Alpennia Blog: ...however long it takes to get to the revolution

[hrj]

I've talked a lot about how much I've enjoyed letting Alpennia find it's own way in terms of plot. While nothing has been quite as unplanned as Daughter of Mystery was, I really enjoy having details of the story and characters surprise me when they pop up seemingly out of nowhere. But each book (whether written or simply in a detailed planning stage) has cast its filaments out into the void, and gradually they've started adhering to each other and sketching the vague outlines of an overall plot.

And because I need to make sure that I'm planting the seeds now for things that will happen a couple of books from now, I'm finding that my plotting-brain is anxious to get those vague outlines nailed down a bit more. This is a bit of a problem because there's no way I can talk about anything more than the vaguest parts of it without giving out spoilers for books I haven't even written yet, much less ones available to you to read.

When I first started using the line "or however long it takes to get to the revolution," it was half joke, half serious. It seemed logical--nay, inevitable--that Alpennia would have it's own bit of mid-19th century civic unrest, and that seemed a reasonable climax to head the series for in a general way. But when? Why? Who would be involved? How old would they be and what would they have experienced in the mean time? I was content to leave those questions to solve themselves.

And then I started noodling a character and scenario that I think I'll be building Sisters in Spirit around. And I started thinking about how long it would take for certain developments to work out that will be set in motion in Mistress of Shadows. And then I figured it was time to outline the general timeline of European political history in the 1830s to have a sense of when certain developments might be reasonable. And somehow it all fell into place.

I know what the immediate precipitating events of the Civic Unrest will be, and I know what sorts of issues drove unrest in other European cultures at this time and would be contributing forces. And the timeline of those precipitating events frames the possible timeline of the story fairly specifically. That timeline may allow for another book in between Mistress of Shadows and Sisters in Spirit or it may simply require some short pieces to fill in essential background for which there isn't enough substance for a novel. Or that would be awkward to do as novels in my current publishing context. But in any event, I know roughly when the series is going to end. (Roughly ca. 1835/6) And I know roughly how it's going to end. (Nuh-uh. You don't get any of that, except it involves a revolution-like-object.) And I know roughly who almost all of my primary characters are going to be--though there's always room to toss in at least one new character in each book.

And the tricky part now is going to be stopping here, and avoiding pinning down any more detail than is absolutely unavoidable. Because a lot of the joy of writing this, for me, comes in being surprised. In riding the crest of that story-wave as it builds up under the keyboard so I can catch the curl *just* *so*. But I can see the shore from here, and the gulls are crying overhead, and far out to sea there are a series of swells that will give us all one hell of a ride.

Comments

[katerit.livejournal.com]

I'm coming along on that ride.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Yeah, not tying your own hands/overdetermining the series story arc is a good approach.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

More importantly, tying my hands would make the writing process a lot less fun! I don't know that I could ever do the "writing prequels" thing. (Planning to write Tanfrit's story doesn't count, because the version of her life that the characters in the main series know about has only a vague passing resemblance to reality.)

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

This sounds exciting. If you do find you need some fill-in stories, there's a trend these days for writers to do those as ebooks.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

My idea is definitely to use them as promotional pieces. So far I only have the one out there ("Three Nights at the Opera") but I have another solidly planned (which comes chronologically just after Floodtide, but largely consists of a flashback to Jeanne's early life). And there's a chunk of story that happens to Margerit while Barbara is off in Paris during Mistress of Shadows that may get told as a separate story (or may get told as part of Mistress of Shadows--if I can figure out how). There are other bits -- some more like character sketches, some more along the lines of short stories -- that I can imagine doing as separate pieces because they don't fit well into any of the novels for one reason or another.

[(Anonymous)]

1848 would have been too easy, then? -- DdL

[hrj.livejournal.com]

1848 would have been too *late* Certain key parties would have been too old or at the wrong stage of life to play the roles I needed them to play. In particular, *spoiler* decides to move forward with *spoiler* once *spoiler* happens, precipitating *spoiler* to pressure *spoiler* to *spoiler* and the alternate path he takes involves *spoiler* who would long since have been expected to *spoiler* by 1848. Since this entire chain of events is one of the key contexts for the Civic Unrest, there are clear constraints to how late I can push it.