3 Nov 2016

The Soul Blade Chapter 5 - Commentary

Brenna tries to explain what happened and why she's at a murder scene to the police.

One of the rhythms I fell into with early NaNoWriMo was an action/reaction rotation.  For everything that happened to a character, there was a scene for the character to process what happened and what to do next.  Chapter 3 had Brenna discovering a body, so Chapter 4 has the natural consequences of authorities getting involved.  For NaNo, it works to get words down and keeps the story flowing.  I still tend to fall into that rhythm, but I also have a better idea of how things progress.

A common trope with urban fantasy is keeping the supernatural and paranormal outside the perception of the mundane.  In superhero fiction, secret identities are de rigeur as well.  Given that Brenna came from an idea for the Champions RPG, having her maintain a masquerade was a natural choice.  In story, she's well aware that speaking with ghosts and waving around a sword of light would look bizarre at the minimum, so she doesn't tell everyone.  Her immediate family is aware as are family on her mother's side.  Missy is also aware; it's hard to keep secrets from your best friend, especially when the secret needs to come out to keep her safe.  Matt, though, is unaware, as established already.  Keeping the Soul Blade secret means that when the police get involved, Brenna has to try to explain her presence in unusual situations.  Normally, though, Brenna doesn't arrive on a murder scene while the body is still there.  Ghosts linger, and Brenna can do her thing in privacy most of the time.

Speaking of the police, there's no points for guessing where I got the names for Detectives McCoy and Kirk.  I needed a pair of names and they were the first to come to mind that weren't actual TV detectives like Cagney & Lacey or Starsky & Hutch.  McCoy took the lead in the investigation, though.  He got to interview the one who found the body.  From his view, Brenna and her sister were in an office that she didn't work at and had no reason to be in.  Kirk got to interview Grace, the more confident Halliday sister, the one who has to deal with a flighty sister who sees things that don't exist and has trouble dealing with other people, especially hot-looking young men.  McCoy and Kirk will return; murders aren't easily handwaved away.

I wound up rewriting a portion of this chapter once I realized what the killer was doing with/to the bodies.  The description of how Brenna discovered the body had to be changed as a result.  It was a simple change, but the former description didn't work with the later revelation.  What the change is, I'll leave for now.  It's a bit of a spoiler for what does happen.

Pantsing can make for interesting and unexpected twists.  I do a bit more planning now, in such that I have a rough direction and key scenes to hit while I figure out an ending.  Still, sometimes, items will appear that I don't expect, and that will hold even into NaNo 2016.

Tomorrow, A quick peek at Trish, and Matt and Brenna try to catch up on old times, in The Soul Blade Chapter 6.
Also tomorrow, over at Psycho Drive-In, first impressions of the The Peanuts Movie.
Saturday, over at Seventh Sanctum[http://codex.seventhsanctum.com/], The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let's Do the Time Warp Again.

1 comment:

  1. Anyone who feels like this is a rerun might want to check out the following:
    http://thechaosbeast.blogspot.ca/2016/12/the-soul-blade-chapter-5-real-commentary.html ^.-

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