18 Jul 2019

The Elf's Prisoner - Commentary 37

The last full chapter of The Elf's Prisoner, Chapter 37.

Chapter 37 was the last full-sized chapter written for The Elf's Prisoner.  By the end of NaNo 2015, I was exhausted from not just creating the story but also creating a world several steps ahead of my characters.  NaNo is a marathon, not a sprint, though there are days when sprinting happens, thanks to local events.  Mentally, I was tired.  I knew that I had to step back and figure out not only where the plot was going, as in, what were the characters going to do, but where it was going, as in, where in the setting needed to be developed.

I did wind up working on the world after NaNo.  There is still a lot of world to be developed, but if the characters aren't going there, there's no push to fill in the details.  However, when I ended NaNo in 2015, I had to figure out dwarven culture and names, southern culture, how the characters will get there, how to avoid unnecessary random encounters, and how to keep the plot on track and going and still be interesting.  That's just exhausting to think about, really.

Chapter 37 recaps a lot that has happened now that the group is back together.  However, I wanted more than just restating the obvious.  The group needed to figure out where to go.  There's no turning back from the mission now; there's too much at stake.  As a group, they figured out the details, like where Sessarine might be from.  Leo is thinking of the name Sevarine here, mind, but it's close enough.  What I did was take Sevarine and had a snake say it, since she's half snake.  I'm not going to ignore an obvious convention when it makes my job easier.

The canal was tossed into Chapter 28 as a way for the Realm Under the Mountain to ship ore and goods off for trade.  It became far more useful than I imagined.  First, the Canal District in Silver Trailings became the shadier part of the city, a place where thieves skulked.  The other use I found for it was travel, as in, I can get the heroes down the mountain without dealing with roads and bandits and all sorts of distracting encounters.  It may not be the most comfortable trip, but it's direct and patrolled.

The Tivalan, Sevarine, was a royal brat.  Poor Leo was assigned to watch over her, since he's just a squire.  Being from the south, Tivalans have darker skin in general, though there's varience.  The goal was to make this world feel like Earth, with different shades of skin throughout.  I have no idea if this is working, though.  Too much time spent in too small an area.

The last tidbit, The Elf's Prisoner Chapter 38.
Also Friday, over at Psycho Drive-In, the balkanization of television.
Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, advertising, adaptations, and Wacky Races.

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