New, Magical Waters

The day has come; the time is rotten (I let it ripen a little too much; lot’s going on, you know). I have character arcs in hand – well, in Word, but you know – I have scenes planned, even a couple all worked out in my head. It’s going to be fun.

And now that that is taken care of, it’s time to chop up By Ways Unseen into little bite-size pieces and revise. But also, it’s time to look deeper into Rodigger Kytes and why his story is the best one to tell next in the series.

It’s back to the beginning, now, folks; that magical time when anything can grow if you plant it – an iron rod may become a living lamppost…or a character may move from secondary to Protagonist while the Former Protagonist suddenly makes his exit permanently (but not violently, no precious; not violently at all).

A whole new world opens up when you realize that no matter how boxed in you seem, no matter how difficult or impossible alternatives may appear, you do ultimately have a choice. And when you’re faced with so many choices, the dilemma then becomes which one? How do I know that this difficult/impossible/absurd choice is the right one? Feeling? Logic? Culture? Gender? Religion? Authority? A lovely little mix of all six? A six-mix? But then what if, this time, exception rules and the easy choice is the right one?

Now stuff it into a young man’s head who, heretofore, had always just done what his hero told him – because, silly, his hero was always right. But now he doesn’t have his hero around to ask, and he does, ultimately, want to get it right. And he knows there is a wrong way. Not intuitively: he experiences a few things that, shall we say, makes him start to wonder.

And then there’s the young woman who is everything Roddiger is not: independent, yet seeks wise counsel; traditionalist, but only when those traditions still run true; and she can love him, if he ever stops loving himself more.

And let’s not forget ageless Deuel, who is antithetical to much of what Rodigger thinks is right and true. But Deuel is not quite so fathomable as most people Rodigger meets, nor as easily argued with. And there’s something, way down deep, way back in history, at the bitter core of such a very large onion, that absolutely no one has ever breached – until something is discovered deep in the mountains, as deep as Deuel’s bottomless gaze.

At least, that’s where things stand pre-outline. But it’s a magical time; anything can grow from the most unlikely seeds.