It's not actually one third done, since one of the chapters in the middle if twice the length of an ordinary chapter, but we can pretend that I am one third done! I think Chapter 5 is exciting for a variety of reasons.
- It's the unofficial gateway to "act 2" where introductions are quite done with and the meat of the story is underway.
- Day to day life is over - all the principals are in some type of peril and have no way to escape it. Of course, much of this peril is the direct result of either their own actions, or the actions of one of the other principals!
- It's told from the point of view of all of them, whereas chapters 1 - 4 are divided with Nightfall and Jyre on the odd side, and Ghost and Lytha on the even one. Sheam is a bit of a nomad, appearing in 2, 3, and 4. (No James yet; as readers of the original will remember, he does not appear in the story until around the middle.)
- It's heavy with COT2 elements. Though not a single word was cut-&-pasted from the discarded documents and into this one, one of the major plot points that impact this chapter and those that follow comes fully formed from my plans for the sequel. The best part is, when it was written into COT2, it seemed tacked on and tenuous, since it was designed to patch a big hole in the original story. As part of the COT rewrite, it's the inevitable progression of events.
- The original COT did not have very many compelling side characters, but Chapter 5 marks the arrival of two of my favorites; Brother Thurm and Richen (the getaway-driver).
- For those who do like fan-ficcy elements, the principals stumble upon two Dark Project locations. I had those missions opened while writing to ensure some level of accuracy, too! (I also did this while writing the bonehoard.)
If I said anything else it would get a little too spoilerific I think. Well today is a holiday in The United States of America (Happy Thanksgiving!) so I won't get another chapter done today, but that doesn't mean that I won't start tinkering on 6.
No comments:
Post a Comment