If they take it, I may turn it into a serial thing. Alan Hunter’s story makes a nice lead-in to the overall Grimms storyline, something I’ve wanted to get started on. One of the Grimms, on a rescue mission, meets Alan after he’s been recaptured. They all escape. The Alan/November romantic tragedy will be wrapped in as a subplot to the whole Grimm tale. I don’t think Alan will ever actually be a Grimm; he’ll function more as a solitary ally. He may not be the only one; the Grimms will probably acquire a network of allies as the story fleshes out. Rescued kids who make it back to their families, but still know. Faerie enthusiasts who are in on the truth. Maybe even a rogue Fae or two.

I’m still working on Shades. In the process of spreading out and raising stakes on an already tense scene. I think I’m approaching the point where I won’t have to change much more. I’m also pretty sure I’ve said that before. *sigh* On the upside, I get to burn some mansions down. What’s the point of having a cabal of Cowls in a Mantle city if they never wreak any havoc? Let’s just say it’s high time for some chaos.

I also had a germ of an idea in the car today. I’ve been reading more Percy Jackson books: am currently about halfway through Titan’s Curse. So I was thinking about Greek mythology and heroes, specifically about the so-called “fatal flaw”. And I wondered what it would be like to have a flaw you really couldn’t overcome, and one you knew it really would kill you one day. I mean, how do you live with that? I have this eternal sense of optimism that persuades me that any flaw can be overcome if one perseveres…but I mean, what if there was just no overcoming this?

I think that’s what intrigues me about the vampire myth. No matter what you do, once you’re bitten, once you’ve turned…the Beast within will win. Eventually. No matter how hard you fight. Every slip sends you one step closer to becoming a monster.

But so, what do you do? Maybe the answer lies not in working to overcoming the fatal flaw, but seeking to put it to use somehow. The Greek word for ‘fatal flaw’ is hamartia. Maybe if you combine your hamartia with someone else’s, it turns into a strength. And then I thought, what if there was a world where everyone was born with such a flaw, and the only way to save yourself was to find your flaw-partner. Once you found this person, the two of you together would become unstoppable.

No, not everyone in a world would have this problem. Maybe only a few are born with a Flaw. It would be sort of the opposite idea of Cashore’s Gracelings. It would be terribly unlucky to give birth to a Hamartia, a Flawed One, and so most would be exposed or abandoned at birth. The few that dare to raise a Hamartia child would send them out on a quest to find their Flaw-bound, probably as soon as possible. After all, you never know when a Flaw will reveal itself, or how many people will suffer as a result. Single Hamartia would be shunned in society, barred from public places, etc.

However, Flaw-bound pairs would be revered.

What other conflict could exist here?

Maybe Hamartia are not allowed to fall in love with normal people? Or each other? Maybe falling in love risks the Flaw-bond, as the two are no longer willing to do what’s needed to negate the other’s Flaw. Maybe only same-sex Flaw bonds work, or are trusted to work.

Maybe they just aren’t allowed to have children, as Hamartia always birth more Hamartia.

Or maybe a Flaw-bond has to be between a man and a woman, and for some reason, there are more male Hamartia than female, or vice versa. Maybe same-sex Flaw-bonds are viewed as inferior, or are outright forbidden.

Or maybe Flaw-bound consist of two people who inherently hate each other. After all, who better to mitigate one’s Flaw than someone who sees ALL your flaws and is unwilling to put up with them? Maybe Flawed pairs who last for longer than a couple of years are rare.

This is really only a germ of a magic system, but maybe I’ll dig through my queue of ideas and find a story to stick it into.

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Renegade

Right now I’m working on Inkheart, another book that I’ve seen the movie of. Pretty good so far.

I have a ridiculous weakness for M&Ms. In case the blog itself doesn’t give that away.

You might notice that I’ve tweaked the sidebar a little bit. That picture (and yes, that is me) is one the hubby took while we were in North Carolina. It was a nice foggy day, which made for some very neat photo opportunities. I also finally figured out how to eliminate the search thingy at the top. I never liked it there. I’ll probably put it somewhere else in the sidebar, so the blog is still easily searchable.

I’ve been thinking about the logistics of the coup Raphel is planning for the city of Aschera. I’d only given it so much thought the first time around, and I’m realizing that I really need to know how it’s going to work. I need to know how the government functions. I need to know how Cowls occupy the cities they conquer. I need to know what they do with the cowan citizenry of conqured places. I need to decide what they will do with the majahel students at the school who don’t escape. I need to decide how many cabals it would take to occupy a large city like Aschera, and how Raphel is going to contact these cabals. I need to figure out all the complications that will arise when Raphel basically bails on his cabal right after they’ve captured the city.

Aschamon’s professors are also the governing body of Aschera. The High Priestess is the High Priestess of that entire region; her role as headmistress of the school is really more of a side job for her. As commander-in-chief of the forces from the Aschera region, she is occasionally called out into the field, and thus absent from the school for days at a time. Donnevan, the Angelic Studies professor, acts as head of the school in her stead. A group of nine or ten professors make the larger decisions for the city as a whole, and each has a number of guild heads and craftmasters that report to them.

Students pay a tuition to attend Aschamon, but those who can’t afford it are generally taken on scholarship anyway. (This only applies to local students…student from outside cities like Chisge pay tuition, and it tends to be a little higher). The city tithes to the school, and provides for scholarship students and generally what tuition doesn’t cover. Aschamon students are encouraged to work in the city, offering services only majahel can provide. The more a business or trade donates to the school, the cheaper majahel services become for them. In the last couple of decades, Aschamon also began demanding a tax on top of the tithe, to better fund the war. After the capture of Iadnah, the last really big Cowl stronghold, the war turned in the Mantles’ favor. Thus they stepped up their efforts, hoping to finish it in a few short years. However, the tax began to really hurt some Aschera businesses, which led to closures and the price of certain items rising. Fewer families could afford to pay for their young majahel to attend Aschamon, but since the war was “almost over”, Aschamon felt they really couldn’t turn any aspiring student away. Thus, Aschamon began to have a surplus of scholarship students, which then put more pressure on the city to provide for the school’s needs…and thus more business and families began to hurt, financially. It’s a vicious cycle that Aschamon’s professors are aware of, but choose to ignore…because they are still hoping that if the Mantles can just push a little longer, the Cowls will be defeated once and for all.

I need to decide how many people live in Aschera. Luckily I had already sat down at some point and worked out all the logistics of Cowl raider culture. A typical cabal of raiders has anywhere from 15-40 members, average being 20 or so. Raphel’s cabal has 17-18, but these are very, very good, because Raphel has the reputation to be selective in who he allows to join. I’m deciding that Geris’ cabal has closer to 40, but he tends to attract the scum of Cowl society and as such, his crew is more of a rabble or mob than an trim fighting unit.

When Cowl cabals join together to accomplish a bigger mission, the operation is called a raid. Yes, I totally stole that from Warcraft. The term works. The ras from each cabal get together and decide who is going to lead the raid, by duel if necessary. The other ras in the raid function like suras to the ras in charge of the whole operation, but maintain control of their own cabals.

I think there needs to be two, possibly three more cabals involved to effectively occupy Aschera. When both Raphel and Mora disappear through Saeli’s portal, Raphel’s cabal is probably going to be taken over by a fellow named Jaime. (If the ras of a cabal dies/abdicates/is captured/etc., command of the cabal goes to the suras. In the unlikely event that both the ras and suras are killed/abducted/whatever at the same time, command goes to whomever is strong enough to take charge.) The fifteen of them will probably be nominally in charge of the whole occupation effort…until Raphel returns, that is. Thus, Jaime will be ras of the Aschera raid.

We’ll have Geris’ cabal still there, under the command of Egan, their suras. However, Egan is going to be killed by the student resistance, and I think after that the whole cabal is going to fall apart. Some of them might migrate to the other cabals, but on the whole, they’ll probably just take what they can and slink out of the city in the night.

We’ll have Teja’s cabal. I didn’t introduce her until the third book in the first draft, and I may still save her for then. Teja has a relatively large cabal, let’s say 30 or so, and she’s reasonably competent. After Egan is killed and the remnant of Raphel’s cabal abandons Aschera when Raphel returns, Teja will claim leadership of the occupation and become ras of the Aschera raid.

So we need at least one additional cabal, possibly two. Maybe two smaller ones of about 15-20. These are probably going to be Cowls that Raphel or possibly Mora knows, and trusts. I haven’t decided which of them knew Teja.

Now, the occupation itself. As a rule, majahel don’t kill cowans if they don’t have to. It’s kind of like the soldier/civilian dynamic…you don’t kill civilians if you can help it, and you certainly don’t target them. Killing cowans is bad form. Using cowans as cover is cowardly. Etc. Thus, the Aschera raid isn’t going to kill everyone in the city. Also, Prof Micah and Prof Lo do manage to get a sizable chunk of Aschera’s citizenry away from the city before the other cabals get there, so probably large parts of the city are going to be empty.

The students are somewhat of a gray area. On one hand, they are all majahel. On the other hand, a lot of them are not trained enough to really be a threat. The senior red cords and the Anjahel students are obvious threats. Probably any student sixteen or older will be treated as a threat, though the Cowls might decide to imprison them instead of executing them. The younger Mantle students would be treated like cowans. The gray students may be given the opportunity to take the Cowl.

Aschera’s going to get looted and torched pretty bad. Cowls are more accepting of looting than Mantles. (Not that Mantles don’t loot. They do. They just pretend they don’t, or they call it something else.) Aside from Geris’ mob, many of whom are thieves anyway…every Cowl that enters the city is going to take stuff. Plus, taking Aschera is the ultimate payback for Iadnah, and I’m sure the raid is going to destroy everything they don’t need, simply for revenge.

Aschamon is going to become the staging ground for the raid, and as such, the dormitories are probably going to be where they all sleep.

This is what Saeli is going to come back to. Not to mention a very pissed roommate who blames her for it all.

Alas, it is late, so I must give off my brainstorming for the night.

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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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piglet

Once again I’ve laid out Raphel’s explanation of why he needs Saeli, how the war started, and his idea of how to bring down the gods. During the last draft, I had done some brainstorming on Verre’s history, specifically about the Cursing, because I needed more information on Scisaxar’s character. One of the ideas I had come up with was that there existed a group of majahel who belonged to neither Scisaxar nor Yuril, and they could use both sattva and rashas qi. The gods destroyed them. The war between Mantles and Cowls began soon afterward.

Raphel thinks that the gods were threatened by the grays, because the grays knew how to travel to other worlds and they knew about the Keeper. He thinks the gods started the war to cover up the true reason for the Cursing of the Midplains.

What he doesn’t know was that the grays were actually delving in some very dangerous things, and the gods had very good reason to step in and stop them. However, due to some personal drama, the gods admittedly did not handle the situation very well. That’s info for the sequel, incidentally. Saeli actually reestablishes the Grays as an actual Order at the end of Shades, and makes an effort to uncover their lore. Or course, some of the new Grays rediscover the dangerous stuff the old Grays were doing, and try to recreate it. As creator of the new movement, Saeli has to uncover the truth of the movement she’s been emulating, which will mean revisiting some of her pain with Raphel. Anyway…back to Shades.

The gray majahel are new to this draft, and that’s become the primary hook Raphel is using to entice Saeli into this plan to overthrow the gods. Secondary hook: ending the war is all about justice, and knowing the truth. That’s a big deal to Saeli, who’s never really liked the war. Raphel is giving her reasons to hate it. Third hook: Raphel is seducing her. It’s subtle, but it’s there. He’s observed her weak spots. He knows she’s intrigued by him, so he’s playing up his atypical-ness as a Cowl. He knows she’s an outcast, so he’s enticing her with a grand vision of saving the world from itself. He knows how she’s struggled to earn the Mantle, so he uses that to undermine her loyalty to Scisaxar. He knows she has a compassionate heart, so he throws out some of his own painful history to illicit sympathy from her. He also knows how to touch her hand or face in such a way as to deliberately make her stop thinking too hard.

Anyway, they are having this conversation in a cafe, where Cara had previously ordered tea. So the teapot and cups are still sitting there on the table, and once or twice I had Raphel messing with them. Just for something to do with his hands while he’s talking. There was one point where Saeli was considering how logical Raphel’s arguments were, and simultaneously watching him trace a circle on the rim of the teacup. The symbolism of that really struck me: how Raphel can sound all logical and straightforward, and all the while he’s actually leading you around in a circle.

So all of a sudden I had this really neat, subtle metaphor I could use during this scene. The teacup is actually a gauge of what Raphel is mentally doing to Saeli.

When he tells her he’s going to teach her rashas qi, she jumps up, bumps the table, and accidentally knocks the cup off its saucer. If you think about it, Saeli has literally been knocked off her Mantle foundations, and the last straw would be her learning rashas. And who picks up the cup and sets it back on the saucer? Raphel. Because what is he doing but setting up a different foundation for Saeli to rest on?

He plays with the cup some more while he’s telling her about the gray majahel. When Saeli finally asks if he can prove he isn’t making stuff up, he sets the cup back down on its saucer and says “Yes, I can prove it.” (He then proceeds to pull out an old scroll and do just that.) Foundation, again. He’s plucking her out of her old beliefs and setting her back down in his.

When Raphel claims the gods destroyed the grays, he spins the cup on the table. That’s because he’s departed from actual history and is conjecturing. That’s what he thinks happened. He doesn’t know what really happened…no one does…but he’s spinning the story that way because he knows Saeli will fall for it.

Raphel points out that the gods fear the Keeper, and knocks the cup over again. He says he thinks the gods were afraid the grays would bring the Keeper to Verre. This time, Saeli picks up the cup. Because ultimately, it’s Saeli who is going to save the gods, not from the Keeper…but from Raphel.

While Saeli is wondering how Scisaxar could have been part of the Cursing, she’s studying the dregs in the teacup. When Raphel finally tells her that they’re going to overthrow the gods, she drops the cup and it spills. This time it stays spilled for a little bit. This is no small thing he’s just told her, after all.

He picks it up while talking about his past, and grips it hard enough Saeli is afraid it will crack. That’s the part of Raphel that could destroy her, after all…his anger over his past. It’s what ultimately forges him into the villain of the story. In her sympathy, she takes the cup away from him…because she will, at the end of the story, pull herself out of his clutches, and she’ll do it out of love.

He finally pins her down with a question of whether she loves Scisaxar or not. To give herself time to answer, she mops up the spilled tea on the table. White cloth, brown stains. This is what her view of Mantles has become. What she thought was pure is actually stained.

Raphel takes the napkin away from her. He folds it up into a little square, and clinks the teacup down on the saucer. Pretty decisive. It’s after this that he really ramps up the seduction bit, cupping her face and telling her he can’t do this without her, that sort of thing. He switches from “you’re going to do this because it’s a good idea” to “you’re going to do this because you really like me”.

Who knew you could pack all that into a teacup. I love symbolism.

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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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Geris takes particular delight in being from Lanschport, but then, he’s a weird, perverse kind of guy.

What would Raphel call his cabal? To the larger world, the name would be mostly irrelevant. Raphel is so famous that his cabal is simply going to be known by most people as “Raphel’s cabal”…they aren’t going to care what he himself calls it. But still, they must call themselves something…every group needs an identity.

I’m inclined toward something like “New Iadnah”, or something like that. The Cowls in Raphel’s cabal, or at least a good number of them, are survivors of the Siege of Iadnah. Raphel met Nasira in Iadnah during the siege, an event which definitely changed his life. It’s an identifying point with them…gives them particular reason to want to assassinate high-ranking Mantles. Only New Iadnah sounds a little presumptuous to me. But I dunno, maybe Raphel would name his group something presumptous. Maybe he did it when he took it over from Nasira when he was 18.

I’ll just have to think about it some more.

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So a month or two ago, there was this author that had been recommended to me, and I kept telling myself I should check her out. Then, at the Cassandra Claire and Holly Black event in Vero, that same author was recommended yet again, by those two no less. I said to myself, “I really do need to look into that.”

Then, of course, I completely forgot the author’s name. I knew she had two books, and that the second one was called Fire. Let me tell you, there are a whole stinking lot of books on the market with “fire” in the title…which makes searching in the library almost impossible. Especially without an author. So…I gave up, in the hopes of eventually running across the name again and remembering it.

In a completely unrelated series of events, I ended up checking out a book called Graceling from the library. (Are you laughing yet?) It was one of those few books I pick up, not because I know anything about them, but because the back cover sounds interesting. Most of those are disappointments. This one was not.

It was imaginative, and exciting, and unpretentious. I would have built up the world a little more, if I’d been writing it, but the story didn’t suffer for lack of detail. Reading the inside flap, I was surprised to discover that the author lives in Jacksonville, FL. Yay, fellow Floridian! I enjoyed Graceling enough that I went online to see if the author had a blog or something. I started on Amazon, where I was excited to discover that there is apparently another book in the series.

Can you guess what that second book is called? Yep.

Fire.

Proving that yes, apparently I really should have checked Kristin Cashore out when I still remembered her name, because her first book was interesting enough for me to pick up AT RANDOM. Craziness.

In other news, I’m about halfway through the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris. Those are the books that apparently inspired the TrueBlood series on TV, which I know nothing about. But I’ve discovered that if a book spawns a movie or TV series, the book is at least worth checking out. (With the possible exception of Vampire Diaries. I tried to read those and it was like reading Twilight all over again. It was just…meh.) Anyway, I’m quite enjoying the Sookie books. They have a nice balance of mystery, sensuality, solid worldbuilding, and fun, and I really like the protagonist. She’s one of those perky southern women who don’t have a lot of “book larning”, but has a good head on her shoulders nonetheless.

I really need to update my to-read list, as I’ve finished a lot of what’s on it, and have added some stuff. I’ll probably do that in a different post.

The Shades rewrite is going very well. First person works a lot better than third ever did, I’m discovering. Much easier to introspect. But really, I think the best thing I did was starting at the fight scene. It just makes everyone’s motivations and conflicts so much clearer, and make so much more sense. Saeli, instead of starting things off with a dubious and rather stupid plan to meet with a Cowl, is immediately thrown into a conflict with one through no deliberate fault of her own. Yes, she ends up in a mess because of her decisions, but one could argue that there was little else she could do in those circumstances.

No, she didn’t have to sneak into the Temple to get a better look at a Cowl. But her doubts drove her there. No, she didn’t have to jump out to defend the High Priestess against Raphel, but her good heart wouldn’t let her do otherwise. It’s actually the only thing she does all night that a real White Mantle would also do.

She didn’t have to get into a conversation with Raphel, but her own doubts and curiosities, and Raphel’s strange manner, made it inevitable. This is where Saeli’s sense of what’s right departs from White Mantle philosophy. A Mantle would attack, and never give the enemy a chance to speak…no matter the circumstance, no matter how different or fascinating the enemy was. If Raphel had attacked her the second she appeared, that’s probably the course she would have taken, because it’s what she’s been taught. But Raphel tried to talk her away first, and that was enough to shock her out of reacting. Saeli’s own doubts compel her to try and find out why this Cowl is different.

She certainly didn’t have to take Raphel up on his compromise, and let him go when he asked…but it was the only thing she could do to save herself and the High Priestess’ life, given what she knows. (If she had known how much Raphel would risk to keep a gray her age alive, she might have been in a better position to bargain…but as far as she knows, Raphel’s going to kill her unless she does what he asks). She chooses saving lives over the morals she’s been taught, and that is significant. She’s willing to take circumstance into account. She follows her own inner sense of what’s right. This is what makes her so vulnerable to Raphel, but it’s also what will ultimately allow her to break free from him.

Raphel, instead of for-some-mysterious-reason deciding to meet an unknown student just because she asks, is thrown into a conflict with Saeli because of where he was and what he was trying to do. He spares her initially because he’s just killed Denys and is not happy about it, and he really doesn’t want to do it again. And before you start thinking that Raphel isn’t really such a bad guy after all, as Saeli does, know that Raphel objects to killing bystanders not out of the goodness of his heart, but as a matter of pride. He’s an assassin, and normally he’s good enough to get in and out of a place without having killed anyone other than his target. He’s more annoyed with himself at this point, because having to kill a student is embarrassing. Killing two would be unbearable, not to his conscience, but to his pride.

When she follows him up to the tower, he admires her for her tenacity. Mind you, he’s still going to kill her…perhaps even more so at this point, as it’s obvious she’s not going to leave him alone. But he’s curious enough about this Mantle who is acting so un-Mantle-like that he’s willing to hold back for a few minutes and see what she does. It’s when he figures out that she’s gray that the stakes change for him.

He realizes that he has a golden opportunity in Saeli to realize a plan that he’s been concocting for years. But, of course, now he can’t kill her. Hell, he can’t even hurt her in any significant way, as that would destroy any future trust she might have in him. But if he kills the HP, he knows he’ll have to fight Saeli, and thus probably hurt or kill her. However, if he doesn’t kill the HP, he’s going to face hell from his cabal, who are counting on him to take down the Mantle leader. And if he doesn’t choose quickly, he’s liable to get caught anyway. Saeli’s presence in this scene actually puts Raphel in a very difficult position, although of course, Saeli won’t know any of this.

He chooses Saeli, because even a faint hope of taking down the gods is worth the risk for him.

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Brendan acted on his own once before, when he kissed Saeli and I wasn’t expecting it.

I just (re)tackled the scene where Brendan reveals his true feelings for Saeli. And found that I needed to completely rearrange the conversation, because about 90% of the things they talked about the first time around have happened differently (Cowl broke onto campus and killed someone, as opposed to Cowl simply broke onto campus and disappeared) or have not happened at all (Raphel hasn’t taken Saeli on their little midnight philosophical walk yet, Saeli hasn’t claimed to have met “some guy” downtown yet).

So my problem was, how do I lead up to Brendan’s confession this time around? My inclination was to do something really simple, like have him say something like, “See, you almost died last night, and that made me realize something…blah blah blah.” You know, when I actually write it out like that, I see that it kind of makes Brendan look like a sissy. Good thing he had other things on his mind.

After a bit of back and forth between Saeli and Brendan, where he both wants to speak his mind and simultaneously doesn’t, and Saeli is getting more and more confused and annoyed…Brendan finally blurted out something that changed the whole timbre of the scene. “What did that Cowl do to you last night?”

And I remember that White Mantles believe Cowls have neither morals nor inhibitions, and that male Cowl raiders are known to (supposedly) steal women and rape them.

And I realize what Saeli’s story up to this point (”The Cowl was going to kill the Priestess, I talked to him, he decided to let us live if I let him go”) would look like to a White Mantle whose feelings are not entirely neutral. Brendan has jumped to the conclusion that this Cowl raped Saeli, and the reason she hasn’t admitted it is because she let it happen so that she and the HP would live. It’s a logical assumption, given what Brendan knows about Cowls (they’re promiscuous), about Raphel in particular (he’s never left a victim alive before), and about the circumstances (Saeli was alone with Raphel, they cut some kind of deal). And Brendan, dear, protective soul that he is, has got to have the truth of the matter…and thus we have this completely spontaneous scene where Brendan basically accuses Saeli of selling her body to save the HP’s life.

And of course Saeli’s first reaction is something along the lines of “Why the hell could he even imagine such a thing?”, which forces him to admit that it’s not the morality of the situation that bothers him…it’s the idea of her being hurt by a Cowl like that. So Brendan gets to admit how he feels without ever having to say the words, which is good. It reinforces him as a strong male and also as a White Mantle (Mantles don’t talk about feelings much).

It also puts Raphel and sex together in Saeli’s head for the first time, and even though she finds the very idea revolting at first, the seed is planted. Plus, right after this scene concludes, Saeli is going to go back to her room and find Raphel waiting for her.

It really is great when my characters know themselves better than I do, and get themselves into deeper messes than I would have come up with for them.

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Saeli has learned to hold back her emotions to the point where she’s actually made herself a little bit numb on the inside. But once she does accept that she does feel something, it burns through her. I’m about four scenes back into the story now, and she’s spent two of those either watching Raphel or actually interacting with him. She’s definitely physically attracted to him, but interestingly enough, it hasn’t crossed her mind yet. It’s that pseudo-numbness. How she feels is irrelevant to her…how she conducts herself is everything. She’ll analyze her feelings later, in private, probably in great detail. And once she does realize what those physical reactions mean…oh, she’ll fall. Hard.

She’s also something of a pessimist, or at least a cynic, in her head. She always braces for the worst, or she looks at situations and starts thinking of how it could have been worse. She’s always examining herself, asking why she feels the way she does, criticizing herself when what she sees doesn’t line up with what she thinks should be there. She thinks through everything. A lot of that is tied up in years of thinking she’s not good enough…she won’t shake that easily. Raphel is going to nail her with that, especially once she starts dealing with her fears of not being good enough for him.

Saeli also thinks she’s a terrible liar, when in reality she’s a fairly good one. It’s just that she hates lying, and is thus sure it’s written all over her…but she’s so used to holding back that keeping secrets is not that much of a step for her. Brendan is the truly terrible liar. Cara’s average. Raphel makes an art of it.

She’s got some snark in her, sometimes, but it’s not a big part of her personality.

Anywho, that’s where I am with her so far.

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The thing is, I’ve realized that the one character in the story whom I cannot seem to really connect with is Saeli. Everyone else has a self, a voice that I can feel inside. I can picture that essence and I have an instant grasp on that character; I have a snapshot of who that person is inside and where they are coming from. Everyone except my protagonist, that is. I think the only way I’m going to break into her head is to write from her head.

I actually don’t know if that will work, ultimately, for the story. There are a couple of places in my third person POV where I deliberately back off a little bit from Saeli, for artistic purposes and such. I never lose her, but sometimes I’m in her mind and sometimes I’m maybe a little further over her shoulder. I’ll lose that, but I may make up for it with more direct introspection from Saeli. I need to break her off from me. The problem is, she and I approach life in very much the same sorts of ways: we think things through, try to see it from every angle, we hesitate, we dither, we question every move we make…and we’re maybe a little bit too willing to take people at their word. She deals with Raphel the same way I would, if it was me in her shoes. (Because, you may remember, it was. Only maybe not so bad.)

She’s not really so different from me, but ultimately, she’s not me. And I, as the writer, need to grasp this difference and let Saeli be who she really is. First person would also fit better with the dark, introspective direction this story seems to be going in. I admit, I want it to be a bit more literary than the norm of what’s on the YA shelf right now.

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