Thursday, February 14, 2019

Today's writing notes:


Working on: Revising On Borrowed Wings

One thing that I hope makes sense is some of Parshakian's actions in chapter 4, when he introduces Jacob to Eloreth. Specifically, it might seem a little confusing that he acts like he would need Jacob to open the silo and gain access to Eloreth, when we find out later on that Parshakian is a Dolen too and thus should have had easy access. But then Parshakian goes ahead and turns on the silo lighting, something that apparently only Nimbus could do earlier.

This isn't a plot hole--actually, Parshakian was intentionally acting powerless because he didn't want to reveal his powers to Jacob yet, and because he wanted to make Jacob believe that Jacob was the only person who could enter Eloreth. It was only when Jacob crossed him later that Parshakian used his abilities to intimidate Jacob into complying, something he only does as a last-ditch resort. Parshakian is the kind of person who prefers manipulation over brute force, but if manipulation fails then he really gets ugly. So it was actually Parshakian's mistake that he turned on Eloreth's silo lighting--a rare oversight from someone who's usually mentally on top of things. (He was probably also getting impatient with Jacob.)

Anyway, I hope it's something that readers will notice and get tipped off that Parshakian may be more than he seems.

I've ended up dropping several hundred words from the manuscript already, and I'm only a fourth of the way in. I realize now that I used to have a very wordy and superfluous writing style, and it's been a challenge to try to make my prose and my narrative more concise and to-the-point while still retaining a desirable level of poetry and creative enjoyment. Of course I don't want my stories to read like technical manuals, but I also don't want them to be emotionally overwrought and verbally excessive. It's a balancing act.

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