Or maybe it’s because I’m writing a Saeli/Brendan conflict scene, and that’s harder to do from Saeli’s head. I dunno. It ought to be easier, because I’ve got a solid pipeline to Saeli’s internal state of mind. But for some reason, I’m having a hard time generating the necessary emotion to make this scene work. The scene needs to happen, and it needs to happen onscreen. It escalates the tension between Saeli and Brendan, so that Brendan’s later drug experimentation and subsequent explosion at Saeli makes sense. Otherwise, Brendan is going to look like he’s overreacting, and the reader isn’t going to have a clear idea why.

However, maybe I’m trying to milk it too much. Maybe it needs to be extremely short, and maybe Brendan actually holds back a lot of what he’d like to say. I was going to have this fight undermine a lot of the confidence Saeli has just gained in Raphel…but reading that just now, I’m realizing that I can’t do that. I mean, we’ve just had a big reveal in the story. I’ve turned Saeli’s world upside down, and she needs to ride that for a while. Her thoughts need to marinate before I dump the next big thing on her.

And to some extent, I want Brendan’s blow-up at the graduation party to shock Saeli. She needs to know he’s upset, but I don’t think she or the reader needs to know just how much the boyfriend thing has been eating at him until it all comes out. Brendan’s pain is a major consequence of her joining forces with Raphel, and as such, it needs to hit her at the appropriate time.

So this little fight needs to be short and bitter, but not too intense. What needs to be revealed at this point?

-Brendan thinks Saeli has a boyfriend. Because:

-Brendan ran into Cara while looking for Saeli. Cara, concerned because Saeli hasn’t returned to campus yet, and feeling guilty about lying to Brendan in the first place, tells him the truth and sends him after her. This, perhaps, will also create a little tension between Cara and Saeli. Saeli’s going to have to keep lying to keep Raphel a secret, and this will have the effect of isolating her from her Mantle friends.

-Brendan was coming to tell Saeli that he’s earned the gold and white, and that they’ll be Anjahel together. Finding out that she tricked him in order to sneak off campus to meet a boyfriend has completely ruined this much anticipated moment for him. Thus, he is not happy.

However, the crux of his anger is not specifically that Saeli has a boyfriend. Rather, he thinks she had a boyfriend when they talked in the infirmary, and he thinks she deliberately kept it from him. He also assumes that’s why she tricked him in order to sneak off campus. Brendan is feeling like he’s being played by the girl he likes, and that really hurts. I think that’s the reveal I need to save for the graduation party. Let Saeli assume Brendan is mainly mad about the sneaking out, and then let the truth come out later, at the worst possible moment.

I think I know where this scene needs to go now. Note to self…if a scene is going slowly, maybe there’s something functionally wrong with it, and I need to step back and analyze what I’m doing.

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I think, I think, that the scene I’m currently working on will be one of the last to involve significant changes to the storyline itself. It’s the scene where Saeli meets Raphel in the Sari Cafe…only now she’s already been given her Mantle, she has to sneak off campus in order to meet him at all, she and Cara had to deceive Brendan in order to pull off the escape, and she’s got a two hour time limit to get back (before the school gates close for the night). Thus, the whole dialogue will have to unfold in a different order to accommodate the changes. Plus I’m bringing over a shortened version of the dedication discussion, since the first thing out of Saeli’s mouth is going to be something along the lines of “Uh, they kind of made me a Mantle”…which isn’t going to make Raphel happy.

The next major event is the graduation party. I’m sure Saeli will be able to get official permission to go to that. She’ll also be able to tell Raphel about it, since she’ll have a sorarc by then. Plays right into his hands, that…

At the party, Saeli has to have her confrontation with Brendan. I think I still need to have a short scene with him after Saeli gets done talking to Raphel at the Sari…if only to establish some complication in their relationship. First of all, Saeli and Cara had to have his help in getting Saeli through the gates. The school gates have student guards to keep track of who goes in and out, and the High Priestess has given orders that Saeli is not allowed to leave. The gates also have a pair of qi-sensing panels embedded in the school-side entrance that glimmer if qi is used near them. (Of course, they are only set up to recognize sattva qi, because they were designed to catch students sneaking out, not Cowls sneaking in. The school assumes that any Cowl sneaking in is going to be caught by the anti-intruder ward, or the Anjahel guards on duty [who can sense the presence of rashas qi in a person, not just when it's in use]. That hole in the system allowed Raphel to sneak in cloaked, with a student’s name on his lips.)

However, Saeli doesn’t know any rashas qi yet, so she’d have to use a sattva cloak to sneak out. That’s where Cara comes in. Cara is also going to cloak and try to sneak through the gate, but she’s going to purposefully get caught. She’ll then explain that she was sent to test the qi panels, and to make sure the guards were paying attention. Such tests are somewhat routine. While the guards are distracted with Cara, Saeli will slip by. However, both girls know that the guards will report the incident, so they need to obtain actual permission to conduct the test. That’s where Brendan comes in. He’s a senior red cord, and on very good terms with Professor Lo, the Advanced Forms teacher and the head of campus security. He’s also known for his honesty. If Brendan were to go to Lo and say he thought the panels needed testing, and the guards needed a wake-up call, he could probably get the permission they need.

Only problem is, Saeli can’t tell Brenden she’s going to sneak off campus, because Brendan would never allow it. Barring that, he’d never go along with it. So Saeli and Cara go to Brendan and pretend that they saw the guards goofing off, and that it’s making Saeli nervous. Saeli suggests sending Cara to test them, but they need permission. Brendan, already vulnerable to any plea from Saeli and already worried about her safety, agrees and gets the permission they need.

The sneaking out goes over without a hitch, except that Cara ends up going with Saeli to the Cafe. Saeli just can’t persuade her otherwise. They get to the cafe, and Saeli doesn’t see Raphel right away. She gets more and more nervous, especially with Cara there, and finally needs a moment to herself. She excuses herself and goes to the hallway outside the bathrooms, and of course there’s Raphel, dressed in street clothes and waiting for her. They have a kind of frantic, whispered conversation, which is interrupted by Cara, who comes looking for Saeli. So Cara meets “Aiden” and is completely and utterly charmed. She now completely understands why her roommate would risk getting in trouble to see this guy again. I need Cara to not be suspicious, because Brendan is about to become suspicious enough for both of them.

Brendan, meanwhile, is pulled into the High Priestess’ office that evening and given the gold cord. The first thing he thinks to do, of course, is to tell Saeli, so he goes looking for her. He doesn’t find her, and he learns that Cara went on into town after testing the gate guards. Well, Brendan’s a pretty smart fellow and he quickly realizes that Cara must have been helping Saeli sneak out. That pisses him off, because not only is she endangering herself by going outside, she tricked him into helping her do it. So he goes into town looking for her.

He finds her inside the Sari, just as she’s about to leave (time’s almost up). Saeli tries to shoo Raphel away before Brendan sees them, and Raphel is quite willing to leave, but Brendan’s already spotted them. Raphel leaves without speaking, and Saeli and Brendan are left alone. Well, now Brendan is triply pissed, because apparently Saeli tricked him into helping her sneak out so that she could meet a guy behind his back. Ouch. And there really isn’t much Saeli can do to persuade him otherwise, without revealing who Raphel is and why she was really meeting him. Problem is, there’s just enough truth to Brendan’s suspicions that Saeli feels too guilty and wretched to tell the truth. Confronted with Brendan’s hurt, the truth actually starts to feel like an excuse. She does like Raphel. She did meet him before she and Brendan spoke in the infirmary. And her own fascination with Raphel was part of the reason she met him again.

So that’s where Saeli and Brendan stand going into the graduation party. It’s probably enough to push Brendan over the edge enough to indulge in a little tanathe weed.

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Raphel is my favorite character, hands down. Do I love him? Oh yes. Too much. I occasionally I have to make sure I’m not lavishing too much attention on the guy. He has such a strong personality that if I let him have too much leeway, he would take the story and run. Nix that, he wouldn’t run…Raphel would dangle the storyline in front of my face, smile at me with that sexy, challenging glint in his blue eyes, and dare me to try and take it from him. Who could resist? (Apparently, not me ). I like to think that somewhere in that dark heart of his, he harbors a soft spot for Saeli, but honestly, I’m not sure. Beefing up the world around him, Aschera, the raider culture, etc. has actually helped keep him in line. Raphel might want everyone to think he’s got everything under control, but I have a whole world of problems I can use to take him down a notch, if I have to. I’ve already given him a rival cabal to worry about (that was a godawful chapter to write, btw).

Mora is actually keeping her distance from me in this rewrite. I do love her, though, because she’s always cool, and unflappable, and quietly sardonic, if the occasion arises. She’s such a tragic character, in that Raphel had already stolen her soul before Saeli ever met her. She’s a strong woman though, with a lot of history you only get glimpses of. She represents what Saeli could have become, if Raphel had really had the chance to break her. (I think that Saeli has more inner strength than Mora, and that Raphel would have never been able to completely conquer her, but it would have been a near thing.)

I’m having a lot of fun with Kaladan this time around. He’s a complicated man, and next to Saeli, he probably has the biggest character arc of anyone. You have to love a character who can throw out one-liners like this one:

Geris licked his lips. “You can’t blame me for being careful. This is enemy territory,” he said.
“Aye, we’ve only remained undiscovered in the largest Mantle city in the region for two whole moons,” Kaladan remarked. “Clearly Raphel’s subterfuge skills leave much to be desired.”

But his history is what really makes him fun to work with. In a way, as a Mantle turned Cowl turned Gray, he has the most perspective of any of them.

Cara is great because on the surface she seems like a typical young woman, flighty, scatterbrained, and doesn’t care for much other than socializing. But on the inside, she has an unwavering spirit and deep affection and loyalty to those she cares about. She’s the type of person who would never take charge unless they were forced into it, and then they would do an amazing job. Her early optimism and carefree nature is something I regret taking away from her at the end…but everyone in this story has to lose something.

Brendan…eh, who wouldn’t love Brendan? He’s the classic boy-next-door, who is willing to suffer in silence while the girl he loves dates someone else, just so she can be happy. Until he finds out the other guy is hurting her, of course…he won’t stand for that. Unfortunately, he’s a character that only really becomes important by dying.

Geris is like Peter Pettigrew from HP: one of those cowering, whiny villains who are so pathetic that it’s incredible how much trouble they manage to stir up. I like him for that, and because he gets what’s coming to him in the end. The High Priestess, aka Linserae. Avalgo. Othau. Isharyel. Hakarin.  Adna. The Keeper of the Oath. Jalil…those are all my minors that really get screen time, and I love them all, for various reasons. And there are my gods: Yuril, Scisaxar, Naeth.

I considered every single character in Shades, and interestingly enough, the only one that I’m not sure I love is…Saeli. And I was like “uh-oh…I love everyone except my PROTAGONIST? That can’t be good.” It’s not that I don’t like her, it’s just that I don’t seem to have any real perspective on the matter. She is so much of ME, in this story, that I can’t distance myself from her. Saying I love Raphel or anyone else is like saying I love my husband…I’m analyzing my own feelings for another person. Trying to decide if I love Saeli is like me trying to be someone else trying to decide if they like me. She is…transparent, to me.  I have been trying to give her more backbone this time around, and a few definite quirks that are NOT like me. But for the most part, how she reacts to things is pretty much how I would react, were I in her shoes. However, I’m pretty sure she’s not a Mary Sue…she screws up too much. She doesn’t always make the best decisions (clinging to Raphel for so long being the chief of these…but interestingly, I’m pretty sure I would make the same mistake).

The rewriting is going more slowly than I would like. I worry, sometimes, that I just don’t write quickly enough to survive in this industry. Even when I have a block of five hours to work with, I still don’t get a whole chapter done. I don’t know if I could really write a book per year, even if I had huge blocks of time to work in. I guess either it’s something you learn, or you find a publisher willing to let you take two and three years to produce a work. I’m beefing up some of the sexual tension in this story, even though I still don’t think I could market this as a genre romance. But the story is about Saeli and Raphel’s relationship, so I’m trying to keep the focus there, where I can.

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Anyway, I have precisely three months to get this story done and polished before the conference. (Technically, I may have a little longer, because even if I get a bite at the conference, there will still be a period of days or weeks of querying and conversing back and forth with a potential editor or agent). That’s a little scary, but I’m going to try to do it.

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It’s amazingly difficult to handle a three year old child without a voice. I could whisper this morning, but Eli thought that was some kind of game, and refused to listen to me. *facepalm* My voice has come back gradually throughout the day, but my throat is still very sore.

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