And so Queen Susan begins

[rthstewart]

I was on vacation and this chapter 1 in the second part of The Stone Gryphon just went incredibly slowly.  I had all the key bits of dialogue I wanted, Peter/Eustace, Peter/Lucy, Peter/Edmund and the bit already posted where Edmund shows Peter the letters.  Putting it together just took forever.  I wanted this all in one chapter, but I've found that some of the longer chapters  7,000 words plus, readers find it's a bit too long to get through.  So, I cut it at 10,000, with likely another 4 or 5,000 (or more in the next). 

I'm also trying to pull something else in, about the war, but that's a bit clumsy currently, so I'll keep at it.  Hopefully, the next chapter in Cambridge will be up in a week or so, and then we turn to Susan's arrival in Washington/Tashbaan.

I found this all very angsty-  more angtsy than I am used to doing.  Crying.  I mean, really.  And still more crying to come.
 
Autumnia already pointed out that I'm hinting at Edmund/Lone Island history.  Yep.  As in, yep, it's ambiguous.  I don't know exactly how or where or why or anything concrete, but it's something I'm playing with.  In this universe, the Four had really significant social and economic problems in the Lone Islands that obviously continued throughout Narnian history.  Edmund devoted time and effort to solving these issues and in this vision it is hard for him to see Caloreme slavers all running amuck and Caspian ordering things every which way.  Whether for Edmund there were more personal entanglements that developed after By Royal Decree is something that still remains ambiguous. 

So, on vacation I re-read The Irregulars, Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington and for good measure, John LeCarre's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.  Everytime I read LeCarre I toss out the window any pretension I have of being a decent writer.  Some of my favorite passages ever written are in Tinker Tailor.  The books did get me back in the spirit of it, so we'll see how it goes.  As I consider just what a cad Dahl was (and the others of his ilk at that time) I really wonder if I can take a story in Narnia fandom in that direction.  The British Security Coordination was a textbook example of whatever means necessary were justified by the end of obtaining full American engagement in WWII.  I don't need to take the story that far, of course.  This is fan fiction, not history.  Yet, I do like the idea of trying to retain the flavor of what the British did to drive an ally to their side, and some of it is so incredible, it reads like fiction. 

So, Narnia and all the free lands of that world will perish unless the Calormen Empire joins in their terrible fight against the evil Ettins.  When in a fight for your very survival, no covert subterfuge is too low in that effort drive Calormen to support Narnia fully.  Yeah.  That's it.

 

And after much hand wringing of my own, I've now broadly hinted at where Lucy's story is going.  The groundwork was in oh gosh Chapter 4, Chain Mail, where she writes to Peter about her uncertainty regarding authority figures who purport to know God.  This is rehash of that, and will come back again in Part 3.  Lucy's valiant journey is going to be, I hope, interesting.  We'll see if I can pull that off, when I get there.



 

Comments

[autumnia]

I admit that I love the long chapters. It feels almost as a reward for the wait the readers have put up with for the next update. :-) The only con I can see about it is that (at least for me), I would have to make time to sit and read it all in one sitting; it wouldn't do to start and then having to stop somewhere in the middle before continuing on at another time. 10,000 words is a good place to end a chapter if the scenes do not permit it to be cut sooner. Some of my other favorite stories contain chapters just as long, if not longer!

But it was a terrific start to part 2, Ruth. Absolutely terrific.

Should you continue further in this fandom after "The Stone Gryphon" and "The Palace Guard", you could easily expand more on the Lone Islands... how the Pevensies dealt with them (tax code and more), or even just a short story that could take place during the Dawn Treader's brief stopover there with thoughts from Lucy/Edmund on how Caspian did deal with it all. There's a story on FF.net that kind of delved into this a little bit, where neither Pevensie were exactly thrilled with Caspian's decision about this.

And thanks to you, I currently have a copy of "The New Conquest of Central Asia" sitting in a folder on my computer. I'm trying to decide if I can sit and read all of it; I skimmed a bit of it not too long ago and it did look very interesting to read, but at 866 pages, it's not something I want to try reading on a computer!

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

I can't believe you are starting Chapman Andrews' book! I have seen it, and looked at it, but never actually read it! I read a more recent take on it by some American Museum of Natural History paleontologists who returned to Mongolia for several expeditions in the 1990's -- Dinosaurs of the Flaming Cliffs.

Yes, I think there are some Lone Island stories to tell. Assuming that I have anything left in me after all of this.

As this next chapter wound upwards to 10,000 words, I decided to cut it in half. They are thematically different, so I think it makes sense. It's still over 7,000 words and it's going up tonight. I'm angsting about some things that I ramble on about in the next entry.

I'll check out the link to the story later. Thanks!

[autumnia]

It's a very daunting book to read, I must admit. The amount of pages devoted to the table of contents alone makes it scary. I think I will try to get through it, with a goal of maybe one chapter a night. Then it won't seem as painful. I think the photos in there are very wonderful to look at that. It makes you stop and think and examine what it must have been like on their expeditions.

The more recent take actually sounds interesting. I saw a brief mention of this on Chapman's wikipedia entry just now.

I suppose this should make me more appreciative of the dinosaur collection at the Museum. Having been there quite often these last few years (a benefit of living in New York City and having corporate admission), I haven't paid too much attention to the exhibits in detail though I have marveled at the dinosaur eggs. :-)

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

I know those collection Halls at the AMNH very well. If you've read anything about protoceratops andrewsi -- the AMNH has an extensive collection of this Gobi Desert ceratopsian and it's their eggs you've probably seen, than you've probably figured out where one part of Part 3 is going and the meaning to the title Stone Gryphon. The theory of the connection between griffins and this dinosaur was presented in a recent exhibit the AMNH did on mythical creatures. The theory dates from a book by Adrienne Mayor, The First Fossil Hunters in which she builds the case that the legend of the gryphon was based upon seeing fossils of p. andrewsi.

The groundwork for pulling this theory back to the 1940s is all in Part 1, chapters 2 and 13. Never mind the dates and the fact that I'm not sure how a specimen would end up with the British Museum instead of the AMNH. We'll just say it's on loan and leave it at that, with the AMNH bugging Mary for its return at the end of the war.

[autumnia]

I'm currently somewhere in Chapter 3 of "New Conquest...". It's an interesting read, and not as boring as one would think. The one chapter a day seems to be a realistic goal, though I think it will end up being several pages a day, and maybe not a full chapter.

Now that you bring up the Stone Gryphon, I feel another trip to the Museum is in order. Pity I didn't get to reading your reply earlier today otherwise I probably would have gone this very Sunday!

And off-topic from this story: Did you see this article in the BBC recently? I could picture this as something the Cheetah Guard would do. Those Cubs that guard the High King seem the type to want attention. :-)

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

I'd always thought of cats as manipulative. I am more a dog person. Cat allergies are rather persistent in my family. Great article!

[varnafinde.livejournal.com]

Manipulation - possibly.
Communication - certainly.
I recognize that purr from my dad's cats (we've had several over the years) - it's what I would call their expectant purr, as opposed to their contented purr. It's a signal that they want something, whatever the reasoning behind it.