NaNoWriMo 2016 – Day 7
R. B. Wood
Starting Word Count: 12004
One week almost in the books.
Four Chapters into TEC. As i mentioned before, I’ve had bits of this book written for a while. And 40k words, in fact. But they were words all over the place–cool scenes i had in the back of my head. Character development stuff–things like that.
Now I’m plowing through my updated Outline.
I remember when I showed Glenn Skinner and M. J. King My initial outline in July, They enjoyed it–loved the scenes. But…
But Glenn worried there wasn’t a true ‘journey’ for the main character–Symon Bryson.
“What is he going to learn? How is he going to grow?”
And he was right. So I revamped the outline to also show Symon’s progression…which you will hopefully read for yourself in 2017.
I’ve always planned on Symon growing as a character as my writing skills improved. I thought that would be a very natural path. In the first book, he is angry, scared and a little “woe is me.” In this book, he is isolated and making some core discoveries about the world of magic. It’s why I never went into detail about the magic system in TPF. Symon was taught something that he always assumed was correct. And it served him well. In book two, you learn the true nature of magic in my world–where it comes from, how it works and it’s links to both the ancient and modern world.
So a shout out to M.J. and Glenn…who made me reconsider a few major points. Symon’s journey is back on track.
Oh. I promised you-all a snippet of the work yesterday, didn’t I? Well here you go:
The sanctuary was in near darkness this late at night. A few candles still shimmered where thoughts of loved ones had brought in the prayers faithful earlier in the day. When I was a student here, I never liked to be alone in this massive, perpetually chilly space. I always felt uneasy here–although I could never exactly tell you why.
My footsteps echoed loudly as I made my way toward the exit. I’d almost made it to the naive when an old, croaky male voice that gave me the impression of dust and cobwebs said, “You are in an awful hurry young man…”
I shivered. From the cold sanctuary air. Honest. You’ll have to trust me on that score…
Hope you enjoyed that. Some editing is needed, obviously–but that is what December is for.
Peace
