Writing Update
Dec. 27th, 2009 08:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrjI've finished the first editorial pass through Part I of Daughter of Mysteries. To wit, pretty much all of the proper names have been filled in (although some may change later via find-and-replace) and the first attempt at getting all the personal references properly filtered through the respective points-of-view and shifts in attitude have been worked on. Several essential expository scenes have been added and several more have been bookmarked and sketched out. There are still a set of flags for some philosophical wrangling over a particular (fictitious) classical author that needs to be created. And a few flags for POV issues that need to be worked out. But I'm feeling properly set up for the next, more careful, round of editing, which will involve more detailed issues of content and structure. Given that my two POV characters are alternating turns on stage, and that their turns don't precisely correspond to natural chapter breaks in the plot, I'm still debating how much I want to artificially even out their stage time. Currently, I'm inclined to let the POV alternations be driven by who I want to filter the action through, but I think the end product will need to have a fairly even balance and fairly regular alternation.
I'm also debating one significant alteration to my current forms-of-polite-address system, since both my Protagonist #1 and her unmarried aunt (and co-guardian) get addressed politely as "Maisetra Savitre" and I currently have some awkward methods of disambiguating reference. It may be, on reviewing the matter, that context will be sufficient. I still have a bunch of personal reference tweaks to apply (and consistency issues to review) so I'm not too worried about it yet.
At the moment, I'm studiously avoiding starting to visualize the next section, since I don't want it to get stale before I'm ready to start writing it. It's hard, though. I am setting my back-brain to ruminating on the big structural problems like "just how are the two protagonists going to investigate and solve the treasonous plot while hiding out at a remote convent that has nothing to do with said plot?" Quite likely magic will be involved (well, at least the low-key religion-rooted magic I'm using) but it needs to be done in an organic fashion. So far the supernatural elements that have been demonstrated have been quite subtle and low-key, although suggesting the potential for more significant effects. I think a certain amount of what I need can be effected via "visions", but I'm old-school enough to want my protagonists to take positive action to solve their problems, not just to find things out and hand the information over to others to act on.
I'm also debating one significant alteration to my current forms-of-polite-address system, since both my Protagonist #1 and her unmarried aunt (and co-guardian) get addressed politely as "Maisetra Savitre" and I currently have some awkward methods of disambiguating reference. It may be, on reviewing the matter, that context will be sufficient. I still have a bunch of personal reference tweaks to apply (and consistency issues to review) so I'm not too worried about it yet.
At the moment, I'm studiously avoiding starting to visualize the next section, since I don't want it to get stale before I'm ready to start writing it. It's hard, though. I am setting my back-brain to ruminating on the big structural problems like "just how are the two protagonists going to investigate and solve the treasonous plot while hiding out at a remote convent that has nothing to do with said plot?" Quite likely magic will be involved (well, at least the low-key religion-rooted magic I'm using) but it needs to be done in an organic fashion. So far the supernatural elements that have been demonstrated have been quite subtle and low-key, although suggesting the potential for more significant effects. I think a certain amount of what I need can be effected via "visions", but I'm old-school enough to want my protagonists to take positive action to solve their problems, not just to find things out and hand the information over to others to act on.
