At this rate, I’ll never get Shades done
See, this is what happens during 3+ hour drives with a busted CD player. I had an idea for Shades in the car yesterday, driving back from Gainsville. It would dump the reader into the action sooner, and it would eliminate some of the shadiness of my characters’ early motivations. The problem is, it involves a complete restructuring of the first book. Again.
The idea is, I start the story just before Raphel’s fight with the High Priestess. Probably with Saeli being called to her office. I can introduce Saeli, the HP, Mantles, Aschamon…all in that one scene. Raphel proceeds to break into the school, and Saeli ends up witnessing the fight. (He’d have to break in using Kaladan’s name…it’s the only thing I can think of that doesn’t bend the rules too much. Raphel has to know the name of a student to not trip the wards. Kaladan was a former student, who, as far as the echelon knows, died honorably. And maybe they don’t bother to scrub former students from the “books”…thus, a convenient loophole. One the HP will probably immediately think to close…but by then, Raphel will have Saeli’s name. And so it goes.)
Only Saeli won’t have a clue who Raphel is, watching that fight. Their first meeting becomes that moment after the HP is knocked out, and Saeli stops Raphel from killing her. This straightens and strengthens motivation on both sides. Raphel immediately sees an opportunity in Saeli, and doesn’t kill the HP to gain her trust. She’s…different. She’s exactly what he needs. Saeli has never met a Cowl in her life, and she is impressed by Raphel’s skill, and by the fact that he doesn’t kill the HP when everything she’s ever been taught tells her that he should. He’s…different. He’s exactly the kind of mystery she’s never had at Aschamon.
But…gyah, there’s so much I’d have to move around to make this work that it’s boggling my mind just to think about it. First, there’s no way in hell Raphel is going to be able to sneak Saeli out again, if that fight comes first. Unless…unless, ah. Saeli doesn’t have to reveal that she was there. She can claim that she stumbled upon the unconscious HP, and let the school stew over the mystery of why Raphel left her alive. Saeli will think she’s done something amazing, by changing Raphel’s mind…and then the whole assembly scene could proceed as it does, breaking that notion. She could even have the whole philosophy chat with him in there…he can use the fact that he didn’t kill the HP as proof that he isn’t evil. Then the mental debate becomes “He could be using me…but he didn’t kill her.”
Somewhere in there, Saeli could reveal to her friends that she saw the battle, but she’ll tell them not to tell anyone. Perhaps the HP gets a glimpse of Saeli just before she’s knocked out, and so Saeli knows that the HP knew she was there. Then, when she disappears with Raphel for an evening and her friends worry, she’ll ask them not to say anything for fear of looking suspicious. Maybe Saeli can make up the whole boyfriend thing in the cafe itself, on the spot, since Cara wouldn’t let her sneak out again. And Raphel will play along. And then Cara will crow about it to Brendan off-screen. Meanwhile, Saeli will have started cleric training with Brendan, and the two of them will have been closer than ever. So when Brendan finds out about this “boyfriend”, he’s going to be hurt. Bad. (I’m going to have to stick the “um-I-like-you” scene in there somewhere…maybe something like “you could have died trying to save the HP and that would have killed me…”) And then…maybe the story can proceed as it does.
*sigh*
But I want it to be the best story I can write. If that means restructuring it three times or twenty times…then I guess that’s what it will take.
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