Paksworld

Too much comment chat and not enough new posts…silly me.

Anyway…Book kept me up until after 2 am last night.  Yes, because Book wanted me to finish something before I slept.   It reads like something written in the middle of the night with burning eyes, but it’s there, and can be chipped and polished later.

I knew when I started this that many family relationships would become entangled in the plot, because the people around Paks mostly had families (even if they didn’t know it, like Kieri.)  I did not know, however, just how pervasive this would turn out to be…I keep trying to drag Book back to what I thought was its main line, and it’s sort of like the time I tried to teach my first horse Ky to ground drive.   Book is the 1200 pound really fast horse and I’m the puny 122 pound (then, not now) person who was too stupid to wear gloves when one long rein was made of braided baling twine.

This is not a family saga, I promise.  But as with Vatta’s War, it’s apparently determined to place major (and even secondary) characters in their social milieu, including their families.  I have pointed out to Book that we got along fine by leaving Paks’s family behind, permanently.   Book insists that was then and this is now and anyway it’s a different Book.   (Not, however, in terms of insisting on being written the same way.)

It comes down to motivational stuff, motivation being the glue that connects character and plot.  Motivation is what makes the action make sense (when it does.)  Where does motivation come from?    From the past–each character’s past–their innate traits and abilities and limitations, and also whatever’s happened to them from birth forward.  And family–even if absent–is a huge part of the social/economic/political milieu that shapes individuals, both by direct effect on the child and by its effect on those around the child.   That’s true in all cultures…but the results of predictable social pressures are not identical, when those pressures are applied to individuals.

Today was a dance among chapters, because I’m about ready to dump the Arvid chapters into the monster file that Book is becoming.   They needed some trimming around the edges to fit the space where I want them, and the chapters on either side also needed to be shaped so those chapters would seem to fit.   Meanwhile, what kept me up last night was the end (so far) of Book, at what I think is a mere 20-25,000 words from the end….or rather, the finished length, because I expect this one to run over the side of the baking sheet and sizzle on the oven floor just as the first one did.

Two very small snippets (I need to keep working)

From Oath of Fealty:  a certain encounter

Over his head, a blade clanged, then screeched as [character A]  sagged, his weight coming onto the knife-blade, hot blood spurting down, soaking [character B’s] arm.

(Sorry for the obfuscation, but this would be a major spoiler and it comes too early in the first book to risk.)

From the second book: Arvid in Fin Panir.  He was injured; he wakes and finds that all his usually-hidden blades are laid out on top of his cloak, and his clothes (blood-stained) are gone.

A cream-colored shirt embroidered with stars and flowers around the neckline was folded on the table, on top of a pair of gray trousers.  He glared at them.  He wore black.   Everyone knew he wore black.

(And this is not a spoiler, I don’t think.  It’s just Arvid thinking Arvidish thoughts. )

…………………..

So, back to folding chapters in.  And then the smoothing, and then the preparation for the final gallop to the finish line.