What are you writing about now?

WatcherWraith said:

I must confess, I am especially interested in the lullaby to birdies and the sea shanty. This is already quite a lovely amount of songs/poetry for a book centered in Arda!

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Here's the relevant text. The tune I have in mind is from the first stanza of this song, repeated twice ( ):

We forded at dawn and turned northwards. Two hours later, we approached a ridge crest paralleling the mountains behind us. Míri dismounted and motioned for me to do so.

Her song changed from a happy riding song to a lullaby as we trudged upward towards a densely thicketed briar patch as high as my horse’s shoulder.

“Dream ye deep, in your sleep,
Nestle feathers, shun cheeps,
Let our passing not trouble little birdies.”

“We will pass, you will thrive,
Have no fear for your lives,
We visit kin, singing too, little birdies.”

An odd song. And then I noticed a flock of birds hidden in the thicket, carefully watching us. Not one took flight; they just observed our passing. Most strange.

We paused to get our bearings. The tree-lined ribbon alongside the King’s Road was across our path, a league distant. I turned back to the thicket and realised it prevented us from being silhouetted against the sky. Anyone on the road would be far less likely to spot us.

As we descended the ridge, I heard the birds singing, but none left their shelter. It came to me that, had those birds taken flight, they would have drawn the attention of anyone on the road ahead.

Had she enchanted the birds to remain still? Or convinced them? Either was possible. And then she sang a new song, which forestalled many a question from me.

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WatcherWraith said:

The difference in number between the Linnods sent by and received by the main character has me raising my eyebrows. Did some of her love interest's linnods get lost, or does he just compose much less than she?

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The prince who wrote the two Linnods to our heroine only got to spend a couple of months in her presence, and was unable to send her poems before or afterward. Any others were lost to us.

She (a bard) later wrote many to her husband, only six of which are known to survive. (At the moment.) Her husband was a prankster, not a poet. Only one of his pranks is known to have been recorded, and it was a grand one. But that's in book 5. His daughter pulled off one in the same book.

A few questions:

1) Was the story writing clear?
2) Was the presence or absence of magic ambiguous?
3) Is it the kind of magical or travelling skill that elves ought to have?
4) Did it feel a bit creepy to have the birds be silent and watching intently?
5) Any other helpful observations/comments would be welcomed!

david_wendelken said:

A few questions:

1) Was the story writing clear?
2) Was the presence or absence of magic ambiguous?
3) Is it the kind of magical or travelling skill that elves ought to have?
4) Did it feel a bit creepy to have the birds be silent and watching intently?
5) Any other helpful observations/comments would be welcomed!

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I have had a few things to do, and still do for a little bit, but I will get to these queries as soon as I can. :]

I had a problem in one chapter. In it, our heroine is writing a report to her king to explain what happened on her diplomatic mission to the far south, and why it took her 30 years to return instead of the expected 3 or 4.

She is a bard and healer. She focuses on the shipwreck and her enslavement whilst still injured. She passes on an important fact about a traitor/secret agent she learns about whilst enslaved. She mentions in passing she made 3 escape attempts before her successful one, but they are not interesting to her or useful for her king, so no detail was provided. And she explains how plague broke out in the city, a cruel guard cut down her fellow slave and assistant, a young maiden whilst she was trying to treat the maiden for the plague. (Elves are immune to such diseases.) She explains she intentionally slapped the guard across his face with her hand, which had become blood-soaked from trying to staunch the maiden's death wound. It transferred the plague to the guard and his companions, which is how she escaped in the confusion.

A healer who chooses to slay someone with the plague has crossed a line, and she knows it, and thus her king should too.

I was happy with each of the scenes, but the overall impression someone might easily get is that she didn't try that hard to escape, and ONLY "got lucky". There was a lot of hard work in her three attempts, one of which was planned to take place within a year of when she actually escaped. In short, a casual reader might easily discount or notice the effort and creativity she doubtless put forth.

So, I added an extra scene of the last attempt she was planning, a tunnel escape that had taken 15 years. But it had serious flaws - it was out of character for her to share it (as mentioned above) and, frankly, it was more like a technical escape manual. Boring (to most).

So, I rewrote the scene, this time starting with her deep in the tunnel and her fellow slave standing guard in their quarters outside the shaft. The fellow slave sends her a signal about danger (a yank on a string tied to our heroine's ankle). A guard finds the tunnel, but is alone and arrogant. He's knocked out, the break his neck and toss him into the tunnel shaft, then seal it up to hide it really well. Then clean up and go to sleep, hoping their confusion at any other guards asking about it works.

I'm really happy with the scene. It's got built in tension from a potential cave-in, our heroine's deep-seated fear of being underground (due to past trauma), guards searching for and discovering the tunnel, a fight scene, and the cover-up. It also cements how and why our heroine was so emotionally attached to her fellow slave, which caused her to lose her temper and kill the guard with the plague.

Anyway, thought I would share the process. It took about 5 passes through the new scene to get everything included/excluded that needed to be, and to get it all in the right order.

Editor is working on chapter 14. It's going to be a bear. I sent her a note that I'll be doing a map of the battle campaign and then go back to see what I can simplify in the text since the map will carry the weight of some detail about everyone's movements.

I had 6 "To Do" items left from the things I decided whilst reviewing my manuscript. Just knocked two of them out this evening.

#1 may require rewriting a chapter from a different POV, or inserting in a new chapter before that. I know what happened to who, also when, why, and where it all went down. But I don't know how it went down - yet. A narration character kills his father - and he's almost certainly right to do so.

#2 is one I might skip. If I see a great way & place to do it, I probably will. Otherwise, nope. I suspect it just won't fit into the style of the piece, but it might fit in nicely with some of book 3 if I do fit it in. Might be anywhere from a couple of sentences to a page. Just don't know.

#3 will be quick if I can find a way to slip it in. Just a sentence or four describing our heroine's feelings about her mental health.

#4 will take some work, but my editor can handle a good bit of it. But to do it requires using a skill that I want to master, and this will give me enough practice at it to come close to that. (Or so I suspect.) I want to change how our heroine uses the different forms of the "to be" verb. More accurately, I want to have her avoid doing so and instead use much more vivid language with strong verbs. A secondary character whose personality gets molded by our heroine whilst in close proximity for months will get a lighter touch of that as their trip together proceeds.

I've been learning how to write a book blurb, that brief bit of text on the back cover of a book that's meant to entice a reader into taking the book home.
****
Here's what I've come up with for Volume IV in my series, The Shadowed Elf-maid, or en-Eledhwen Chall in Sindarin.

A tale of a child facing overwhelming odds, translated from the trove of historical documents Professor Tolkien unearthed in No-Man’s Land during the Great War. This new glimpse into the ancient world of Middle-earth sets the lyrical beauty and courage of the Free Peoples against the sorcery and cruelty of lands where the priests of the Dark Lord hold sway.

Annarael, an elf-child, comes to learn the true depth of evil the world is capable of.

As the night of the new moon draws near, she struggles against the Dark Powers and the designs they have laid for her.

Can she preserve her soul, or will Darkness claim it?

And if she escapes their grasp, may she return to the innocence of childhood, or will her wounds cast their shadow across all the years to come?

*********

What do you think?

Ooooo very enticing. My fingers would already be itching to leaf through the pages, even if I knew next to nothing about Middle-earth. Very attractive, indeed!

A Tale of Two Tales is a collection of letters, diaries, reports, interview, and tales compiled by Ellotar Eldarion, a Gondorian historian. It was supplemented a thousand years later by Annamel i Thorn, an elven bard/historian from Lórien.

It has four major narrators.

Faedírion of Brithombar starts off a bit awkward and hesitant, but succumbs to a revenge/religion-based fervor. He's an elf on a self-assigned mission from the Valar.
His narration is a carefully curated, disguised recruitment pitch to Ossiric.

Ossiric shares what Faedírion told him and what he did with Faedírion in the First Age in NW Middle-earth. Ossiric can see the person Faedírion becomes as their mission unfolds. He writes this to his betrothed, Carnimírië Galadtiriel of Lothlórien, an elf-maid and bard. It disguises an expiation for his (unknowing) part in Faedírion's hidden plans, because he fears she may think poorly of him when she finds out from other sources. Because he is writing to a bard, he attempts to upgrade the descriptive quality of his text as his story-telling gets into stride.

At the end of his tale, he reveals the connection between his friend Faedírion and Carnimírië - but his letter goes astray. Annamel i Thorn discovers the lost letter a thousand years later and prepends it to Ellatar's history.

Carnimírië relates her experiences in the Shadow War in Eriador against the spies, assassins, and scouts of Angmar, or other duties as assigned. She records them for herself or to report them to her superiors. She keeps a diary to record the events of her life; she was injured in her youth and has a horror of losing all her memories - again. Her stories are more poetic in language, she reveals her inner fears and thoughts in what appears to be a very frank and open manner.

Dirgon is a young man, brought to an orphanage for his safety. Carnimírië founded the orphanage, his father Angall betrayed her in years past. Dirgon tells of his journey to his father, led by Carnimírië. His story is rife with frustration as she cryptically and surreptitiously molds him into someone who can survive in his father's home. As she succeeds, he better understands her and they become close friends.

It's hard work to have all four seem to be different people.

Even more so with "guest narration" by Dain the Naugrim, editorial annotations from Annamel i Thorn (a bard/historian from Lórien), a letter from Elrond, a report from Tolog (an Arthedain spymaster) to his superior, Sîdhor (the headmaster of the Orphanage), Feril (an Arthedain scout and one of Carnimírië's retainers, Beleg (a Sindar scout, nephew of the legendary Beleg, and leader of Carnimírië's retainers), Fanar (the Marshal of Lórien), Fíriel (a Gondorian noblewoman, wife to Teluel, Captain of the King's Guard of Gondor), Mithrellas (childhood friend from Lothlórien), Voronwë Astaldo (one of the few survivors of Gondolin), editorial comments by Ellatar Eldarion (the original Gondorian historian), the «Cousin» (an assassin working against Carnimírië), Varsûl (Carnimírië's husband), editorial comments by the chief archivist of the Bodleian Library, and Professors Charles Hardwick and Mark Headington-Bowles, the key members of the translation team.

Gosh, that's a lot!

One day, I'll find out from readers if they think I did a good job of having the different narrators seem like different people.

I split the old volume II (Shadow War in Middle-earth) into two parts, now volume II and III.

Just finished having my local writer's group critique chapter one of the new Volume II.
Overall, they liked it. I've gotten some good feedback as well. It's time to start working on this book again, in between the edited chapters from Volume I that come back.

david_wendelken said:

I split the old volume II (Shadow War in Middle-earth) into two parts, now volume II and III.

Just finished having my local writer's group critique chapter one of the new Volume II.
Overall, they liked it. I've gotten some good feedback as well. It's time to start working on this book again, in between the edited chapters from Volume I that come back.

II. Tale of the Children of His Lies	Narn Chîn i·Choeth dín
III. The Song that Cannot be Sung	e·Lind i Belig Linnad

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I'm really glad you have this writer's group. They seem very capable :]

WatcherWraith said:

I'm really glad you have this writer's group. They seem very capable :]

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It took us about a year of steady working together to build our knowledge of each other's work and goals, and our own skills at critiquing. It's been well worth the effort!

Just finished the last tweaks on Volume I (that I know to do). Now it's time to work on Volume II until I get more chapters back from my editor.

I picked up a new word processor today. Tested it out and it looks like it will meet all my requirements and do more stuff than MS Word can handle, including organize research files, images, character bibles, etc. Scrivener.

After 6 1/2 months of solid editing, I'm finally working on new writing. Whew!

I learned a lot about editing. And I sure learned a lot about how to write so there isn't so much editing to do!

I'm writing the ending chapter for book 2 in my series, then I'll go back to the start of the book and write towards it. I don't always know the ending of the book, but this time I *think* I do. Some I'm testing that belief.

FYI, I've learned how very much easier it is to foreshadow something if you know what will happen later!

Been testing out Scrivener, my new word processor. So far, I'm quite happy with it.
A few things are harder, a few things are easier, and there's way more capability than I had with MS Word.

In my professional life, I learned the real value of quality control checklists. With this product I'm able to do that, so I can easily and quickly verify I've done all the editing tasks on each scene. Yeah!

If anyone is interested, I thought I'd share a sneak peek of some of the revisions I've been working on to the prologue of my fantasy novel. I have a writer friend who has helped change the way I think about "showing not telling," which was a rule I understood in theory but not in practice for a long time. Her advice has helped me actually understand how to amplify the emotional impact of my writing by showing it through actions. Here are a few paragraphs of the old version of the prologue:

Moments later, a tall, cloaked figure stalked towards her.

He appeared seemingly out of nowhere, as usual. He stalked towards her, moving silently through the snow, his long hair flowing gracefully behind him.

In that moment, she saw him for who he really was. A man whose charming smile masked his hateful heart, and whose beauty belied his hideous soul.

“Kiranna,” he said, smiling, his voice soft and gentle. “Don’t lie to me. I know you escaped with your baby. Where is she?”

Her heart pounded. He’d kill her, surely, but somehow, that reality no longer frightened her.

“You’ll have to solve a thousand riddles to find that out,” she declared, smiling despite it all. This was the first time she had ever spoken boldly against him. “For once in your life, you have been outwitted.”

The sorcerer scoffed, rolling his eyes. “By you?”

“Yes. You’ve underestimated me, all these years.” She dared not let on that there was a power higher than herself who had helped with this.

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And here is the same part, but revised:

She gazed intently around the barren field and the forest in the distance, watching for any sign of him. But a shiver passed down her spine, and she had a strange thought that she should turn around. So she did… and she found herself inches away from him.

He towered over her, smiling serenely, and yet there was a look of intense focus in his ice blue eyes. His long black hair and velvet cloak flowed gracefully in the winter wind. Being this close to him, Kiranna could feel the fiery heat of dark magic blazing from his chest.

Kiranna narrowed her eyes and took a step back. It had taken her many years to learn how to see through this sorcerer’s deceptions. She was once enchanted by his charming smile and his striking beauty, but now she knew they masked his cruel heart and hideous soul.

“Kiranna,” he said in a soft, crooning voice. With a long-fingered hand, he took her chin and tilted it gently upwards so she was forced to meet his eyes. “Don’t lie to me. You know I have my ways of discovering the truth, and it would be a terrible shame if you were to anger me yet again. Where is your baby?”

Normally, Kiranna would have trembled under such words, and her heart would have pounded with fear of displeasing him. But now, even though he would surely kill her, that reality no longer frightened her.

With a sudden surge of courage she didn’t know she had, she smacked his hand away from her face.

“You’ll have to solve a thousand riddles to find that out,” she declared, smiling despite it all. Her voice felt powerful in her lungs, stronger than it had in many years. “For once in your life, you have been outwitted.”

For an instant, the sorcerer’s jaw dropped and his eyes widened, betraying a look of shock. But he quickly recovered himself and sneered at her. “You have grown brazenly audacious, Kiranna. Do you really think you have outwitted me?”

“Yes. You’ve underestimated me, all these years.” She dared not reveal the truth of the aid she had received. For her daughter’s sake, it was better to let the sorcerer think Kiranna had masterminded it all herself.

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I thought the first section shivers down my spine! I especially love words such as "hideous", they're so descriptive.
And then I read the second section.

Oh my word.

Terrifying. Definitely an improvement in terms of putting the reader in the scene, letting them experience through sensual descriptives the touch and feel of this scene. It's more like you're standing in her skin, whereas the first one you were listening to a second-hand account. Still chilling, but safer in a sense because you're not there. But the danger signals definitely go off in the second section.

Never let this man near any babies, no matter who they are. I have a feeling he eats them or sacrifices them or something equally horrid.

I'm so glad you felt that way! Back when I had my initial round of beta readers in 2021, one person said they didn't feel like the villain was very scary in the prologue. I was insulted, because he's plenty scary enough in my head, and my friends seemed to think he was plenty scary enough. But, what I'm now realizing is, my friends already knew the villain, and they understand me and my writing style really well, and they had other context to support him being terrifying. But to a new reader who was totally unfamiliar with the story, and who didn't know me personally, I'm now realizing the prologue probably didn't provide enough context. Which, in all fairness, is hard to do in a prologue, because it's the mysterious introduction to the story and I don't want to give away the villain's secrets yet. But I think I'm learning how to provide short but vivid little teases through actions and sensory details, just enough to make the reader able to tell that this is an extremely cruel and powerful sorcerer.

WatcherWraith said:

It's more like you're standing in her skin, whereas the first one you were listening to a second-hand account. Still chilling, but safer in a sense because you're not there.

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Interesting! I wonder if it's because most of the story is in first-person POV from the perspective of Kiranna's daughter, who is the protagonist. So maybe I was keeping the prologue more distanced at first, since I was only used to writing from the protagonist's POV. But, since the prologue is the time when readers are deciding whether or not they want to continue reading, it's probably better to make the POV as close as possible, so they get that additional detail and context and thus feel the emotions more deeply.

That's a real improvement! Bravo! Hard work, but worth it!

david_wendelken said:

That's a real improvement! Bravo! Hard work, but worth it!

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Thank you! It is hard work for sure, because it takes a lot of deep thought just to revise a few paragraphs, since it involves imagining the scene as vividly as possible.