate Damien more each time he opens his mouth. I don't know if I'm alone in thinking this, but I reckon it's actually harder to write a character that successfully repulses the audience than one who engages with them.
I don't know if it's a release of the subconscious donkey-cave, or if it's just an interesting challenge, but I find writing the Damien chapters kind of fun, or at least no harder than the others.
I mean, the point of fiction is to allow us access to things we wouldn't have in real life, and that's especially true of bad guy characters. Good bad guys aren't just those who are evil terribad muahaha. They're people that you're repulsed by, but secretly envy a little, and that repulses you even more. (it's sort of like why darth vader is such a good character. He's evil, and you know that, but a part of you secretly wishes you could have that kind of power, and without restriction).
The idea is to trick the brain into the "uncanny valley" as it were, where the character isn't so over the top ludicrously evil that you can just dismiss him as yet another bad guy, but at the same time, pushing things as far as they will go, to test that sense of envy in the reader.
Would you want to have that kind of power over women? Have that kind of power to do whatever you want with them? Including completely dominating them to you? Including forcing them in awe of you and your strength? Including taking them against their will if you knew for certain you could get away with it? How far would you go if you could go anywhere? Why stop there?
The ultimate goal is to make a bad guy that makes the reader afraid of themselves. Not that I've achieved that, but I find the puzzle to be more than a little interesting, which draws me enough to write those chapters.
Plus, there's a little bit of envy for me as the author. I wish I could get away with a fraction of what Damien can. And on top of that, there's a little bit of vindication for me as the author as well, knowing that the farther I puff him up, the harder will be what must be his inevitable downfall.
To let him think he's won while sowing the seeds of his own undoing.
I entirely see what you mean about it being fun to write badguy characters, I just personally find it harder. I suppose it's because, with a good character, there are certain things that are almost cliches, but that you can get away with (sacrifing themselves for others, taking the moral high ground, doing the 'right thing').
With baddies, you kind of have to walk the line between making them do evil things, but to some extent, justifiying it. It's easy to get a character that people will look at and think 'oh, he's a bad guy', but to actually get the reader into that kind of repulsed fascination takes more work than making a character endearing, for me at any rate.
I suppose a part of it is taking things that are good, and then spoiling it.
Everyone wants to be right, and to win an argument, and Damien represents the thrill of winning... but it's ruined because he did it by shouting the other person down. Everyone likes getting what they want from someone else, but here it's ruined because he did it by making crude threats and through extortion. Everyone understands the idea of wanting to have sex after you're triumphant, but it gets spoiled by the impending vision of abuse and door locks.
Unlike you, the character gets whatever he wants, but then, unlike you, the character is awful, irresponsible, and, well, evil. You want what he has, but are repulsed by how he chooses to behave once he has it, or the means by which he got it. That combination of jealousy and judgementalism.
Or, to put it another way, the bad guy makes the reader a bad guy themselves. And then things get really meta.
It is kind of fun to write, though. Writing something and being all like:
The office was a flurry of activity. Scribes dashed back and forth between the desks – some with stacks of paper, others scribbling frantically on data scrolls. The ponderous machine of government spitting out official records at overwhelming speed. The entire staff had been called in except, frustratingly, the superior and his subordinate, leaving Claire to handle the entire operation by herself.
The Fauleighra leaving Cupercourt had jumbled everything, well-established routine whisked away literally overnight. A vast mountain of paperwork had been left behind, unfinished inventories and half-completed transfer forms abandoned, as if to spite her. As if to say, “You thought it was difficult while we were here? Fine, we’ll just be on our way. See how you like it without us.”
But it wasn’t the extra work that was on everybody’s mind.
“There will be a bloodbath, that’s what he said. Everybody knows it,” one of the workers stated, sorting through a pair of filing cabinets.
“I don’t believe it, the governor would never actually say something like that. Sounds like just a rumor to me.”
“What, you’d only think it was true if it were on the news? That’s the least reliable source of anything. It’s just an empty mouthpiece for the Tellis administration.”
Claire stared blankly at the stack of A-80 forms in front of her. Silent. Numb.
The small porcelain cup rattled lightly on its saucer as he walked out of the cafe. It was a hot day out, like it had been for months now. Not a trace of cloud in the sky. Not a hint of rain. He could remember what rain was like, of course, but only abstractly. The intuitive understanding was gone. The ability to recall that present, visceral sensation of the event. It felt so strange. How could someone forget rain?
The awning gave way as he passed the row of wire chairs and tables huddled up against the dirty building. He entered full into bright sunshine before passing into the shade of the parasols blossoming from the row of tables near the street. The place was packed to bursting, a small piece of the great mass of Boroughcourt refugees.
The outskirts of the city were still a security disaster, even with the soldiers in charge. Fewer than half of the ag-fabs were still operational, and all open farmland had parched into a tangled mass of brown. The fields looked like a house destroyed by a windstorm – all the parts were still there, but twisted and collapsed on itself. Total desolation.
Now his poor, sorry, miserable people were just stuck. They could no longer board the trains, at Marshal Archon’s insistence, and there was no work for the flood of dispossessed. And so they congregated at places like this, desperate for a bit of companionship.
Gilbert worked his way up the narrow aisle between the tables, finding an empty seat next to the low metal grate buttressing the street.
“May I sit here?” he asked politely. The plump woman in her mid-fifties looked up at him with a smile, eyes crinkling with a warm grin. She brushed away a lock of dark-gray hair.
“Well of course you may,” she replied, scooting the wire table back towards herself a little. Her own cup rattled slightly. She had been nursing a cup of re-caf, now long since gone cold.
“Thank you. I’m Gilbert,” he said, working his way into the small chair.
It was nearly pitch black. Lucas hunched down in the darkness, alone.
It had to be a trap, there was no other explanation. Somehow, a stranger had broken into their network of civilian informants and gotten a message through to their secret camp in the forest. He claimed to be a high-level official who was a friend to their cause. A Bellemonde bigwig who had gone soft on the rebellion.
Nobody liked it, least of all Lucas. No one, that was, except the general, who felt the need to explore every opportunity, no matter how absurd. Lucas and a few others had argued for sanity, but it was only a matter of time before it boiled down to who was going to do the deed and meet with their new, shadowy ally. Who had the most experience sneaking into Cupercourt. Who was Lucas.
He furrowed his brow. This was beyond damned crazy.
He squinted, peering through the chain link fence, trying to see into the shadows on the other side. There could be a dozen soldiers out there, waiting for him. It would be more than easy for them to rush out and capture him. Or worse.
A thin line of men in tan uniforms raced down the cobblestone street towards the waiting supply truck. Boots clomped on pavement as they scurried forward. In broad daylight.
No, this was beyond crazy.
Lucas watched his comrades from the passenger’s seat, his crisp new Defense Service uniform chafing at the collar. It had come with the random assortment of weapons, explosives, spare fuel for committing arson, and other supplies for making mayhem found in the back of the truck. The military supply vehicle had been left conveniently unguarded.
This was absurd. There was no other way of saying it. He couldn’t believe he’d signed up for this in the first place.
The rebels from the depot team broke out across the parking lot and ran for the truck, the leader giving Paul a thumbs-up as he rushed past. The medic-come-driver waved back. A moment later, a half-dozen men jumped aboard, ducking into the canvas cover draped over the flatbed. The sounds of boots scraping on metal filtered through the back of the cab.
Lucas could only feel even remotely comfortable about this if he, at least, was the one who got to drive the truck. Unfortunately, he had never learned to drive anything bigger than a motorbike. Paul, on the other hand, had revealed a hidden side of himself when he confessed that he used to race quad buggies in his youth. Lucas still couldn’t imagine a man as smooth and unflappable as Paul racing anything.
Though perhaps that’s why he was so cool all the time. Once you were involved in a flaming buggy crash or three, everything else seemed mundane by comparison. It also made sense why he was the only one at the beginning who knew first aid. Hopefully the experience had made him as good of a driver as he was a medic. Wait, actually, a better driver.
Melchoir sighed, slowly letting himself slip a little further into the water.
A few scattered candles dimly lit the room, the air nearly steaming with sultry heat. In the middle of the room sat a huge bath that easily swallowed the governor’s body. He was propped up against the back of the tub, left arm leaning up and away against the rim. The powered gauntlet fizzled and popped angrily. Back when they were installed, he had forgotten to ask if his bionics were waterproof. He could think of no more certain way to keep it dry than to leave the disruptor field on. And so he relaxed, soaking in the water, fully armed.
And practically glowing. Not half an hour ago, he had been in the company of... Emma? Eva? Someone. She was the widow of some great such-and-such, trying to reclaim this and that, or perhaps looking to upgrade her station by snagging a planetary governor as a husband. Whatever, they all wanted something. What he wanted was her doe-like eyes, pools of deep brown in milky white, and her tumbling raven-black hair. That certain air of refinement that came with experience, the dignity born of status.
In the privacy of his chambers, though, that grace and poise went straight out the window.
Tiny flakes of linoleum shaved off the surface, little plastic curls spiraling out from the head of the roller chisel. Ever so carefully, bit by bit, the tiny steel blade edged forward, carving out to the end of the line. The harsh light of the desk lamp beamed on the emerging piece of art.
Jaines leaned back and blew on the linoleum. The fine white dust scattered onto the desk and on her clothing. She looked down at the carving and frowned.
This was awful. Again.
She inspected her work, trying to see if there was any way she could salvage it. She had taken not one but two art classes at university, neither of which were proving any use whatsoever now. She was trying to make it look like a Fauleighra tank running over a baby. Her last attempt looked, at best, like a tractor running over a possum. Her first attempt was better left unmentioned.
And time for another weekly update. I've now been working for four weeks.
I was able to pick back up the pace a bit and when I went to bed last night (after nearly finishing the upcoming chapter) I was left at 96,301 words, which is a little shy of 25k this week, but at least I wasn't two whole chapters behind. I also blew by half a million characters this week, and over 200 pages in my current document format.
Interestingly enough, at the moment I'm just a touch over 1000 words shy of my previous novel's total length, which I'll easily pass today. Given that that one took five weeks, and here I am at four, I can now confidently say that I'm 20% faster than I was five years ago, and that's neat. What's also neat is that last time I was kind of stretching it trying to make it to 100,000 words, while this time I'm going to run over that milestone like a dump truck full of gravel.
Which is good because, as you can probably tell, I'm nowhere near being done yet. In fact, I'm sort of finding the opposite problem - putting off the nagging feeling that I still haven't really gotten anywhere yet. This is probably because of the one thing that I'm likely to consider a structural flaw of this work. The six main characters are all sort of representatives of their group, and those groups all start off separate from each other and don't really interact at all. It's more six individual plotlines than a single cohesive narrative.
And it's not until now, nearly halfway through that this is starting to change. Characters are making decisions that are seriously, and more importantly, inadvertently, affecting others as a single plot that everyone is working on is beginning to form. I mean, I guess I knew that this would be somewhat of a problem, starting people far apart and then slowly bringing them all together in Bellemonde (which, if you hadn't noticed, is the current location of all the main characters), but I guess I thought that would all start happening sooner. That there would be an introduction, and then they would spend the rest of their time scheming. I guess I can only hope that the characters, imagery, writing style, and sub-plots are enough to make up for the fact that not a whole lot is going on at the beginning.
On the plus side, though, I've finally gotten to the point where they're all coming together. Also on the plus side, I'm finally getting some secondary characters in, and they're bridging some of that gap between the main ones. Especially the near-main-character Rochefield, of course, but Lucas, Gilbert, and Melchoir all have lesser names in their orbits, and a few of them have already interacted with others outside their little spheres.
Anyways, I'm going to keep writing. If I keep up my steadily-increasing average chapter length, I'll be able to hit the 100k mark with the one after I'm about to publish soon. If I can do it, I'll pass that milestone at 29 days which means even with a short, 30-day month I've been working against, I'll be able to honestly say that I can write over a hundred thousand words in less than a month.
Wish me luck!
---
Also, I just noted that my previous work is 305 pages in the same format that my current one is at 221, and I have at least a few blank pages in my current one to separate chapters. There's pretty much one explanation for this: dialogue.
Dialogue takes up a lot more space per word than anything else does, and my last work was practically all dialogue with a few action scenes thrown it. It sort of read like a movie, not a book. Fast paced, and one main character with a couple of supports, it was more or less a dime novel.
With this work, I've been trying to take it more seriously as a work of literature. Many characters with different personalities and points of view, and at a much slower pace, trying to scoop up a lot more detail. There are large blocks of "experience" text where I'm bothering to actually describe the setting, and to try and put the reader into it. There's even at least one entire chapter (the Melchoir in the church one) where there isn't a single line of dialogue, and absolutely nothing happens. That's definitely not something I could have pulled off a few years ago.
In a way, my last work was sort of the "can I do it?" one. This is the one where I'm building my skills and trying things out, and trying to go from "making at all" to "making it good". Who knows, maybe I'll submit my next piece to the Hugo judges so they can have something to laugh at while they plot who gets their award.
“I don’t know, a few thousand, I’d say, but probably not much more than that,” Gilbert replied, less than helpfully.
“That’s it?” Ethan Roscenne asked, incredulous. “Come on, the number has to be higher than that.”
“I don’t know,” Gilbert replied, pushing up his heavy glasses. “I mean, they’re everywhere, but it seems like they’re, I don’t know, too everywhere. Like they’re constantly having to make a show of their presence.”
“Occupation,” Superior Menet corrected.
“Occupation, yes. I don’t have exact numbers, but it really doesn’t seem that high to me.”
“You’re just not seeing it right, then,” Menet moved to correct again.
“What does their number matter?” Gilbert replied with irritation. “They’ve got my city under marshal law. Who cares if it’s with one soldier or a million?”
Claire sat quietly in the badly worn plush chair. On the armrest lay a small plate garnished with a few stray crumbs. She held the half-eaten lemon bar in her lap.
The room around her was the image of faded opulence. Serapi rugs all but threadbare on top of carpet in hardly better shape, dusty crown molding reached up to cracked plaster. It likely didn’t look much better before the war either. Second-rate in the first place.
Still, the room had a certain sense of specialness now. Once the lobby of an overly ambitious two-star hotel far from civilization, now an important government building in the capital. The people, and why they were here, gave this space meaning. It was august by association.
And it wasn’t just the others people here, it was her as well. Thanks to her father, she now held a position of real status. She was back in the proverbial club. She was a superior, now, so she needed to act like one, and that meant getting connected with her new peers. The other superiors always held an event the day before the Council met, something which she had barely learned in time to make it on the morning train to Bellemonde.
She had expected more of a mixer, but to her surprise it was a formal meeting, and they had real issues under debate. They were also very angry. She had been stuck in Cupercourt for a long time and had somewhat enjoyed her relative insulation from the rest of world, which had apparently fallen apart while she wasn’t looking.
I don't have ALL that much more to add over the last weekly update, other than that, at 29 days, I clocked in at 100702 words. So yes, I can write over 100k words in less than a month. Woot.
As for the story, I like that the characters are finally getting together, and things are developing well. Like, the idea that Jaines could be going after Lucas makes me flinch. They're not the ones who are supposed to get together, but, well, Jaines is Jaines, so if she characteristically overplays her hand, then the stolid Lucas could make it through, but, then, Jaines has a way with words and getting people to do what she wants. Meanwhile, the interaction between Gilbert and Claire is painful. Watching two people with serious problems happen to wind up perfectly dovetailing into each other's horrible spiral of enablement... the worst relationship in the history of relationships. Also, my first reaction to the idea that GILBERT would "take things personally" immediately made me think...
Anyways, as you can tell, we're leading up to the next big event, which will start like two chapters from now. Part 1 was the introduction until Gilbert brought Jaines to Bellemonde, followed by a 1.5 up to the granary massacre. Part 2 is sort of the betrayal of Rochefield, leading up to the next chapters. There will be two more parts after this (as alluded to in the introduction), where things will even further escalate in being reactions to the things before them. After this next main event is over, I'm halfway through my prewriting, which means I should be about half way through my story. Given my current word count, and that I have planned at least 5 more chapters until the end of it, that means that I'm looking at (if I am where my pre-writing tells me) a total word count of something like 240,000 words by the time this is over.
Which, in case you missed it, is like twice as long as I thought the book would be when I started. On the plus side, though, given my faster than expected writing speed, it will only take me like 50% longer to write, timewise, than I'd planned. It does, though, push me over the threshold for moving, which will now undoubtedly be a slowing factor. I guess that my plan now is to get it complete before August, at the absolute latest (at which point, I'll have to start getting more engrossed in my even bigger move).
On the other side, though, I'm starting to see the insane draw that other high-volume serialists have. The fact that George RR Martin has written 1.5 million words so far for Ice and Fire now makes perfect sense to me. In a way, I'm approaching 1/10th of the way there, and I could easily see stretching things out. I'm just sort of scratching the surface for the possible interactions between these characters, and especially if I added new ones, it could take a very long time to tell the story of just them reacting to each other's reactions. Even if I started killing characters off like Martin.
But as easy as that temptation is, I feel it best to avoid. I'm not writing this to be a 6-part series, or even a trilogy. I guess I'm just going to have to stick closely to the script, and keep steering things proverbially ashore to prevent them from floating out to sea. Keep the fact that it's supposed to end in mind.
Anyways, I thank the people who have been following, and I hope you enjoy it. Hopefully by this time next month, I'll be getting pretty close to being done!
The bars on his cell rattled. It would have woken him up if he weren’t already awake.
Two men were standing in the hallway, dimly backlit. They were wearing servicemen uniforms, by the shapes of their collars.
“Hey,” one of them whispered. “You ready?”
The mattress crinkled slightly as Lucas stood, followed a moment later by his cellmate.
“Yeah,” he called out from the darkness.
One of them came forward with a set of keys, unlocking the cell with a soft click. The door slid open. The prisoners quietly escaped from their cell.
The long hallway was nearly pitch black, lit only by a row of windows near the ceiling, letting in the faint reflection of streetlights off the low-hanging clouds above. He turned to see the other cells being opened. More dark shapes sneaking out. The hallway shimmered with impending freedom.
“Lucas,” came the whisper behind him. He turned and saw Paul and two others. “Come on,” his friend whispered, gesturing towards him. The eight of them made it quickly to the exit. The leader swiped a keycard and the heavily bolted door swung open, leading them out into another hallway.
Jaines sat near the very back of the room, in its poorest-lit corner. The padding she wore to make herself look fatter chafed uncontrollably, and the fake birthmark on her face itched and burned. A splinter in her mind. She held her hands together to keep from scratching away her disguise.
She looked out from the darkness, over the gallery at the U-shaped table.
The Council sat in solemn silence.
All her little pawns were here, she noted smugly, ready to move at her command. They couldn’t yet see how she was going to use them. How little they would direct the course of events anymore. She would have pitied them, if she had any sympathy for the weak and foolish.
“That’s nice,” she began pensively, “but sometimes you don’t want to be nice. We do what we do for good reasons, remember. You have to make certain that new scribes read the municipal code, sections 1–8, 13 subsections a–f, g, n–p, and 14–26 subsections a, and b. We both know that, and so do they, but a good scribe needs to do more than know the regulations; they need to know why we have them in the first place.”
“I see,” the new arch-scribe replied, jotting something down onto his clipboard.
“I mean, what is the point of spending all these years memorizing all three thousand two hundred fifty-six pages if you can’t practically apply them?” Claire continued, slightly exasperated. “And sometimes that means you have to get a little tough with them. It takes eight years to get licensed as a scribe because someone might get hurt if we fail to make sure that everything goes according to protocol.”
“Okay,” the arch-scribe said, scribbling down some more notes.
“Now, you give it a try,” Claire instructed.
“Right,” the arch-scribe cleared his throat. “Your performance was nearly adequate, Jenkenes, and by my calculations, you would achieve a composite score of a 7.5, based on your knowledge of municipal code and its applicability to the circumstances. We both know, however, that you must score at least a 9.75 within a tolerance range of 0.25 in order to pass this examination. Moreover, your client’s lack of compliance pursuant to Section 6 subsection c-1, is, unfortunately, a deal-breaker.”
“Okay, good, now follow through,” Claire encouraged. The arch-scribe flipped back through his notes. “Take your time.”
“Therefore,” he finally continued, “you are instructed to bring your client into observance of the relevant ordinance.”
“Yes, sir,” Jenkenes replied.
The scribe-in-training turned towards the balding man, who was giving him a sour look.
“I am to inform you that I really must insist. You are instructed to comply with Section 6 subsection c-1, and immediately.”
“I told you no,” the man replied. “I don’t have time for this.”
Well, it's been five weeks now. There isn't a whole lot to report, really. As you've probably noticed, my writing has been pretty slow for a big pile of reasons. I only managed to get to 111,338 for a measly just over 15,000 words.
The crazy pace I've been at has been setting a bit of burnout in, and I'm finding myself working a bit more slowly in part because of wanting to get these important chapters more exactly how I want them, but also because I'm about to make the transition from part 2 into part 3. The last time I ran into this transition from 1 to 2, it took a fair bit more time to churn through the necessary pre-writing than I thought. It will be the same for this too, I'm sure. I've got another 3 or maybe 4 chapters to resolve this event, and then it's going to be time to hit the clip board again.
It is kind of interesting, though, knowing I'm roughly half-way through. For example, most characters have had about 8 chapters. If I take out the last set of chapters where everyone more or less says goodbye to the story, and take out another one for the next big action scene at the end of part 3, that means that my characters only have about 6 chapters left apiece at the moment. That is, they only get a few things to do before the next big event, and a few more things before its over.
It's almost to the point where I can start thinking a bit less about how the characters fit into the plot and more thinking about what I want these characters to do and have happen to them before it's too late. If I can chart out that 6 x 6 grid, then I can just lay the plot over it, and I'll have the entire rest of the story mapped out.
Anyways, I'm going to try and make it over the hump these next few days, and just maybe, hopefully, I'll be able to get my pace back up. The best way to ensure that this gets finished at all is to power through and get it done quickly.
“We just. Don’t. Know,” Marshal Ergon replied, hotly. “I can’t tell you anything unless it’s been reported to me first.”
“We have to wait for Marshal Lopex,” Damien Vogel growled, face flush and scowling.
“If he’s even going to make it,” Gannon snapped.
“Silence,” Melchoir stated over the noise. His flat, heavy tone quietly dominating the conversation. “Marshal Lopex will be here any moment now.”
Melchoir sat in his customary chair. They were meeting in the Council chamber, the room having been cleared out a few hours before. The long U-shaped table was nearly two-thirds filled with white uniforms concealing a mix of nervousness, anger, and even outright fear.
His jaw was clenched shut, his mind racing. A thousand facts, ideas, and bits of rumor stormed through his brain as he unconsciously tried to file everything away. To try and break free from himself, and look at things more abstractly. He just needed to focus.
The band played “On, Istpheria!” the lively tune giving an almost festive air to the occasion. The proud melody paired well with the scene below.
Rank on rank, the Foleran soldiers marched. A long, gleaming white snake stretching up the street, bobbing slightly as the soldiers moved forwards in step. Platoon banners were held aloft, threadbare panes of color snapping brightly in the morning breeze.
They were dressed for war, fully armed, their brown flak armor creating a checkered effect against the white uniforms. It was not a group of soldiers but a blazing static of brown and white, constantly shifting, tricking the eye to see more than there actually were, blurring one soldier into the next. A solid, yet variable mass. Dazzle camouflage at its finest.
The soldiers were clean, properly equipped, and in good spirits for the first time since they had made planetfall over a year ago. The carefully crafted news was that this had been planned all along. They had lured the rebel army into a proper fight, not more skulking around in the forest, waiting for the war to just be won somehow. This time they would charge the hill and finish off the rebels, all of them, once and finally for all.
I've just taken a couple of days to catch up with the last half a dozen chapters, and those last two were really good. Things are definitely building to a head, and the character interaction is certainly becoming clearer and stronger.
The orchestra swelled, strings pulsing up from the bass, woodwinds leaping away, arpeggiating higher as they fled the growing wave of sound. The horn section drew in from beneath, pouring out a warm and savory richness. The opening phrase of the chamber music floated up in pitch as it rose in strength, and then drew perfectly on its tension chords, pausing. Jaines held her breath.
And then slowly, ever so delicately, the tones resolved. Bobbing gently on the notes. Ever so softly, fading to near silence. A tranquil rest. The conductor held his baton in the air, waiting. The introduction ebbing bittersweetly into the recesses of the theater.
It was replaced by a pure, ethereal substance. A voice, if it could even be called that. Not projected by a singer, but somehow filling the room of its own accord. It shimmered, converting all the mundane in the room into the afterglow of its presence, as if transforming matter itself into sound. Clear as liquid glass, it rose, louder and louder, from a whisper to a growing crescendo.
And then, imperceptibly, the orchestra came in behind it. Almost timid, as if unworthy of being printed on the same score as this gossamer note. The instruments followed, burbling up behind until they both reached a plateau.
And then it was gone. The voice suddenly disappeared, leaving the whole world reeling, unable to comprehend its absence. Left with the vulgar shock of what it was before. Straining to understand, until suddenly there it was again.
The rolled alto voice smoothed itself into the first verse, joined by the alto II and the instruments. Reality exhaled, confident that the gap was the nightmare and that beauty was the proper state of things. Jaines let her breath out along with it.
Blood spattered against the wall, a bright red stipple pattern on dirty concrete. Tiny red streaks where globbing droplets began to run towards the floor. Reaching down to pool together on the tile.
The eyes, their frantic, wild stare, punching straight through him. Not even seeing he was there. Gilbert was just a meaningless side note to the event, his part in this was over now. The boy stared at him in shock. Not understanding what had happened. Not even aware that he was dying.
It wasn’t until he collapsed onto the floor that he began to spasm. His heart pumping away his life through ruptured arteries with each convulsive, pulsing squirt ¬– jets of liquid running like water squeezed from a bottle. Spurt by spurt gushing onto the floor.
He was writhing on the ground, clutching at this throat, though the shot had taken him high in the chest. Wait, it wasn’t the wound; it was the blood itself. His hands were at his throat because he was choking, the terror on his face not from the impact of the bullet. No, it was the visceral, uncontrollable panic of drowning.
The boy’s shoes squeaked as he thrashed on the floor. The eyes, fixed up at the ceiling, still not comprehending that this was his last moment of his life.
Gilbert looked down at his hands. They were numb, shaking slightly. His palms tingled. In these hands was the pistol. He was the one who had pulled the trigger. Gilbert was the one who had gunned him down.
Paradigm wrote:I've just taken a couple of days to catch up with the last half a dozen chapters, and those last two were really good. Things are definitely building to a head, and the character interaction is certainly becoming clearer and stronger.
Thanks!
So, six weeks. As you've noticed, things went pretty badly this time. The final total this time was 123421 (I should have written 35 more words...), which meant only just north of 12k. Not even half my desired pace.
There are lots of reasons. I was sick for a part of this, and the insidious encroachment of moving made me lose two days of writing. I'll be all settled in on the 15th, but I'm going to lose another two days of writing at least before its done, which sucks.
The only positive reason, though, is pre-writing, which I also lost a lot of time to. Though not writing, it's at least productive. I can now look at my clip board and see every chapter I am going to write all the way to the end, including the order, who's the narrator, and at least one plot point. And that's assuming I don't sneak a few more in there along the way. In any case, the pre-writing is now pretty much done. At least, for the story as a whole. Each chapter is also a short story of its own, but thinking things through at that level has always been a by-chapter affair, so it shouldn't slow me down any.
And at least the story is progressing. As I mentioned, part 1 was the love story / insurrection story that was there to keep you interested while the pieces moved and the main story trundled along, and part 2 was the betrayal of Rochefield. Now, in part 3, the main story is finally progressing at full speed. All the troubles that have plagued those in the capital finally coming to a head through the lens of the battle for Cupercourt.
I'm also trying a little harder to advance the characters a little bit. They've been pretty static up until now, in part because I didn't want there to be too much interference with the carefully-laid threads that brought us to this point (well, and I like static characters, generally). Now that the plot has achieved a point of undeterrable momentum, I can play around with things a bit more.
Of course, I won't deny, I felt a little scheezy after last chapter, but, well, Gilbert is the arch-enabler. Of course he would find religion sooner or later. It's not just me being spiteful, or me wanting to balance out the satire of high-religion earlier with some of low-religion later (though it is that as well), but it's going to be plot-relevant. You'll see.
Plus, this is secretly the world of 40k we're talking about, so whenever there's a religion not devoted towards praising the Emperor...
Anyways, the one thing I can say with pride is that I'm already doing a good job with my chiasma. It's actually a bit easier than I thought. I just look at my big sheet of pre-writing to get the skeleton, and then I just look at its mirror chapter for some inspiration for the meat.
For example, if you take chapter 37 as the mid-point of the story, and then look at the layers like an onion (the first before the middle chapter and the first after, the second and the second, etc.), you can already see what I'm on about:
-1/+1: Melchoir attends a meeting where he loses Gilbert as an ally / Melchoir attends a meeting after which he loses Rochefield as an ally.
-2b/+2: Lucas goes to the train station to take a train to Cupercourt to be with Claire, but is stopped / Damien goes to the train station to take his army to Cupercourt, hopefully to be with Claire, and nothing will stop him.
-2a/+3: As the result of a completed mission, two rebels get put in a small, dark space. Some of the rebels decide to join with Jaines / Jaines decides to put two rebels in a small, dark space for the purpose of completing a mission.
-3/+4: Gilbert comes up with a plan regarding a friend turning enemy, deciding to take it personally if it fails / Gilbert failed, and it got personal. Gilbert has a change of plans regarding an enemy turning friend.
It's not perfect of course, but I won't let that hang me up. It's neat anyway, right? Mind = blown? Hopefully I'll be able to continue this somewhat as the story progresses. I already know of a few points that I'd planned long ago to have a mirror chapter, and so this is easier because I'd done the pre-writing correctly, but it's cool that it's working out on a more detailed level as well.
Anyways, there's nothing for it but to continue on. The blueprints have been laid out, so it's just a matter of adding brick by brick until its done.
“Nike Group to Macros Command. Repeat, Nike Group to Macros Command.”
“Macros Command reading you, Nike Group.”
“Macros Command, be advised, rebel forces are regrouping. It looks like they’re preparing to counterattack, sir.”
“Copy, Nike Group. Stand by for further instructions.”
“Standing by.”
The vox-comm was silent for a moment.
“Macros Command to Vogel Central, do you copy?”
Damien sat in his command tent alone but for a pair of orderlies – he needed to be alone in times like this. Others preferred to lead from the front, but the grand marshal always found the idea much too distracting. Better to drown out everything else and keep focused on the vox set. To only take information up the chain of command, as it was intended. His job was to be the brain of the entire operation, not to be out there barking orders and waving a combat knife around. That’s what he had idiots for, most of whom were better known as sergeants.
He glanced down at his chronometer. Right on schedule.
Week 7. Nothing much to say except moving ate a week. Two days of U-hauling, more trips with the car, a bunch of unpacking. Plus all the stress of it. No point in writing bad chapters.
In the end, though, I got only 3183 words written, bringing me up to 126603, the goal for three weeks ago only now being broken. I guess I can take solace from the fact that my original goal was to get to 125,000 before I moved, which more or less happened. This super slow pace, though, makes me very nervous about getting this work done before my second move in August. I have a little over 100,000 words left to write before it's done, and only about 9 weeks to get it done in. That may not seem like much (perhaps as many as 12.5k words per week) but given my pace of late...
Oh, and on an unrelated note, I did spend a tiny bit of time between the cracks entering a 500-word writing competition. You can see my entry here. If you like it, why not stop by and give me a vote.
“Welcome, Gilbert,” Brother Owen said in a soft, supportive tone. A few polite hellos murmured through the room.
“I...” he stammered.
He had been a civil servant all his life, and had given innumerable speeches over the course of his career. But somehow, in this small, intimate space, he felt more vulnerable than he’d ever felt in front of others.
“I...” he tried again.
“Take your time,” Brother Owen consoled. “There is no right or wrong thing to say here. Just speak from your heart. We’re here to heal, not to judge.”
Up to date again, and Chaos is happening! This could get messy... Poor Gilbert is all I can say. The Good Guy (if there is one) has gone to the Dark Side, it seems. Meanwhile, the Bad Guy (Damien) has got exactly what he wanted. The bit with the train I almost saw coming, but it was still something of a shock, and I like the idea of conveying the battle through the vox. Purely out of interest, what was the reason for that choice? A lot of war literature I've read narrates battles in a rather abstract and detached manner, was this just an extension of that or some other reason?
Also, I read the short story, very good stuff. The twist at the end was quite brilliant, and for just 500 words, quite an achievement to have pulled off.
Paradigm wrote:Also, I read the short story, very good stuff. The twist at the end was quite brilliant, and for just 500 words, quite an achievement to have pulled off.
Thanks, I'm glad you like it.
Paradigm wrote:Up to date again, and Chaos is happening!
Yes, truly chaos is beginning to grow once more. It was always my intention to have it leach in here somehow, but it's pace accelerated out of the need to have something for Gilbert to do (originally it was going to get to about this level at the end, rather than mid-story).
In any case, chaos wasn't going to start loud and proud. I think it's a mistake that most 40k authors make when it comes to the ruinous powers, actually. A good story doesn't begin over the top, and develop into... over the topper? Once you already have a planet rife with cults and demons are popping up everywhere, then where do you go from there? It's sort of like telling the story of world war 2 starting with D-Day or the battle of Kursk. It's the climactic finish, which is interesting, but it only happens at the very end of the story.
But the climactic end only has meaning in the context of everything else that's happened up until that point. It's starting the story of world war two with the beer hall putch. It's not that I have a character named Gilbert who is a chaos cultist, I have a character named Gilbert who is a normal person who very slowly slides in that direction due to a series of entangling events.
It's a subject that I've found interesting for some time now, and once again I'll use the Nazi example. Nobody joined the Nazi party because they wanted to be evil, strut around in jackboots and wear skulls on their uniforms. They joined because they wanted to do good, whatever that meant to them, and be around like-minded people. They join because it's fun, or for community, or to make everything better. I mean, even the German Lutheran church fully supported the Hitler government because, unlike the Weimar before it, it was finally a force strong enough to enact God's will on Earth. To fuse the blessings of church and the blessings of state into a single, powerful force that would be a model of Christian kinship for the world.
Evil is a necessary by-product of good, and you can't have the former without the latter. It's that mirroring effect that's interesting, and the transition through it's phases that I'd rather write about, rather than just more bolter porn with space marines shooting demons. The silly over the top obvious black and white when reality is never so easy.
Plus, it helps keep down on copyright violations...
Paradigm wrote:I like the idea of conveying the battle through the vox. Purely out of interest, what was the reason for that choice? A lot of war literature I've read narrates battles in a rather abstract and detached manner, was this just an extension of that or some other reason?
There were several reasons for this, actually. The first is because this battle report has stuck with me for awhile, and it might, perhaps be becoming a bit of a meme for me.
There are several things I like about the format. The first, of course, is that it's somewhat different than the usual blood-and-guts super first person point of view that these kinds of stories are usually told as. It's also interesting because it prompts the reader to use their imagination a little more, trying to fill in the gaps of what's not being told (sort of like how lingerie pictures can be sexier than straight nudity). Which is itself important, literarily - the reader doesn't have a clear picture of what's going on, which means I can write in a character who doesn't exactly know what's going on and the reader and the character will match.
It also seemed particularly appropriate for a Damien chapter, of course. Firstly, you see Damien as being aloof and uncaring, which is much easier when he's not physically present. Melchoir may get blood on his hands, but at least you know he's earnest about it, and not just toying with others' lives to suit his whim. It's also great because one of the points of Damien is to make others feel weak and vulnerable. He invades Rochefield's home to threaten him. He invades Claire's hospital room to gloat his victory over her. He shocks his associates at Melchoir's private party to twist things towards his ends.
And that really shows here. There is literally nothing that Nike Group can do other than beg and plead for help. You, the reader, are proverbially sitting there in the tent, and there's nothing you could do to help them either. The distance has made you just as helpless in that circumstance. You can only sit by and watch as Damien destroys something yet again from the cold, impersonality of a radio set, and then walks away with a smug little smirk.
In any case, it wasn't just straight abstraction. I've read Rommel plenty enough, and the style that you're talking about comprised my entire 5th ed battle reports. There are some fun things about it, especially in playing with perspective (because you only ever hear the truth from one source at a time, and you're never actually there, so you'll just have to trust them to tell it straight, even though you know you can't).
But in this case, it was abstraction for effect. The spider sitting in the middle of his web, playing with the lives of others. The same cold, capricious Damien Vogel. This format seemed the best way to pull it off in this case.
Interesting thoughts. I agree entirely about the gradual introduction of Chaos, it makes it more about a world falling to the darkness than a world that has already fallen, so it's not as cut-and-dry as most 40k, ie. 'They're all filthy Heretics, shoot the gak out of them!'.
The stuff on Vogel is an interesting insight into the character, and I see exactly what you mean about him, quite literally, holding all the power. It's funny you mention playing with perspective and detachment and how that makes 'the truth' tangibly false; I'm in the middle of writing something based on exactly the same lines myself, the only difference being that it's WW1 rather than 40k. But I agree, blood-and-guts battle scenes, whilst they can be entertaining and thrilling to an extent, often lose the depth of character, which is why most of my writing deals with the aftermath or prelude to such events. The sheer hell and madness is better conveyed through the reader's imagination than anything a writer can do.
Paradigm wrote:I agree entirely about the gradual introduction of Chaos, it makes it more about a world falling to the darkness than a world that has already fallen, so it's not as cut-and-dry as most 40k, ie. 'They're all filthy Heretics, shoot the gak out of them!'.
Yeah.
Also, a bit more about the chaos part that I forgot to mention earlier. What you've also been seeing this whole time is a subtle exposition on the difference between Khrone and Slaanesh.
On the one hand, you have Jaines. She clearly has a streak of needing to beat people. Life is a game that she is going to win, whether by violence or by manipulation or some other means, she will wind up on top, no matter what. Her reaction to her first kill was exhilaration and she showed up to that ceremony chapters ago to slaughter an animal sacrifice more than anything else.
Also, you'll note how she doesn't handle the Slaanesh side of things well. She takes drugs, but then gets bored with them. She wants to lose herself in music, but when it's too loud she wears earplugs. She has sex, but it's noncommittally, and with people who tend to meet bloody deaths not long after. The hedonic slide works hard on her, and her reaction to experiencing something and getting bored with it isn't to double down on the experience, like a follower of Slaanesh would.
Instead, she throws herself into her professional ethic, trying harder and harder to be the best at something. The work, the competition if you will, is the reward in itself.
Meanwhile, though Gilbert hasn't done anything particularly debaucherous until now, he's basically been served up for Slaanesh on a tee. He's always been the sensitive person, caring deeply about how other people feel, because feelings and emotions and experiences are what really matter. He's already devoting himself towards happiness and pleasure, it's just that it has a straight-laced liberal protestant unoffensive normalcy draped on top. But he's also insecure and unconfident, which makes him vulnerable to someone who will come by and liberate him from that veneer, and focus more clearly on what he was already doing. To make him aware of the logical conclusions of his own personality.
Plus, if it wasn't obvious, you also have...
I watched him bleed to death, all out onto the floor. It was me, I had caused bloodshed. I did it. I claimed another human life. I snuffed out every possible experience he could ever have, and it was my fault.
Which is pretty much the explicit rejection of Khorne in favor of Slaanesh.
Paradigm wrote:The stuff on Vogel is an interesting insight into the character, and I see exactly what you mean about him, quite literally, holding all the power. It's funny you mention playing with perspective and detachment and how that makes 'the truth' tangibly false; I'm in the middle of writing something based on exactly the same lines myself, the only difference being that it's WW1 rather than 40k. But I agree, blood-and-guts battle scenes, whilst they can be entertaining and thrilling to an extent, often lose the depth of character, which is why most of my writing deals with the aftermath or prelude to such events. The sheer hell and madness is better conveyed through the reader's imagination than anything a writer can do.
I was actually intending on playing this up a little bit more, and perhaps I will in the content editing part of the story. Have some part where there's a telephone exchange from Vogel to Nike wherein Macros lies, or embellishes something in the transit with the phrase "It was almost like Macros didn't understand that he could be listening to both sides of the conversation at once". Something to make it a little more obvious that things are based less on fact and more on the narratives the various actors are choosing to tell. In fact, I should probably do that now, while I'm thinking about it.
The benefit of usual battle scenes, right, is the experience. You give someone the chance to be there in the thrill and the terror as the craziness explodes around them. Sort of like how roller coasters give people the experience of falling without actually splatting them into goop when they hit the ground. But it suffers from all the problems that the graphic and the hardcore always suffer from. There's nothing there to get you in the mood. To pique your arousal, and to slowly draw things out and let you stew in your own juices. It's why romance novels are dozens of chapters long, but only a few of them actually involve sex.
As odd as it sounds, it's sort of pitting sensuality against experienciality. In theory, those two should be the same thing, but they're really not. Using your imagination to come up with a scene and using your imagination to use your imagination to come up with a scene are shockingly different. I suppose it's the reason why when comparing foreplay and sex, only one of them contains the word "play".
Anyways, I've got stuff to write, I'll just wave my hand and give you Hitchcock, and be done with it.
His pen scratched vigorously at the bottom of the page. Melchoir picked up the stapled packet and prepared to add it to the pile, but paused for a moment to examine his signature. He had easily scrawled his name more in the past months as governor than he had in the entire rest of his life put together. It was starting to show, especially in the E’s and the L’s. It pained him to think that eventually his signature might not be readable anymore, the letters devolving to mere squiggles.
Not that it would matter to the locals, of course. They used a different alphabet. Still, it was the principle of the thing. These signatures might last ten thousand years, and it wouldn’t do to bequeath unto history something that he was too lazy to make legible in the first place.
With a sigh, he plopped the document onto the stack. That was the last of them – from this set, at least. He waved for an orderly to take the pile away and looked ruefully at the box sitting on the ground next to him.
Thin gruel slowly swirled around the bowl as Lucas pushed the chunky liquid with his spoon. There was only one item on the menu tonight: ration soup. As the name implied, it seemed to be made of food packets selected at random and then made soggy. It wasn’t the worst he’d had to eat, but it was a long, long way from the best. He picked lithely at a sopping piece of corn biscuit.
Well, beggars couldn’t be choosers.
This wasn’t exactly the grand return to civilian life he had hoped for. He had expected to go from homeless vagrancy, living off the land, and desperately attempting to make contact with Claire to something that wasn’t, well... homeless vagrancy, living off the land, and desperately attempting to find Claire. He’d expected things to be different. It was supposed to be a fresh start.
But they weren’t, and it wasn’t. Lucas was no longer a rebel in principle, but he still felt like one in practice. Instead of settling down in a decent profession, he was spending his time on reconnaissance and espionage. He had broken into office buildings looking for schedules, and had been forced to intimidate civil servants. He had done everything but lead men into battle.
But no matter how far he went and how high his information source, he still had absolutely no clue where Claire was.
Her flashlight scythed a beam of light through the darkness.
Jaines stepped forward through the cellar, slowly, quietly. A flashlight in one hand and a laspistol in the other. Crouching low, ready to strike. She slowly brought her flashlight around, the spot of light creeping across the floor. There wasn’t an easy way to handle this. She needed to hunt them down, one by one. Her skin crawled at the very idea of them infesting her domain. That her house could be filled with such... parasites.
Suddenly, something burst into view, then leapt away. She jerked the flashlight over, reaching forward with her handgun. A snap-CRACK! blasted through the tiny space. Jaines reeled from the flash and the noise, trying to keep the flashlight steady.
She shook her head slightly, working at her ear with the knuckles of her pistol hand.
Caught in the beam, a small pile of fur twitched violently, spasming with its remaining nervous energy, trying to run away while beached on its side. Jaines grinned a wicked smile as the verminous seizures began to dissipate.
There, that was one fewer rodent in the world. In her basement, at least. “Warren,” she announced with a smirk of self-satisfaction.
“Where is Claire Rochefield?” asked a voice in the darkness.
The man sat, slumped over, tied to the chair. A single light shone down on him. His face swollen and bleeding, purple, broken fingers jutting out from ruined hands. They’d clearly been to work on the rest of him as well.
Damien sat, one leg crossed over the other, keenly observing. His chosen men for the job had been... thorough. He took a moment to consider how many bones had been broken, which parts of his flesh had been shocked or burned with fire.
“I don’t know,” the prisoner slurred. A broken jaw, most likely. Perhaps they had done something to his tongue.
The rebel still resisted. Of course he would. Damien’s army had inflicted every kind of hardship and devastation on scum like this over months of war. The only ones left must be all but impervious to it. He had artificially selected for those who felt they could withstand anything. Everyone else had long ago fled, died, or surrendered.
The rebel stared forward, looking slightly down. Lost in a thousand-mile stare. The world was completely gone to him. He was focusing on something within, on whatever hope he had been clinging to all this time. Something bigger than himself, some way to escape into the abstract. He was there now, breathing slowly.
“Where is Claire Rochefield?” he asked again, completely devoid of emotion.
“I don’t know,” the prisoner sputtered.
Damien’s mustache twitched slightly as he leaned in.
Damn, this is really getting going now. I think all the work put into building up the characters is suddenly worth it; it's impossible not to understand them now, and that makes Gilbert's fall and Damien's impending but elusive triumph all the more tragic.
And that last chapter, that was brilliantly done, a perfect portrait of everything Damien is, layer by layer revealing the merciless and depraved mind.
Yeah, this last chapter was a little hard for even me to read. My notes just said "Damien - Siege of Cupercourt", and I mulled over a few different ways I could take it (usually involving artillery - I think that will wait for next chapter), and when I stumbled across the idea for an interrogation in a Damien chapter, I sort of couldn't do anything else.
The tricky part with Damien, of course, is to make it a Damien torture scene. We know that he can be physically abusive, but it's always been just sort of implied, and it always happens off-stage. He's not someone given to thoughtless rage, and he doesn't get his hands dirty. Up until this chapter he hadn't really killed anyone. Even in the introduction story, it's a situation of self-defense (that he didn't intend to be in), and he only cut someone's arm and the other person accidentally impaled himself on Damien's chainsword.
Because as much as he's portrayed as a thug, he really isn't. He's a predator, not a mere brutalizer. So much more calculating and exquisite.
The challenge, then was to make something that started where you expected, and then went over the top, and then, somehow even went further over the top than that. And only then do you realise that you're at the mid-point. It just keeps escalating and escalating, your mind going numb, but it still goes on. And all with Damien's hands clean, and perfect planning running like clockwork.
Once again, what I'm kind of going for, especially with these last few chapters, is to try and get you to feel things relative to the character. Damien preys on vulnerability and the way the chapter is written should make you feel helpless and vulnerable. Gilbert is a walking self-pity party, and his chapters are written in such a way for you to feel really sympathetic towards him and all the bad stuff he's had to put up with. Jaines is wild and crazy, and the last chapter was her shooting rats in her basement followed by serious mood swings and intense manipulation (some people may have had a girlfriend like this once). You get kind of caught up in her personal delusion.
What's kind of interesting, though, is that the characters are finally starting to change just a little bit. Jaines' wild crazy is starting to shift towards scary crazy. Gilbert's passive enablement is starting to turn into active enablement (in his last encounter with Lucas, he did something active for the first time since he brought Jaines to Bellemonde), and, of course, he's joined a cult and started taking drugs. Lucas, the unprepossessing, yet noble character is faced with the option of murdering in cold blood and he actually considers it.
The Damien chapter here is actually kind of interesting that way as well, because he's changed a bit as well. As mentioned, this is the first time that he has really, on purpose killed someone. And it's not just fighting in self-defense against rebels trying to kill him. And not only is it murder, but it's murder of a blatant innocent.
But it's also the reasoning behind it that's new. Damien may have been a horrible human being before, but he'd always been cold and calculating. Everything was prepared for effect to achieve a specific goal.
In this chapter, he is doing terrible things, but there is a chance that it might not lead him to success. Not only that, but he treats the chance of failure with indifference, which is a pretty stark break from how he's behaved before.
A previous version of Damien would be more likely to stop and re-think his plan. Instead he goes on with the application of his heightened level of violence regardless of its outcome. Or, as it says in the chapter, this is the first time he's been properly cruel, and for its own sake.
And yeah, it's still that much more depressing because you know Damien has to win again. The rebels are trapped, badly outgunned and very badly outmanned. Furthermore, none of the main characters actually want the rebels to win (even if Jaines wants the Folerans to lose, she still isn't comfortable with others winning, as her relationship with Warren shows). With nothing going for them, there really isn't much hope, which means Damien wins again...
Interesting thoughts. I see what you say about Damien in that last scene; just when you're thinking he can't possibly get more depraved, he does. And the final reveal of it not even being the prisoner's daughter was just the icing on the terrifying cake.
The changing characters is also something interesting, and to be honest, I'd not have suspected at the beginning that Lucas would be the most 'good guy' (relatively, of course) of the cast. Is there a Claire chapter coming any point soon? Because I'm wondering if she's changed in the same kind of way as the others, or whether she's staying a little more constant as a counterpoint to the rest of them.
Paradigm wrote:Is there a Claire chapter coming any point soon? Because I'm wondering if she's changed in the same kind of way as the others, or whether she's staying a little more constant as a counterpoint to the rest of them.
Yeah, the next one is Claire. I was going to write it yesterday, but it wasn't really gelling, so I spent my time pre-writing the chapter a bit instead. It should be out today.
The thing with the Claire character is that she's also on the good guy side of the roster because her failings are so forgivable. Her only problem is that she's young. She's good at the thing she's been trained for, but doesn't have the depth of experience to adapt, or the self-confidence to lead, and has a certain naivete. I'm going to try and push her into a slightly more coming to her own direction. Stepping up in what small ways she can to redeem her faults of youth and inexperience. You know, not be some kind of big, active leader like the rest of the cast, but a more normal person making a difference kind of way.
Paradigm wrote:Interesting thoughts. I see what you say about Damien in that last scene; just when you're thinking he can't possibly get more depraved, he does. And the final reveal of it not even being the prisoner's daughter was just the icing on the terrifying cake.
And that's not the end of it. The whole series goes "If you don't tell me what I want to know, I am going to..."
1.) Beat you up. Badly. Permanently.
2.) Threaten to kill your only child, a four year old girl who just learned you're sill alive.
3.) Kill your little girl by throwing her off a building and breaking her on the rocks below.
4.) Tell you I made a mistake, and that I killed someone else's little girl. This time, though, we have her. Now we will kill her.
5.) Kill her.
6.) Tell you I made a mistake both the first two times, and that I killed someone else's little girls. This time, though, absolutely we have her. Now we will kill her, for real this time.
7.) Kill her.
8.) Confess the truth. Your child has been dead this entire time. I was just killing random children to get you to talk.
9.) I have another child here. Someone else's little girl, just like the one you lost. Her parents are going to lose her if you don't talk.
10.) Kill her.
11.) Reveal that I am going to keep on doing this every time we meet until you talk. Every time I step foot in this room, a little girl dies, and it's your fault for withholding.
12.) Turn on the radio and force him to say goodbye to the child on the other side.
13.) Kill her.
So when Damien said he was just beginning, he meant it. They were only up to step 3 of 13.
In case you didn't notice, Damien is one of the bad guys.
Paradigm wrote:Yeah. Damien is a bastard. How the feth is he not the Chaos guy?
But why would he be?
Who would he be devoted to, Khorne? Khorne would reject him out of hand. Not only is he notably lacking in being a mighty champion who conquers his enemies by skill at arms (which he hasn't done ever in this book), but he just killed an innocent little girl. And not only that, but he didn't even do the killing, he sent someone else out to do it for him. Meanwhile, sadism gives him a few flickers of emotion, but his work is way too calculated to be Slaanesh. It doesnt' count if he seems almost bored by the prospect of what he'll be forced to do. Tzeentch wouldn't take him because he's extremely blunt and crude. His inability to properly scheme or think more than two steps ahead is what got Hugo Rochefiled to abandon the Foleran cause.
Meanwhile, he's not exactly undivided chaos either. He's a high-ranking military officer, so he cares about order, and that includes immediately dismissing the idea of holding a coup against Melchoir so that he could be the governor. He's part of the system, and so is fighting AGAINST the crazy bonkers revolutionaries who are trying to overthrow it.
It's kind of strange to compare Gilbert to Damien and think that the former is the one bearing the mark of chaos and not the latter, but it does really make sense.
Yeah, well, in the grim darkness of the far future, some people are still just donkey-caves.
Anyways, let's talk week 8. I ended this week at 142,466 for a total of 15,963. That's definitely not good enough, but it's a lot better than it has been for the past few weeks.
Over the next week, I'll be getting at least 5 or 6 chapters done, which means I'll be done with the second third of the book. Not only will I be there wordswise, but I'll also be there plotwise as well.
Meanwhile, things are going well. The chiasmus is still trundling along (notice -8/+9: Lucas meets with Rochefield in the basement where he gets involved in a plan to kill the Foleran Damien / Lucas meets with Jaines in the basement where he gets involved in a plan to kill the Foleran Melchoir.), and, as mentioned, the characters are starting to develop a bit, and are continuing their integration nicely (Gilbert has met with Lucas, in one way or another Lucas will meet with Melchoir soon, and I'm lining up my Jaines and Rochefield chapter).
Also something interesting, my chapter length has still been creeping up. The first eight chapters had an average word count of 2750. The five chapters I did this week have an average of 3172. Nearly a page longer. My guess is that when I go back to give this book its first proper edit (rather than chapter by chapter that I'm doing now), I'll wind up making the earlier chapters longer and add maybe as many as 10,000 words to the length of the work.
So yeah, things are going. By estimation, I've got about 100k words left. Nothing to do but keep plugging along, still vainly hoping I can get back to my pace of a month ago.
I hope everybody's liked it so far. I can promise that things are definitely going to get more interesting from here.
“Just keep walking, everyone. Look natural. Don’t make eye contact.”
Claire walked forward stiffly, slowly. Trying to blend in with the other miserable people thinly flocking around them.
“Just look like you belong,” she whispered quietly, adding her voice to the guard’s. Just look like you were crossing the street on some business, like everybody else. Feel nothing but a mindless desperation. She swallowed hard as she forced her pace down to shambling. Pushing down on every instinct that told her to run. To make a break for it.
She had never felt more afraid in her entire life.
Her whole existence had been an unrelenting terror. She couldn’t even remember it being otherwise, days were years. They scarcely had food, and she hadn’t slept for more than a few hours at a time in weeks. She had been reduced to a zombie life – a thoughtless haze devoid of feeling or comprehension. She was dead inside, but somehow still alive. Still going through the motions, automatically, as if someone else was working her body.
It was the artillery. The endless rolling barrage hammering the city. It would go on for hours at a time, relentlessly, concussive shockwaves beating into her body. Pulverizing her mind. Always they were shooting. Every day, and every night. Those words had lost meaning to her. Time itself faded away into one long nightmare, every moment the same as the last.
And she was cold. Continuously, regardless of time of day.
BOROUGHCOURT FALLS TO INSURGENTS
– Agricultural Liberation Army seizes city
– Marshal Archon confirmed dead
– Rosecampes “days away” as Foleran garrison under siege
Julien Larousse (PSC)
The southern city of Boroughcourt fell into the hands of insurgent fighters yesterday, ending a two-day battle with units of the Foleran Army. The group taking responsibility, identified as the Agricultural Liberation Army, has confirmed their total control of the city.
The takeover comes following months of turmoil in the farm belt. Paramilitary organizations, once combating among themselves, have formed a united front against government forces. The collected militia group, lead by Warren deLune, seized key buildings, and forced the Foleran Army into pockets of resistance, which were stamped out over two days of house-to-house fighting.
“There is so much joy,” deLune said in a statement released hours after victory was declared. “Finally our town is free of the violent, oppressive regime of Marshal Tellis [sic]. The people of the farm belt have fought hard, but we will win back our rights. No more will those who grow food be forced to starve.”
Images taken from the city reveal the scope of the mass uprising. Thousands have taken to the streets, some to celebrate, others to loot stores and food supplies. In places burning the governor in effigy.
I'm not going to lie, I feel like I've cleansed my soul somewhat with this one after the two before it.
Someone finally told Jaines off. I'd been looking forward to the two of them meeting for awhile now (I just didn't know where in the narrative it would fall). Jaines is a master manipulator, but Rochefield is undefeatable in the arena of words. Sort of the unstoppable force vs. immovable object kinds of things.
And the best part is that you see these two at their finest. Jaines sucks everyone into her delusions, she firmly asserts her version of reality, and to even be able to talk to her about things, to use the same words in the same way, you're forced to buy into that version. Once you're trapped, you're done, because she always takes the most defensible position within her realm that you're just now entering into.
Meanwhile, Rochefield operates by the fundamental belief that you are his inferior, and that once you understand that, you're going to just do as Rochefield says. He has no time for games, and a ruthless ability to cut down people who think too much of themselves.
It works so well because Rochefield, as usual, goes on the offensive immediately. He also gives Jaines choices. She gets to pick her reality, but it's going to be on his terms. This makes her struggle to impose a third, more favorable way of looking things on the magistrate. And when she does, Rochefield pivots towards a direction that shows off how her chosen way is yet another sign of inferiority.
He is also able to resist getting drug into Jaines' fantasy-land, consistently returning arguments back to reality, and cutting back to the main point when she tries to wander off into a pointless tangent she can win.
In the end, he is even able to beat her at her own game, supplying his own version of reality, and she knows how to attack on that level, but not defend. Rochefield is clearly out of her league.
In the way, Jaines is the ultimate internet troll, and Rochefield the ultimate moderator. He keeps things polite and on-topic, but once it's clear that she has nothing useful to say, he shuts her down effortlessly.
Lucas paused for a moment, standing in the shade of a street sign. The air rippled slightly over the patched-up road and empty parking lots. Abandoned storage units nearby baked in the afternoon sun.
He untied the scrap of fabric hanging from his backpack and wiped his forehead with it. He was still breaking a sweat, even on such a beautiful day. He’d been walking since this morning, though, and his backpack weighed heavily on him.
It wasn’t the only thing that did.
Lucas had felt miserable for days, sitting in his dumpster, trying to figure out what he was going to do. Not even certain that he could go through with it. This wasn’t like being a soldier, fighting the enemy. This was assassination.
And even if it was just another military action, it didn’t matter because he wasn’t a rebel anymore. He had never wanted to be one in the first place, and since he walked out of that prison a free man, he didn’t have to be one either. There wasn’t some cause he was fighting for, or some kind of loyalty he owed to anyone. He didn’t want this. Any of it.
But here he was, with a backpack filled with provisions, equipment, and a fully loaded autopistol. And a combat knife, just in case things got messy.
I like this last instalment. The readers know Melchoir is a decent person, the same applies for Lucas. It is very well conveyed the shock that Lucas feels when the deamonised Marshal is proved to be a fellow person not the bloodthirsty killer others portray him to be.
On the other hand Damien is a proper sadistic, honorless pig and i would like to see him fall catastrophicaly for a long, long time.
Really enjoyable read one of the best and surely one of the longest in Dakka. The characters are believable and the plot keeps thickening.
That last chapter, and the one before it, are very nicely counterpoised with the preceding ones, and in both the character interactions really do justify the time spent at the stat building up character. I would never have imagined Lucas and Melchior getting along, but when you actually look at it, of course they would; they're both principled and decent people who find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.
konst80hummel wrote:Really enjoyable read one of the best and surely one of the longest in Dakka. The characters are believable and the plot keeps thickening.
Thanks!
It's kind of interesting about the length, though. The only easy thing for me to compare it to at the moment is Ice Angel, and even then, it's not an easy comparison at all. I wonder how long it is.
Or if there was something else in this forum some time ago that I haven't read that just hasn't had any reason to get refreshed towards the top of the forum. I almost wonder if it would be a good idea to have a sticky in this thread of all the more major works (100k+ words). I can't imagine there are too many for a list to hold.
Paradigm wrote:Good to see Jaines put in her place as well.
fething right?
It won't be the last time either. The Jaines chapters are going to keep getting better until the delicious end.
konst80hummel wrote:The readers know Melchoir is a decent person, the same applies for Lucas. It is very well conveyed the shock that Lucas feels when the deamonised Marshal is proved to be a fellow person not the bloodthirsty killer others portray him to be.
Paradigm wrote:I would never have imagined Lucas and Melchior getting along, but when you actually look at it, of course they would; they're both principled and decent people who find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.
So, the Melchoir character is secretly the hardest for me to write for, generally, because there's a very precise balancing act I've been trying to pull with him.
As the thread title indicates, this is a sequel to my 6th ed battle report series, and Melchoir was the narrator-hero of that work of fiction. But, as you can plainly see, this sequel isn't about Melchoir being a badass round II: the badassening. It's far, FAR more subtle than that.
One of the challenges has been to very gently slide the reader's perception of him from being a bad guy at the beginning to the good guy at the end. I wanted Jaines and Gilbert to look credible at the beginning, and for both sides of the impending argument to start out equal, or even for you to be slightly rooting for the locals. The idea was, as you go, the locals (and Damien) start to look more like bad guys, while Melchoir looks more like a good guy, but that's tricky.
Especially because Melchoir doesn't change. The character himself stays the same, so the only way I can create this effect is by looking at the way he's portrayed - the same character in a different light. For example, that's why the language barrier is played up in the beginning (the bad guy has the accent, and he phrases things poorly that make him look more like a bad guy), and you don't get to really spend any time in his head, but have to observe from the outside, which makes him look more alien. The idea with the first whole third of the book was to create the impression of someone aloof and uncaring, so much so that by the Granary Massacre, you'd perhaps be willing to believe that it really was all his fault.
And then, over the middle part, as Jaines gets crazier and Gilbert gets flakier, and Damien goes from cruel to downright sadistic, the portrayal changes a little bit. The church scene from the first part leads to the scenes around the third Council meeting, where you start to see the hard edge as being a sign of command and strength, not paranoia and weakness. You get the scene with the tech-priests where he once again charges in to save the day, but unlike the Granary Massacre, he comes out the hero rather than the villain. I've been slowly trying to reveal the up-sides to the same character traits that come across as only bad in the beginning.
And we've passed the pivot point by now. As things progress Melchoir is going to look better and better as the reader's impression of Jaines and Melchoir switch places by the end of the book (hopefully), part of the whole chiasma thing. I guess I don't know how well I've been able to pull it off, but it was my intention anyways.
So yeah, by the time you get to this point, Melchoir has become enough of a good guy (which he does a lot of in this chapter, where the reader finally gets a little more insight and explanation just like Lucas does) that he can relate successfully to the story's other good guy. A brief meeting of genuine wholesomeness amid all the scheming and backstabbing and cruelty. The irony, of course, being that this moment happens over a failed assassination attempt.
And it's interesting, too, because you finally see a change in Lucas. Lucas' whole problem with killing Melchoir was purely internal. He's not a rebel. He's not the guy who would do something like this. He's a person worthy of Claire. He, He, He. It isn't clear whatsoever that he has any affinity whatsoever towards Melchoir. There's even outright hostility towards him in the prologue that certainly couldn't have completely washed away by the beginning of the chapter. He very well might have still wanted the governor dead, just not by the means presented to him.
Which fundamentally changes by the end of this. He leaves almost liking the Foleran. He realises that he's a good guy, just like the reader should be, by this point. Perhaps the aloofness was real, but it wasn't a sign of arrogance after all, but, in fact, the opposite - a desire not to draw attention to himself. Perhaps the insensitivity is real, but it's not a callous disregard for others, but the opposite - a desire not to let others cloud his ability to do what is right to help people. Perhaps his overzealous attention to detail is real, but it's not because he's a nitpicky micromanager, but the opposite - a quality-control person with a desire not to let people get hurt just because something fell through the cracks.
It's not that Melchoir becomes a good guy - he always was one - it's that his apparent bad-guy traits become slowly more justified over time as reasonable compared to the gak he's constantly having to deal with. Something which should become more apparent the worse everything gets. Something that, when presented in a no bs way to Lucas, he immediately resonated with to the point where, for only the second time, he allows himself to become vulnerable. And Melchoir certainly treated him better than Rochefield. I was even planning on having Melchoir give Lucas his gun back as a sign of trust, but I thought that would be just a little cliche. And, I suppose, not really congruent with Melchoir's character.
In any case, it was nice to finally have a moment of genuine integrity. This is the first chapter in which anybody expresses remorse, and the first time there's an apology. The first time that two people just behave like reasonable, responsible adults for a change. It definitely makes Jaines and Damien look pretty terrible by contrast.
You know, if you didn't realise by now they were the bad guys.
Melchoir vaulted from his small concrete bench and stormed off into the night. Crashing through the dry fronds of aubergine grown over the paving stones. Boots crunching on fallen leaves scattered underfoot.
He paced furiously down to the end of the walk, passing between the trees, black against the hazy orange glow of city lights on the low-hanging clouds. The garden’s one small light weaved its delicate illumination through the remains of plant life below, once so lush in summer, now withered to a gossamer lace above the ground. The sweet scent of drying flowers and wilting shrub giving their last to the quickly cooling nights.
Melchoir reached the end in a huff, turning around and quickly walking back the way he came.
This was it. This was really it, this time!
He had given them every chance. Every possible benefit of the doubt. Every opportunity to prove themselves decent human beings. He brings his army to the cities to help restore peace and basic services and they respond with violence and blowing things up. He brings his army away from the cities to go fight their very own enemies, the rebels, and what do they do? They rebel!
He kept what little food was left prudently managed, and they responded by taking over the farm belt and shutting down production. He kept the insurgents at bay, and the masses respond by eating up their propaganda. He was the one with the vision, and the Council couldn’t take easy votes to confirm the most trivial matters, always pushing their own petty interests. He was the only one not just looking out for himself on this whole damned planet.
And did he ask for praise and adulation? No. Did he ask to be rich and famous and have throngs of salivating flunkies fawning on his every whim? No. He hadn’t asked these locals for a thing. He didn’t demand thanks and praise, but he would have thought they were capable of scraping together at least enough gratitude not to send hired goons to gun him down in cold blood!
If you've been following along, then you know the first thing of note is the numbers, and how really crappy they are. In the first month of writing, I got done 35 chapters and 100702 words, while this time around was only 17 chapters at 53885. It doesn't take a math wizard to see that this is roughly half as much.
The biggest reason, of course, was moving. I lost about a third of my time this month to putting things in boxes, moving boxes to storage units and to the new apartment, and all the furniture, and all the associated stress. Thankfully that won't happen again during my writing of this story.
The second main time loss was pre-writing. I had done a lot of it before I started writing, of course, and did most of it then as well. There is a sub-set, though, that didn't get fleshed out all the way - that of pre-writing at the arc level. That place where you sketch out what the next 10+ chapters will look like (which person's perspective, the main plot points, etc.). I didn't do that all the way to the end of the book, of course, because I wanted to have some flexibility. To let events as they unfold have a more direct impact on events that happen after, which wouldn't have happened if everything were rigidly plotted.
I'd done this for the first like 16+ chapters or so, but once I hit that point, I needed to stop to plan before I could write. One of the things that made me go so fast in the beginning was because my pre-writing then didn't count towards my time limit because I didn't start the clock until I started typing up the first chapter. So, you know, I'm not able to cheat as well now.
But it's more than that, of course. Part of it is that the prewriting also got a lot harder. In the beginning it was easy, because I just needed to write pretty much anything that introduced the characters, and after that nudge them on their way towards a vague end goal in mind. Likewise, towards the end it will get a little easier as events come to their natural conclusions, and I start winding things down. The middle, though, that's tough.
Especially the part I've been doing over the last month. I've got to be careful to keep things congruent with the first 100k words (no obvious character mistakes, etc.), so there's a lot weighing me down, while on the other hand I can't let that momentum dictate everything. There is somewhere specific I'm trying to go. It's sort of like I have to be an adapter, getting a wire with a certain shaped end to fit into a certain shaped plug on the other side.
Thankfully, this is going to be less of an issue going into the future. I've now got the pre-writing done for the entire rest of the book down to just above the chapter level (what little short stories I'm going to tell within each one). It's going to be a flat run towards the end.
The third part, sad to say, is also a little bit of burnout. I'm a starter, not a finisher, a bagger, not a skinner. The phenomenal sprinting at the beginning is naturally going to be somewhat more difficult to keep up once burnout starts setting in. It's especially difficult if I keep getting forced to start and stop all the time like, say, if I'm moving.
If I can keep up a reasonable pace, say, 18000 words per week, then I can finish this work in about four weeks, unless I wind up bloating a bunch of extra chapters in there. Hopefully there won't BE a three month update, at least, not one where I'm still writing.
Which means, interestingly enough, I'll still be at-pace, in a way. I originally wanted 125000 words in 6 or 7 weeks. If the above winds up being true, I'll wind up with about 250000 words in about 12-13 weeks. Or, double the time, but double the words. A simple scale creep problem, nothing more.
Anyways, I'm now nearly 2/3rds done with this work, wordwise and chapterwise (the three-column format in the table of contents is going to wind up being pretty accurate). Already things are starting to pick up pace, and this is going to accelerate over the coming chapters. It's no longer a matter of building up characters or tangling them together like the first two parts. Now it's time to end it, battle royale style.
Anyways, thanks to those who've read, and extra double thanks to those who've posted. It's nice to know you're being actively followed.
Time to get back to writing, though. Time for another action scene!
The platoon of guardsmen charged up the rubble-choked street, dashing between the gaping craters and piles of debris flung out onto the road. The popping snap of gunfire racked through the ruined city, echoing harshly between the jagged remains of half-collapsed offices and shops. Nearly forty white uniforms darted out into the yellowing light of late afternoon, the low sun casting crooked shadows over the pavement and what was left of the broken apartment building up ahead.
“Come on!” Melchoir shouted again, waving forward with his power fist in the middle of the pack. He dashed out onto the road, jumping sideways to skirt the edge of a crater, his retinue struggling to keep up with him.
His mind was racing, blood pumping furiously through his body. Eyes wide, breath rapid. It had been at least a year since he had commanded from the thick of battle. He couldn’t believe he’d managed to go so long without it.
The soldiers around him rushed forward through the shattered terrain, the remnants of the southern half of Cupercourt. The vibrant cyan of the autumn sky clashing against the red and yellow leaves of what little arboreal life had managed to escape the barrage. Leaves shaking, as if in terror of the violence all around them.
The governor’s platoon of soldiers made it up to the intersection ahead, fanning out and occupying the nearby ruins. The rest of the company should be approaching soon, he thought as he scrambled up behind a line of Folerans huddled up against a wall.
The distinctive whine came over them, followed by the booming crash of artillery fire thundering off to their left, perhaps a mile further into the city. It must have been D sector, or maybe E. His mind reached for the names of commanders and the disposition of friendly forces. He scarcely had time to meet his marshals and give them orders, much less rehearse things anywhere near as well as he had hoped.
Week 9! This week ended at 158512 for a total of 16046 this week. Still struggling to keep up. Still trying to plow through real life (this week it was my parents visiting for the weekend and my little girl turning 1). A little over 80,000 words to go.
After a few more hours of writing, I'll be in the next part of the book. Act 1 (introduction and beginning of the insurgency) was the first 26 chapters (prologue through 25), with the transition taking place on Damien's chapter 26. Act 2 (Everyone turning against the Folerans and the siege of Cupercourt) was the next 25 chapters after that, with this next one (Claire) being the transition again.
A such, I stand on the precipice of the final third of the book, another 24 chapters and an epilogue to go. It's kind of interesting that they're going to wind up being the exact same length. That was completely unintentional. That means, actually, it's going to be more like 75000 words. Somewhat annoying that I'll just miss the milestone of a quarter million words. Oh well.
Anyways, this is the end, now. At the beginning of the chapter after this, all the pieces will be in place for the final stages of the story. Will Lucas finally find Claire? Will Damien finally take a step too far? Can Jaines get the Council on her side? Can Melchoir hold off the coming storm? The answers to these questions and more in the next few weeks to come!
Interesting that you say the next chapter will be the transition, I very much read the last one as the start of the next section and the escalation into all-out war. So if the change is yet to come... bring it on!
The chiasmus with the last chapter is the Granary Massacre scene:
-13/+15: Melchoir leads his forces against insurgents, killing several of them, including some personally, though not according to plan / Melchoir leads his forces against rebels, killing several of them, including some personally, according to plan.
The reason it's not going to be all-out war yet is because Jaines isn't ready. She has a lot of her pieces in place, but she still doesn't have the Council in her pocket yet, mostly because of Rochefield. The magistrate may no longer be a friend of Melchoir, but that doesn't mean he is a friend of Jaines.
Meanwhile, the fight is all-out with the rebels, but this is pretty much the end of their story. This means that Jaines is once again put into the situation where the rebels haven't held off the Folerans for quite long enough.
Of course, Jaines being Jaines, there are only so many possible ways she's going to go forward with this...
In any case, there is still a little bit of intrigue left before it just goes crazy.
The storm howled furiously, ripping at her blouse, snapping blond curls wildly at her face. The night air screeched through the broken city, hissing through the pines nearby, trees twisting helplessly in the tempest. She huddled against the gale-force wind, keeping herself upright as best she could. She was barefoot, her toes curling around a jagged hunk of rubble in the darkness.
She carefully pulled her weight forward, wincing in pain. If this went on much longer, she would have to crawl.
The ruins around her flashed suddenly, a blue strobe washing out the world as lightning tore the sky above. She clung tight to the crumbled wall, trying to keep her balance. A blast of wind nearly knocked her off her feet again, snapping her collar against her neck. Thunder rumbled over the fearsome noise.
She could scarcely even hear the sound of gunfire anymore. The battle for Cupercourt’s last, fleeting moments would be drown out by the fury of a storm. The incredible force of nature bringing a violent end to the unimaginable savagery.
“Come on!” the rebel ahead of her shouted, his voice barely audible. She staggered forwards unsteadily, trying to follow the sound. “Come on, Claire!” he shouted again. “Here, take my hand!”
She stumbled forward a few feet and reached out.
The ruins lit up again below another flash of lightning. She could make out the shapes of two men in front of her, heads and shoulders sticking out of an old blast crater.
This time she went down onto her knees, scraping skin across the broken ground. Just a few more feet, and then... Almost...
“And that’s why we are here today, to stand united with you in solidarity. We have machinists who have been forced to make the same tools every day. We have civil servants who have seen their pay and benefits slashed to inhuman levels, forced to work for food, what little there is to have. We have plumbers who, forgive my speech, are sick of dealing with the Fauleighra’s gak every day!”
The crowd roared, a surge sneering laughter.
Jaines watched from her seat behind the speaker, shaded by the makeshift awning. She sat down on the long metal bench, until yesterday a set of risers for the local booster band. It was all ramshackle, just like always. Not the result of careful, soulless planning, but something spontaneous and filled with energy and life. That make-do attitude of a mass of people on the move, everyone pitching in what they could.
And they had done more than bring a set of bleachers. They had brought themselves.
There were easily several thousand of them out there. A throng of supporters, hungry for change, eager for victory. The park sat across the street from the administration building, framed by a few giant maple trees in vibrant plumes of orange and red. It would have looked cramped with a hundred people, but it was now completely packed, the crowd spilling out into the streets.
And it wasn’t just her Right’s Watch anymore. Most of them were people she’d never seen before. A genuine popular uprising.
So, originally the idea for advertising this work as a sequel to the hand of the king was precisely that - advertising. Hey, you liked this other thing I did, now see this new thing I'm doing.
I'm starting to wonder, though, if it might be putting people off. The "well, I didn't see the first part," kind of problem.
This novel does sort of begin abruptly, but for good or ill, that's sort of my style (I don't like exposition, as much as I can avoid it). My intention was to create something that comes after, but you don't have to read that before to know what's going on. I mean, Melchoir is the only carry-over character (well, that's not technically true, Damien does make a very brief cameo in the earlier work).
Just because that's my intention, though, doesn't mean I'm being successful at it. It would be interesting to hear the standpoint of various people on this one. Those who read the battle reports first, and now are reading this, those who are reading this, and then going back to the battle reports, or those who are just reading this stand-alone.
Anyways, sorry for the delay in writing. I want to get this next chapter just right. You'll see why in a little bit.
The two men stood, staring out the window, dark shapes against the daylight outside. Pale illumination lying flatly on them as they watched from the small office.
Outside, the locals were having some sort of rally in the little park across the street. What they were griping about today, Damien didn’t know; the loudspeakers were pointed away from him. Of course, he didn’t care to listen either.
He had returned to the capital a few hours ago, with the governor and a few staff officers. Despite the festive air of victory, he had spent most of the trip nervously scowling. They had taken in thousands of civilian refugees after the defeat of the rebels, but no one had found Claire yet. She must still be hiding somewhere. He couldn’t let himself think the worst. Not when he was this close.
But he wasn’t the only one failing to celebrate on the train. Melchoir had made the trip solemnly, seeming beside himself somehow. Distracted.
The same was true now. The governor had invited him to his office, but spent the time looking out the window, more interested in the events progressing outside. He looked unhappy, but it was hard to tell. His boss never seemed to be thinking or feeling what he expected him to. A detached way about him that he could never quite pin down.
“You were always better at this, Damien,” Melchoir finally spoke in a neutral tone. “Politics.” He gesturing toward the gathering.
Damien remained silent.
“This is what I was afraid of, you know,” the governor continued. “The army would move away and the locals would go crazy. First the farm belt, and now this. It’s been a long three weeks.”
“Well...” Damien began, choosing his words carefully. Beginning to suspect this wouldn’t be the smile and a handshake meeting he expected. “The locals are locals. They’re always crazy. The rebels are done for now. Completely. We can focus all our attention on this sort now.”
Melchoir kept his eyes fixed on the glass. Watching.
That last chapter was worth the few days wait, and the effort that's gone into it is obvious. Of course, it's obvious it'll ultimately make Vogel more dangerous, but for now at least, it's good to see him get read the riot act.
Looking forward to more, and very interested to see where Damien goes now.
Regarding this as a sequel to Hand of the King, I think it works as both a follow-on and a standalone. There are bits that obviously carry over, but then again, a lot of novels tend to start 'in the thick of it' so it 's fine as a standalone piece.
It's interesting, now that I'm thinking about it. The book does sort of jump right in, but then, on the other hand, it takes 100,000 words for things to really get going. It sort of can't be both jump in and slow starting at the same time.
Anyways, yeah, you know that with Damien, crazy is just the beginning. It always has to progress into more over-the-top awful.
Of course, this is a tragedy, the definition of which is rather "they all do it to themselves", and Damien is definitely a tragic villain. This scene is a great example of it.
Because at the beginning, if Damien would have just apologized, he probably would have been forgiven. Melchoir is reasonably magnanimous, and doesn't like to dwell on the past, which would include, in Damien's favor, past mistakes.
But if he would have apologized, it would have made him vulnerable, and he couldn't possibly bring himself to the exact thing he preys on in other people. So instead, he keeps trying to twist things around. If Melchoir is only interested in the future, his confidence in Damien's ability to be helpful in said future is shattered when he reveals himself to be untrustworthy. Which, of course, Melchoir takes personally, which is what really seals the deal.
But even then, it wasn't too late. He had managed to work his way into a demotion, but not necessarily expulsion... until he kept going. A classic Damien over-reach in a classic Damien style, relying on crude threats. This makes it clear to Melchoir that Damien has no place in the future. That he's going to be reckless and dangerous. At that point, he has no choice but to discharge him.
And the climax is the result of the core nature of the two. Damien has no qualms about forcing himself on people, and has developed a recent taste for explicit violence. He has every reason to kill Melchoir, but... he can't really do it. He hasn't intentionally killed anyone by his own hand. You look at the granary massacre, and he sort of just hung back, not joining into the fray. It's never really explained, but Melchoir's asking "do you feel brave?" puts grinding pressure on the difficulty of attacking.
And on the other side, Melchoir is Melchoir. When things get rough (like, say, an insubordinate officer), he has to handle it personally. The powerfist is there, and you've seen no hesitation whatsoever for him turning it on and using lethal force. Especially in self-defense. He's a fighter, and will stare down every problem directly.
It was Damien's scheming and trying to find leverage and exploit vulnerability against Melchoir's no-nonsense practical solution. Damien is the bully, and he just doesn't know how to handle people stronger than him. Or, at least, who are unwilling to be cowed.
Really, it's a repeat of the mistake he made with Rochefield, except for much higher stakes.
Gilbert ambled forward with a smile on his face. A gentle numbness filling his body, his limbs warm and heavy. He felt comfortable, safe.
He strolled along the sidewalk, taking in the crisp air, marveling at the last fleeting moments of twilight. Blue fading to black, stars just beginning to shine in the heavens above. The gentle evening breeze scattered fallen leaves up from the curb and sent them dancing out in the street. The ground tittered softly as tiny shadows leapt across the pavement.
He filled his lungs with the autumn air as the trees along the sidewalk gently swayed. Colored points of light rustling among the branches. He couldn’t help but smile. Since starting this new drug regimen, he’d never felt so alive. Never understood just how perfect life could be.
And it was reinforced every time he had foolishly missed a session or tried to reduce his dosage. To reject the blessings of the Thirsting God. Sin was punished, though it was always done out of love to correct and to enlighten. Always to teach. The soul-shattering sadness to remind you of the joy you were rejecting. The shaking and sweats showing the physical toll that stress and unhappiness have on the body. Things that were always there before that you just weren’t seeing when misery was normal. Even the vomiting showed how a body rejects even the goodness of food when not kept in righteousness by careful discipline and ordered lifestyle.
Breath came furiously from his nostrils, seething through his bristled mustache. Lips curled in rage, bearing clenched teeth. Boots pounding on the pavement, never breaking stride as he stormed forwards in a blaze of violent, half-drunken fury.
Before him was the wall and metal gate, the mansion rising up behind, scarcely visible in the darkness. Terrible purpose drove him faster, his mind focused on just one thing.
A pair of guards stood at the gate. They watched him idly as he approached, but snapped alert as light from the only streetlamp on the block revealed his murderous demeanor. One of them spoke nervously to the other, fingering his stun baton. The other took a step backwards. Damien came on them at once, his overbearing posture forcing both of them to yield slightly at his arrival.
“Good evening,” one of them said, edging closer. Damien nearly trampled him to the ground, but at the last moment stopped, inches in front of the guard, staring him down with all the fury at his command.
“Let... me... in...” he hissed, spitting into the guard’s face.
“Umm... I’m sorry, but the gate is closed for the evening,” the guard replied bravely.
Damien seized him by the collar of his uniform and pulled up, throwing the guard off balance, forcing him right up into Damien’s face. Acid breath of alcohol pouring into him from clenched teeth.
“I don’t think you understand me,” Damien seethed, almost whispering. “You will open your gate. Now. And you will let me in. I am here to see Rochefield.”
“Ah, please. I’m sorry,” the guard stuttered. “But... But I can’t let you in. You’ll have to come back in the, uhh, in the morning.”
Damien growled, cinching the guard up into the air, both hands curled into fists around the fabric of his shirt. The guard tried to squirm as Damien stared into him with bloodshot eyes.
“Hey!” the other guard barked. “We’ll have none of that now. We know who you are, and we know that you want a meeting with Lord Rochefield. We will tell him you were here, and you can talk to him tomorrow.”
Damien turned, seeing the second guard standing with his weapon out.
Week 10. Landed at 172,748 for a total of 14,236 this week. Sorry for the slow pace.
But thanks for sticking with it anyways. As a reward, the chapters over the next week of writing are going to be all the big ones. From here until about 200k words is the climax. As if things aren't getting crazy enough, they're going to get a lot crazier after the next chapter.
So, there are two interesting things about the last Gilbert chapter.
The first is that at no time are Gilbert and Damien talking about the same thing at the same time. They're completely incommensurable. Gilbert refers to Melchoir in his typical way as "He just always wants to do things his way and he doesn't care who he hurts. He's so crude and reckless and disloyal to his friends". But because, like Melchoir, he has a natural assumption that people are trying to do the right thing he assumes that Damien (who he's never really met) is a decent person, not understanding that what he just said about Melchoir not only doesn't apply to the governor, but also 100% applies to Damien.
And that keeps through the entire dialogue. He goes off being his usual enabler, assuming that he is enabling goodness when he is, in fact, enabling Damien. The end result is complete surprise by Gilbert when the former marshal goes off on a murder spree.
The second interesting thing is something that was interesting by design.
You say that Gilbert has suddenly become a bad guy, but he hasn't actually changed. He's the exact same character in this regard.
The only difference is the subject of who he's enabling, and the circumstances that it leads to. He doesn't come across as a bad guy when his enabling comes in the form of not being tough enough to stand up against Jaines, and freeing from prison a character that is arguably the protagonist at the time. It makes him look like a good guy. Then you take that exact same behavior pattern after Melchoir starts looking better, and Jaines starts looking crazy, and what happens is that he enables an assassination attempt of the good guy, and then enables Damien to be an inhuman monster. As such, he looks like the bad guy.
But the interesting part is that he's been the same this entire time. Not only that but he has been, in fact, one of the bad guys this entire time. Just think about his actions up until now. Disregard his intentions and his attempts to garner reader sympathy.
That's just one of the things that makes him such a good baddie - you don't realise that he is one until the end.
I almost reached that conclusion about Gilbert myself, but I think what stopped me was that he seemed, at the start, to be one of the few principled and decent characters (along with Melchoir and later Lucas). But as you say, he's the same, it's just what his actions achieve that's different.
Or maybe years of playing nothing but Imperial armies has brainwashed me into thinking Chaos automatically equals evil
Well, yeah, that was also supposed to be rather a hint.
The thing to remember, though, is that Gilbert and a Slaanesh cult go together like salt and pepper. When presented with the option, there wasn't a moment's hesitation joining up with like-minded people. All he was missing before was a specific god to follow. Well, and the pink windbreaker. And the drugs. But otherwise...
The thing with Lucas that wasn't intentional at the beginning, but I wound up rolling into my plan, is that your opinion of him changes once again because of a proverbial optical illusion again.
If you ignore the prologue, Lucas shows up as a narrator in the first 28 chapters only twice. As such, you never really hear anything from his point of view. You just know he's a rebel, and everybody else agrees that the rebels are bad, and therefore Lucas must be bad, because he's a rebel.
But, once again, Lucas didn't change. Even in the prologue he regretted being a rebel, if you go back and see. There are only two things that actually change. The first is that he becomes a regular character, so you actually get to understand him better, rather than him just being a label.
The second is that this transition happens on the one hand after the rebel army flees, and so "ceases" to be a threat, and on the other hand, he breaks away from the rest of the rebel army before it launches an attack on Cupercourt, so you're already seeing him as separate from that group by the time the fighting happens again.
Put it together, and Lucas starts lumped in with the bad guys, and then continues to be lumped in with them when they become neutral guys, and then breaks away, at neutral. And then the rebels go off to look like bad guys again while you're learning that Lucas in specific isn't neutral, but is good.
Lucas walked forward, led by the faint but unmistakable scent of burning.
Ahead of him, the dark street pulsed with a flickering orange glow. The fire must be just around the corner. A thin stream of people was walking towards the light – whatever was going on, it was drawing a crowd.
In a city with as many collapsing and vacant buildings, fires weren’t that uncommon, he’d found, but it piqued his curiosity nonetheless. Not like he had anything better to do, anyway.
His days had been a murky blur, trapped in a weird kind of stasis. He couldn’t return to Mr. Rochefield, and he couldn’t return to the governor, and between them was any real hope he had of getting out of Bellemonde. The battle for Cupercourt was over, but the trains still weren’t running for passengers yet. Without a legal way to leave, he had to rely illegal ways, which invariably led back to Jaines, and he didn’t think she’d be too excited to see him either.
So it was, day after day, eating at shelters and sleeping out on the street. Filling his time with gossip, mostly, but it was real, hard news that he yearned for.
So far, news of casualties from the siege had been scant, coming only from people already living in Cupercourt who were able to identify the bodies of their friends and families. That and the daily trickle of corpses dug out from under ruined buildings. The one thing he knew for absolute certainty was that no one had found Claire yet. Yesterday’s news had a page-four article about the rebuilding of the city and how no one had found the town’s superior.
They stood in the middle of the street, over two hundred of them. Men and women all in Defense Service khaki. Red handkerchiefs on their heads, tied around their necks, and serving as armbands. They were nervous, eager, fully armed, anxiously staring up at her as she stood on the fire hydrant, leaning out against the disused no-parking sign.
And she watched them back, stretching out before her, filling the intersection beneath the clear, azure sky. This was just a small part of it, of course. There were hundreds more of her soldiers elsewhere, along with thousands of civilian supporters. Her little army of true believers, standing tall, ready to fight.
This was it – the very hour that destiny had chosen for her. All of her thought and energy consumed by this one moment since the very beginning. Her forces were deployed, her minions on the move, the time was at hand.
Melchoir strode through the wall of shouting, up to his seat at the head of the table. What members of the Council could be found were gathered together for their own protection in the chamber. Magistrates in their places, yelling all at once, trying to be heard over each other. Fear and anger flung through the air, with demands to know what was happening.
The governor reached for his chair and pulled it back. His mind raced, taking in everything at once: the Defense Service guarding the room, the few people who had taken refuge in the gallery, even the lights overhead, which had been reconfigured into a different pattern now that more of the bulbs had burned out. He took a deep breath and sat down, giving a brief nod to his chancellor and then to his aide. The fourth chair sat conspicuously empty where Marshal Vogel had once sat.
“Thank you,” Melchoir said loudly, over the roiling noise. He raised his hand to call for silence. “Thank you, everyone, please just calm down. Thank you. Please. I’ve been talking... I’ve been talking to my commanders, yes, thank you. I’ve just been on the vox-comm. We are starting to get a picture of what’s going on. Things are going crazy out there, as you know. Do not worry, though, we have nearly two thousand servicemen protecting this building and stationed outside. So long as you stay here, I can guarantee your safety. We’re still searching for the other magistrates that aren’t here, but they will arrive as soon as we can get them in.”
“Is it true about Rochefield?” one of the magistrates shouted.
Melchoir growled as he ran, power fist crackling. The cluster of insurgents turned at the sound, surprise breaking into terror as he charged them from behind.
“Oh fething gak! Run!”
The four of them scattered, fleeing wildly in a panic, a blur of tan throwing itself out of his way. Melchoir rushed through them, not stopping. He didn’t have time to engage, and especially not to chase them. He dashed around a stack of boxes, rushing towards the railing. He broke out into the open.
The central rail depot sprawled out beneath him. The wide patch of concrete nearly empty, save a few makeshift barricades and long tendrils of smoke from fuel bombs rising through the air towards the broken skylights. Melchoir looked along the railing at the L-shaped second floor jutting out above the platforms. Gunfire screamed back and forth from the insurgents up above and his soldiers below.
In the center of it all, the mag-train sat at the end of the rail. The lead car taking heavy fire, its front face ripped apart. The Folerans formed a defensive position around both sides, joining at the ruined nose of the train, supply boxes hastily thrown around to give them cover as gunfire rained down on them from above. At most, a hundred were visible, Melchoir noted anxiously. The rest were pinned down in the train itself, a few returning fire from the smashed-out windows near the front.
There was a growing casualty pile as well. The situation more than desperate.
“Well, we could do that,” one of the magistrates replied. “I can add a subsection there to approve that kind of oversight.”
“Yes,” another agreed. “I’ll get my team to draft a proposal immediately.”
“Good, then let’s move on to—”
The door slammed open with a thunderous crack, startling everyone as Jaines burst into the room. Everyone watched the young woman rushing forward, smile beaming across her face. The magistrate of justice hurried to his feet.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the Council,” he boomed. “I give you Jaines Harcourt!”
A round of applause broke out in the chamber, several of the magistrates standing, clapping loudly. A great swelling outpour of acclaim rose through the chamber. Faces everywhere alight, surprised but gladdened by her presence.
“We won!” Jaines shouted, jumping into the air, flush, even giddy. The Council applauded even louder, a few of them cheering her on. She rushed over to the head of the U-shaped table, reaching down and giving General Carell a hug. The old man jumped at the sudden embrace, and then smiled somewhat, despite himself.
She released him and turned to the Council, giving a wave to the small assembly, tears of joy flirting at the edge of her eyelashes.
“May the peace and joy of the Thirsting God be with you all, brothers and sisters,” the cantor spoke cheerfully. “May his goodness fill all of our hearts tonight. Let us be touched by His blessing.”
“Let it be,” Gilbert intoned with the rest of the congregation.
“I’d like to thank our praise band, Rocktimonious. Thank you very much. Such a wonderful new experience you always bring. I can certainly say for sure that I’ve never heard an electric base solo that went on for longer than fifteen minutes before, nor have I heard every note on a keyboard struck simultaneously that many times in a row. What a blessing. Music is truly praiseworthy in the sight of God. Let us make a joyful noise for Him. Let it be as loud as we flawed and humble humans can make it.”
“Let it be,” the congregation replied.
“But now, it is time to continue with what we have all been brought together for. It is time for our most sacred ceremony. It is time to bring into this world a whole new experience. A new life. It is time for the spirits of God to come to us tonight. To wrap us up in His holy presence. Let us pray.”
Gilbert closed his eyes. The room spun slightly around him. He felt himself floating above the ground, the cushion below lost to the distant void outside the self.
And it's week 11. This week I ended at 193,587 for a weekly total of 20,839. I did it, I finally broke 20k in a week again, yay!
And that's not the only thing to celebrate either. This week I blew past 400 pages (up to 450, actually), and I also broke the 1 MILLION character mark. And I'm now 3/4 of the way through the story.
And, obviously, things have rather happened, storywise.
It was kind of neat writing the deposition of Melchoir and ascension of Jaines. In the former, it was sort of just a laundary list of things, sorted chronologically, that had led them up to this point, from the failure to understand Jaines and her revolutionaries, to losing the cities, up to Damien killing Rochefield. All the little pieces coming together, showing the inevitability of their betrayal.
And then, when it came time to write up the Jaines chapter, I decided that I wanted it to mirror the Melchoir one. To have the way she ascends to play out literally the reverse of how Melchoir came down.
If you take the Melchoir chapter, and reverse the order of events, and then place the Jaines chapter over it, you get:
1.) Melchoir flees / Jaines arrives
2.) Magistrate of Justice moves against him / MoJ welcomes her
3.) MoJ goes on a rant / MoJ makes a speech
4.) Defense Service commander decides to make peace with Jaines / Jaines moves against DS commander.
5.) New leader of DS voted in / Jaines voted in as leader of DS
6.) Council asserts that it is the Council / Jaines asserts that it isn't.
7.) Everybody wants more stability, and a single vision going forward / Jaines promises peace, and to impose her vision on everybody.
8.) The cities are revolting / The cities have declared for Jaines
9.) Leader of the DS steps forward / Old leader of the DS taken away.
10.) Folerans are fighting against Jaines / Jaines has Folerans to fight.
Pretty neat, huh? I think it also helps cement the role of the Council in this, going from the beginning to the end. Seeing how they all really did it to themselves.
And, of course, it's not the only chiasmus I have in this set either. I've added...
-26/+21: In a scene of water, Lucas runs away from Claire to save himself / In a scene of fire, Lucas runs towards Rochefield to save Claire.
-18/+26: A hedonistic party gets out of control, bringing the authorities / Gilbert brings the governor to a hedonistic party that's gotten out of control.
-21/+23: Melchoir presides over a Council meeting that gets out of control. Troops rush into the chamber / Melchoir presides over a Council meeting that gets out of control. Troops rush throughout the chamber.
So, a little bit broken up, this time. And there are, of course, other themes that you've seen before. For example, Melchoir has now joined Jaines, Claire, Lucas, and Gilbert in having a scene where he flees for his life.
It's especially interesting to compare the Melchoir (61) to the Jaines (25) flight scenes. Jaines, in a fit of cowardice drives over a bunch of people with her car to save herself, while Melchoir, in an act of bravery, rushes to link up with his soldiers without killing anybody. Both of them then turn around and try to go on the offensive. Jaines with words talking to the press and Melchoir physically with his army.
Compared to Gilbert (5) and Claire (53) who just straight run away, or Lucas' (11) combination of all of them, Melchoir's skill at arms and personal bravery, Jaines' ballistic energy and requisition of a vehicle, and Claire's making use of rebel skill, and Gilbert's falling out of something. Combined with his characteristic guile.
Anyways, we've reached the climax, and now it's time to race to the end. The chapters are in place, and it should take exactly two weeks if I write a chapter a day (which I won't, because I'm going on a camping trip this weekend). Hopefully I'll still be able to sneak it in under the three month line.
Anyways, this next week will set up everything for the grand finale. Stick with it, we're almost done!
Claire settled a little deeper into her dirt patch, trying to get comfortable. She lay, propped up in the ravine under a pile of heavy blankets. They itched like crazy, and she knew for a fact that they were full of bugs. Fleas – or worse, possibly lice.
She stared down at a piece of hard rations, which only were made edible when you soaked them, which changed the bland fixtures from rocklike to sopping in an instant. She was hot during the day and bone-chillingly cold at night, and as the leaves fell from the trees, her face was getting sunburned.
But, well, it could be worse.
And it so recently had been. It was bad that she was trapped in a city where artillery rained destruction every day and every night, and it was bad that she had starved in a hole for nearly a month, only to watch those few she had left scattered or shot, and it was bad enough that she was captured by rebels and forced to flee the city through a river in a raging storm. That was all pretty bad.
But then her health had completely collapsed – the strain and hunger joined by the cold and wet had finally done her in. The rebels had tried to keep going after the first day, but it didn’t take long to notice something was wrong. She had fainted and fallen down into the ravine, and after that, was unwakable for a day and a half, they’d told her. And when she finally came to, her consciousness had come with a raging fever.
She could scarcely remember anything, except that she suffered from delusions and nightmares powerful enough to wake her in the night. She remembered shaking under the blankets, trembling until her legs were scraped by the twigs and stones on the ground. They had tried their best to keep her covered and to keep her fed, but there was little more they could do out in the wilderness.
More than once she overheard someone whispering that she wouldn’t make it.
“That used to be the problem,” Marshal Phaedon corrected. “Used to be. Now that they’ve set up a base of operations, they’re getting too much of a numerical advantage over time. They can start crawling forward whenever they want. ”
“But they’re still not giving us the ability to just hit them and be done with it,” the first complained.
“That’s because they’re not idiots,” Phaedon replied, rolling his eyes. These new marshals...
“They either have serious morale problems, or they’re clever enough to try and draw us out of our trenches with feigned weakness,” Melchoir replied patiently. “Either way, if we commit part of our forces, even if we crush them completely, we would be leaving some of us exposed and unsupportable. They would defeat us in detail.”
“Then why don’t we just attack them?” the first marshal replied peevishly. “Throw everything at them.”
“And then the next train stops ten miles up the line and we’re in the same position we’re in right now, except further from supplies and without our defensive positions.”
“So? If we kill enough of them, they’ll stop coming.”
“Are you sure about that?” Zanmar asked weakly. He was propped up into a sitting position, legs encased in hard bandages, painkillers keeping him somewhat cogent.
“It’s a matter of time and resources,” Melchoir replied in a more conciliatory tone. “Jaines can always make more servicemen. I can’t make more Folerans. Every skirmish loses men we can’t spare. It may seem small, but it’s still a battle of attrition, which is something we will eventually lose.”
“Well, that’s what I’m saying, we need to attack or retreat, and you’re not seriously suggesting that we withdraw, are you?”
Melchoir leaned back and rubbed his eyes, taking in a deep breath. These new marshals. Right.
The dark street was lit by an eerie orange glow. Shadows moved, shifting together and splitting apart, pooling unsteadily. The light from below flickered on the jagged teeth of ruined walls reaching towards the night sky, crumbled lines barely visible in the darkness.
Lucas had already come across this scene a dozen times so far. The road ahead had been struck by an artillery shell, leaving a gaping crater in the pavement, several feet deep. A roaring fire filled the bottom, flames burning continuously, hour after hour, all day and all night.
The pits were a necessity in this hellish landscape that had once been a city. Perverse beacons of civilized humanity in a blasted graveyard of people and buildings. The siege had shut down the city’s power grid and destroyed the gas lines. Without fire, there was no way to cook food, or boil water, and no light once it got dark.
But it was more than that. For many, everything they owned had been destroyed, and the crater fires were filled with great heaps of broken furniture, snapped structural beams, and roof tiles. Anything that could be burned was stripped out and thrown away into the flames.
Week 12. So yeah, not a lot written. I'm up to 200,488 for just 6,901 for the week. I knew this would be short, what with a bit of a vacation, but I also didn't expect the part about writer's block or a trip to the emergency room.
I did lose a couple of days to prewriting, but you'll see why. This last chapter and the next two are all in a set, and I had to make sure everything was planned out for all of them before I could begin.
Trust me, though, it's worth it.
Anyways, 12 chapters from here left to go. It means I'll miss my three-month deadline by a little bit, but I should still be good to end before July is done with.
Damien snarled as he stomped up the stairs. The scent of blood and rotting meat filling his nostrils. Hands clenched into fists as he reached the landing then turned, storming up to the next level. Filth crusting everywhere, his unwashed body adding to the stench. His eyes searched wildly as he burst into the loft.
All around him lay the wounded and the dying. Those who had dared to stand in his way. Row after row of civilian enablers. He would have shown them mercy, once, if they had just given him what he needed. But no, they withheld his woman from him, so he withheld nothing of his vengeance on them. Not one person in this filthy shithole could claim innocence. Not to him.
He should have known better, he saw that now. He should have known that Rochefield would betray him. He should have known that Melchoir would stab him in the back. He should have seen everything working against him. Everyone fighting to keep him from his basic needs.
Oh how they conspired with one another! To think that he ever trusted any of them! That was their plan all along, keeping him civil, keeping him polite. Keeping him restrained. Making him think that he needed them and that they were all getting along. All smiles to his face, and scheming behind his back. Their venom seeping deeper every day. How dare they!
And it wasn’t just his peers that sought his ruin; it was everyone, even these bedridden vermin around him. Claire was hiding, he knew it, and she would find people who would help her. Someone in this city knew where she was, or knew who knew, and he would find them. He would discover the truth at any cost. Who in this church was hiding secrets from him?
The madman stared at Lucas, dripping with blood as terrified men and women rushed towards the stairs, desperate to flee. Lucas locked eyes with the wild glare, his breath coming fast from the chase. He swallowed hard.
Damien was serious.
This wasn’t a game. Not another run-and-hide, ambush-and-flee boyhood adventure in the forest. Not another time to play rebel. He didn’t get to be clever and just barely make it out – this wasn’t a matter of survival against nameless odds.
It was him and Damien Vogel.
He had promised Claire’s father he would protect his daughter and stop the blood-soaked man standing before him, but it was so much more than that now. It wasn’t just his own love story, it was everybody else around him too. Half a hundred defenseless, wounded innocents whose very existence depended on him and on what he chose to do. He was responsible not only for himself, but for everybody else.
He didn’t need to stop Damien from getting to Claire. He needed to stop Damien.
His face began to flush as the reality of his decision came to him. His chest clenched tight, eyes darting back and forth, trying to find something he could use. This was a real fight, one they both might not survive. He needed to find some sort of advantage to match his enemy’s raw, primal fury.
His instincts screamed at him as he willed himself to continue forward.
Thanks! Yeah, the end of Vogel was very carefully planned out.
This story is a tragedy, which means that bad things happen, but they do it to themselves. In this case, the fire pits represent everything that Damien did to Cupercourt literally - to replace sewage and gas lines, etc. broken by his month-long siege. It also represents what he did metaphotically as well. He made Cupercourt a living hell, and now that he's arrived there, it's all smoke and fire and ruins - a hell on earth.
And the whole story is sort of a sad testament to Damien's over-reach. He didn't have to destroy Cupercourt, but he did to make sure he could get Claire. He didn't have to attack Lucas the moment he saw him, but easily could have waited and just stabbed him in the back, but no, he had to be impulsive and seek revenge face to face. He gets stuck with the morphine because he attacks, and he gets thrown out the window because he recklessly charges. Lucas does his part, too, but his fate could have been easily avoided were it not for everything he had done up to that point.
Plus, of course, a sickeningly thick level of cliche. Damien is wearing black, and is described several times as being like a frenzied animal. They're fighting in a church, a holy place where Damien loses once he is expelled from it, only to burn in a filth-encrusted pit, proverbial heaven into slightly less proverbial hell. In proper bad-guy form, his fall is also literally a fall. Etc. Etc. There are several others you'll find if you go over the imagery carefully.
I had a few other ideas that were a little less cliche (like him falling onto power lines and getting electrocuted), but they just didn't seem as good. Plus, once I had the idea of him falling onto a fire hydrant, I really couldn't go back. That had to be included, and there wasn't a lot else that would work (I had an idea for there being a rock crusher he falls into, but why would one be below the level of a fire hydrant, etc.)
And, of course, the whole scene has delicious irony to it as well. Damien has always worked by preying on vulnerability, and thus is his end. He flies through the air, flailing helplessly. He lands on his spine, easily paralyzing him, so when he falls into the fire he can't escape, and nothing will prevent the vulnerability of human flesh to burn. He was destroyed, helplessly, like he tried to do to others.
Anyways, speaking of characters doing it to themselves...
Nicely done! I see what you mean about it bordering in cliché, but at the same time, Vogel was such a 'traditional' villain in some sense that he deserved an end like that, and anything else would be unfitting. I somewhat saw it coming that he would die utterly powerless, but it was still well-executed and written.
“All rise for Jaines Harcourt, Governor of Geomides, Defender of the Revolution.”
Chairs scraped on the linoleum floor as those assembled quickly got to their feet. The Service personnel lining the walls snapped to attention, autoguns presented, bayonets glinting in the dim overhead light.
Jaines entered the room, accompanied by a few carefully chosen yes-men. Her uniform was neatly pressed and actually fit her properly, now that she was wearing one issued specifically to her. She’d added a pair of respectably large epaulets befitting her station – she was in charge after all, she got to decide how a governor should look.
The assembly stood in uneasy silence as she approached her seat. She took a moment to consider their faces, sorting friends and enemies in her mind. While under surveillance, no one had made any obvious blunders she could exploit, but she knew there were those among them who she couldn’t trust. That were actively conspiring against her, even now.
She gave a curt, polite smile anyways, briefly considering a quick wave, but thinking better of it. Best not to let them get too comfortable. Instead, she took her seat quickly, team of flunkies falling in behind her.
The rest of the chamber began to sit down, some looking warily at each other, more staring at Jaines. Waiting on what she would do next.
“Thank you,” she stated dryly as the last of them sat down.
The world was shrouded in a dense, freezing mist. Vapor drifting slowly through the beams of floodlights scattered on the forest floor. The light reached out, casting long, slatted shadows through the ghostly columns in the night. The only sound, the quiet hum of power generators over whispered conversation.
Melchoir sat near the edge of the camp, bathed in shadow, sitting at the base of a massive spruce tree. Crouched down among the tangled roots in total darkness, save for a faint green light from the small display in his hands.
He fiddled with the alt-pass-aux button, sweeping it left and right slowly, trying to clear up the static-filled image. It was nearly hopeless. His ancient surveyor required constant calibration for it to work at all, and the trees and folding ridgelines all around played havoc with its sensors. The device showed only dancing flecks of green, with the faintest shifting image of topography. At least, that’s what he thought it was showing.
He would get a better understanding of this place if he walked out into the cloud-choked forest with nothing but a flashlight.
But the scanner wasn’t the only thing struggling with the terrain. The broken ground and days of heavy fog were scattering his army far and wide. Whole companies were getting lost, and hours were wasted tracking them down. Communication was hopeless when no one knew exactly where they were. More than once, a part of his army had bumped into another as it wheeled around a ridgeline or wandered off to find a river crossing. They were just one itchy trigger finger away from a friendly-fire catastrophe. This was hardly the seamless disappearance into the wilderness he’d been planning for.
Melchoir sighed, letting his scanner fall slack in his hands, monitor sweeping through the static. This was hopeless.
Week 13 and 3 months, both on the same day. This week was 213,547 for a weekly of 13,059, and a monthly of 58960, which is only a little north of 5k more than I did last month, except there's much less excusable reason. I've just been slow.
I know a part of it has just been me wanting to more carefully plan these sort of ending chapters. The last Jaines one was sort of the moral of the story, in a way, for example, so it's more important I get it right. I am, though, just missing deadlines. I was hoping to be done before this point, and then done by this point, and now I'm getting concerned I won't be done by the end of the month even, which would be pretty bad. I kind of just want this to be over.
But at least it's close. Once I'm done with the chapter I'm working on now, I'll have only seven left. With some serious work for a change, I'll hopefully be giving my last weekly update and then throwing down the epilogue.
Anyways, the last part here is the finale, really. There's the chapter I'm working on now, and then everyone gets a final chapter, followed by sort of a two-part epilogue: a repeat of chapter 1 as chapter 77, and then an epilogue that's a repeat of the prologue.
So get ready readers, the stage is set, this thing is coming to an end!
“Okay, I’ve got one,” Claire announced. “I’m thinking of a song, an old one. It’s about two lovers on a journey, and it was the theme for the Celestial five years ago.”
“What? How am I supposed to know that?”
“When I tell you, you’re going to hate yourself,” she warned coyly. “It’s obvious once you remember, trust me.”
She smiled as they climbed out of the creek bed and turned up into a ravine. She made her way forward clad in two rebel greatcoats, each more absurdly huge than the last – the outer one nearly scraping the ground. At least it kept her warm.
“Five years,” one of the rebels thought aloud, searching through his memory. “Which one was that, again?”
“Jolienne?” another replied.
“No, that one was... umm...”
“Nobody knows this?” a gruff voice asked.
Claire smiled again as she made her way up the slope. She just might have them this time, she thought as she looked up at the forest around her.
It was completely bare now, the underbrush now puffs of gray twigs huddling on the ground. The trees casting their long, unadorned branches towards the sky, sighing unhappily in the breeze. A few scraps of brown still clung to the oaks, but it was otherwise only the stands of fir and spruce that still had any claim to foliage.
She huddled into her coats as her feet plowed through the dirt. At least the weather was clear, but the fog was being pushed away by a harsh breeze from the north.
Lucas brought the rope around through the loop, then pulled hard, grunting as the knot cinched tight. He pressed down with his knee on the bundle of sticks and branches and pulled again, the cable snapping taut. He looked down at his creation so far: a beam of crooked bits of timber now at least as long as he was tall. He picked up another stick and carefully jammed it into the open end.
He sat in the dirt at the edge of a small gulley, a creek running through the bottom, rippling as it flowed over hidden stones beneath. It was too wide to jump over without a running start, and there was just enough underbrush to prevent him from building up speed. It was also too deep to walk across without the frigid water pouring into his shoes.
Cold, wet feet would be yet another challenge, which was the last thing he needed right now.
After his fight with Damien, he had tried to find people who had been with Claire before she disappeared, but to no avail. It didn’t help that he had to be circumspect about it. People were talking about the bloodshed at the hospital, and if anyone recognized him, someone might call the police.
Which meant he was forced back into his old habits, yet again. Stealing food, and pilfering equipment. Hiding during the day and trying to set up for his mission at night, preparing for another foolish adventure. His attempt to sneak between two fighting armies, and hopefully to find Claire in the process. In a way, nothing had changed, still, though he did somewhat appreciate the irony that this time it was Claire out in the forest with rebels, not the other way around.
She pushed down lightly, blade piercing into skin.
She flinched slightly, the pain and endorphins sparking through her system. Her breath came slowly, deliberately. She pressed a little bit harder, flesh parting against the steel. A droplet of blood blossomed suddenly from her arm, the dark red pooling, massing up before breaking free, gliding away.
She gasped, eyes fixed, burning into the sight of blood as she carefully moved the blade, tugging gently as it sliced through. More rose from the thin red line, streaming after the first droplet. Tiny crimson splotches appeared on the ground between her feet, blood pattering softly on the floor.
Her mind was on fire, a raging inferno of energy. Her breath trembled, hands shaking slightly as she worked the edge down. The pain, but so much more. She was filled with life and a sudden drive, barely controlled, surging through her instincts, quieting her thoughts amid the roaring immediacy of the present. Filled at once with a singular sense of purpose.
She dragged the edge down more, and then more, her body filling with the shock of steel piercing flesh. She was almost there, just a little bit further.
Blood poured down her arm in a steady trickle, drop after drop running to her elbow, falling free, leaping towards the ground.
The intensity filled her until she began to shake, almost unable to take it anymore. Everything burning away, nothing able to withstand it. And then for a brief moment she felt it. That one floating moment. Perfect tranquility. Just her, the pure, uncluttered psyche, and her pain. Nothing else.
“Please tell me you have something!” Melchoir yelled over the sporadic crack of gunfire as he entered the command post, a shallow pit etched into the hillside, makeshift awning draped hastily overhead. He rushed past the antenna tower, and up to a pair of radios lying on the ground. He was met with pensive glances from their operators. “Anything,” Melchoir pleaded.
“I’m still standing by with the fleet, sir,” one of them replied. “I’ve been transferred twice. Hopefully I’ll talk to the right person this time, but for now they put me on hold, again.”
“On hold?” Melchoir snapped with irritation. “On hold! We finally get through, and this is how they treat us, is it? You get them on the line, whatever it takes.” He turned to the other soldier. “You, what about second company? Tell me you got them.”
“Still not responding, sir. I have no idea.”
Melchoir frowned. He needed to hear better news than this. “Keep trying,” he ordered, whirling around and leaving the shabby defense work behind, stepping over dirt and fallen leaves beneath the cold, steel-gray sky. He glanced at his soldiers dug in along the hillside, eyes running along trench lines as they bent from view. His ears filled with the sound of simmering gunfire – more than usual, but not a real attack yet. It would be coming soon, though.
This was the fourth consecutive day, and what little remained of his shard of the Foleran Army was pinned down everywhere at once. They were well-positioned, but the sheer scale of the enemy assault strained even his ability to hold his ground. Six major defensive actions and a counterattack, each a brilliant success. Each slowly draining him of manpower. It was only a matter of time now...
The superior of Boroughcourt smiled, almost bashfully, butterflies dancing in his stomach. He swallowed hard and took a deep breath, grinning again, despite himself. The anticipation was almost unbearable.
But why should it be? These weren’t strangers, they were his own people. That must have been it, actually. He wasn’t just returning to his old job; he was coming back home. He was reuniting with loved ones, restoring his former life. Rejoining his family.
He reached down and grabbed his tie, bringing it up to dab a bead of perspiration from his forehead. It was nice to finally be back in his own clothing again. He looked neat in his pressed shirt and fitted slacks, exactly as he had before. The only difference was that his tie was now pink, a symbol of his faith.
Gilbert leaned out slightly, looking through the gap in the curtains. The stage out in front of him was bathed in light, supporting a single microphone on its stand. He could hear the burble of people sitting in their seats in the darkness beyond. They were anticipating this nearly as much as he was.
To think that it had been nearly six months to the day since he had been in this very auditorium. Since he had fled for his life against a wall of anger and despair. They had all been so different, and so had he. The memories seemed so alien, as if they belonged to someone else. Another person’s life from another time.
“Well,” he muttered softly. One of the two gathered behind him gave a thumbs-up. He turned quickly, one step, then another. Light burst into his eyes as he walked onto the stage.
That was it, there was no mistaking it now. She had been in this exact same place two days ago.
The forest was littered with the debris of war, most of it from the fighting which ended months ago. Old trenches, corroded bullet casings, tangled stretches of rusting barbed wire. Now abandoned, eerily quiet as nature slowly healed from its man-made wounds. The violence and the terror of those moments now silent.
She had seen many of these places, and all of them looked somewhat similar, but she knew for certain that she had been in this specific place before. That washed-out blockhouse, crumbled on the corner with the pine sapling sticking out, the way the trench had to swerve around the rocky outcrop. She was here, in this place. Again.
Claire’s shoulders slumped, it was almost unbearable.
She began to walk towards the abandoned defensive line, leaning heavily on a long stick, limping slightly. Choking back her disappointment with herself.
She had been out in the forest alone for days now. It had been her and Quentin at the beginning, but after a single tortured night camping in the bitter cold, she’d had enough. The warnings couldn’t have been real, the Defense Service wouldn’t really shoot her if she surrendered.
That morning, they had made it to a camp. As they approached, she called out for help, which drew the attention of the soldiers. Instead of replying with words, they had replied with gunfire. No warning, just bullets.
They killed Quentin. He was shot in the leg, and then again in the other. He begged her to flee, to run while she still could, but she couldn’t leave him behind like that, not as he lay there bleeding. Not until a burst of autogun fire hit him in the head.
She ran then, not knowing where. Just away.
Thankfully, no one had chased her, and it didn’t take long to figure out why. She was all alone, with no food and no way to defend herself, and the cold...
Well here we are, week 14. I ended it at 230,432 for a total of 16,885. A somewhat anemic finish, but there you go.
Anyways, I've actually got the next chapter already written (not counted in the above total, this post is just late), which means once I edit it and put it up early tomorrow, then that will be it. The last chapter.
All I have left to write is the epilogue. Once last bit of narration, and I'll be done.
Summon! They had tried to summon her! The sheer, brazen gall! One didn’t force a governor to go places. No, people came to her and they groveled for the chance to bask in her presence. That’s how it worked. Jaines Harcourt would not be broken by a few sternly worded messages, no matter what that meddling imperial bureaucrat tried to say. An inquiry, he’d called it, but she knew better. She knew a witch-hunt when she smelled one.
He had questions? Then he could come down here and ask them himself.
She stewed with indignation as she sat, lips pursed, eyes narrowed. Watching as he came forward, alone, making his way slowly through the darkness. The whole room was dimly lit. Only a few of the lights still worked – not even the governor was able to get her hands on a spare light bulb.
Whatever, it was always too bright in here anyways. It set a better mood now.
The Emperor’s servant made his way out of the gallery and walked towards the U-shaped table, suddenly catching the scant illumination as he made his way towards her. Clerical uniform made of ermine, slashed with cloth-of-lapis along the chest and sleeves. The heavy gold chain around his neck, the sign of his office. He even wore a sword at his belt, as if he had ever removed it from its scabbard, much less used it in anger. It was all pointless, ghastly, vulgar, ostentatious nonsense. The mere pretense of power, as if nothing more than a few bits of shiny would make even the tiniest difference to her.
Though the man himself clearly needed all the display he could get. Without it, Jaines could have mistaken him for a carpet salesman.
They were still behind him. Chasing. Flashlights flickered through the tangled branches, the forest dancing wildly in the shifting light.
Melchoir grimaced as he lurched forward, dragging his wounded foot. Forcing down the urge to scream in pain as he stumbled up the shallow slope, his satchel snagging on dead underbrush. He yanked on the strap, twigs snapping in the frozen night air as he forced his way through.
He could see the floodlights up ahead. He was almost there. He just might make it.
He groped his way forward in the darkness, wind whipping at his face, freezing him through his uniform. Icy beads of sweat trickling down under his collar. He finally staggered up to the top of the hill, leaning on a tree for support. He could still hear their voices behind him.
The forest began to thin out slightly, the light ahead growing brighter. He staggered to a run as the bushes cleared around him.
Then suddenly, he was there: a wide, circular patch of concrete, fifty yards across, ringed with four giant spotlights. Blowing snow billowed fiercely around him, shimmering in the brilliant light. Tiny ice crystals raced across the frozen landing pad.
His long retreat had led him to this place, first with a company of men, then with just a squad. Now alone. These were the coordinates he’d sent to the fleet. This is where they would send reinforcements. This was his only hope.
Pretty epic stuff, and everything was nicely constructed to build on what had gone before. I have to say, not one of these characters ended up where I thought they would at the start.
Great stuff, well worth thgew read, and congratulations on completing such a large project so fast.
I'm going to do an afterword real quick to explain what I was thinking while writing this, but I'm curious, where did you think it was going to go
At the start, I wasn't sure to be honest. I figured there would be some kind of second rebel force rising to fight the Folerans, but at no point before Melchoir fleeing at the station did I expect the Guard to essentially end up as the rebels they were trying to defeat at the start. It was nicely cyclic in that sense. Some of the characters had arcs that were somewhat self-fulfilling. Damien looked to be on the path to an ultimate destruction from the start of his madness. Claire was almost bound to become a 'casualty' (in spirit if not in body) of the war in that she really managed to avoid taking a side, and ultimately didn't want to change anything. She became caught up in the games and plots of others, and inevitably was brought down by it. I also liked her nicely ambiguous ending.
But Gilbert, I think, was the real surprise. While, as you have said several times, his role as a character doesn't change through the story, I would never have expected him to end up a) a Chaos Worshipper and b) in a real position of power given his start as a general underling to others, in the shadow of Melchoir and then Jaines in a way.
With Jaines, I think it was obvious the path she would take, but the extent of that path was not something I saw coming. The fact her and Melchoir swap roles by the end of it was rather nice, occupying a position of power but not control. I found myself wondering if Jaines would actually make a more successful job of rule than Melchoir, or whether she is doomed to the same fate.
On that note, I must admit that, getting into the last chapters, I almost found too many questions unanswered. What fate would Geomides see? Would Jaines and Gilbert come into conflict with the war-vs-love idea (or Khorne vs Slaneesh)? Would Claire and Lucas be reunited? What would become of Melchoir? Thinking of it more, though, I figured that didn't matter. While I look forward to seeing what comes next if and when you write anything else, I think the results of the paths each character took did conclude themselves really; it sounds somewhat cliched to say it, but the 'journey' they took with their various rises and falls was ultimately complete, even if the circumstances were not.
Hello, everyone, so I just wanted to do a post after it's done to tell a quick story about the making of this work, and to do some deconstruction of the material itself.
So, to begin...
---
THE NUMBERS
---
The rough draft of The Geomides Affair took me 100 days to write, and came to a conclusion with 236,734 words and 1,302,577 characters. In current format, it's 549 pages long.
There were several frustrations on time, thanks to the real world - drop-ins from relations, a few trips to the emergency room, the fact that I was taking care of a (at the beginning) 10-month-old baby girl, and for goodness sake, that damned move.
I can, however, mollify myself somewhat when I consider my original expectations. When I started, I said I wanted to write 125k words in about 7 weeks, and I ended with ~237k words in 14, so roughly the pace I was hoping for, just over a longer period of time. Likewise, I wanted to write a chapter a day, and using my guideline of 2,500 words (or more) per chapter, I similarly roughly stuck to that.
However, you will notice that the book wound up being twice as long as I thought, and taking twice as long to write. That's a hell of a lot of scope creep. So what happened?
Well...
---
THE WRITING
---
Before I started writing, I spent almost a week doing pre-writing. Coming up with plot points, characters, etc. I even drew a crude map. I was pretty flexible going into it (which is to say I had no idea what I was doing), but did have a few things that I knew I wanted to have in it.
The first was that this story was going to be a successor to my Hand of the King battle report series. The purpose of this book would be to set up everything for my next. To act as a narrative bridge, if you will. This means that the story needed to include Melchoir (or a slightly rebooted version of him, at least). The last series ended with him becoming the governor, but I would need some way for him to be fighting in a tabletop narration in the future... the most obvious solution for which is that he somehow loses the position. The spiciest way of doing that would be with him getting deposed.
The second thing I wanted, because yes, I'm a hack, was to embed a political or ideological message in the piece. Not crazy Rand or Heinlein over the top nonsense, preferably.
The idea struck me that I could make it roughly contemporary - a socialist dystopian wasteland. You know, like much of Europe.
As such, the core of the story would revolve around Melchoir, the person in charge trying but failing to do the right thing, and around a second character who would depose him, and in a horrible, at least vaguely left-wing way. Thus the character of Jaines was born - young, educated, female, from a wealthy background. The exact kind of person who would show up or even organize a 99% rally.
The story was set to revolve around these two, with a few ancillary characters thrown in, but I was afraid that there wouldn't be quite enough THERE there. It would be another novella, at best, and I wanted to do something more serious with my second novel now that I'd managed the hurdle of just writing something long in the first place.
To back this up, then, I decided to throw in a set-piece romance novel short story, and to have another work at the beginning that was more about the struggle of Jaines to rise to a position where she could actually threaten Melchoir.
And this is where the magic extra doubling of my work came from.
Originally, the point was to have a short story of Gilbert vs. Jaines, and then that story would resolve, and Gilbert would cease to exist as a character about a third of the way through. His only job was delivering Jaines to Bellemonde. Likewise, the romance novel was supposed to wrap up about 2/3ds of the way through, and then those characters would be just done. After roughly the halfway point, the book was intended to just be about Jaines and Melchoir.
But clearly that didn't happen. Once I started getting settled into an "epic" pace, my outlook on the work began to change rapidly. Plot elements that were supposed to just happen became plot elements that I had specific characters do, and sometimes they needed a chapter to get into position to do them. I also found it much more difficult to let characters go, mostly because they were just so darn useful.
The two most obvious examples of this are Gilbert (who, after he delivers Jaines I decided to keep around somehow, eventually settling on the new religious cult thing (that was going to happen anyways) as a perfect fit with his personality), and Lucas, who wasn't actually intended to be a recurring character AT ALL, except for maybe one more chapter near the end. The reason this book begins with a prologue, rather than a Lucas chapter is because I didn't want to be stuck with a chapter-named character I had no intention of supporting.
---
THE STRUCTURE
---
I came in to writing this novel with more or less one skill - plotting. Plot is my natural talent, I will easily admit. This book is roughly Dune levels of complex, if not possibly moreso. It might come as a surprise that at nearly no point did I have to change any of the plot points as the story took on a momentum of its own. Nearly everything you read was planned from the very beginning.
However, that's where my writing skill more or less ended. I've been able to do decent enough dialogue, I suppose, but I've never been all that interested in setting, and my characters have always been shallow and one-dimensional. They've only ever existed for the purpose of fulfilling what needs to happen in the plot. And I feel like I grew a lot over the course of this writing, especially about the character thing, but I'll get to that in a moment.
Because back to plot, well, and structure in general. One of the things I knew I wanted to try to do is make a serious attempt at a literary device known as Chiasmus. That is that the story sort of takes place like layers of an onion - a bunch of things happen, and then they happen again in reverse.
I didn't do quite as nice of a job as I wanted with this, but still, there's quite a bit. To look at the explicit examples, if you take the middle chapter (37) as the fulcrum point, and start counting forwards and backwards from there, you see...
-1/+1: Melchoir attends a meeting where he loses Gilbert as an ally / Melchoir attends a meeting after which he loses Rochefield as an ally.
-2b/+2: Lucas goes to the train station to take a train to Cupercourt to be with Claire, but is stopped / Damien goes to the train station to take his army to Cupercourt by train, hopefully to be with Claire, and nothing will stop him.
-2a/+3: As the result of a completed mission, two rebels get put in a small, dark space. Some of the rebels decide to join with Jaines / Jaines decides to put two rebels in a small, dark space for the purpose of completing a mission.
-3/+4: Gilbert comes up with a plan regarding a friend turning enemy, deciding to take it personally if it fails / Gilbert failed, and it got personal. He has a change of plans regarding an enemy turning friend.
-5/+5: Jaines is disappointed in her subordinates, and has a secret plan to take rebels off a train / Damien is disappointed in his subordinates, and has a secret plan to take rebels with a train.
-8/+9: Lucas meets with Rochefield in the basement where he gets involved in a plan to kill the Foleran Damien / Lucas meets with Jaines in the basement where he gets involved in a plan to kill the Foleran Melchoir.
-9/+12: Insurgent chaos in Boroughcourt. Gilbert talks to someone at a cafe, but is forced to flee the scene / Insurgent chaos in Boroughcourt. Jaines talks to someone at a cafe, but is forced to flee the scene.
-11/+12: Damien speaks to Rochefield, demanding the latter's help, eventually turning to threats. The magistrate becomes an implacable enemy / Jaines speaks to Rochefield, demanding the latter's help, eventually turning to threats. The magistrate becomes and implacable enemy.
-13/+15: Melchoir leads his forces against insurgents, killing several of them, including some personally, though not according to plan / Melchoir leads his forces against rebels, killing several of them, including some personally, according to plan.
-12a/+16: Jaines barely manages to escape the Foleran attack / Claire barely manages to escape the Foleran attack.
-14/+17: Jaines and her group of protesters make a scene in Bellemonde / Jaines and her group of protesters make a scene in Bellemonde.
-26/+21: In a scene of water, Lucas runs away from Claire to save himself / In a scene of fire, Lucas runs towards Rochefield to save Claire.
-18/+26: A hedonistic party gets out of control, bringing the authorities / Gilbert brings the governor to a hedonistic party that's gotten out of control.
-21/+23: Melchoir presides over a Council meeting that gets out of control. Troops rush into the chamber / Melchoir presides over a Council meeting that gets out of control. Troops rush throughout the chamber.
-31/+32: Melchoir holds a meeting of the Council where things begin to break apart / Jaines holds a meeting of the Advisory Board where things begin to break apart.
-32/+38: Gilbert holds a meeting in an auditorium where he is booed off stage / Gilbert holds a meeting in the same auditorium where he is cheered on stage.
-34/+36: Claire is upset, and then has a powerful experience / Jaines is upset, and then has a powerful experience.
-35/+39: Jaines is in a desperate situation, struggling to survive / Claire is in a desperate situation, struggling to survive.
-36/+40: Melchoir meets with Egiustacious about the rule of Geomides and the interdict after a catastrophe has happened / Jaines meets with Egiustacious about the rule of Geomides and the interdict before a catastrophe occurs.
Prologue/Epilogue: Lucas is running away from enemy soldiers in the hills north of Cupercourt, considering his past, uncertain about his future / Melchoir is running away from enemy soldiers in the hills north of Cupercourt, considering his past, uncertain about his future.
Anyways, this is just some of the more explicit pairing. There's an awful lot more embedded in there.
For example, the book begins with Melchoir fighting a splintered rebel group hiding in the hills, and ends with Melchoir fighting AS a splintered rebel group hiding in the hills. Gilbert starts the book as the Superior of Boroughcourt, loses his job, and then ends as Superior of Boroughcourt. Lucas starts the book with nothing but a backpack full of supplies roaming the forests, comes to live in the more civilized world of the capital, and then ends with nothing but a backpack full of supplies in the same forest. There's actually a fair bit of this, if you're looking for it, really paying attention to the details.
Anyways, there is also a lot of non-chiasmatic repetition as well. For example, everyone but Gilbert has a chapter which is basically a conversation with Rochefield. Every character except for Damien and Rochefield have a chapter where they are fleeing for their lives. Melchoir has his scene in the church mirrored by his scene in the garden. Once again, there's a lot more of this kind of thing.
And the reason for it isn't just to be a clever writer, or doing something tricksy. The main benefit of repetition is to show contrast, either between characters or within a character over time. You see how Gilbert winds up in the same kind of situation over and over again and never learns. You see how Melchoir has certain beliefs, and when they're challenged, which ones actually stick around.
And you learn a lot between characters this way. If you look at the flee-for-their-lives scenes, for example. When Jaines flees from the Granary Massacre, it's everyone for themselves, she has no problems at all about simply driving over people in her way. After the fact, she is quick to go back on the offensive. You compare that to Melchoir, who runs to the train station after Jaines takes over, but in a way that displays a type of personal bravery and mindfulness, and he also tries to regain the initiative. Meanwhile, Gilbert at the Boroughcourt train station is just pathetic, as usual, and Claire's escape from Cupercourt shows her characteristic drive mixed with naivete (wearing high heels to a blockade run?)
The conversations with Rochefield are also really good at showing this, especially the beautiful chapter where the brash, impulsive Jaines tries to impose her delusions on the magistrate and is so soundly, permanently rebuffed.
But all this repetition is good for something else as well, it highlights the things that DON'T repeat.
For example, follow the path of Claire and Lucas. They meet up and have sex, then they meed up and almost have sex, then they almost meet up (at the train station), then they're almost in the same city at the same time, then they're in the same giant stretch of wilderness, possibly not within a hundred miles of each other.
Their relationship doesn't repeat, it has a trajectory.
Likewise for Melchoir's slow loss of control, and Jaines' ascension to power and descent into madness. The food situation also moves in a direction, as does the size of first the rebel, and then the Foleran army.
As such, without even saying what's going on, there are several things which are implied.
That and, of course, a few little repeating easter eggs, like how Damien doesn't know how to open or close a door, and Gilbert's unending difficulty with sitting in chairs.
---
CHARACTER
---
So, as mentioned, character has been one of my biggest weaknesses, and probably the thing I improved on the most, and you can actually sort of see it over the course of the novel in two ways.
The first is that the characters, for the first two-thirds of the book (or longer), are all pretty flat and unchanging. I always like the "discover the character" way of doing things, rather than the "know the character, then watch him change" sort of deal, so that's what a part of it was.
But another part was by being extremely careful with my sense of perspective.
For example, at the beginning of the story, the rebels are the bad guys. Nobody, not even Jaines likes them. And you know Lucas is a rebel captain, but nothing else. Therefore, Lucas must be a bad guy, and with only two chapters from his point of view in the entire first third of the book, there's no chance for him to defend himself as a good guy. Then, later, you have plenty from his viewpoint, so finally get a chance to bond with the character, which makes you think better of him. Melchoir sort of has this same problem.
Meanwhile, you look at Jaines' mental health issues. She's at least OCD the entire book. It's portrayed in this kind of cute quirk sort of way in the beginning ("many hoes"), and it's portrayed in a much more crazy way towards the end (shooting rats in the basement), but it's the same thing through the entire book, it's just that you learn more about it, and the change in perspective of the narration changes the perspective of the reader towards the characters. Gilbert's chronic enablement is another example of this.
Also, and this one's subtle, but another thing I changed slowly was with language. In the beginning, it's all Melchoir horribly butchering the names of everything to make him look like the foreign bad guy, but as the book goes on, this begins to stop - not because he's learned any of the names, but because the names are just stealthily not used. He says "the capital" instead of "Belmo" to refer to Bellemonde, for example. There's even a touching moment towards the end where he uses the word "Geomidians" rather than "locals".
Likewise, in the beginning the fact that everyone calls Melchoir Malcolm is sort of a sign of the confusion caused by foreign rule, but as the other language barrier stuff fades away, this one thing stays persistent. By the end, it makes the bad guys look even more like bad guys - why haven't they learned his name yet already? - and it's even pointed out consciously by Egiustacious in the last Jaines chapter. She's the one who's wrong about this.
Meanwhile, the other Geomidians who are good guys secretly stop using the incorrect "Fauleighra" just like Melchoir secretly stops using incorrect local names. They get referred to by slightly less derogatory terms like "the soldiers" and "whitecoats". You'll notice that when Claire and Melchoir finally meet, Claire refers to him as "the governor" which eludes the necessity for her to call him "Malcolm".
But I did eventually manage to make some characters a bit more dynamic than others towards the end. Lucas and Claire and Melchoir may not have changed much, but Jaines and especially Damien actually do, which is sort of a first for me.
Also, I'd like to note that I did a much better job this time having a much wider, more inclusive version of secondary characters. Ethan Roscenne is not a main character by any stretch of the imagination, but he actually impacts the story, rather than just floats around in the background. The same could be said about Marshals Gannon and Archon, and Lucas' friend Paul. It's a pretty small thing, but I'm actually kind of proud of that one. Nearly as much as that I've been able to juggle 7 main characters in a single work.
Also, before diving in, I'd note that there was one last thing I knew going into writing, and that was that this story was going to be a tragedy, and not just a drama with a sad ending. I mean it in the specific way wherein everything bad that happens to the characters more or less happens because it's their own fault: they do it to themselves.
For example, literally every problem that Damien has is one he brings on himself. He is constantly, endlessly overreaching in his quest for security. His bullying of Claire is, more than her connection to Lucas the reason she refuses him. His threatening of Rochefield is what turns both of them against him, the result of which was the battle of Cupercourt. Once again, he could have just stormed the place and captured Claire, but his paranoia made him go with a siege instead, which is what puts her out of his grasp. Even his death is, in a way, his fault. He's the one who attacks Lucas face to face, even though he didn't have to, and it was in a hospital that he created thanks to his bombardment, and fell into a fire pit that was a result of his artillery shells and the results of the rest of the siege. If he would have behaved like a decent human being for even a moment, his fate could have easily been avoided.
Another perfect example of this is the siege of Cupercourt itself. The city definitely didn't need to be destroyed. In fact, it was only because...
- Claire refused Damien.
- Damien threatened Rochefield.
- Rochefield decided to trap Damien.
- Lucas agreed to set up a fake revolt to give Rochefield a chance to put his own agents in the city to sabotage it.
- Claire agreed to be bait.
- The rebel army agree to attack, even though it knew it was against its own best interests (likely something to do with Rochefield).
- Rochefield taunted Damien.
- Melchoir agreed to let Damien handle it, rather than taking care of things personally, like he usually does.
- Damien was uncertain of the rebel's intentions
- Claire successfully hid from the rebels over the course of the siege.
- Lucas didn't meet up with Claire in the first place at the train station, which would have let her know he was alive (and they might have just run away together).
Likewise, the death of Rochefield had to have many things go the way they did to end in his demise, and there were a LOT of things that could have gone wrong to prevent the revolution from occurring, but thanks to everyone's efforts, everything wound up going very badly wrong, for both themselves and for everyone else.
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THE CAST
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Now that that's out of the way, let's talk a bit about the characters themselves, starting with...
MELCHOIR
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Melchoir is sort of a case of good intentions gone wrong. You know that he is a very competent character, showing personal bravery on several occasions, and is very clever, and basically all the military stuff he does is a complete success. He's also the only one who has an accurate understanding of his own faults by the end of the story.
But despite all of this, he fails anyways. The first, and most obvious problem, is that he gets way too easily sucked in to doing everything himself. It's not that he can't delegate, it's just that he also wants to make sure that he takes part directly. It's not implied as being a neurosis or being a horrible task-master, though. I feel like the reason stems from the fact that he was, until being promoted, a captain in the Foleran army. At that strange level of leadership where you both lead a large body of soldiers, but you're also still at the nitty-gritty level of things. He has the capabilities of a senior officer, but the attitude of a junior officer. That lead-from-the-front attitude will probably never break in him.
The second problem he has is the more curious one. He's the governor, but he's also not political. He has a rather simple, soldierly viewpoint on things where he assumes that his subordinates are competent, and are willing to use their initiatives to solve problems on the ground as they occur. It's not that he can't imagine the civilians around him failing to obey orders, it's that he can't imagine them failing to fight to win the proverbial war (against the collapse of their civilization, in this case).
And for how good of a strategic thinker he is (you can constantly see him plotting), he also has a curiously vague idea of what he wants politically. It doesn't seem like he has a vision for Geomides, so much as a "let's let things go along their way until it's time for me to leave" sort of a thing, which makes him particularly vulnerable to someone who IS willing to weave a narrative and run with it, like Jaines.
You also sort of get the feeling that, outside of the military circle, he's just really uncomfortable all the time, and a little overwhelmed despite himself. You also faintly pick up on the fact that he's not actually all that good with people. He respects protocol and follows the rules and respects tradition, but he just never comes across (with the exception of his scene with Lucas) as being all that personable.
Which shouldn't come as a surprise because Melchoir has two roles, and the first is that, like in the battle report series, he's the author's avatar in the world. And yeah, as a result, he's a little Mary Sue, I'll easily grant. I mean, he's the one with the cool bionics and the plasma pistol, taking a commanding role and barely making it out alive, with success, usually. But, of course, if he has my dreamed-of strengths, then he also has some version of my weaknesses as well.
Anyways, I guess one might think it's strange that an author would devote an entire book to slowly destroying the life of his avatar, but there you have it.
Of course, the second role for him is to be the only character not participating in a quarter million word bottle episode. All the other characters interact with each other and their environment, but really only Melchoir (except for the last Jaines chapter) is really connected to anything else.
Melchoir's the others' liaison with the Imperium. It's in his chapters that you see the 40k-esque background show through, from the inquisitors to the cathedral space ships to the imperial ecclesiarchy. He's sort of the scope-check for when things get too self-involved, as well as being the only interface with the super-plot (the interdiction).
He's also, of course, the proper good guy in this story, even if the sense of perspective is slanted to make him look bad in the beginning. I mean (accidentally, of course), he's the only person who wears white literally every time you see him. But it's a tragedy, so he has to lose.
ROCHEFIELD
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Hugo Rochefield is an interesting character. Originally I needed someone to fill a role on the council, to stand at the tipping point where Melchoir loses control and where Jaines takes over.
He was originally going to be a named-chapter character, but I was concerned that the introduction chapters were running too long, and that I wouldn't have anything for him to really do early enough, so I left him out.
That wound up being a really good decision.
The reason why is because he's this person with wealth and power, but also very secretive. He's constantly scheming, but he leaves the characters guessing, not really knowing what he's up to. As such, you, the reader wind up being put in the same position because he's never the narrator. You never learn what he's thinking, and are left guessing as well.
You do get a few hints, though. The main one is that his motivation is always for his daughter, Claire. He sets up the match with Damien, because he believes that the future is Foleran, and it's why he's such a staunch supporter of Melchoir on the council. He knows which side his bread is buttered, and wants to be able to deliver as much as he can to his child. To make some sort of security in a world destroyed by calamity.
And you also see his biggest flaw as well. He is high-born, and has lived his life with wealth and power. His biggest strength is his sense of command, but the reverse is the source of his problems. He treats everyone as if he is their superior (which he likely is), but that causes him to fatally underestimate his opponents. He lets Jaines go free, for example, because he legitimately can not see her as a threat, she's that far beneath him.
I'm a little saddened by the fact that I never wound up having a voice on the Council, and I feel like it weakened the story of Jaines' revolution, not having, say, a scene where all the magistrates were gathered together in secret, slowly coming to support her. I guess it's something I'll have to live with.
CLAIRE
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Claire is, of course, the main love interest. She's the focal point of the romance novel story, and, as the two begin to merge, she winds up being instrumental in the rest of the plot as well.
In a way, interestingly, Claire is the reader avatar of this story. Think about it, her defining feature (other than naivete) is how relatively normal she is. She has a white-collar job, and a small apartment. Other than Melchoir, she's the only one actually shown working the entire time. She's part of the vast establishment, another cog in the machine. She's worried about normal worries, and she knows things about popular culture. She's just a normal person in a world of insane, over-the-top extremes. She's just a regular woman, trying to make it through. The civilian.
Which makes all the bad stuff that happens to her that much worse. Unlike Jaines or Melchoir or even Lucas, she's not a hero, she has her limits. She is strong, but mortal, and when she suffers, she suffers the worse for it.
In all, though, she is sort of a minor character, and rather flat. I have the intention of trying to bulk her up a bit more, especially at the beginning, but there's only so much I can do. In this case, it's a character who never manages to escape the demands of plot.
LUCAS
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As mentioned in the beginning, Lucas is a curious character given that he wasn't meant one to be at all. He was supposed to just set the scene, and disappear. I eventually added the idea that he should bump into Melchoir at some point, and the idea that he should be roaming the hills looking for Claire at the end also came early on. But still.
Lucas serves several purposes. Firstly, he is the only truly flexible character. Whenever I needed something done, I could find a reason for it to be Lucas who needed to do it, thanks to his sense of placelessness. He also rounds out the "good guys" section, forming a bridge between Melchoir's sense of ethic and heroic streak with Claire's sense of day to day and simple sense of purpose. He was also my way to interject a bit of fun and excitement into the story, especially as it veered off into pretty dark territory towards the end.
He is also, of course, the dashing male love interest, making the romance arc work correctly, rather than it just being Claire resisting Damien. Which, of course, results in an epic duel between the two of them, which, let's be honest, really had to happen (the original plot just said "Damien dies", without getting any more specific than that).
That and he serves the purpose that I originally wanted Rochefield to serve for the Council, except for the rebel army. Instead of just saying "they left" I could write a chapter showing them leaving.
In any case, the character is rather lightweight, being motivated mostly by his desire to settle down and stop being a rebel anymore (which he never achieves), and, of course, his gushing, undying love for Claire.
DAMIEN
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So, let me tell you, Damien was a surprise, even to me.
Originally, Damien was slated to be a GOOD guy, the tragic #2 who dies in the revolution trying to save Melchoir. It was quickly merged in pre-writing with the role of the romance novel antagonist, and the rest was that.
There are several other things I was surprised about as well. For example, how surprisingly satisfying it was to write a well-written classical villain. That sort of cocky, talented, arrogant, always getting what he wants type, and, to make it worse, he actually gets what he wants, generally.
I was also surprised because he wound up being the most dynamic character as well. I mean, just look at it.
In the beginning, Damien almost really isn't a bad guy. Yes, he's scheezy and awful and you're meant to hate him, of course, but step back for a moment. He's in a position of responsibility and authority as leader of the army, and he executes this job faithfully and competently in the beginning. He's a trustworthy lieutenant whose only concern is what will happen once the war's over, and is prudently trying to set up a place for society in advance. He's shown as being personally loyal to Melchoir as well.
Really, he actually starts out as sort of a good guy... almost. It's only his blatant disrespect for women (a critical flaw in a romance novel) that holds him back. A slightly more polished veneer of gentlemanly behavior, and he could have passed by just fine.
But, of course, he has flaws. His big, endless, ultimately fatal flaw is that he is paranoid about his own security, and is willing to go to any lengths to achieve it. As a result he is CONSTANTLY over-reaching, and every time he does, he makes his security situation worse, not better. If he just had a little trust or patience, he could have survived, thrived even.
But he didn't, and he has the misfortune to have that weakness paired with a strange kind of crudeness, effective perhaps on the battlefield, but nowhere else. When he's challenged, he immediately and without hesitation rises up to show his dominance, and this is often displayed with thuggish threats of force.
But this slowly begins to change, even early on in the book. As he goes his neurotic sense of insecurity develops into this behavior pattern of preying on vulnerability in others. He is constantly barging in to places he doesn't belong, and making them feel afraid. He can read people well (note his concern about Melchoir's lack of political behavior), and he uses that to torture people more and more over time.
Also, he clearly knows how to wield power, but unlike Melchoir, has sort of an opposite, leave his hands unsullied kind of way about him. At the Granary Massacre, Melchoir plays super punch-out while Damien just sort of lurks behind him, doing nothing, for example. But eventually, out of desperation he brings himself to the point where he finally actually kills someone (ordering the little girl thrown off the cliff), and that further develops into killing Rochefield himself, which ends in a bloody spree in the hospital.
Damien goes from an intelligent person following the natural course of events and his own personality to becoming properly unhinged. As he begins to suffer from his endless mistakes like a proper tragic villain, those same flaws that caused his problems in the first place rapidly accelerate his downfall.
I'm not going to lie, I'm actually pretty proud of how this character came out, despite how awful of a person he is.
JAINES
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As mentioned, Jaines was set up from the very beginning to be the main antagonist. The best way you can think about her is that it's like dating a wild and crazy woman. You're just so attracted to the fun and the adventure and the unbelievably magnetic force of will that just sucks you into a mindless, burning passion... but then... as many a hapless young man has learned, eventually you start to discover that the wild is just reckless, and the crazy is actual, literal crazy. The love turns quickly to fear.
And as mentioned, this is the core of the Jaines character. She's nuts. In the beginning you see her OCD as a cute character trait, a bit of weird on a funky kind of girl. But then "more hoes" becomes "alphebetizing rebels" becomes "shooting rats in basement" becomes "letting hundreds get slaughtered because she won't change her attack plan because it has symmetry", and at every step, the laughter becomes a little more nervous.
And there's something else, too. It was mentioned explicitly in the beginning, but it sort of gets lost behind the specifics, and that is Jaines' motivation. Read carefully - why does she start the revolution in the first place? Because she's bored.
And you see this struggle with the hedonic treadmill through the entire story. She gets a rush from stealing explosives, but it fades. She gets a rush from taking a bunch of drugs and throwing parties, but it becomes unsatisfying. She burns through a long stream of sexual partners and political allies, but nobody ever manages to stick around. She takes over, and once she does, there's sort of this "well, now what?" moment. She winds up in the dark, cutting herself in a desperate bid to keep the ennui at bay, and when there's the first possible chance to keep up the fight, to go on to the next step, she eagerly takes it, kidnapping the envoy.
And there's an important distinction made between Gilbert's not-so-secret worship of slaanesh, and Jaines' eventual conversion to khorne. She's bored, and her previous experiences aren't satiating her anymore, but instead of doubling down with more and more intensity, she moves on in a more khorne-like direction. She channels herself into the pursuit of perfection, with art, and then with martial combat, and eventually with the simple shedding of blood.
Jaines is also, in a way, my ability to vent the anger of my generation as well. She's sort of lots of things about millenials all rolled into one. She comes from a nice background, and is well-educated, but has no way of putting that to use. There are no jobs available to her and she's very poor. Her starting scene with her walking around at night along the brick-paved streets picking apples off neighbor's trees was literally me at one point in my relatively recent life.
And that bridges into her final role, the one for which she was designed in the first place. Her whole motif is about how she slowly gains power, but in an unsustainable way. She burns nearly every bridge she crosses, and is only in it for whatever warped sense of ideology she happens to have at the moment. She just wants to win, not to rule, and it all comes crashing down on her in the end.
Of course, she's also the political antagonist as well, taking on several blatantly anti-conservative (with a lower case "c") stances on things. She's actively irreligious, for example (well, except for at the end), she believes firmly in the german fuhrerprinzip idea - that government exists because the best and brightest will figure everything out, and you need to sit down and do whatever they say.
Indeed, her entire movement is a thinly-veiled recounting of how the Nazis came to power in the first place. A combination of socialism, nationalism, anti-democratic principles, and a vibrant will to engage in violence. Her troops even wear khaki uniforms with red armbands.
In any case, part of the reason she exists is to demonstrate how intelligent Liberal and socialist points of view can easily lead to the justification of a totalitarian state. Which, when combined with the rest of who she is and what she does, basically paints a dystopian picture of what would have happened if the 99%ers had somehow managed to overthrow the government.
In a way, she's sort of my generation's Mary Sue... of evil...
GILBERT
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Ah, Gilbert! The best for last.
So, in case you failed to notice over the course of the book, Gilbert is actually the bad guy. Moreover, surprise, he was the bad guy the entire time.
And you may be asking "what are you talking about? Clearly Jaines and Damien were way worse than Gilbert!" but they're actually not. It's part of what makes Gilbert's character SO good - he's insidious about it.
Gilbert exists as the ultimate enabler. Like Melchoir, he believes that people exist to do good, and can't believe people could act in bad faith, but he has absolutely none of Melchoir's sense of personal responsibility. Instead he never once even remotely demonstrates the faintest idea that consequences have actions, and that when things happen, it's people's fault, their own and/or others.
What winds up happening is that he becomes a walking pity party, and not only does he suck the characters in, but he sucks you, the reader into it as well. You are made to feel sympathetic that so many bad things are happening to this poor man who just wants what's best for everyone - a world of mutual respect and tolerance. He is, in fact, a drama queen, and like real drama queens, pulls you into his endless, self-centered white-knight fantasy sucking vortex of doom.
And in case the illusion isn't shattered yet, let's look at what Gilbert actually did. His real actions.
- He was put in charge of Boroughcourt and was ordered to keep down the rebellion, but he chose not to, instead fleeing in the face of danger, and refusing to crack down on the situation because he wanted to respect everyone's valid opinions, and didn't want to hurt everyone's feelings. He was the good guy here, and it was that mean Melchoir who refused to support him and tell him to be disrespectful that was the problem.
... except it wasn't. He just failed to do his job, and as a result, there was a revolution.
- He was told to stamp out the rebellion, and he successfully arrested Jaines, but not only didn't he prosecute her but he BROUGHT HER TO BELLEMONDE. Melchoir needed to understand Jaines' point of view, and he couldn't bring himself to be hard on someone just for having a set of ideas about something. This was too much for him, he needed to get the two together in the same place so that they could work it out between themselves and come to an agreement.
Except he enabled the revolution again by not only releasing, but personally smuggling the lead terrorist into the capital city.
- He continued to fail to keep Boroughcourt in order, which required the intervention of the Foleran army. Martial law seriously inflames the public, which leads to the creation of the Agricultural Liberation Army, and the beginning of civil war. He also further enables their ideals as well, leading them to spin off in their own separate way and form their own identity.
- He tells the Superior Council that they should feel bad that they're not listened to, and not respected enough. He more or less is the prime cause for the cities turning on Melchoir and then, after Jaines screws things up, the natural result of the cities then revolting against Jaines, leaving the entire planet ungovernable.
- He enables Lucas by telling him that Claire is alive and in Cupercourt, and then enables Damien by telling him that Lucas is still alive but that he should channel his aggression elsewhere.
- He gets sucked into a religious cult (because he, we both just want to help people), which enables him to enable others better.
The end result of which, of course, is that the entire planet gets overrun with slaaneshi demons, assuming the inquisition doesn't kill everybody first.
- And then in the end, the crowning piece to his whole character, he gives his sermon. A message that you can control nothing in your life, so don't even try. Bad things happen to you, and you should feel like a victim, but also like you can't do anything about it. You should just trust that other people will handle your life for you while you lay around all day and take drugs. To get you started, here's some free heroin.
It's so easy to see all the other bad guys, and all the actions people take that ruin everything, and only pay attention to that. But when you step back, literally everything that goes wrong in this story is at least in part enabled by Gilbert behind the scenes. He's the one who is always there, suckign everyone else into his drama, making everyone feel pity, and enabling their worst possible character traits.
Setting them up to make actions that will ultimately hurt them and everyone else. In short, it's basically his fault that this story is a tragedy. Everyone else has their part to play in making sure that this is true, but everyone also relies on him to make sure it stays that way.
And what makes it that much worse. The cherry on top of the sundae of horrible, awful, scheezy chapter after chapter of ruining everything... is that he wins. Jaines and Damien fall and are about to be destroyed, respectively. Gilbert, meanwhile, is the only person happy at the end. The only person who gets exactly what he wants. Fawning accolades by mindless supporters.
He is so disgusting. I can't even remember how many times I wrote something in one of his chapters and then thought "no, I'm REALLY going to hell for this one".
And it's so perfect, because he's otherwise such a nice guy. Beautifully insidious.
He's also, I'd note, my only overt reference to ogre battle. His entire character started as nothing more than the name (Gilbert, in reference to the character), with his line "Why must you rebel against the Empire? I understand why you hate them, but I must do what's best for my people."
Not in my wildest dreams did I imagine that this one simple idea would take a turn for the so massively fethed up.
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SO NOW WHAT?
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Well, now that I'm done, there are a few things I want to clean up. I've re-read the first few chapters and am apalled by how awful they are. I definitely grew a lot as an author over the course of this, especially, actually, by the sex scene in the beginning. It was through that that I gained a much greater appreciation for how to slowly describe things in detail (and the fact that there were a few "experience" chapters with neither plot NOR dialogue is a direct outgrowth of that).
Anyways, I'm going to clean up the first few chapters, at least. Flesh them out until I can get at least 2,500 words out of them (which I'm surprised I didn't follow strictly in the beginning. Maybe I had a different rule, or was just more lax?)
There are a few other things I want to do as well, like sort of give more of a reason why Lucas is attracted to claire, and explain better the situation with the imperium (flesh out the backstory a little more), and at least mention why Melchoir had such a time stamping out Jaines after the Granary.
And I want to completely re-write the bathtub scene with Melchoir and Rochefield. It's cute and clever and endears you to Melchoir somewhat, but it's too much of a break with his character-as-presented, in this book at least. It makes him look a little too much like Jaines, I think.
Anyways, once that's done, I'm going to take a bit of a break. Then I'll return to give it it's second edit with fresh eyes.
Once that's done, I'll pay to have it professionally copy edited, maybe tweak it a little more, and then put it up for sale. You too may be able to buy a more refined, better-edited, better-formatted, eBook version that will support a local dakka author soon, perhaps as quickly as by the end of this year. Maybe.
Anyways, I'd like to thank everyone who followed along, especially those people who posted. It can get kind of lonely when a week and 20,000 words go by without even knowing if anyone is even there, reading it.
thenoobbomb wrote:I'll have to do some cathing up!
Where'd you get to?
Paradigm wrote:Claire was almost bound to become a 'casualty' (in spirit if not in body) of the war in that she really managed to avoid taking a side, and ultimately didn't want to change anything. She became caught up in the games and plots of others, and inevitably was brought down by it. I also liked her nicely ambiguous ending.
That's an interesting way of thinking about it. She does several things that contribute to her own ruin, but it's interesting that you note that she's sort of a victim of events by means of not doing much to actively try to control them.
I suppose that makes sense with the reader avatar idea, because the reader is sort of stuck powerless to change things as well.
I hate to say it, but some of the reason bad things happen to her is because it's convenient - she's already in cupercourt for example, so might as well use her to show how bad the city's become, for example. Also part of it was kind of as a way to show this sort of hidden strength that Lucas keeps mentioning. It wouldn't make sense if she wasn't shown being able to power through some of the worst stuff in the story.
And yeah... I briefly considered on more than one occasion killing her on-screen, and even once as a romeo and juliet ending where he finds her just at the moment she's dying, and they get to have one tender moment before the end...
... but even I'M not that cruel, and I had a young woman with mental health issues cutting herself onstage believing that the experience made her a living god. In the end, even I had to leave the ending ambiguous on that one. If you really believe in true love, you'll come to the conclusion that, despite the odds, they do finally meet in the end. You could even imagine that with Lucas' particular skill-set they might have some way of avoiding the approaching holocaust.
There's that glimmer of hope, no matter how unlikely. I had to allow for that much, at least.
Paradigm wrote:But Gilbert... in a real position of power given his start as a general underling to others, in the shadow of Melchoir and then Jaines in a way.
That's also an interesting way to read it. I was kind of under the impression that he ends exactly where he starts: as the mayor of Boroughcourt. I suppose it is different in a way, though, and not just because he wasn't booed off stage the second time. In the end, he sort of has the Boroughcourt he always wished he had in the first place. Sort of a bizzare, cult-like heaven on earth filled with mutual respect and positive reinforcement.
Paradigm wrote:The fact her and Melchoir swap roles by the end of it was rather nice, occupying a position of power but not control. I found myself wondering if Jaines would actually make a more successful job of rule than Melchoir, or whether she is doomed to the same fate.
"Power without control", that's a PERFECT way of saying it.
And yeah, they had to sort of switch roles.
As for Jaines... I'm surprised (and pleased) that there was any ambiguity about her ability to handle things once she gained power. I was afraid that when Rochefield says "You are a fad, Jaines Harcourt, and have nothing to offer anyone but angry words and empty hope. If by some unfortunate series of events you are given real power, you will be ruined and take this whole planet with you." that I was laying it on a little thick.
Though it's interesting, I think one of the things that thinned down an awful lot of stuff I thought would be too over the top is context. So, in the case of this quote, he directly tells you what will happen, but it could easily be read as merely his opinion, or a threat that he's making, rather than an accurate prediction of future events.
Likewise, in some of the absolute crazy political stuff, I tried to couch it in other stuff that sounds more reasonable. When you pick it out of that context, and see it as an abstract idea in its own right, you can identify what's going wrong, but in a huge pile of wrong, it doesn't stand out that much. For example, when Gilbert, in the end says "When we trust the government, when we believe it will work... When we have blind, uncompromising, radical trust in those who can solve our problems for us. Only then can we receive their blessing", you look at that on its own and it's like... wait, you're crazy at best, and enabling the Nazis at worst. But in the context of "Once we trust in God. Once we pray for wisdom for our political leaders, knowing the Almighty will bless those in power." it becomes, if not more correct, then more reasonable. Of course if you believed in God, and believed that he poured out his blessings on the faithful then of course he would do his best to help the state be successful. It's God's sanctioned realm on earth, to trust in God is to trust in the state. It's actually a real argument that was used by (among others) Paul Althaus to justify the rise of Nazism. God has anointed the german volk as sacred, the volk has selected Hitler to be its leader, God blesses Hitler as he blesses the volk, political dissent is an affront to God. Simple as that.
But, right, what Gilbert is saying is that putting your blind, obedient faith in God has a necessary consequence that one puts their blind, obedient faith in JAINES, and you start to see just how dangerous of an idea this is.
Paradigm wrote:On that note, I must admit that, getting into the last chapters, I almost found too many questions unanswered. What fate would Geomides see? Would Jaines and Gilbert come into conflict with the war-vs-love idea (or Khorne vs Slaneesh)? Would Claire and Lucas be reunited? What would become of Melchoir? Thinking of it more, though, I figured that didn't matter. While I look forward to seeing what comes next if and when you write anything else, I think the results of the paths each character took did conclude themselves really; it sounds somewhat cliched to say it, but the 'journey' they took with their various rises and falls was ultimately complete, even if the circumstances were not.
Once again, a nice way of saying it.
This effect you're seeing was also actually done on purpose, and it's because of Dune. I've read that book more than any other, and one of the things I like best about it is, as you put it, the story of the different actors comes to an end, but the situation remains deeply unresolved. And I love that about Dune, so much. I've read the first book over and over, but I have absolutely no interest now in reading any of the sequels because that sense of ambiguity and filling in my own blanks with my own ideas would be so completely ruined.
And so I tried to have that same thing here, sort of. Melchoir is probably the best example of this. You could say that he's the good guy, and that he symbolically ascends to heaven at the end. But you could also say that he was responsible and failed in his entire purpose, and so he's been taken to his final judgement. In either case, right, the story of Melchoir is done vis a vis Geomides. He's left the planet. There's nothing more for him to contribute to that story... while at the same time things are left unresolved.
And the setting itself is that way. Geomides is left in a state of complete chaos. No food, civil war everywhere, demonic cults. Geomides, as an idea, as a setting, is done. The only last bit of ambiguity is its fate. Of course, that's an important ambiguity, but in a way, it shouldn't be resolved on stage. There should be room for creativity. It's one of those things where I don't think I can write as well as the reader's imagination of what happens, and if I sort of "mopped up" everything, it would wind up being a rather dry exercise in plot.
Of course, there's not to say there couldn't be a sequel, but it would be a very different kind of book. About the inquisition cleansing the planet, or some space marine bolter porn, or something, but it wouldn't be a simple continuation of this story, now that it's complete. There's nowhere crazier for Jaines to go. There's no more tension I could build up with Gilbert, or any of the other characters for that matter. They really are a spent force by the end of this book. The ambiguous ending isn't just sequel bait.
Alright, I've heavily edited the prologue. There's almost 500 more words in it than there were before, and it reads a lot more smoothly now.
I'll be editing the next two chapters after that, and then doing my half-rewrite of chapter 31, and then I'll be done for the moment.
I have this sneaking suspicion that I might be getting rather close to 250,000 words by the time the full edit is done. I suppose if I add as few as 160 words to each remaining chapter, then I'd wind up hitting it. Of course, not every chapter needs that, but 160 isn't a lot, and there are some chapters that definitely need more than that...
Well, it's been awhile, and I wanted to give you guys an update.
After finishing the rough draft I took a couple of weeks off, and then went back in and made a few revisions that I knew I wanted to make. Such as explaining a little better why Lucas likes Claire, and why Melchoir was in such deep gak in the beginning. And finally picking a single way of spelling Marshal Gannon's name.
I also, as mentioned, did a bit of re-writing at the beginning, mostly to flesh stuff out. I've learned that it definitely took a few chapters before I really found my feet on this one.
Anyways, after that I moved to California. Across the forboding Great Divide Basin, the stunning salt flats of Bonneville and the insane traffic of the Sierras. All in a U-haul with three cats in the cab with me.
Anyways, after taking a bit of time to get settled here, I am now editing again, proper. Several more coats of polish were applied to the first few chapters, which started the worst but need to be the best. I'm now up to the granary massacre.
Some of the chapters have been refreshingly straightforward, just a few little corrections, but otherwise it's more like I'm just reading them.
Some of them, though, have needed some tough work done on them.
Thankfully, all that pre-writing means there's no major flaws in the work (plot holes, pointless characters, etc.), and the dialogue runs fairly smoothly, and the like. The real thing I'm editing for is something that I couldn't really plan out in advance: style.
Much of my editing has been painfully cutting detail in order to make it run more smoothly, and some of the dialogue has been cleaned up a bit, and the narrative focused in a bit (there were too many places I was speaking in poetry where I needed to use prose, especially at the beginning).
But easily my biggest problem has been cadence issues. That is, its "speakability", the way that word stress falls through the sentence. It's a little bit esoteric, but if I show you a few examples, I'm sure you'll get it right away.
For example, I just spent all day on and off trying to fix the first couple of paragraphs of the scene where Lucas and the rebels make their escape to Cupercourt. Honestly, most of my work has been with the opening paragraphs, which can sometimes take hours of work.
Anyways, here are two (of many) things I changed in this chapter.
Original:
"Pretty clever, eh?" General Milliers jibed, seeing the stunned faces of the newcomers, "Don't think you're the first this sight has surprised."
And it was replaced with:
"Pretty clever, eh?" General Milliers jibed, seeing the stunned faces of the newcomers, "Don't think you're the first this little view has surprised."
So, it's a pretty subtle change, and a rather easy one (most of my cadence problems are fixed pretty quickly - spotting them is usually rather intuitive), but if you read the last part, you can feel how the revision is better. It's because of cadence.
If you plot out the stressed syllables (*) and unstressed syllables(-) of the second part in quotation marks, you get:
Original:
***-***--*
New
***-***-**-*
And it might not seem like much, but it makes all the difference. The first part of both of them starts with a nice ***- pattern repeated twice, but then the original has a two-unstressed-next-to-each-other almost haiatus-like gap.
The fix solves that issue. Now, each unstressed syllable is always separated by stressed ones, and furthermore, the pattern has this nice taper effect of ***-**-*.
As I said, most of these are pretty easy: flipping word order, getting rid of the word "the" (I've hacked out dozens by now) when it's not necessary.
But some of them, though, are hard.
Some of them are cadence nightmares, and they were created that way in the first place because I was so focused on setting a scene in a certain way, and including certain bits of detail, and having things in a certain order, and making sure not to duplicate word use.
Sometimes, this creates very serious cadence issues, like in the beginning of this Lucas chapter that can take all day to untangle. To fix the error without causing a bunch of new ones that I avoided in the first place.
So, if we look at the introduction to the chapter, it started out as:
Lucas breathed in deeply as the canopy of leaves far above shimmered and sighed in the breeze. Sunlight sparkled down through a brilliant kaleidoscope of green, the shifting verdant glow dancing in the treetops. A domed mosaic of stained glass tiles filtering the light above.
But it was the fragrant odor filling him up inside which drew his attention. It would pass by subtly, even unnoticed to most, but someone so fully intimate with this place knew it without a second thought. A week ago, the forest was filled with the smells of moss and leaves, of life and growing things. But it had changed now, literally overnight. The trees were no longer sending sap out into the leaves, but were now starting to pull back, conserving their resources, beginning the long slow crawl towards dormancy. The air was no longer filled with water and green, but now wafted the scent of bark and drying grass. The visceral mulch replacing with a delicate fragrance, more subtle and complex, with hints of spice.
There were other signs for those who were looking, as well. The air was still hot, but there was less sopping heaviness. There was a breeze now, blowing in from the east, and when Lucas laid down at night on his hard bed roll, the faint clicking sound of katydids gently called down from the treetops.
There was no question about it. It was now late summer in the wooded hills of Cupercourt.
And it ended up as:
Lucas breathed in deeply. Far above, the canopy sighed in the breeze. Sunlight sparkled down a brilliant kaleidoscope of green, the shifting verdant glow dancing through the treetops. A domed mosaic of stained glass leaves shimmering down light from above.
It was the fragrant odor drifting through the forest air that captured his attention, though. It would pass by subtly, even unnoticed to most, but he was intimate with this place. He could sense it instantly.
A week ago, the forest filled with smells of moss and leaves, of life and growing things, but it was different now, changed literally overnight. The trees were no longer sending sap out to the leaves, but were starting to pull back, beginning their long, slow crawl towards dormancy. The air was no longer filled with water and green, but wafted the scent of bark and drying grass. The visceral mulch replaced with a delicate fragrance, more subtle and complex.
There were other signs as well, for those who were looking. The air was still hot, but there was less sopping heaviness. There was a breeze now, blowing in from the east, and when Lucas laid down at night, the faint clicking sound of katydids gently called down from the treetops.
There was no question about it. It was now late summer in the wooded hills of Cupercourt.
Once again, the edit just reads better, and it's because of cadence.
The particular offender in this case is "But it was the fragrant odor filling him up inside which drew his attention." When you plot that out, it becomes:
----*-*-**-***-*--*-
Which is practically random. A bunch of unstressed, followed by an acceleration to more stressed, but then breaking the pattern, and then some more unstressed, and then a random stressed toward the end. It jerks around unevenly.
Now, replace that with the sentence "It was the fragrant odor drifting through the forest air that captured his attention, though", and it plots:
---*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-,-
which has this nice on-off-on-off pattern, and is even nearly symmetrical.
Of course, I'm not actually breaking down my entire work into plots like this. As mentioned, it's all rather intuitive. You sort of just know when cadence is rhythmic just like how you can hear when two instruments are out of tune with each other.
But "tuning" the work can be hard when I also don't want to hack out a bunch of detail, or when I want to say something very specific. Especially if I don't want to accidentally duplicate or make a giant run-on sentence or something.
Anyways, this kind of thing is thankfully receding somewhat as the piece goes on. I definitely became a better writer over the course of this work. Hopefully the editing will go even faster and I can have even more chapters that I can just sort of read and be done with it.
I'll let you guys know when I get it finished and sent off to a copy editor.
Alright, so, another quick update. After a month and a half of editing, I've now got a completed manuscript.
Now that I've gotten a "final" draft, the work is going off to a copy editor, once I can find one. I don't know how long they'll sit on it doing their editing thing, but hopefully it will be measured more in weeks than in months once I get everything lined up (and who knows how long that will wind up being).
Once that's done, I'll make the recommended changes, format the document, throw together some cover art, and that will be that. Just be warned that once the book gets published, I'm going to change this thread. I'll leave up the first few chapters in their as-published form, but then the rest of it is going to be taken down. So, you know, unless you want to chip in a few bucks later, do your reading now.
As for the document itself, I'm actually rather proud of it. A few medium-sized things got fixed (some sort of half-rewriting on a few chapters, etc.), and a few things, especially the beginning, got fleshed out a little bit more. Over all, it's a lot more solid work.
Also, interestingly enough, it was the first time I read this book. You know, as a single entity, rather than nitty gritty chapter-by chapter writing. I've got to say I'm rather happy with it, and think I've created something that resonates with me, at least. I can only hope it sort of takes off and effects other people as well.
Interestingly enough, as a curious side note, my rough draft wound up being 236,734 words for 549 pages. My edited draft comes in at 232,265 words for 562 pages. That's the loss of 4,500 words - a chapter and a half - while also adding two more chapters of by-page length. I can't quite explain that, other than to think perhaps I did some formatting different or that I replaced some blocks of text with dialogue.
Anyways, I just thought I'd give you guys an update. I might do another one when I get the piece back from the copy editor, or I might just do it when the book goes on sale. Fingers crossed!
Maximus Bitch wrote:I found it a little too convoluted, as evidenced by your lengthy commentaries.
Well, my two goalposts for this novel were Dune and Game of Thrones. Hence excessive intrigue.
I guess the idea is to create something that's interesting enough on the surface level to enjoy reading if you don't want to write a master's dissertation on it, but to also provide that kind of depth for the people who go looking for it. The only proper problem is if things start getting confusing, which is something I'd definitely need to fix. Was there anything like that to your reading?
Maximus Bitch wrote:It reads a lot like a graphic novel. In fact I actually visualised the characters and I saw speech bubbles pop up when I read the dialogue. haha.
Similar to the HH novels, since most of the authors have a comic background.
Interesting that you say that, because I don't. For me, things more played through my head like a movie that I was sort of reverse-engineering into a book.
I suppose there are going to be certain stylistic things that are in common, though, as graphic novels tend to be more action-oriented (what with not having to describe with words scenes they can show in pictures), and that's the case for me as well. You probably noticed a lot of these kinds of cascading short sentences. Sentences like these ones. Now.
Maximus Bitch wrote:I think it is better to finish the entire story and then wait for feedback, which allows you to get the big picture.
Of course, few will read through the entire story. But adjusting your story mid way is not ideal.
Well, this was more of a publicity stunt than a collaborative effort. The whole story was planned out in advance, and I don't THINK anything changed part way through, so much as I fleshed things out that didn't seem obvious enough.
On the plus side, though, I do have someone properly reading it all through. Yes, I've hired an editor. I had to take out a loan to afford one, but I want to play in the big leagues now, which means I need to do things like invest money in getting the copy straightened out. What's interesting about the particular one I chose is that about half of the stuff he's published himself as an author have been poetry. He understands language used for effect enough not to just take all those coma splices and convert them into a drab series of independent clauses.
Also, he gave me a free sample of his editing before I hired him, which wound up being huge, as it narrowed the field quickly when I asked my other candidates to do the same. Some couldn't be bothered to do fifteen minutes of free work to possibly nail down a contract worth thousands, and some were just really bad at editing (especially, as mentioned, changing style stuff), and some just didn't catch as many mistakes as the person I went with. And let me tell you, nothing sells your services as an editor like red ink.
The person is about a quarter of the way through the book as of this writing. The deadline is for january 15th, but he thinks he'll probably be done before that, given how smoothly things are already working out.
Meanwhile, I've been starting to work on the next phase of this process. That means cover art, and doing some research into amazon, as well as some market research for how I should go about selling it. Especially determining a price.
The first part has been relatively easy. I've been throwing together a bunch of rough-draft ideas for ways in which I could go about making cover art. The best I've come up with so far is this:
What do you think?
For the second part, well, that's going to be tricky. Depending on my price point I'm going to have to sell somewhere between 2000 and 3500 copies in order to both repay my loan for this editor, and make enough on top to hire an editor for the next book without taking on debt.
I guess I can do an informal survey now, how much do you think a kindle e-book version of this should go for? $2.99? $4.99? More? I'm kind of stuck on the dilemma of not making it too cheap ("It must not be very good if it costs that much. Not worth my time, most like"), and too expensive ("It must be pretty good to go for that price, but I don't know if I'm willing to bet that much on an unknown quantity").
Regarding the cover, I think you could perhaps add some interest and tie in more to the actual story. Right now there are trees. Trees do not immediately shout sci-fi, nor epic, nor ruin, survivors, danger, or 'themselves'. I am no expert, but find below a little experiment with your image. Maybe it's not at all what you're after, I won't be insulted . Either way don't use it as there's possibly some sort of copyright on those faces.
Oddly enough, though, what I was going for with this particular attempt was to relate the image to the content at the expense of the genre. Sort of the idea that mankind has been scrubbed out and everything's been returned to nature. Has been reset, so to speak. The setting is one of freedom and challenge, and what results is sort of a thought experiment about what the characters decide to do about it.
If anything it emphasizes the "doing it to themselves" nature of the material by providing a clean, modern face to what they could have chosen to do.
Another thing I'm trying to do, I suppose, is to try and target a kind of reader, rather than advertise the kind of book, which might be a mistake.
The problem I'm having is that I am, in a way, trying to avoid making it come across as just another sci-fi dime novel. Something I'd naturally assume was filled with nothing but cliches and stilted dialogue. Even if my work doesn't seriously transcend this, I wouldn't want to put people off from it immediately.
Put another way, just as I've written a book that I'd actually read, I'm searching for a cover that I'd actually pick up off the shelf. Something to distinguish itself from covers like...
None of which, to judge the books by their cover, I have any interest in reading.
I guess I'm just looking for something that doesn't scream dollar table at the grocery store or library basement clearance sale...
So I finished reading your novel last Friday. I actually started when you first posted this thread but was put off by one of the early sex scenes. When I saw you finished I decided to give it another go last week and I'm glad I did.
First of all I'd like to say major kudos for finishing a novel. I know writing is hard work. I think the story works and has some great potential. My main points of critique would be firstly that characters are sometimes developed by saying what they are like rather than their words and deeds showing how they are. Secondly there seems to be a fair amount of mocking going on, e.g. the Geomidians considering 20-hour weeks to be near slavery. This is funny, but, sometimes, for me, clashed with the general intent of the story because it made the plot hard to swallow (as in: "no way they'd buy that"). Also, the end. When I was 10 pages from finishing I thought "I wonder how all this will resolve in 10 pages" and when I finished I was like "Wait, wut? What happens to the main character?" who in my mind was Lucas. Afterwards I read your afterword and found out Melchoir was the main guy. This still doesn't really click for me, but I guess the story itself is kind of the main character, something bigger than the individuals anyway. Not saying you must change the end, but it's just how I experienced it.
The best thing about the novel, I think, is that it has lots of drive. Not just pace, but the sense of an idea behind the story that wants to be revealed. I don't actually know you at all obviously, apart from some internet posts, but it seems to me that this drive reflects you as a person.
Next I just wanted to reflect on some of the stuff you said in your afterword, from my random reader's perspective. Some is an echo of what I say above. Maybe some of it sounds harsh, I dunno, it's just my gut reaction to the afterword. At no point reading the story did I actually think 'this is rubbish', so take that as my exoneration-clause .
“As such, the core of the story would revolve around Melchoir”
To me Lucas was the main protagonist. Melchoir (how does one pronounce this anyway?) always seemed more in the background, reacting rather than acting.
“and around a second character who would depose him”
I have trouble considering Jaines the main antagonist too, as she’s so over the top silly.
“Lucas, who wasn't actually intended to be a recurring character AT ALL”
He is the one I could best relate to.
“One of the things I knew I wanted to try to do is make a serious attempt at a literary device known as Chiasmus.”
I didn’t notice it was that (nor would I want to have noticed), but the plot did feel like there was a clear idea behind it and did seem to fold nicely back onto itself.
“everyone but Gilbert has a chapter which is basically a conversation with Rochefield.”
That does help tie stuff together.
“You see how Melchoir has certain beliefs, and when they're challenged, which ones actually stick around.”
I think this could be more worked out, as goes for the whole character if meant to be the main guy. Not much really seems to ‘happen’ with him.
”For example, follow the path of Claire and Lucas. They meet up and have sex, then they meed up and almost have sex”
Perhaps as a consequence of you intending these characters to be ‘extra’, it was these scenes that originally didn’t sit well with me as there was hardly any build up to it and thus felt like ‘oh let’s put a sex scene here, because sex.’
“The first is that the characters, for the first two-thirds of the book (or longer), are all pretty flat and unchanging. I always like the "discover the character" way of doing things, rather than the "know the character, then watch him change" sort of deal, so that's what a part of it was.”
I think that’s fine, but a lot of ‘discovering’ about characters was just being told about them, e.g. ‘Melchoir is not political’, more than discovering he’s not policital through his actions or thoughts or how others respond to him. This saying how it is rather than showing, or on top of it, is something I noticed frequently. Not necessarily bad, but it doesn’t help any flatness of characters I think.
“the rebels are the bad guys.”
I never felt this way, partly because I figured Lucas was the main good guy.
“Jaines' mental health issues.”
I think this could possibly be a little more subtle if she is to be the main antagonist as I found her quirks entertaining, especially early on, but they made it hard to take her serious as a character and it also hurt the credibility of the plot at times, for me.
“Lucas and Claire and Melchoir may not have changed much, but Jaines and especially Damien”
I thought it was more of a strengthening of what they were already, rather than change. Hugo might have surprised me the most as character development goes, as he starts out hard but ends vulnerable and softer.
“The same could be said about Marshals Gannon and Archon, and Lucas' friend Paul. It's a pretty small thing, but I'm actually kind of proud of that one.”
I liked Paul .
“Nearly as much as that I've been able to juggle 7 main characters in a single work.”
No mean feat, indeed.
“this story was going to be a tragedy, and not just a drama with a sad ending. I mean it in the specific way wherein everything bad that happens to the characters more or less happens because it's their own fault: they do it to themselves.”
That was clear and everyone’s constant failure did work for the story, I think.
“For example, literally every problem that Damien has is one he brings on himself. He is constantly, endlessly overreaching in his quest for security.”
Maybe a little extra could be done to make Damien more of a good guy. To me he was the crook to begin with and his desire for a secure future not very legitimate.
(Melchoir) “You know that he is a very competent character,”
Not so sure. It’s said he is competent and such, but he’s also failing all the time.
“He's also the only one who has an accurate understanding of his own faults by the end of the story.”
Well, there are the things that are said about him all the time and he does repeat them himself at the end, but there’s no real depth to it, I felt.
“He has a rather simple, soldierly viewpoint on things where he assumes that his subordinates are competent, and are willing to use their initiatives to solve problems on the ground as they occur.”
I think this could also be shown stronger and that doing so would help in building his character.
“but he just never comes across (with the exception of his scene with Lucas) as being all that personable.”
Actually the most intriguing scenes with M for me were the one-on-one chats where people who disliked him as governor actually got to like him as a person.
”He's also, of course, the proper good guy in this story, even if the sense of perspective is slanted to make him look bad in the beginning. I mean (accidentally, of course), he's the only person who wears white literally every time you see him. But it's a tragedy, so he has to lose.”
He felt more neutral than good (or bad) to me I guess. I also don’t see him lose as he seems to come out quite well, both compared to everyone else and compared to what you’d expect from the Imperium. That inquisitor man is real nice to him.
“Hugo Rochefield is an interesting character.”
Yes.
(Claire) “She has a white-collar job, and a small apartment.”
Yes, but royal-like background which isn’t all that normal.
(Lucas) “In any case, the character is rather lightweight, being motivated mostly by his desire to settle down and stop being a rebel anymore (which he never achieves), and, of course, his gushing, undying love for Claire.”
I think there’s more potential for him though. Possibly due to how he was the main character for me and easiest to relate to.
(Damien) “how surprisingly satisfying it was to write a well-written classical villain. That sort of cocky, talented, arrogant, always getting what he wants type, and, to make it worse, he actually gets what he wants, generally.”
Possibly even better if he is more clearly slated as a ‘good’ guy in the beginning with a very legitimate reason to do as he does?
“In the beginning, Damien almost really isn't a bad guy. Yes, he's scheezy and awful and you're meant to hate him, of course, but step back for a moment.”
Or, make the reader step back?
“Jaines was set up from the very beginning to be the main antagonist.”
Were we supposed to notice from the start?
“She's nuts. In the beginning you see her OCD as a cute character trait, a bit of weird on a funky kind of girl. But then "more hoes" becomes "alphebetizing rebels" becomes "shooting rats in basement" becomes "letting hundreds get slaughtered because she won't change her attack plan because it has symmetry", and at every step, the laughter becomes a little more nervous.”
This does work nicely, not sure about the rats though.
“why does she start the revolution in the first place? Because she's bored.”
Perhaps a main antagonist would come across stronger with a somewhat deeper motivation? I dunno.
“Jaines is also, in a way, my ability to vent the anger of my generation as well. She's sort of lots of things about millenials all rolled into one. She comes from a nice background, and is well-educated, but has no way of putting that to use. There are no jobs available to her and she's very poor.”
But, in what is supposed to be a post-apocalypse world, isn’t mostly everyone?
“it all comes crashing down on her in the end.”
Does it really? She seems to come out on top all the time. I guess she won’t quite survive taking the envoy, but she seems to keep on ‘winning’ throughout the story even though she’s clearly insane.
“Indeed, her entire movement is a thinly-veiled recounting of how the Nazis came to power in the first place.”
Though in a sillier fashion. Like outrage at 20 hour workweeks. I regularly wasn’t sure if there was intentional satire or not.
“Gilbert is actually the bad guy.” […] “It's part of what makes Gilbert's character SO good - he's insidious about it.”
As in he’s consciously trying to be evil? I’d have put him down for accidental evil, an idiot being used.
“You are made to feel sympathetic that so many bad things are happening to this poor man who just wants what's best for everyone”
Maybe him being an idiot is too thickly laid on? Especially as it’s always him saying he wants the best for everyone rather than the reader interpreting his actions as such. I thought he was meant to mock bureaucracy in general. You know, people in offices doing stuff with no ties to reality, in a paper world.
“in the end, the crowning piece to his whole character, he gives his sermon.”
This was too long for me I think, or something. It was my least favourite bit in the novel if I had to pick.
“is that he wins. Jaines and Damien fall and are about to be destroyed, respectively. Gilbert, meanwhile, is the only person happy at the end. The only person who gets exactly what he wants.”
Yes, though I kinda felt like it would be very temporary the moment he got his job back.
“Fawning accolades by mindless supporters.”
I didn’t really get why he was suddenly popular?
“There are a few other things I want to do as well, like sort of give more of a reason why Lucas is attracted to claire, and explain better the situation with the imperium (flesh out the backstory a little more), and at least mention why Melchoir had such a time stamping out Jaines after the Granary.”
Sounds good.
“And I want to completely re-write the bathtub scene with Melchoir and Rochefield. It's cute and clever and endears you to Melchoir somewhat, but it's too much of a break with his character-as-presented, in this book at least. It makes him look a little too much like Jaines, I think.”
I actually liked that scene, gave M some character.
So there's that, for what it's worth . Thanks for the read.
Oh, and about the cover: I agree about not doing anything like the three examples you posted. They're really uninspired. I do still think the cover could represent the story better, including the 'flap text' (keep the last bit though, "they are faced ... themselves" is great).
Sgt. Oddball wrote:firstly that characters are sometimes developed by saying what they are like rather than their words and deeds showing how they are.
Firstly and most poignantly. Character was my weakest suit coming into this project, and was easily the most... ambitious part. For reference, the last novel I wrote had only 1 main character (who wasn't terribly likable), one supporting character, and only two other characters that even had names, but were mostly ancillary to the story. Of course, ambition is not a synonym for success.
As you say, showing rather than telling is the true skill here, and I think in some ways I did it rather well, but it is, I'll agree, weakest in the place where I was weakest - character. The kind of expositioney parts to the chapters were particularly tough. In a way, it's an effect of the complexity of the plot where it always seemed I needed a "last time since you saw this character..." part.
I did make an attempt of showing, though, and I think there is a fair bit of it in here. For example, you are told that Melchoir likes to handle things personally on several occasions, but then you also have the scene where he defends himself at the granary, and the scene where he saves the transformer, and the scene where he's digging a ditch, and where he escapes from the train station, and where he leads his troops personally in battle at the end. That's a case of both telling and showing, not just telling.
What I'd really like to know if there were things that came across ONLY as telling and never showing. I could certainly tell less if it's distracting, but it's a much more serious error if it's never shown as well.
Sgt. Oddball wrote:Secondly there seems to be a fair amount of mocking going on, e.g. the Geomidians considering 20-hour weeks to be near slavery. This is funny, but, sometimes, for me, clashed with the general intent of the story because it made the plot hard to swallow (as in: "no way they'd buy that")
Well, it's a broad-spectrum attempt at being critical. Some parts are absurd, while other parts are parodies, while other parts are just a little mean-spirited.
And there were a few parts that were designed to be a little funny, like the prayer at the first council meeting, for example. I guess the only real problem is where it's detracting, and why.
You specifically mention the original grievances behind Jaines and one of my friends also noted that I don't do a good job of making people believe in the revolution at the beginning.
... but that's sort of the point. Protests and riots in privileged, developed countries is almost entirely pointless and fatuous. The reader not seeing why people make such a big fuss about something should bring to mind the exact same reaction that people have about it in the real world. The way I feel about Jaines' revolution is much the same way I feel about the recent rioting in Ferguson, MO in the United States.
If your reaction is "Why should I care?" then that is, in a way, as telling of the kind of person you are as if you look at the revolution and think "Go Jaines!" And if you take the stance that both you and I seem to, then it only adds to the sense of tragedy. Things could have worked out, but greedy political ideology ruined everything.
Sgt. Oddball wrote: Also, the end. When I was 10 pages from finishing I thought "I wonder how all this will resolve in 10 pages" and when I finished I was like "Wait, wut?
Love it or hate it, that part is definitely sticking. In fact, I'd much rather it be annoying than ambivalent in this case.
This is one of the few things that I've straight-up copied from Dune. I've read that book like a half-dozen times now, which blows every other book I've read out of the water. The thing I like absolutely best about it, though, is the ending.
In that book, all of the characters wind up at their natural conclusion of the story. Paul reaches the height of power, the old emperor ceases to be a player, Jessica completes her fall into obscurity, and several characters are dead. There doesn't actually NEED to be any story beyond that point - things that have happened over the course of the book have run their course. If there's anything more happening, it would have to be in a new book. Continuing in the same one would just be rambling after the fact.
But, of course, Dune opens itself up to a sequel very easily because even though the characters have run their course the overarching plot / changes in the setting could really be said to be just beginning. The same is true with this book as well.
The last little piece to this as well is a personal one. Though I love Dune and have read it a bunch, I've never read any of those sequels. The beauty of the first book is that it could continue on in so many different ways, the imagination runs wild. I don't actually WANT to know how the story goes on because, by this point, any one possible set out outcomes couldn't be as good as all of the ones in my mind put together.
And it's sort of the same way here. The book would be degraded, I think, if Claire and Lucas were to meet onstage. It would make plain something that's better left as a mystery. The fate of the planet itself is best left unrevealed as well for the same reason. Let the reader read into it what they will.
Sgt. Oddball wrote:Not just pace, but the sense of an idea behind the story that wants to be revealed. I don't actually know you at all obviously, apart from some internet posts, but it seems to me that this drive reflects you as a person.
Yeah, in a way this is one way of telling the story of my time living in Champaign, IL.
If you end the story with a sense of sad, empty bitterness draped over a deep sense of frustration and wasted potential, then you'll know how I felt when I got in the moving van to leave that cursed place.
Sgt. Oddball wrote:To me Lucas was the main protagonist.
He is the one I could best relate to.
This is a genuine shock to me. Especially as Lucas is rather tangential to the main story (the revolution), only interacting with it in the minor role involving the rebel capture of Cupercourt.
I guess I should take it as a compliment that something that's relatively meaningless to me could be meaningful to others. And, I suppose, that the book is open enough to interpretation to be able to see it as primarily about any of the characters, rather than just the ones intended.
Sgt. Oddball wrote:”For example, follow the path of Claire and Lucas. They meet up and have sex, then they meed up and almost have sex”
Perhaps as a consequence of you intending these characters to be ‘extra’, it was these scenes that originally didn’t sit well with me as there was hardly any build up to it and thus felt like ‘oh let’s put a sex scene here, because sex.’
(Claire) “She has a white-collar job, and a small apartment.”
Yes, but royal-like background which isn’t all that normal.
Your skepticism isn't wholly unjustified either. The main reason I included the romance novel arc in the first place was to force me to have at least one female character, and to increase the appeal of female readers (you wouldn't believe how many romance novels my wife has downloaded on her kindle).
But, of course, there is a bit of wonkiness. Usually (but not exclusively) the romance leads don't have sex for the first time until the middle of the book, or even towards the end. The problem that I had, though, is that it wouldn't fit the rest of the novel for those two characters to have everything else working out and coming together while in every other respect everything else was falling apart.
In a way, this sort of forced me to start in the middle of the romance story, with the characters already together as a couple of sorts. You're right that it's a bit risky leading with the sex scene rather than having half a book to become invested in the characters first. In a way, though, I don't feel like I have much of a choice.
And so I tried to make it the best I could, given its position. To show Claire as conflicted and naive instead of slutty or stupid. To show her as having a relationship that she wants to keep, but is already rather fragile, setting it up for its decay rather than its blossoming. It's a romance novel in a tragedy, after all, not the other way around.
I don't know how convinced I am about it either, but, well, there it is, I guess. I don't know how much can be changed.
As for Claire in general, yeah, she came from a nice background, but otherwise, I'd still say she's rather relatable, and most of her chapters, before Cupercourt, at least, being relatively mundane to anchor down the craziness.
On a related note, she's also the counter to Jaines. As you say, everyone did poorly as a result of the apocalypse, and you have two examples of characters that had a long way to fall. Claire's responsible use of social connections and diligent work ethic caused her to make a life for herself that in some way resembled the old. Unlike Jaines, who just went crazy due to her wasted potential and decided to start a riot about it. Claire is sort of the normal and conservative. The proverbial straight man to Jaines. Well, and to the rest of the story.
Sgt. Oddball wrote:Melchoir (how does one pronounce this anyway?) always seemed more in the background, reacting rather than acting.
“You see how Melchoir has certain beliefs, and when they're challenged, which ones actually stick around.”
I think this could be more worked out, as goes for the whole character if meant to be the main guy. Not much really seems to ‘happen’ with him.
“You know that he is a very competent character,”
Not so sure. It’s said he is competent and such, but he’s also failing all the time.
“He's also the only one who has an accurate understanding of his own faults by the end of the story.”
Well, there are the things that are said about him all the time and he does repeat them himself at the end, but there’s no real depth to it, I felt.
“He has a rather simple, soldierly viewpoint on things where he assumes that his subordinates are competent, and are willing to use their initiatives to solve problems on the ground as they occur.”
I think this could also be shown stronger and that doing so would help in building his character.
Mel-choir. Mel like the name, choir as in the group of people who sing.
I guess I may have overemphasized in the afterword Melchoir being the main character. He was in the pre-writing phase, but, as you saw, rather quickly became diluted into being roughly equal with the others as the course of the actual writing progressed. In the finished product, he is, rather, less of a main protagonist. He's still the author's avatar, though, and still the mary sue.
The tricky thing with Melchoir is that he's the only character who doesn't want anything to change. Everybody else is trying to play the system to their advantage. As you say, this puts Melchoir on the other side of the fence from the entire rest of the cast. He's the one reacting, rather than acting. In a way, I think this does a good job emphasizing how much of an alien he is to everything. Which, I suppose is a subtle way of showing him as being different in a way that is otherwise explained several times. It's kind of hard to show someone not scheming.
I think it's funny that you say that he's always failing though, as the opposite is the case. In the end, he is a failure because he fails in the one overarching way that really matters, but look at everything else in detail. He stops the council from splitting up along geographical or occupational lines. He stops Jaines from blowing up all the world's food. He is able to get the armaments program started to ease the interdict, despite everyone else's objections. He saves the project from being fatally set back by personally stopping the transformer from exploding, and were it not for Jaines, he would have succeeded in meeting quota. He also is able to finally defeat the rebel army, and retake Cupercourt, and he won every engagement that he had to turn his power fist on for. Were it not for the horrible bungling of his impromptu officer corps, was leading an otherwise successful strategic withdraw into the forest.
What's strange about Melchoir is that he wins every battle but, in the end, loses the war. It's interesting that the one failure overshadows all the other success.
I don't really know how I could show Melchoir as more of a straightforward or soldierly person, though. I feel like almost everything he does in this book sticks with that character type. Perhaps it was more of an issue of the character clicking less, than it was with something lacking in his description? I hope?
Sgt. Oddball wrote:Maybe a little extra could be done to make Damien more of a good guy. To me he was the crook to begin with and his desire for a secure future not very legitimate.
Well, the problem with making him a straight good guy in the beginning means he runs the same risks that you say you have with Jaines. If the character is too likable in the beginning, how convincing of a bad guy will he be in the end?
In any case, it's once again a contrast with Jaines. There needed to be at least one proper, conventional villain, and I didn't want it to be her. Because...
Sgt. Oddball wrote:I have trouble considering Jaines the main antagonist too, as she’s so over the top silly.
“Jaines' mental health issues.”
I think this could possibly be a little more subtle if she is to be the main antagonist as I found her quirks entertaining, especially early on, but they made it hard to take her serious as a character and it also hurt the credibility of the plot at times, for me.
“Jaines was set up from the very beginning to be the main antagonist.”
Were we supposed to notice from the start?
“She's nuts. In the beginning you see her OCD as a cute character trait, a bit of weird on a funky kind of girl. But then "more hoes" becomes "alphebetizing rebels" becomes "shooting rats in basement" becomes "letting hundreds get slaughtered because she won't change her attack plan because it has symmetry", and at every step, the laughter becomes a little more nervous.”
This does work nicely, not sure about the rats though.
“it all comes crashing down on her in the end.”
Does it really? She seems to come out on top all the time. I guess she won’t quite survive taking the envoy, but she seems to keep on ‘winning’ throughout the story even though she’s clearly insane.
So, Jaines was the trickiest character to balance for me. Originally, as mentioned, she was going to be the main antagonist, but, like Melchoir, she sort of gets softened as the other characters got bulked up more.
The important part with her, though, is that she's NOT supposed to be the classical villain. You aren't meant to hate her. If anything, you're supposed to be on her side at the beginning, which is some of the reason behind the silliness. She's the youthful energy you cheer for, not the power-mad Damien, or the apparently-aloof Melchoir. The end shouldn't be obvious from the beginning in this case. The two sides should come across as roughly equal in the reader's favor (or with a slight bent against the Folerans).
So no, she's supposed to develop as an antagonist over the course of the book, rather than start out as one, like Damien.
The apex of this character, though, is that, like the best-written parts of the other characters, she drags you into her world. Part of what makes her so crazy is her insane sense of positivism. Melchoir leaves temporarily to lead the assault on Cupercourt, and in her mind it becomes him fleeing the capital, afraid of her and her army, the city ripe for conquest. And, of course, it sort of isn't, and her version of reality is questioned to her face. Her reaction, of course, is to steamroll over it, declaring her position again by the power of assertion. You see it again with her final chapter with the imperial envoy. You're sort of left to question if she genuinely believes that everything is fine, if she thinks that things will be fine if only she believes in it, or if she understands things are falling apart, and she's just lying about it.
And the funny thing is that, at least in this case, it worked. Just like how you thought that Melchoir failed at everything, so you've ended with the impression that she was a winner and came out ahead when, in fact, she failed at everything the entire book, except for the one thing that really mattered. She just pretends like every loss is a win. In a way, you've gotten kind of sucked up in her delusion, which was exactly the point.
Apart from the silliness, though, what else comes across as particularly incredible about the character?
Sgt. Oddball wrote:Gilbert
Well, the thing is that he's not stupid. He's not just some hopeless flunky, even if that's sort of how he winds up in the end. What his tale is is one of compassion gone deeply awry. About a desire to help married to dangerous ideas about religion and governance, rather than to a sound ethical code. About enabling, rather than supporting. I guess if you think this all comes across as stupidity, then welcome to conservative politics, I suppose.
For me, Gilbert's final chapter is the apogee of the book. It's sort of the manifesto of everything that has gone wrong in the entire story. The spiritual soul to the complete tragic failure.
And yeah, it's implied that things will go very, VERY badly for Gilbert once the story continues on. He'll probably get ripped apart by a pink tentacle monster or get burned to death by the inquisition, or bombarded from orbit. In a way, the fact that he thinks he's won makes his ultimate demise just the sweeter.
Sgt. Oddball wrote:“And I want to completely re-write the bathtub scene with Melchoir and Rochefield. It's cute and clever and endears you to Melchoir somewhat, but it's too much of a break with his character-as-presented, in this book at least. It makes him look a little too much like Jaines, I think.”
I actually liked that scene, gave M some character.
And I decided to keep it, actually. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was the second time around. The one chapter that did get seriously rewritten was the chapter where Claire is pining for Lucas before her phone call with her father. That half of the chapter got completely cut in favor of a scene with her in her office. It gives more reaction to the granary massacre, and shows her in her professional duties a bit before the mid-point of the book.
Sgt. Oddball wrote:Oh, and about the cover: I agree about not doing anything like the three examples you posted. They're really uninspired. I do still think the cover could represent the story better, including the 'flap text' (keep the last bit though, "they are faced ... themselves" is great).
I've gotten mixed reviews. Like you, someone else has noted that it has nothing to do with the story, while my editor really liked it for being clean and unconventional, and showing an example of what Geomides looks like on the cover.
I'll still be working on it for the next few weeks until the edit comes back in. I'll post a few other cover designs as I work on them if I can be bothered.
Sgt. Oddball wrote:Thanks for the read.
I should be the one thanking you. I've written in mass volume over the past years, but, in the end, it doesn't really matter outside of how it affects other people. This book would be literally worthless if no one read it. The fact that you not only read it, but also thought about it for a moment completely validates what I've done.
Now I just need to get several thousand more people to do the same. It will help once it goes on sale, I'm sure.
"What I'd really like to know if there were things that came across ONLY as telling and never showing."
No, it's telling on top of showing. Almost as if you're worried whether or not the message gets across.
"This is one of the few things that I've straight-up copied from Dune."
Dune is actually one of my childhood favorites. I should read that again. I went into the sequels as well but I wouldn't advise anyone to do so, they're tough reads. I guess my gripe with your ending is that the choice to sort of round off Melchoir but not Lucas seemed random. I was sure M and L would meet again after they sort of became best friends forever digging the ditch. Jaines' fate seems clear enough, so does Gilbert's, Damien is dead. Claire has sort of trailed off. It's just Lucas who still seemed to be up to stuff and then it just stopped. Though I guess this kind of reaction is precisely what you'd want .
"This is a genuine shock to me. Especially as Lucas is rather tangential to the main story (the revolution), only interacting with it in the minor role involving the rebel capture of Cupercourt."
I guess it has to do with him being the guy in the prologue, the guy with the love interest (who tends to be the main character in most stories I guess) and, as you said, that you keep using him for stuff out of convenience. He's also the guy in thé epic duel in the story. It may also be that the 'unwilling hero' character appeals to me. Has one simple object, doesn't want to be involved in anything else, yet gets tangled up.
"The main reason I included the romance novel arc in the first place was to force me to have at least one female character, and to increase the appeal of female readers"
Something I neglected to say in my previous post: the women in the story are basically introduced by their breasts. This didn't sit too well with me and not sure if it would appeal to female readers, but then what do I know .
"Mel-choir. Mel like the name, choir as in the group of people who sing."
Yeah I thought it must be. Basically what he says in the story anyway. Is this name based on something existing? My brain makes it Melchior all the time.
"I think it's funny that you say that he's always failing though, as the opposite is the case."
I guess he does alright in the actual actions he takes, but all the time I see him failing as governor. He believes things will get better, but to the reader it's quite clear they're not. Nothing he does actually gains him support. Part of tragedy I guess .
"Perhaps it was more of an issue of the character clicking less, than it was with something lacking in his description? I hope?"
I really don't know. Maybe Melchoir is someone so clear in your mind as he's been a character in your reports and sort of an avatar that he would automatically be much more alive to you as author than to me as reader. Or maybe that there's a bit much of 'it wasn't supposed to be this way' naivety from him, almost Gilbert-like. However, I may also just have overstated things a bit. I do like the character M.
(Damien)
"Well, the problem with making him a straight good guy in the beginning means he runs the same risks that you say you have with Jaines. If the character is too likable in the beginning, how convincing of a bad guy will he be in the end?"
With Jaines it's not so much "she seems nice, how could she be the bad person", but rather "she is so clearly insane, why does anyone follow her" I don't have an issue with Damien being unlikeable from the beginning, I just found it interesting that he was slated to be a good guy. His possibly legit desire around the lines of "look, I helped fix this place up, now gimme something in return here" still works, but the "he's an a**hole" side is definitely stronger. Which is fine by me.
(Jaines) "Apart from the silliness, though, what else comes across as particularly incredible about the character?"
Not so much the character, which is nice, but that she manages to remain leader of the revolution despite, as you said, her constant failures (which means she keeps winning despite them) and clear insanity. This slight absurdness is generally a good thing though, I think.
(cover) "my editor really liked it for being clean and unconventional, and showing an example of what Geomides looks like on the cover."
There's definitely stuff to be said for your cover. I guess it's no so much the concept as the execution of the cover. Just trees as the cover will probably work. The actual image is however so... mundane... the top bit is nice with how the light falls, but the bottom is very... grey... In a way it makes me think of those old books that are no longer in copyright and are sold as on-demand reprints with some random cover art of a flower or some such. And then there's the text that says ruin, desolation, lost world, and there's this tranquil picture of a forest behind it.
I'll stop rambling now. Basically I think that with some polishing, which you're undoubtedly now doing with your editor, it'll be great. After all, a story that doesn't make the reader go "Wait, wut? But I thought..." several times is probably not very interesting .
Sgt. Oddball wrote:"What I'd really like to know if there were things that came across ONLY as telling and never showing."
No, it's telling on top of showing. Almost as if you're worried whether or not the message gets across.
Ah, okay. I suppose I could prune it back a bit. Are there any particularly egregious ones that you found distracting?
I do know that I have to keep a few of them in, though, like where Jaines and Gilbert trash talk Melchoir, as its important to their respective characters that they think that. Probably some in the beginning as well - the curse of exposition.
Sgt. Oddball wrote:I guess my gripe with your ending is that the choice to sort of round off Melchoir but not Lucas seemed random.
Well part of it is a reason you'd probably think worse than random: I needed to write something in there that gave Melchoir an out so that he could be used in a future narrative, while Lucas was a spent force. Even in the best case scenario where everybody survives and Lucas and Claire manage to meet up and make it back to Cupercourt, well, then they'd settle down into a life together. Their role as an adventuresome force of action is already spent, even, if I'm honest, before the end of the book. Whereas Melchoir is probably going to wind up in, at least, a future battle report series of mine, so I had to find some way for him to escape.
I suppose the one "good" reason would be that Melchoir is the only one who stood any reasonable chance of escaping Geomides. Lucas was a relative nobody - some civilian who might die of starvation, or any other horrible civilian fate. Melchoir, on the other hand, is a person with connections and comes from a position of power. In the worst case scenario, you know that he at least would have been afforded a trial before being killed by the inquisition. In the end, I don't know how much less ambiguous Melchoir's fate is than Lucas'.
Though it is kind of interesting, to me at least, that I put the last chapter in as an epilogue, as it sort of implies that it's not "really" part of the story. That it's a proposed ending if you don't want Melchoir's last chapter to be him bravely fighting his hopeless cause to the bitter end, to be laid face down in a ditch out in the wilderness.
The epilogue does change a bunch, actually. Without it, everyone's fate is left in equal doubt, while the epilogue sort of swoops in and basically says "they all die in the end, I hope you're happy".
Sgt. Oddball wrote:"This is a genuine shock to me. Especially as Lucas is rather tangential to the main story (the revolution), only interacting with it in the minor role involving the rebel capture of Cupercourt."
I guess it has to do with him being the guy in the prologue, the guy with the love interest (who tends to be the main character in most stories I guess) and, as you said, that you keep using him for stuff out of convenience. He's also the guy in thé epic duel in the story. It may also be that the 'unwilling hero' character appeals to me. Has one simple object, doesn't want to be involved in anything else, yet gets tangled up.
You're right of course, which is also a surprise to me. Once again, I think it's due to unintentionality.
For example, in the case of Damien, I was 2/3rds convinced over the course of the writing that he was going to survive until the end. At first, perhaps, as the lurking threat, also trying to hunt down Claire in the wilderness, adding the suspense of if he'd find her first, or if he'd find Lucas. As the writing progressed, it became more clear to me that there had to be some catharsis, especially as his actions took a turn from the brutish to the outright criminal. Even then, there could have been an ending where he was captured by Jaines awaiting judicial torture and murder - the idea of the reader's imagination outstripping anything made explicit as far as gruesomeness was concerned.
Eventually, though, I settled on killing him. The only question was how. It couldn't be Melchoir, because it wouldn't make sense (why the two didn't fight to the death in the office), and it couldn't be Gilbert, who had sworn off violence, or Claire who, by the mid-point in the book wouldn't have been in a position where they could meet. It couldn't be Rochefield who, by that point, it was figured out needed to be killed by Damien as part of Melchoir's fall. That just left Lucas and Jaines, and I didn't want to pollute Jaines' revolution story just as it was reaching its climax with something unrelated.
As such, Lucas sort of got stuck with doing the deed by default. Much of the rest of what he does was arrived at by similar means. It is more than interesting to me that I sort of accidentally made a hero, now that you pointed it out.
It's also very interesting that you say that, like Claire, one of his defining features is that he just wants to get on with his life and not get wrapped up in the main event. For some reason I hadn't even considered that a point of commonality between the two.
Sgt. Oddball wrote:"The main reason I included the romance novel arc in the first place was to force me to have at least one female character, and to increase the appeal of female readers"
Something I neglected to say in my previous post: the women in the story are basically introduced by their breasts. This didn't sit too well with me and not sure if it would appeal to female readers, but then what do I know .
Well, it's strange. As uncouth and awful as it appears, I was actually just copying romance novels.
My guess is that as much as a few screaming feminists don't want women to be judged by their bodies, deep down, most women judge themselves by their bodies. I guess the most obvious way of this is with boobs.
I can't claim to truly understand it either. It's more of a case of if other people are doing it and raking in cash, well... there must be something going on there. If there are still any women left on dakka, it would be nice to get their point of view on it.
Sgt. Oddball wrote:"Mel-choir. Mel like the name, choir as in the group of people who sing."
Yeah I thought it must be. Basically what he says in the story anyway. Is this name based on something existing? My brain makes it Melchior all the time.
It's a relic. Secretly, this book is the sequel to my 6th edition battle reports, and I don't want to change the name. Even though "Melchior" is a real name, and "Melchoir" rather isn't.
As for why Melchoir in the first place, his name was pilfered from the name of the guy who wrote the tune "St. Theodulf", most commonly sung to the hymn "All Glory, Laud, and Honor". Yes, I really am that much of a nerd.
Of course, it got filtered through a dyslexic brain, the letters got switched and that's been that way ever since. My only defense is that in the world of SF/fantasy, people come up with all sorts of crazy names and variations on them all the time. So there.
Sgt. Oddball wrote:"I think it's funny that you say that he's always failing though, as the opposite is the case."
I guess he does alright in the actual actions he takes, but all the time I see him failing as governor. He believes things will get better, but to the reader it's quite clear they're not. Nothing he does actually gains him support. Part of tragedy I guess .
And the weird part is that this is the kind of job he wants, but only in some fictional, idealized way. It's part of the kind of alienation of Melchoir that he is, in fact, rather poorly suited to the job of being governor. It's part of the tragedy that, even then, he was still the best qualified...
Sgt. Oddball wrote:"Perhaps it was more of an issue of the character clicking less, than it was with something lacking in his description? I hope?"
I really don't know. Maybe Melchoir is someone so clear in your mind as he's been a character in your reports and sort of an avatar that he would automatically be much more alive to you as author than to me as reader.
Certainly. Part of it too, though, is the Melchoir is the most complicated character. In a way, Lucas is the archetypical rogue character, and Jaines is the typical wild and crazy girl, and Damien is certainly a classical villain. Melchoir, though, doesn't fit neatly into an archetype. He's an ineffective leader, but you wouldn't call him a Richard III or a King John or a King Lear kind of character. Likewise, he's personally brave, but his modesty and circumstances prevent him from being a heroic Henry V or a Richard I. He's down to earth and vaguely conservative (with a small "c"), but he loses folksome charm in the face of a sort of contrived neuroticism.
Perhaps if you don't have the clearest idea of what his angle is, it's because neither do I. Everything Melchoir does makes sense in my mind, but not as the result of something that can be neatly categorized into tropes.
Actually, wait. I CAN provide an example. If you've got netflix, go and watch the Ralph Feinnes version of Coriolanus. Melchoir is sort of like the titular character who, come to think of it, meets not too dissimilar of a fate.
Sgt. Oddball wrote:(Damien)
"Well, the problem with making him a straight good guy in the beginning means he runs the same risks that you say you have with Jaines. If the character is too likable in the beginning, how convincing of a bad guy will he be in the end?"
With Jaines it's not so much "she seems nice, how could she be the bad person", but rather "she is so clearly insane, why does anyone follow her" I don't have an issue with Damien being unlikeable from the beginning, I just found it interesting that he was slated to be a good guy. His possibly legit desire around the lines of "look, I helped fix this place up, now gimme something in return here" still works, but the "he's an a**hole" side is definitely stronger. Which is fine by me.
Ah. This is another example of pre-writing not surviving contact with writing. By the time it came to the first chapter, I already wanted him to be a villain. The fact that he is not, in fact, that bad of a guy in the beginning is something better left to critical commentary than made explicit in the story. You're never supposed to feel outright sympathy for him as a reader.
Sgt. Oddball wrote:In a way it makes me think of those old books that are no longer in copyright and are sold as on-demand reprints with some random cover art of a flower or some such.
Hmm, that's a bit difficult to un-see. I don't think it's THAT bad, though.
I think a part of what's going on is that the books I'm copying my ideas from are more big bestsellers that tend to have much more simplistic cover art than the indie stuff that I'm actually writing. For example, Tom Clancy's work at the moment on Amazon is just sort of his name, the title, and a single, simple graphic. I'm not Tom Clancy, of course, but I still wear a suit to a job interview, even if I have no intention of wearing one to the job. Just as one dresses for the job one wants, I'm likewise trying to copy the kind of sales I want.
Ailaros wrote: Are there any particularly egregious ones that you found distracting?
No, not individual ones I think. If there's something annoying I'm sure your editor will pick up on it. I think it might just be that thing where as a reader you pick up on a writer's typical ways of saying things and some stick in your mind. I tried to find some examples for M. They were supposed to be in order but I think I messed up:
Even Melchoir's active imagination had failed to cope with the scale of this place.
Melchoir didn't consider himself a particularly religious person.
Like himself, his staff was largely populated by a certain battlefield practicality. A certain make-do attitude that came from surviving the worst kinds of hell without proper supplies, or without proper orders.
It seemed reasonable, of course, and he was never good at this kind of silly power plays based on an askance glance or a hurt feeling.
He had spent so much time pouring through ledgers and overseeing projects in person that he had somehow failed to win any local allies outside of the Council.
He thought of himself as someone with a certain practical flexibility, who took things into consideration and decided on what seemed best at the time.
“You were always the political one, Damien,” Melchoir finally spoke in a neutral tone of voice, “I never had the talent for all this”
He didn't really think of himself as being dependable, because it came so automatically to him.
Now all of these individually are fine. I guess there's just lots that especially M. thinks about himself. Though, I guess when you're doing several 'main' characters there's no real time to really develop all of them anyway. A nicer way to relate how M. prefers military to politics, I thought, was this:
"It was certainly proving more frustrating than his military command. You could order a platoon to take a bridge, but not a whole planet to just do things right. Everything here was a bargain or a negotiation. Power was traded like currency, and nobody would make a trade unless it benefited them personally. Nevermind the right thing to do, what was in it for them?"
I may also just be seeing ghosts. There's no way to read anything 'for the first time' again so no way to kind of check what made me notice what I did. Maybe when I re-read the story I'll disagree with myself entirely. If you do rewrite some stuff then please don't do so because you think you should, but only if yóu (and possibly the editor ) think it's better.
Ailaros wrote: If there are still any women left on dakka
There are no women on the internet, don't you know?
Ailaros wrote: My only defense is that in the world of SF/fantasy, people come up with all sorts of crazy names and variations on them all the time.
Weird name is good. Especially in the beginning Melchoir 'dying inside' for the butchering of his name as a running gag thing is quite good. I was just wondering about the background.
Ailaros wrote: Tom Clancy's work at the moment on Amazon is just sort of his name, the title, and a single, simple graphic
I don't actually like that Clancy cover. But the thing with him and others, of course, is that all he needs is his name in big print. The Dune cover is classier and something you could do, though it has the same "Buy me I'm Herbert" thing even bigger than the title.
You could give the trees-image something of a mood:
Wow, you're a lot better at this than I am. Are you a proper designer, or something?
Also, especially when it comes to the cover art...
If you do rewrite some stuff then please don't do so because you think you should, but only if yóu (and possibly the editor ) think it's better.
The thing is, I've already written this book up to the level of where I'd want to read it. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother going forward from here.
In a way, once I handed it over to an editor, I took the step from writing something for me to writing something for others. The me-focus part is over, now it's time to focus on everybody else. Making editorial changes that will broaden its appeal, for example, or make it more readable for the readers. The same is true of the cover art. In a way, it sort of doesn't matter if I like it, as really the point is to snag other people's attention.
The problem is, of course, I'm not everybody else, I'm just me. Hence the need for others' feedback or, in the case of cover art, input.
Taking a look at what you threw together, I of course like it. I (and my wife) especially like the last one. It definitely looks like a real cover to a real book being published right now.
I guess my concern with it is a throwback into the general problem I'm having with the cover. Because what I really want to do is to avoid pushing people away, I think I'm going to wind up with something that looks rather generic as a consequence of being inoffensive. So, for that matter, look a lot of bestsellers these days. I do agree that having just a name and a title is crappy, and having the name bigger than the title is strictly wrong, but it still leaves me with the same problem, even if I don't fall into either of those traps.
As you said, my best effort so far does sort of look like a public domain redo with a stock photo, and that's bad. I think the best one of your series, though, suffers from the problem of being generic from the other side. That cover looks so much like what else is being actually published right now... that it sort of doesn't stand out in my mind from everything else being published right now. The name and title on the book could really be anything.
What I think I need is something like what you've been putting up - something that looks credible, mainstream, and sellable - but yet has something about it that would identify it if it were thrown into a big pile of books. Something that identifies it at 150 feet away, or in a 150x100px thumbnail.
I wish I weren't so rubbish at this. I've done graphic design over the years, mostly for websites, and despite my interest in the field, my actual execution on design is always so crappy. My skills really don't match my ambition, here.
All right, this is it - the final update before this book goes on sale!
My editor, trapped in the snowy confines of the mountains of Montana and with nothing better to do, finished editing my book early. I got the manuscript and associated goodies shortly before the new year.
After taking a week off to finish the construction phase of a big terrain piece I've been working on while waiting for the edit, I got to work. After a couple of weeks, I can now report that I'm just over 1/3rd of the way through.
It's kind of interesting because this time I went to the end, and am editing it back to front, to try and clear out any residual flow and pacing biases that might remain. Otherwise, this last round is rather unremarkable. Basically skimming over a chapter and reading the editor's notes and fixing the problems, and then turning edit view off and just reading the chapter again. I'll pick up a few things here and there to change, and occasionally my editor has, in the name of grammar, reworded things a little strangely that I've got to fix (and not just revert). Otherwise, I'm just accepting the changes without even reading them. If it sounds right, then all the better that it actually IS right.
Anyways, I'm still going to be working on it for a little while, and then I've got to format it for Kindle Services. That and I need to actually get cover art I like lined up, but that's it. Then it gets published.
My tentative release date is going to be february 15th. If I make it, this saga of writing will wrap up at about the 10-month mark.
The funny thing is that I haven't actually been writing since I got done with this at the end of July. That means that by the end of February, I'll have gone seven months without writing, and can actually sort of see the appeal again, especially after all these months of editing. I guess this is how real writers are able to keep it up, going from book to book.
Anyways, I just wanted to check in. A couple more weeks and you, too, can own a copy!
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Oh, and to sneak a couple of comments in before the end:
There are actually two references to Ogre Battle here. Gilbert I-just-want-whats-best-for-my-people Allard, and Warren deLune, who is named after this guy:
Just as Warren Moon is a leader of a small, disaffected group of people who interviews the main character before deciding to join in, starting the rebellion, so he plays the same role here in this story. Warren invariably, though unintentionally, becomes evil in the game, just as how he does in the book.
I also noted something else in my final edit. Go through and read the chapters where Gilbert interacts with other main characters. It's unsurprising, given that he's an enabler, but those chapters wind up being exposés on the characters he's interacting with. The chapter near the middle with him and Claire is Claire at her Clairiest, for example. Other than perhaps the assassination scene, the one with Lucas and Gilbert shows him at his most wholesome, and, of course, Gilbert and Damien winds up with the latter finally coming to grips with who he is, and what he should have been doing all along, and the chapter with Melchoir shows his discomfort with politics and military mindset and demands that people just do their jobs to make things better. Even the chapter with Jaines shows her craziness and feelings of being trapped while trying to manipulate herself out of her situation and ending right where she started. I only wish I had a chapter with him and Rochefield but I guess its absence, in a way, is also fitting.
Okay, I lied. THIS is going to be the last post before the book goes on sale.
So, I'm finally done editing! For real!
The whole process was rather surprising. I'm surprised by how long this took, over +50% of the time it took to write it in the first place. I'm also surprised at how hard it was. I had some burnout during writing, but editing was a whole extra level of gruelling.
I have learned quite a bit in the process, though. Probably the biggest take-away I have from it is this: before I started, I thought the point of editing was to more-exactly match the words I used to the idea in my mind. Now, I understand the point of editing to be making it so that the words I use conjure in the mind of the reader the same image I have in my mind. The editing isn't what makes my writing project better, it's what turns a writing project into something other people can relate to, and thus purchase.
The last round (the one I did after getting it professionally edited) taught me a lot of other things as well, but the biggest enlightenment, writing-wise, was that I finally discovered the evil spirit that has been haunting my work this entire time: sequencing errors.
It took me almost the entire of my final round to systematically understand this problem (requiring me to do an extra, brief round just to look for this problem), but it's the source of so much of what's bothered me about this work.
Let's start with a couple of examples.
Here is the beginning of the prologue as written in the rough draft+edit round 1:
Spoiler:
His breathing came fast and ragged. Desperately, he forced himself through the underbrush, a thousand claws raking his face and chest as twigs and leaves snapped and scattered around him. He gasped in pain as he struggled to keep up the pace. The pain on his skin and his burning lungs and muscles were a nuisance. His probably-broken ankle, on the other hand...
Dirt gave way under his boots as he climbed a shallow slope, the height letting him catch glimpses of white uniforms plowing through the forest after him. A hollow pop exploded in the bark of a tall maple tree in front of him followed by the snapping crack of the gunshot. He had to keep going, or they meant to murder him. Well, murder was probably the wrong word. They only meant to make him pay for what he'd done.
“I can't keep going!” came a frantic shout from behind and to his left. “I can't!” it repeated before another snap-crack of gunfire threw a shot into the trunk of a tree, and the second shot missed, firing up into the canopy with a strange, wet braa-AAAAP-ppp as the laser weapon cauterized a hundred leaves on its way up through the branches.
“You just keep going!” he shouted back, but he was beyond caring now. It was every man for himself, and the fate of himself was still far from certain. His ankle smashed pain through his body as he ran limping between a pair of giant pines. The grey and heavy sky weighed down on the needles above. It was getting darker. If there was any favor in the universe, it would get foggy again soon. If there was any justice, it wouldn't.
“Lucas!” the other man shouted again, “Don't you dare leave me! I can't keep going!” By now, his voice wasn't the only one. The harsh, chattering, alien voices of the soldiers behind were coming forward, trailed by those who spoke them and their guns. “Halt!” commanded one of them, the voice echoing between wooden pillars all around them, getting lost in the soggy air. “Lucas!” came another. “Lucas, please!”
The pines gave way along with the angle of the ground, and suddenly he was charging downhill, straight into a thicket. He was strong, but he hit the branches at low speed. The shrubs engulfed him and then grabbed fast. He reached his arm out desperately – clawing, pushing, shoving, bending, snapping. With a harsh kick, he managed to shove away a tangling branch, almost collapsing in searing anguish as his other foot gave way to the pain.
His heart pounded in his head. His lungs followed. He was completely trapped. He had to get out.
With one final, frantic thrash, Lucas emerged bloody from the hedge. The world gave way beneath him and in a moment he was sliding uncontrollably down the rocky hillside. Wet pine needles sprayed up with the dirt around him, crashing onto saplings and rolling down after him. After crashing leg-first into an upturned root he managed to slow himself to a stop. A trickling flood of forest debris joined him and tumbled lightly all the way into the creek below, the faint splashing sounding distant against the shouting behind him.
They'd caught up to Nathan. That's what the shouting meant. It wouldn't be long now for him, and, if they had their way, it wouldn't be long for Lucas either.
More shouting. Then a gunshot. Then another.
And here is the final product:
Spoiler:
His breath came fast and ragged. Eyes searching, desperate to find a way out. An endless maze of trees and broken wilderness closing in around him.
Dirt and pebbles tumbled down into the ravine as he struggled up the slope, grasping at the roots of trees to pull him to the top. He scrambled to his feet, turning to look behind him, catching glimpses of white uniforms between the trees below. The soldiers were still chasing him, still shouting, still charging through the forest. He had to keep running, or they meant to murder him.
Well, murder was probably the wrong word. They only meant to make him pay for what he'd done.
A gunshot cracked through the air, the red oak next to him bursting out a puff of bark and splinters. Another shot missed with a strange wet braa-AAAAP-ppp as the laser weapon ripped through the canopy. He turned and ran, forcing his way through the tangled underbrush. Twigs and leaves snapped and scattered, gouging at his face.
Suddenly, the angle of the ground gave way. He gasped, falling forward, sliding straight into a thicket. The shrubs engulfed him as he hit the wall of branches, trapping him completely. He reached his arm out desperately – clawing, pushing, shoving. Thrashing frantically against the twisting bark. Kicking away a web of sticks and leaves.
With a final shout, he burst from the hedge. He careened, bloody, down the rocky hillside. Dirt and pine needles sprayed up as he fell, chasing after him in a cloud of dust and flying stones. He crashed leg first into an upturned root, hand catching against a sapling, slipping from his grasp as he fell. With all his strength he clawed at the soil, reaching out for something to grab onto.
He caught the base of a tree, jerking to a sudden stop. The trickling flood of forest debris joined him, rushing all the way down to the creek below, the faint splashing heard over the shouting behind him.
“I can't keep going!” a frantic voice yelled. “I can't!”
“You can make it!” he shouted back, but he was beyond caring now. It was every man for himself, and his own fate was far from certain.
“Lucas!” the other man shouted again. “Don't you dare leave me! I can't keep going!”
“Halt! Stop right there!” one of the soldiers barked in his harsh foreign accent.
“Lucas! Lucas, help!” the voice echoed through the treetops.
They'd caught up to Nathan, he thought as he gasped for breath, looking for where to run next. It wouldn't be long before they caught him, either.
More shouting broke out. The sounds of a struggle. Then a gunshot. Then another. Silence.
He swallowed hard.
So, what's a sequencing error? In short, it's when I have two ideas that are split apart by a different idea wedged in between them. In a more complex form, it's when I have an idea spread out over several paragraphs with lots in between them. Sort of like a checkerboard.
So, look at the first draft of the prologue, and map out the concepts. You get.
A.) Lucas is running through the forest.
B.) Lucas is injured
C.) Lucas is being chased by Folerans.
D.) The Folerans are shooting at him.
E.) The Folerans have a reason to catch him.
F.) Nathan is behind him.
D.) The Folerans are shooting at him.
F.) Nathan is behind him.
B.) Lucas is injured
A.) Lucas is running through the forest.
E.) The Folerans have a reason to catch him.
F.) Nathan is behind him.
C.) Lucas is being chased by Folerans.
A.) Lucas is running through the forest.
F.) Nathan is behind him.
D.) The Folerans are shooting at him.
Now look at the sequence of events in the final draft:
A.) Lucas is running through the forest.
B.) Lucas is being chased by Folerans.
C.) The Folerans have a reason to catch him.
D.) The Folerans are shooting at him.
A.) Lucas is running through the forest.
E.) Nathan is behind him.
F.) The Folerans catch Nathan.
So, there's a lot that's been fixed about that sequence. In the original, things keep going back and forth between the different ideas. The reader is sort of forced to remember everything that's happening all at once, rather than allowing the sequence to guide them smoothly from one topic to another. Without it, the book reads more slowly, and is more difficult to follow, and results in me getting kind of bored much faster.
And by pooling like concepts next to each other, it allows me to have stronger transitions between ideas. In the revised text, you have the nice, smooth transition of "he's running" to "he's being chased" to "he's being chased by people who want to kill him" to "those people are shooting at him right now". A nice, logical flow, rather than having to transition cold between concepts.
One of the results of that is a lot of weight shedding. If I don't need to keep re-introducing ideas, or repeating myself to make sure you're still remembering what's going on, and don't have to have bulky transitions between ideas, it means I could cut a lot of structural text.
A LOT of structural text, in fact. At its height, this book was roughly 237,250 words long. My final draft, as it stands, is 210,753. That's a loss of about 26,500 words. That's 11%. That's nearly TEN WHOLE CHAPTERS of text that's been cut.
But the weird thing is, not all that much of it was detail. It was just structural bloat. The book is a lot leaner and more efficient. It also reads much faster. So much so, that in some places I had to add new detail back in to make the pace a little more relaxed.
The only place where detail was just straight lost was in those big blocks of exposition, especially at the beginnings of the middle chapters. A lot of it was interesting, but not strictly relevant, so it got cut to get to the action or the dialogue faster. I only hope I didn't cut too much.
I did manage, at least, to keep the more descriptive passages more at-length. This book isn't JUST about action and dialogue. There is interaction with the setting as well.
Also, now that I've re-read the book so many times, and especially since I've done a final skimming over the first page of every chapter (which gives me a better sense of overall pace), there have been another pile of things I've realized about this book. I'm sure some of you saw this immediately, but, well, I guess it's nice to know that the book can still surprise its author.
Such as. In Damien’s last chapter, he starts with a paranoid monologue. Put another way, he finally makes it to the point where Jaines starts.
Damien is also an interesting example of that kind of detail creep I was talking about in the afterword. You know he’s a bad guy from the beginning, but the chapters are all in a setting where you don't really see how he'd a bad guy. It all happens off stage. You know that he preys on vulnerability in general, but it’s not until about mid-way through the book that you start getting to see how the proverbial sausage is made.
It’s a case of going from him being bad to HOW he’s being bad, specifically. Just in time, of course, for him to snap and become truly psychotic.
Claire’s story isn't actually a romance. It’s actually a coming-of-age story. She starts out as the naïve girl trying to meet everyone else’s expectations, goes through a long period of transition, and in the end comes out as a grown woman who can make serious choices about herself. She even has that moment where her mentor dies (her father), cutting her free to be her own person. Sort of like the reason Obi-Wan dies, except it happens at the end of the book, rather than towards the middle.
More than once, I had the temptation to remove a Melchoir chapter completely, especially the tub scene and the one where he saves the transformer. I now know that the reason why is, in effect, because those whole chapters were sequencing errors. The two chapters on either side flow naturally into each other, but have this sort of foreign object placed in the middle.
The end effect is that Melchoir’s chapters don’t really fit in with the main action, which, despite it being an error, is indicative of Melchoir himself. Just like how his middle chapters have nothing to do with the rebels or the insurgency, so Melchoir himself isn't really doing anything to work with those issues.
Just as how Melchoir’s chapters distract from the main action, so it shows how Melchoir is, himself, distracted from the main action – a necessary component of his downfall. If you wonder why there’s a chapter with him taking a bath instead of hunting down Jaines, then… well… yeah, how come he’s not hunting down Jaines? He’s got to get his priorities straight… which is sort of the point of Melchoir’s character in the first place.
You can also see the revealing effect with Melchoir as well as Damien. In the middle, you see Melchoir taking a bath, not dealing with the insurgents. Presumably he’s still keeping himself clean later on, but those scenes are all laid out where you see him focusing on what he’s supposed to be focusing on. Perhaps he WAS trying to hunt down Jaines, you just didn't see it before, while the later chapters allow him to shine more.
It’s also funny that Melchoir constantly complains that the Council doesn't really do anything, and because of the way the scenes are cut, that’s exactly what it looks like. With one exception, the Council doesn't actually do a single thing… except for depose Melchoir at the end.
It’s interesting too that Lucas’ story is really about redemption, and that he is pinning all of his hopes of said redemption on Claire. As a result, he never achieves that redemption, because he never finds Claire. Even moreso, though, because of his devotion to this plan, he is actually preventing his own redemption.
I mean, Lucas transforms from a rebel into a citizen halfway through the book. He COULD have decided to settle down in Bellemonde. Get a job and a house while he waited for Claire, or, in time, have let her go and tried to find someone else to share his life with.
But it’s because of Claire that he puts aside his redemption, relying on those rebel skills over and over again in his search. Another example of the characters doing it to themselves.
And there’s a weird little irony in there as well. Lucas spends his time behaving like a rebel, though wishing he weren’t. There is exactly one time in the book where he succeeds in not behaving like a rebel – when he fails to assassinate Melchoir.
Because he failed to do this, it ensured that the battle for Cupercourt would continue on, rather than ending abruptly and giving Claire a chance to stay in the city where Lucas could find her. It also ensured that Melchoir would lead an assault, which is what drove Claire to flee.
The one time he doesn't act like a rebel is the one time where if he did, he would actually have gotten Claire, while the rest of the time he behaved like a rebel, it didn't get him anything. If he had been consistent either way, he would likely have gotten her, but instead he chose to be a nice guy that one time, and that brief moment of redemption damns him for the rest of the book.
Anyways, what's next? It's going to get partially-proofread, and formatted, which won't be more than a week. I buy an ISBN, and slap a cover on it, and that's it.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is that. After three hundred and twenty two days, this book is now officially finished. You can buy yourself a copy of this book by clicking here!
Thank you so much for those few of you who have followed this crazy adventure. If I can figure out how to set it up, I'll try and get a promo code for dakka users.
Now it's just cleaning up this thread (the first few chapters have been updated in their final form, and the rest are going to have the first few paragraphs of the gold copy slapped in there), and figuring out how to convince people to get a copy...
. Either way don't use it as there's possibly some sort of copyright on those faces.
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