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Hearing the Grey Wolf
Dec. 13th, 2010 09:35 am230 words of a conversation which is, in every sense, difficult. I'd have done more over the weekend by skipping ahead to the guerilla manoeuvres in the other strand - but I left my notebook at work chiz chiz! I've noticed before now that when things get to the stage where I need to make a mass of notes, my backbrain then feels entitled to forget just about everything that made it to the paper. This is not so good when I mislay the notes, since it leaves me much more clueless than I was before I wrote them.
Found again, thank goodness!
The practical in-world reason this conversation is difficult is that it's in a not-friendly stronghold and must not be overheard. Three out of five of the participants can do some sort of magic, but the only one who can do anything useful about this is the wizard - and the best solution he can jury-rig is not a good one, because this is really the sort of thing you want an experienced witch for. It's essentially a glorified system of cocoa-tin telephones.
The poor quality of the resulting reception annoys everybody, which yields a plot point by the way. What I didn't think of until I was writing it was how much worse it must be for Golden Kate, who is sixty in a harsh mediaeval environment, and is - all things considered - extraordinarily fit and tough. All things considered. But I somehow doubt that her hearing is as quite good as all the young folks'. This is apt to try her never-extensive patience a lot.
I have to keep reminding myself not to write her like somebody my own age who just happens to have sixty years of history behind her. Or, on the other hand, like somebody my own age who has just had twenty years' worth of extra wear and tear suddenly dropped upon her head. The one would be clueless, and the other depressing, and neither of them actually like a real person. They define a passage surprisingly hard to navigate by instinct.
Revision, thy name is me.
Found again, thank goodness!
The practical in-world reason this conversation is difficult is that it's in a not-friendly stronghold and must not be overheard. Three out of five of the participants can do some sort of magic, but the only one who can do anything useful about this is the wizard - and the best solution he can jury-rig is not a good one, because this is really the sort of thing you want an experienced witch for. It's essentially a glorified system of cocoa-tin telephones.
The poor quality of the resulting reception annoys everybody, which yields a plot point by the way. What I didn't think of until I was writing it was how much worse it must be for Golden Kate, who is sixty in a harsh mediaeval environment, and is - all things considered - extraordinarily fit and tough. All things considered. But I somehow doubt that her hearing is as quite good as all the young folks'. This is apt to try her never-extensive patience a lot.
I have to keep reminding myself not to write her like somebody my own age who just happens to have sixty years of history behind her. Or, on the other hand, like somebody my own age who has just had twenty years' worth of extra wear and tear suddenly dropped upon her head. The one would be clueless, and the other depressing, and neither of them actually like a real person. They define a passage surprisingly hard to navigate by instinct.
Revision, thy name is me.
