I Guess I Spoke Too Soon

So of course, just as I say that "Last Battle" ain't happening, it works its way back into my head. I guess I shouldn't be surprised; this is a nearly ten year old story which means it has to be pretty tenacious. So as part of my goal to do more writing in the new year, I'm getting back to it a little. I stayed up last night and wrote up an outline of the whole thing. I'm not planning to show it to anyone; it's not partcularly interesting, it ruins the surprises of the story in a very dull form, and it may well not make sense to anyone but me. I think I may have accidently left out a scene or two, but it's current 53 items long. Six of these have been written in some form or other. In mathematical terms, that means I'm somewhere between and eigth and a ninth done with the story. Of course, this is probably a pretty meaningless figure, since some of those numbered story points cover a lot of ground and are probably nowhere near the same legnth as others. I have to look up the length requirements again, but i think this is going to be a novella, assuming it ever gets finished.

Anyways, what I'm going to do right now is write down some of my issues with the story. Some of them are probably the reasons that I dropped it in the first place. Other are stuff that I'm worried about for future installments.

Comments still welcome. Very minor spoilers ahaead.


New Title

This has been an issue pretty much since day one. Not only is "The Last Battle" already the title of the seventh Narnia book, it also make absolutely no sense until pretty near the end. This is not a huge worry of mine. "Last Battle" is a perfectly good fill-in title and the story can go on fine with it until I can come up with something better. But so far, nothing I've thought of feels like an improvement.

First Part Rewrite

There's a lot of stuff that needs rewriting, but I think this needs a complete overhaul. I really like the idea of Cyra and Cinnet talking about Kataya and her request before we actually meet her, partly because it establishes early on that we'll be using multiple POVs in the story. But I got worried when Jen asked me further into the story when we would be getting back to Cyra. And that fact is, we're really not. She's an important character and she's going to be mentioned a lot even when she's not there. But after the Sending of the Knights, we really don't see her again until quite a bit later. By introducing her first, I may have accidently given the impression that she's the main character, when in fact she's more like an extremely important secondary character. I'd like to hear people's thoughts on this one, just to see if a change really is in order.

Apex 1 Rewrite

Again, rewrites are needed all over the place and this is probably the least surprising, since it's the first thing I wrote. Aside from the usual stuff that needs correction (repetitive phrasing, awkwards places, stuff that needs punching up, etc.), there's all the problems that come out of writing the middle of the story first. The description of Cyra has got to go for two reasons. One is that she's going to be described earlier in the story, so the audience doesn't need such a full physical description of her. The other is that the reason Santok was noticing her appearence originally is because he hadn't really seen Cyra up close outside of battle before. As I've been working on the story, I've realized that Santok would have seen Cyra in a non-battle setting when he went to Sathyriel with a Keltarian delegation and met Kataya for the second time. On top of that, the description doesn't really reflect how Cyra should look at the moment. It needs to show that she's very strong mentally and used to being in highly stressful situations, but she's also pretty dishevelled from riding for a couple of nights straight with no sleep and having the worst several days of her life from knwing that her daughter is being held captive by a guy who seriously dispises her. Should be an interesting challenge.

Time

Ah, time. My old enemy. Not time as in the huge amount of time it will take to write this whole thing, or the time I waste playing Legend of Zelda, or the time I spend at work and the gym that leaves me too tired to wite when I get home. I'm talking about time in the story and getting everyone where they need to be when they need to be there and have it be believable. There's a lot of coming and going between Keltaria and Sathyriel, especially between Santok's fortress and the capitol of Sathyriel. (I have to check my notes to see if I named it yet.) And there are points where certain characters have to get to one place before another character gets to a different one, but the timing doesn't always seem to make sense. I need to figure out how long it takes to get to Santok's fortress from Sathyriel's capitol. Other than that, I'm hoping I can use individual speed of travel to make things work out. Kataya's pretty excited when she's going to see Santok, so she's going pretty fast, but she's also stopping to eat and sleep and to let Tally rest. Cyra, when she rides to Santok's fortress, is not sleeping, probably eating what little she does on the road, and getting fresh horses when she needs them. So I can probably figure her trip takes less time than Kataya's.

Kata or Kataya

Most people call the protagonist of the story "Kata" including the narration. Cinnet, ever the stickler for doing things properly, calls her by her full name, "Kataya". You don't know this yet, but so does Santok. This bothers me. I like having Santok call Kata by her full name because it goes to showing the respect he treats her with. Their relationship is almost courtly in nature. So I kind of want him to be the only one who calls her Kataya to keep it special. But on the other hand, I like Cinnet's character and it just doesn't make any sense for him to call her by anything but her full name and title. (By the way, in earlier versions of the story, Kata was "Kate" and the Santok character called her "Katherine". That version didn't have a Cinnet. Lucky it.)

Names

I'm frequently concerned that I have too many names that start with the same letters and are too easily confused. Cyra and Cinnet, Brogan and Brenn, Santok and Sathyriel, Kataya and Keltaria. Most of them are probably not an issue; I don't think Brenn and Brogan ever have a scene together and it's pretty easy to tell people from kingdoms just by context. But Cyra and Cinnet currently both appear in the first scene and they're together a lot. And I'm pretty attateched to both of their names.

Language

I like the idea of the Keltarians and Sathyrians speaking different languages. I especially like how it works during Apex 1. But the more I think about upcoming scenes, the more I worry about the problems it would cause. If their are two languages, I figure Cyra, Kata, and Santok are all bilingual. That doesn't leave too many major characters for the language barrier to be a problem for, calling the usefulness of having two seprate languages into question. Rayna does not speak Keltaric (please ignore the stupid name I gave it in Apex 1), but since a lot of upcoming scenes are from her perspective and feature a lot of Keltarians, most of whom don't speak Sathyric, it would really cut down on my ability to show what's going on with these characters. Much as I enjoy the idea, I think I may have to drop it. However, the dragons still speak a different language, a fact which figure heavily into a scene very late in the story.

Rayna's Story Arc

The main issue hear is that I don't know what it is. I know what happens to Rayna and what she does, but I'm not sure what the ultimate purpose of it all is. If this story is going to work, Rayna needs to be a good character in her own right and for that, I feel she needs to have some way in which she changes over the course of the story. This is proving difficult. The last time we're actually with Rayna (seeing events from her point of view), is either when she overhears two of the guards saying that Cyra is riding towards the fortress or right before she gets dragged into Santok's throne room in Apex 1. Neither of these are good moments for Rayna, since she's well aware that this is a trap and believes her mother is going to be killed because of her and she can't do anything about it. That would suggest that the arc is getting her from that point to where she saves her mother's life at the cost of her own. But it's too fast, it's not a premeditated act on her part, and we don't get to see things from her POV. (I suppose I could insert a Rayna scene right before Santok tries to kill Cyra, but I don't like breaking up that scene and I feel it's very important that the readers know that Santok chooses to kill Rayna rather than being unable to stop the blow meant for Cyra.) Besides, I don't think Rayna intends to get herself killed when she saves her mother, so she ends up as much a victim as a hero. The other possible arc is Rayna coming to the realization that the circumstances of her birth are not important because her mother loves her regardless. (I did figure out what Rayna's real origin is and no, I'm not going to tell you. I also figure out what Cyra tells her about where she came from. Maybe they're the same thing, maybe they aren't. Maybe it doesn't even get addressed in the story.) It'd be tough to fit that in with what has to happen at the end of Rayna's scenes, but it might be doable.

Okay, are you entirely sick of "Last Batlle" now? I hope not, because I intend to write more. I'm even thinking about posting a scene that I wrote but never put up here. But for the time being, you get to ponder my story issues. I'm also thinking about posting the second part of "New Story" to see if that gets any response.

Please forgive my typos, as Blogger's spell check is not working right now.