The Elf's Prisoner was written on the fly, with minimal planning before NaNoWriMo started and plotting just far enough to be a day or two ahead. When I couldn't get that breathing space, I fell back on character moments. By 2015, I was getting good with character moments. Also helping, I didn't want my characters to just know what the others were doing. They barely know each other right now. Nyssa and Leo might be able to know what each other is thinking, but there's no way any of them can know what Jyslyn or Wren might be contemplating. Having the group discuss the day's plans also meant me figuring out what the plans were. Go investigate in the market? Okay, I can start working on what happens there while I write out the meeting.
Leo and Wren also needed to have a conclusion for what happened the previous night. Both drank far too much, so there had to be some consequence for them. They're young; they're not going to be experts on the morning after the night before. They're going to have hangovers. They're not going to be happy.
At the beginning, Kazi cast a divination to get an insight on what's going on. Divine magic is tied to special effect. The Lightbringer is going to pass along a message using light and colour. It's up to Kazi to interpret the images. He doesn't quite get what's being passed along, though he does figure out who is behind the scheme, though separated by many go-betweens. The snake imagery is because of Sessarine, though Kazi doesn't know about her yet.
I worked in an idea that I'd had for a fantasy world, that deities are known by different names in different cultures. It's something I picked up from the Dragonlance setting. There, the different gods and goddesses were known by different names throughout the game world; for example, Paladine, the head of the good-aligned gods, was known as E'li amongst the elves. The idea made sense to me; I wanted my different nations to have different names for deities. The more isolated the culture, the more likely the other names wouldn't be known. Of course, it'd help if I had developed the deities more.
Wren's youth and isolation do get some play in the chapter. She's been sheltered ever since she was taken to Wildwood. To her, a thieves' guild is a wretched hive of scum and villainy, where everyone gets stabbed in the back and robbed. Jyslyn is more used to the shadier aspects of life. She's shown signs that she's dabbled with rougher elements beyond her older sisters already. Jyslyn is the only one who could figure her way around, too. Nyssa and Leo are nobility, Kazi's a priest, and Wren is sheltered.
Friday, investigating in the marketplace, in The Elf's Prisoner Chapter 28.
Also Friday, over at Psycho Drive-In, Death Race 2050.
Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, sports movies.
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