progress and history: Caution, IFGS D'oril spoiler (of sorts)

     I've added a scene to chapter one, and another scene to chapter four, setting up the revised plotline for Imperfect Hope.  I feel that both scenes are a bit weak, mostly because I was jumping back and trying to fit the new pieces in place.  I know it will come together during rewrite, though.  In chapter 7, I've inserted a new scene that will complete the foreshadowing and turn the next three scenes into a more suspenseful ending, and just started work on the next scene.  This scene will set the tone for the climax, so I'm approaching it with a bit of caution.  Regardless, I feel I'm on track to finish Imperfect Hope by mid July.

     One of the additions I'm tacking on is to increase the shadow emperors (as Prable the second is known outside the empire of Tallux) power and influence, and setting up the means by which he and the previous emperors have controlled their vast conquests.  It ties in with the wintergems, corrupted by shadow, which is a natural resource that they (the empire) have almost depleted within their own lands.  Thus the means for them to maintain power of the lands they already hold depends on them expanding their empire over more lands that hopefully have their own supply of wintergems, (or the as yet undefined alternative that I've decided exists in a vastly different form waiting to be discovered).  Up until know, I'd treated the emperor as a distant figure that didn't actually take part in the tale, but with the new direction, I've introduced him to add dread and a higher-order threat to the protagonists.  This actually ties in with my intentions re: the aftermath of Sha'te Valley.

     You seen, I'd written some notes some time back about sha'te's aftermath, and indicated that the failure of the empires army in D'oril lead to a revolution/coup attempt as the shattered armies under Yam'to's lieutenants made their way back to Tallux.  Feeling badly used by the emperor, Beauty, as leader of the Demonguard, managed to find a loophole in his conditioning/curse that allowed his human half to override the restrictions placed on his demon half to disobey the emperor.  During the long retreat, He and the few survivors of the demonguard shielded the van of Yam'to's army from the pursuing K'tath and allies, and more than once, was left to fend for himself in order to allow some favorite of the emperor to escape.  Once they made it back to safety, He took it upon himself to depose the emperor, the ensuing generation of conflict ended with a new dynasty being founded, Prable the first.  Prable succeeded in part because he called upon the shadowlord for support, not just Seta.  (I suppose Shadowlord vs Seta is sort of sunni vs shiite)

     Prable the first would redefine the empire's strategy,while keeping the ultimate goal of obtaining freer access to D'orils wintergem supply, he would consolidate his hold on the rest of the empire.especially the eastern seaboard which suffered from few useable ports, too many pirates and raiders, and poor infrastructure (roads and such) that linked with the heart of the empire.  He would strengthen his navy as part of his efforts, regaining control of the eastern coastal regions, and begin a campaign across the ocean, in line with his intent to avoid the frozen overland approach to D'oril.  He took the long view, without actually putting any specific plan in motion towards D'oril, he set the stage for his son, trained in strategy as well as shadow theology.

     Anyway, with this background on the empires shadowlord connection, I've set the stage for a confrontation in Imperfect Hope, where the protagonists face their nemesis again, and learn much more about the empire's long term strategy, all in the shadow of the Inn of the Stumbling Friar. Yes, it still exists, 75 years after Sha'te Valley.  I wonder who the owner is these days...  ;-)

TTFN,
Jim

Decision time

    I've made more progress on Imperfect Hope this week than most weeks over the last few months, even with my indecision over the path I'm to take.  Basically, I'm looking at a natural break point in the story line that would allow me to split the novel into two, and possibly allow me to add the prequel to round out a trilogy.  It's not unheard of for a writer to hash out the middle of a story first, nor is it unusual for the story to take on much more than originally intended.  I've been looking ahead at the outline, and wondering if there is another possible breakpoint a couple of chapters ahead, and it doesn't look so.  On the other hand, the balance between this part and the finish would be a bit off, about 2/5ths in part 1, 3/5ths in part two.  I'm wondering how successful I'd be at cutting part two, but I've recently added some strong content ideas to part 1 that gives me hope.  Perhaps there's a lot more where that came from when I work on rewrite number one.

     So...  Decision time.  Imperfect hope stalled out very badly over the last few months, but I'm back on track, putting weekly word counts back up.  If I keep up this pace, I should be able to finish the next chapter in 2 or 3 weeks if I add content and make an ending for book 1.  What then...

     Listening to myself think (outside the random chaotic thoughts of "Hey, look at the squirrel" and such), I've made my decision.  Imperfect Hope, part 1, first draft, is nearing completion.  I"ve got two scenes I'm going to add in Chapters one and four to foreshadow my coming cliffhanger, and I'll rework the final three scenes in chapter 7 to make it much more suspenseful.  I'm not going to set myself a time limit, since I'm not sure how much actual change I"ll have to do to make it a viable finish for IH-1, but...  With any luck, August will begin the rewrite.

     Oh...  Did I mention how I intend to work on revisions.  Well, when I finish first draft later in July, I'm planning to print the whole thing out, double spacing, and then...  Bind it together and stuff it in a thinking drawer for two or three weeks.  While it's put away, I'm going to have fun, draw maps and make history for D'oril, revise and refine my overall time line, and generally step away from Imperfect Hope to refresh my thoughts.  Then...

     I'll reread the whole thing, start to finish.  No editorializing, no revising, just read.  Then, make notes to myself.  Then, out comes the pen for line by line commentary and I read it again.  Find discrepancies in character behavior or appearance, history, settings, so on.  Identify weak dialogue, description, or mood.  Don't correct, just comment, then put it aside, perhaps for a few days. When I'm ready, I'll start writing again, with a fresh file on the computer.  No preordained sentences or structure, just use the first draft print out at my side as a guideline.

     Why this way?  Because I know how I rewrite.  I can take a paragraph on the computer, revise it on the spot, and...  I'll improve the paragraph, but not affect the strategic sense of the novel because I'm focused on one paragraph.  That kind of revision is important, but that will be during the final couple of workovers.  Right now, I need to look at the big, Novel-Wide picture.  In addition, I'm putting in the break period to allow myself to be purely creative with background material that will help me when I rewrite.  I know there are novel wide flaws in the first draft, things that I need to fix across a couple of chapters and/or many scenes, and trying to fix it paragraph by paragraph will just reintroduce a whole new set of discrepancies.  My notes should hold me to my overall vision.

     I'm excited about finishing the first draft.  It's a milestone that seemed out of reach only a few months ago.  I'm excited about the rewrite.  Now to swallow that lump of fear that's gathered at the base of my throat...

TTFN,
Jim

What? A light at the end of this tunnel?

     Progress on Imperfect Hope continues, over the last week, I finished another scene, and ground through about half of the next.  Meanwhile, I went back and looked at the big picture, from storyline to outline to see how things are going.  I've realized two things, that I'm nearing the half way point of my original storyline, and that I'm also nearing a natural break point.  If I were to split Imperfect Hope into a duology, or add the "origins" prequel to make it a trilogy as I've been considering, the next three scenes would close out the middle of the three books (or the first of two).  As a result, I'm eyeing the next three scenes with the possibility of considering it "the end" of my first draft of my first novel.

     Okay, that's bigger than I thought, I could finish my first draft in a couple of weeks!  Originally, my story estimate was about 90k words, right now, to finish my original outline it will take about 150k words, even without adding the prequel.  If I end up with the chapter I"m working on, I'll be back to about 85-95k words, depending on how wordy I get with the next couple of scenes.  As I said, this chapter seems to make a natural break point, though I'd have to add some foreshadowing to draw the tale to a satisfying ending and draw interest in the next book. 

     I am not sure if closing out is the correct thing to do yet, I've a couple of concerns about the viability of the storyline as standalone if I end with essentially a cliffhanger.  The initial plot is unfinished, the heroes have not resolved any of their initial problems, though they have uncovered a major plot by the empire.  They barely survived, and recovery for them is still in the air (at least as far as the current chapter is concerned), let alone stopping the empires spy.  If I end with this next chapter, I am fairly certain I could make the ending make sense, and with the proper foreshadowing, build strong momentum for part 2 (3?).  I probably would have to add a scene or two to close out empire activities (from their point of view), perhaps set the beginnings of the next stage of their plot in motion before closing out with our heroes splitting up in D'oril.  I'm intrigued by the possibility.

     However.  Am I being too stereotypical?  Perhaps, some good duologies and trilogies end with foreshadowing, unfinished business, and cliffhangers.  I suspect that many more bad ones try to do the same thing and fail miserably.  Am I "giving up" too easily, tired by the long drag through chapter 7, and dreading the next 8 chapters as too much to chew?  Is my inner critic (hah, he's not capitalized, that must mean something...) subtly trying to take over.  I'm going to mull these, and other questions, over the next few days while I finish chapter.scene 8.2.  I have made my own comparison to my d'oril minigame efforts leading up to Sha'te.  In the IFGS games, I allowed for minor PC victories in each minigame, but left the PC's with many more questions and worries each time, building toward Sha'te, where the conclusion (as far as the PC's were concerned) settled affairs in the north for a time.

     In the meantime, I'm going to finish chapter 8, scene 2 as is, then hopefully be able to look at 8.3 and see what kind of changes I'd need to make if I go for the finish early.  I suspect it will require some considerable changes in format, but nothing plot changing.  8.4 would have to be a change of viewpoint, back to the empire's minions to close out their actions for IH-1, set up the plot for IH-2 and such.  8.5 would then close out IH-1, back in D"oril, where I'd have to add some content, possibly in the form of a vision from Elorna, or prophecy news from the Sen, or perhaps just a reasoned realization from our heroes as to what's happening.  Another possibility would be to add another scene, taking place at southport, which is the next major action point of the empires plan.  At any rate, dark clouds on the horizon promise black times for the confederacy, but are our heroes ready to take their place on the stage of fate?  Or are they just plain tired...

     Stay tuned while I argue with myself while walking around the FAA air traffic control center, there may be yelling involved.  Hope the neighbors don't call the Longmont PD to resolve a domestic dispute...   ;-)    

Progress in writing

     As  I look back at the last few months, one thing has leapt out at me regarding my writing.  I've been stuck on the same chapter of Imperfect Hope.  In fact, I've been stuck on one scene in particular.  Well, for what it's worth, I managed to close it out and start in on the next chapter.  Interestingly, the words seemed to leap out of me when I started in on the new stuff. 

     That tells me a few things.  One, I suspect the scene I was working on most grindingly will most likely get changed drastically when I go from draft to first rewrite.  If I couldn't find the enthusiasm to finish it, chances are a reader will bog down as well.  I opened up a window for inner critic to peek at it, and got some observations.  The scene lacks drama and passion.  It actually plays like a bad soap opera for much of it, the segments where Cerryn and Randir, recovering from the causeway fight, lay around the militia post meeting well wishers and...  Ewwww.  No wonder it bored me.  I'm going to leave it in for now while I forge ahead, but I suspect I'll have a much more interesting take on it when I go back for rewrite.  Something with a bit more urgency.

     ANyway, Cerryn finally decided to take action, and chose to drag Randir's sorry butt back to D'oril so the healers there can figure out what's wrong with him.  Little do they know that Min, that dastardly empire spy, has set into motion a plan to eliminate anyone who might be able to identify him, namely Randir, who is slipping in and out of a shadow coma because of Min's efforts to break the stalemate at the causeway.  Randir, meanwhile, keeps forgetting to tell Cerryn that one of the visitors they had while he was semi conscious was the assassin who nearly killed her.  Does this confuse you yet?  Actually, it's setting into motion the core of the next few chapters, when Cerryn vows revenge on the assassin and goes after him alone, not realizing the peril she's in (and that Randir tried to warn her of).  Ahh, the joy of a plot outline.....

     A side note, with the writing logjam broken, I've thrown some ideas down on paper about Sha'te Valley, the short story.  I don't want to break the momentum on IH yet, but when I need a break, I think I'll rough out a short story idea.  It'll help me consolidate my thoughts on time lines in D'oril, anyway...

     Our backyard owl's been visiting at night intermittantly.  One of these nights when I hear him, I may just pull out the binoc's and see if I can spot him.  Until then,

Clear skies,
Jim

Owls and coffee

     Good morning...  A great horned owl has taken up residence (I hope permanently) in one of the cottonwood trees that line our backyard.  I first heard him or her last weekend when his booming challenge echoed through our open window at 430 am.  Honestly, it was a great way to wake up.  Since then, we've not been awakened that early again, but I have heard him most mornings around 600am as Irma and I are sipping our coffee and getting ready for the day.

      I hear the gasp of "600 am?" out there.  I actually only have to be up before 6 am for work two days a week, but the rotating schedule that the FAA asks us to follow really messes up my sleep patterns.  Working 2 or 3 night shifts and 3 or 4 day shifts a week, I find that I'm groggy the mornings after a night shift no matter what time I get up.  So I rise around 600 (or 520 for those days when I have to be in for the early shift) and just muddle through the grogginess with as near a bottomless cup of coffee as I can find.  Sometimes I even make myself useful...

     Our great horned owl neighbor does bring to mind one of the early bits of lore I'd tossed about in the D'oril series, that of Elorna's connection to owls.  In some ways, it was a direct theft from greek mythos, Athena and Owls, but I'd always kept most of the greek mythos connection well hidden.  Sha'te was one opportunity for me to showcase the differences, I introduced the Shianna.

     Shianna are very loosely based on animist amerind mythologies where every animal had a "leader", almost (or directly) a god.  Coyote, for example, or Father Bear, of the various tribal mythos, come to mind.  In the D'oril world, the shianna were animistic spirits that represented all animals of that species, from chipmunks to owls to elk.  For the most part, their connection to the k'tath was incidental, even as their connection to the humanish folk to the south almost non-existent.  Once in a while, though, they'd get involved, usually at the request (or suggestion) of Elorna herself. 

     In Sha'te, the 4 shianna I introduced  were attempting to help the leader of the k'tath, the Sen'anth, escape the shadow scouts that had been placed on her trail by Phorix in retaliation for the use of the seeker by the PC's in Heartbow and Seeker.   The PC's, with the concurrence of the k'tath, had used the seeker to try and assassinate the "unbeatable general" Yamto before he could lead the empire's army against the K'tath.  Though he lived, he didn't participate in Sha'te, and in response, the new general of the empire's expeditionary force sent a large contingent of shadow scouts to hunt down any of several leaders of the k'tath.  In a sense, this act doomed the empire to failure at Sha'te, for it deprived the army of it's eyes as it approached the battlefield.  (History buffs will recognize the similarity to JEB Stuarts ill-advised antics prior to Gettysburg, where, in an effort to regain favorable press, he undertook a wild ride "around the union army", which garnered the press, but deprived General Lee of valuable intel on the actions of General Meade in the days leading up to Gettysburg.  Yes, this similarity was deliberate)

     At any rate, the Shianna had a brief introduction at sha'te as a minor force.  They bore a faint relation to the ranger skill, Aspect of the Beast, and in the game, lent some otherworldly skills to the 4 heroes they were helping.  I vaguely recall one of the shianna was Wheer, the owl, I think another was deer, but for the life of me, I cannot remember the others.  (help, anyone?)  Each lent it's power to one of the PC's for the crux encounter, and added a bit more to the final encounter of day two, but beyond that, I didn't develop them much at sha'te.

     In writing, the shianna are out there, but as yet, I"ve not put them into the storyline.  I'm sure they'll show up someday, some how, somewhere.  It'll probably be an owl, waking our heroes up at 4:00 am.  Knowing the typical heroes of D'oril, he won't stop grumbling until the next winter.....   ;-)

TTFN,
Jim

Sha'te, Part 2. Delving into day one...

Ah hah, the readership came alive with my posting about Sha'te Valley.  The comments have encouraged me to delve deeper into Sha'te, as well as the whole IFGS game writing schtick.  For readers who aren't IFGS familiar, bear with me, I'm writing about live action role playing.  (A lot more info can be found at www.ifgs.org) Now to lure Ray in...

     Keep in mind that all this occurred many years ago, and that my recollections of the writing and sanctioning process are probably suspect.  I've also changed my view of the storyline of D'oril over the years, most significantly in the last couple of years as I've been writing, and preparing to write in retirement.  I'm sure those who participated, both as players (Del and others), or as game staff (Art, I know you're out there, mostly lurking in the wordpress mirror site) will have different recollections, I hope you'll share them. 

     I think I ended up with more than 100 pages of game copy, by the time I was done writing.  I had another 50 or so pages of notes and ideas that I'd kept to myself as background, plus all the materiel in the many minigames that preceded Sha'te.  The original concept of Sha'te was much more grand that ended up being produced, but IFGS reality being what it is, the desperate battles of a few heroes against an army just can't occur.  The biggest innovation was the 4 passes concept, where each team would stand alone against detachments of an approaching army.  But even there, I had grander ideas that never made it to game copy.

     I'd wanted to find a game site where four "passes" would exist that the teams could block.  Ideally, they would be far enough apart that it would take a few minute for pc's to move from one to the other, but hours for the approaching NPC army to do the same (The advantage of interior lines, a military tactic).  I wanted the teams to know of each others presence, and I'd envisioned them arranging to send messengers back and forth with an HQ set up central to all four passes where the LM's would huddle over a map, considering the scouting reports coming in from the K'tath kel warriors, and shift reinforcements back and forth to meet the varying threats.  There are many real-world gaming problems with this idea, though.  For one, I'd have needed many more NPC's that I felt I could gather.  Secondly, the game site I used didn't really offer a place that would work. 

     Sha'te had a theme for each day.  Day one's theme had to do with desperate last stands.  On the strategic scale, never seen but referenced throughout the day by NPC to PC lore, had to do with the massive battle within Sha'te Valley itself, as the Kel of the K'tath stood up against the armies of the empire in an effort to keep the enemy from penetrating through the valley into the south, where open spaces would return the advantage to the empire with their superior numbers (Envision the spartans against the persians at Thermapole.  On an operational scale, the players were to demonstrate the same theme with their 4 heroic "8 against many" stands within the 4 valleys while protecting the k'tath rear areas (Think 20th Maine regiment on little round top at Gettysburg protecting the flank of the union army).  And on the tactical, the 4 "heroes" made their own "1 against dozens" stands trying to delay the pursuit of the k'tath sen'anth by Phorix's shadow-scouts as she tried to get to the kel command center.  WIth this theme repeated three times at different tactical levels, a desperate last stand that, at the end of the day, left the final issue in doubt, I felt I had a storyline and concept that would really resonate with all players.

     During game writing, I knew that the massive battle within sha'te itself could only be referenced by lore, and I wanted to have in-character reports delivered to the pc's to add to the flavor, but I just didn't have the NPC's or time to carry through with this.  On the operational level, my desire to see a PC command center where the pc's would coordinate the defense of the 4 valleys fell apart because the SC felt that the resulting situation, with messengers flying back and forth from the valleys, would lead to chaos.  I'd envisioned a scene where one valley after another would report a major assault massing in front of them, request help, and each of the other valleys would send 1 or 2 of their team members to help.  The diminished teams would face a smaller assault while their roving reinforcements were away.  It was the SC's view that such cooperation between teams would be impossible, some teams would send virtually their entire fighting complement as reinforcements, while others might ignore the problem entirely.  Balancing the fights at the remaining valleys would be impossible, since the SC didn't want to have the NPC coordinator adjust the balance on the fly.  In addition, the requirement for NPC's under this scenerio would have been severly high, I think I'd determined that I would have needed more than 50+ fighting NPC's to properly challenge the teams in this manner.  Instead, I formed what NPC's I had into several smaller groups that would rotate through the valleys, hitting the teams sequentially.  Each team was completely independant of each other.

     The end result was that each team got battered, showed some success and some failure.  In my original design, I wanted success to be "all of the passes held, although it was a very near thing, only the timely arrival of PC reinforcements kept the empire from getting it's troops into the k'tath rear area."  If one or more teams had allowed a breakthrough, I had to have an in-game reason why it didn't turn the tide of the overall battle, and my idea during initial development was that the K'tath would have reserves in place, allowing them to shore up the hole, but taking away from PC resources on day two.  I wasn't able to come up with a viable way to alter the second day of a major game in such a drastic way to the SC's satisfaction then, though I'd like to think, given time and a freer hand from the SC, I could have.  As a result, I had to write second day game copy as if a breakthrough had occurred, regardless of PC success on day one.  But, because I'd had to go to the 4 independent passes concept, it was a pretty good bet that one of the teams would collapse under the assault, so as far as game copy was concerned, everything went according to plan.

     How much more exciting would the game have been if I could have kept to my original design.  PC's would talk about how the arrival of Evro and Delanore at the last minute turned the tide against the roman legion, or how their absence at the other front nearly cost everything, but Napadoc pulled a fast one and...  And, how would I have changed day two if a breakthrough had occurred.  More things to write about.....

Anyway, more to come on this subject,
Clear skies,
Jim

    

Sha'te Valley, an after action report.

      The IFGS world of D'oril began as background material for a character history.  I've touched a lot about it in the past, how it grew from there to a simple world, to a neighbor of the Land of the Seven Tribes, (and eventually splitting off so I can write without dealing with other authors.)  I guess I'm keeping the ties to the IFGS alive, in part because there are times I want to (read wish I had the time to) pick up where I left off.  As far as the IFGS version of D'oril goes, however, the world stopped at the end of Sha'te Valley,  Except I kept some things going in Brandis' character history.

     Melding Brandis' history with Sha'te and the aftermath doesn't really take much effort, since almost all of Brandis' adventures within the IFGS took place outside of D"oril.  I created the reasons he couldn't return, and fed tidbits of D'oril lore to other PC's when I played him.  I've never really had a problem with time and the IFGS, though, for I took a page from the master, Ray Michel, and allow that "Time passes differently within the worlds of the IFGS".  SO, Brandis can stand at Shatterman Pass, go through his torment following that as his soul darkened from the non-stop war and shadow threat, return home just long enough to obtain kath healing, and head back into the southern world.  Nothing happened after Sha'te.

     Except in my head.  I had jotted down game ideas, one that would have taken place months after Sha'te, another that would have picked up almost immediately afterwards.  Both got through the outline and detailed storyline phases, but I never got the the encounter definition phase, mostly because the FAA (and real life) began to consume my life.  I've kept those notes and storylines in some folders, ready to be resurrected.

     Sha'te, in itself, is an entirely different animal.  The story for that developed over the first couple of years of writing minigames, I wanted to write a game outside of the closed world of D"oril that the general populace could participate in, yet retain the flavor of the closed world that I (and the players) enjoyed.  In the minigames, I was ablt to tailor encounters, and plots, to specific characters, and pull the characters emotions this way and that.  This was to be an issue that would plague Sha'te, to this day, I'm not sure how successful I was at presenting the story I'd written for Sha'te, as I saw it. 

     One reason for my uncertainty is that, quite honestly, there were more than a few players who didn't enjoy Sha'te.  I've felt that one of the main reasons for their dislike was because they'd not been immersed in the lore and storyline for 2 summers prior to the game, like the 12 or so players (who became the loremasters and their seconds in SHa'te)  had been through the Heartbow and Seeker miniseries.  Another reason has to do with logistics, I'd envisioned encounters that just didn't translate to the limited resources of IFGS games (although the Lor games approached what I'd hoped to do).  Finally, The storyline itself was forced into the IFGS format in order to make it a playable game, and suffered greatly in the translation. 

     The end result was a series of compromises that, although necessary for the game to be sanctioned and in order for it to be playable, weakened the storyline, and hence the impact that I'd envisioned for the game.  One aspect of Sha'te that I'd not touched upon outside of a close few friends, was that SHa'te was written with an emotional plot.  I wanted the characters to feel emotions that changed from Up and excited at game start, to worried, stressed, and perhaps fearful through day one, to emotionally spent and exhausted at game down on day one.  Day two began with uplifting news that would boost the morale, allowing the characters to fight through to win the day.  An emotional roller coaster.  Except that only a few characters got into the depth of feeling that I'd intended.   I'd been able to manipulate pc emotions in the minigames, but...  It doesn't work on a grand scale.

     To this day, Sha'te remains poorly understood, at least by my standards.  What the players accomplished in their minds, and what was accomplished as far as the K'tath were concerned remain separated by a grand canyon.  The epic scale of the Empire of Tallux's efforts were altered by a couple of dozen adventurers, not so much by the military defeat they suffered at the hands of the Kel warriors and the adventurers, but by ripples of cause and effect that have yet to be fully revealed.  My writings today take Sha'te into account, and at least in my current project, shape much of what happens. 

     I'll write more about Sha'te with my next post, perhaps a retelling of what happened, and hints at the changes that are still happening...

Clear skies,
Jim