Dragons of Autumn Twilight Re-Read: Chapters 13-18: Cover All, Nightmare Fuel and Action Inspiration

I've been remiss and missed some of my posts, but I've caught up to the folks over at Tor.com and I thought I'd share my thought.

Chapters 13 & 14
Chapter Thirteen seems heavy on the “we rolled this section on the random encounters chart” gamesplaysposition. I remember reading something (an interview or something like that) about the scene with Tas and Flint getting drunk on the log being directly lifted from them playtesting the modules. If I weren’t so lazy, I’d link. We’re also sort of reaching the “Cover All” of Fantasy Trope Bingo here: the mysterious dead swamp. I’ll leave aside my own problems with the ignorance of our “well-traveled adventurers” for the sake of story telling for now, but now that I’m a cynical fortysomething and not a bright eyed middle schooler it’s getting harder to do.

The thing this section is making me realize though is how much of a first book this is and reminds me, structurally and tonally, a lot of Star Wars (Episode IV). It’s setting pieces and doing the hero’s journey thing but to a group as opposed to a single person. It’s hitting the tropes perfectly. There’s a character for everyone to latch on to from every group of people, so it makes sense that it was so popular with my age set.

Chapters 15 & 16
Finally, a freaking dragon. Took us long enough. I always have problems with dragons as the big bads but think this is one of the ways the D&D tie in really works in their favor. To most of us, when we hear dragon we think of fire breathing lizards, so the first dragon we meet can not only cast spells but spit some kind of acid as well. Because 100 foot long flying lizards aren't terrifying enough?

As I remember it, the Riverwind scene was pretty terrifying the first time through and it holds up really well. It's horrifying but tastefully done, not gratuitous but graphic enough for us to feel the horror of what happened. You can feels the uncertainty heroes minds as to what to do next. It's really some of the strongest of writing so far in the book.

Strangely enough, the writing is starting to feel like it's coming into it's own and it's starting to work as a story. There's a part that makes it almost feel like a cheap out with how easy this problem is solved, but in the context of the story, it actually works...a lot. It would be easy to complain that the Companions forget about Goldmoon and the staff but a few things are in play: healing isn't a "thing" in this D&D world. There are no clerics and magic items don't have healing powers, so for the most part, our heroes wouldn't even think of that in the moment. A moment when they are still feeling the deep fear and terror of dragonfear. It's understandable that they wouldn't be thinking about that at that moment.

It finally feels like we're getting somewhere and Xak Tsaroth is one of the great fantasy cities!

Chapter 17 & 18
The strength of these books are the actions scenes. While they are occasionally disorganized and almost nonsensical due to the authors' strict adherence to game to text translation, they are still really well done. Not over the top or heavy handed, they work really well. The pages turned fast. I talk about the action scenes because chapter 18 has maybe my favorite action scene in fantasy ever: the fight in the pots. It's just brilliant. Confusing, chaotic, fighting in a tight place. The pacing is brilliant and it reminded me in an instant of the elevator scene from Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The writing is tight and on point throughout and it only ramps up the danger the Companions are in.

I've tried (to varying degrees of success I hope) to replicate many times. In one of my trunk novels I have an entire chapter that is called "Up The Scaffold" that is one character's fight up a scaffolding the side of a building. I've done it in the contemporary story I just finished. It's hard to do and do well.

The escape down the wrecked tube is harrowing and involves more of the slime covered walls of the city, which is a great detail that isn't actually grating despite it's repetitiveness. Actually, a lot of the details about Xak Tsaroth are great. The city is a nightmare, having fallen off a cliff into a cavern in the earth. It such a hard thing to visualize for me but it all works. Except when they get to the bottom of the pipe, which I will talk about next time.

Having A Hamlet Complex

As I continue on my "epic" 2015, my thoughts wander to Hamlet. Yup, the Danish prince of one of Big Willy Shakes most epic plays is in my thoughts as we are on the precipice of summer. Usually, this time of year, I imagine some epic writing plan for the coming months and share it here on the blog. Then in August, as summer reaches it's twilight and I am faced with the impending doom of the coming school year, I lament how miserably I failed at achieving my goals. So, here we are, the first real warm day of the year and as I'm thinking what's next for me, I can't help but feel like Hamlet.

Now, let me explain before you go running off thinking I'm suicidal or have a thing for my mom or something. I'm focusing more on the idea that Hamlet is the "prince that can't make up his mind." It's my favorite angle, especially as a high school teacher trying to get reluctant Shakespeare readers engaged in a text. Presenting Hamlet as a kid that's so overwhelmed by everything happening to him that he can't rightly decide what his next move is going to be. One of the things that kept me reading The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan was my feeling that Rand was really Hamlet, unable to decide what to do next because everything was so overwhelming. I love when books do that and it's something I try to emulate in my writing. Which is why I am evoking the Danish prince, I am in a place where I can't decide what to do next. 

I found a great groove the last six weeks or so on THE SEVEN LABORS OF NICK JABLONSKY, a contemporary YA that I've been working on and off for a few years. A groove that came to a grinding halt when I came to the last section of the book, no more than 10,000 words, and realized I couldn't stick the landing. This put me into a panic that I cannot express. I froze, not sure what to do next with it. The panic became worse when something that was vexing me since the end of Christmas Break, my computer crapped the bed and took everything with it.

PSA for all of my blog readers: BACK UP YOUR DATA. My calm was irrevocably damaged when the poor IT guy came in to tell me all the data on the hard drive was lost and with it the the latest draft of SPRING'S TEMPEST, which just needed a polish draft, and a working draft of book three. It sucks and threw me into a tail spin. A tail spin I am struggling with right now. Like Hamlet, I can't make up my mind what I'm going to do.

I did manage to find a partial (about 77k out of 136k) draft of the new SPRING on a thumb drive and big chunks of it is just revised and rewritten from an older draft of SPRING, so it's not as catastrophic as I thought it might be, but it's still daunting and I'm trying to get my legs under me. I've reread/revised what I have and it's better than I remember (5 months away from it helps) and I figure I can recover, but the working draft of book 3 (SUMMER something...it's getting pitched as STRIFE but I'm leaning towards something else). In the words of the Danish prince, "That it should come to this" is debilitating and I'm unable to decide what to do.

On top of that, another project that I'm struggling sticking the landing for is SISTERS, which I decided needed to be more epic and is going through a face lift of sorts. It's not going to be called the YOUNG WEAPONMASTERS anymore, but the more epically named RETURN OF THE FALSE LORDS. That looms too and I want to put the end to SISTERS and plot out the other books in the series.

As I see it, I've got to make a run at this. I'm pretty convinced my agent is tired of me talking about the same two projects (SEASONS and SISTERS) so much that I want to get new words (LABORS) to him to see if we can do something with it. Plus I almost feel like I'm in a rut because I'm twirling around these few projects. As work lessens a little in the classroom, can I up the volume of writing work I do. Can I hit Rachel Aaron-esque From 2k to 10k level of work? As Hamlet says, "Though this be madness, yet there is method in't." Can I complete all of these things in the next 120 days? I've challenged myself like this before and failed miserably...should that deter me? Of course not.

If I complete all the things in my ledger, it's about 270k. If you look at in terms of 120 days, that's only about 2k a day. I need a bigger pace than that. I want to start something new (besides SUMMER)...that 90s ski epic looms and I'm pretty sure the timeline I made with Aaron Starmer to complete said project is close to expiring. I have a notebook full of ideas I can work on as well and, for some reasons, a few of the scifi projects are calling me: A TOURNAMENT OF PRINCES ("Taming of the Shrew meets Firefly") and THE POINT GUARD AND SPACE PRINCESS ("Attack the Block meets "Love and Basketball"). Can I get more than 270k done? Can I finish off the SEASONS trilogy then move on to other projects? Is it worth the trouble? I don't know the answers for sure, but as Hamlet said, "This above all: to thine own self be true."