rthstewart (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rthstewart) wrote2009-07-11 08:56 pm
rthstewart) wrote2009-07-11 08:56 pm
Entry tags:
And so Queen Susan begins
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.
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.