Introducing Lankaren

Askar's sequel now has a title - Lankaren - and it is 58,000 words long so far. This is about half of it, I think. It is about what happens in Urkan as a result of the Battle of Lankaren (at the end of "Askar"). How do the various prophesies pan out and how long do Jena and Zarek remain living a happily bucolic lifestyle in Deridea? There are more deaths and quite a few romances but obviously I'm not going to give away details.

A genre book (in this case fantasy saga) is plot driven. Although it has believable characters, and I hope says something about the human condition, the plot is what drives it along. So the first thing I had to do when devising Askar's sequel was plot it quite carefully. Even so I often find I need something in a certain chapter and have to back track to a previous chapter to put it in place. I had this problem in Askar when Galen had to have access to a knife. I had a lot of trouble figuring out how he would actually get hold of it and had to create a scene where he could do this. It wasn't easy. (Was it successful?) So a lot of energy goes into the sheer mechanics of plot.

Also characters can get away on you. On the face of it this doesn't make any sense, after all the writer creates the characters and is surely in charge of what they do. But what can happen is that you invent a character and as you work with him through the plot you get to know him better and begin to understand that the thing you wanted him to do to forward the story he simply isn't able to do. If you force him to do it the book will lose credibility. Say, for example (and this is not in "Lankaren"), you have a character who you plan will murder another character but, as you work with him through the story, you begin to understand that he is not capable of murder and you cannot invent any scenario in which he would do it. You have to change your story into something else. Of course in a literary novel, where character is by far the most important ingredient, changes like this are what make the art. In a genre novel you have to deliver on the expectations of the genre.

This is my trouble at the moment. I have a lovely hero that I want to do something that he doesn't want to do. I'll figure it out, that's what writers do, but it makes for interesting times. (Writers live largely through their work, that's why they tend to be anti-social and a bit peculiar.)

I find myself on a constant quest for the "perfect place to write". Right now I have access to a vacant apartment and that's proving a great boon. Oh that I could have an apartment purely to write in all the time!