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Back in the Saddle Again
May. 16th, 2011 08:26 amKiller-Kate and Luke Lackland: 270 words, riding towards the field of judgement. Riding - that's been central to the recent drought of writing. The more I thought about the Battle of Carrowglaze, the less my plans seemed plausible solutions to my heroes' logistics, stealth, and cavalry issues. I am not a great tactician, and it's taken me some time to even glimpse a way out without loading all the dice obviously in their favour. But now they have a fallback plan that makes sense, in a very desperate do-or-die way; and speaking of do-or-die and death-or-glory, it gives Golden Kate something to do in the battle that only she possibly could.
What I should have realized from the outside is that a captain as war-wise as Sir Richard would certainly have schemed to take full control of the timing, from well before his enemies knew a fight was coming. He's no genius, but he's no dummy either, and he has experience of a kind that Kate and her peasant allies simply don't. He's also served under a commander who - considered on the purely tactical level - was very good indeed.
Moving our friends' strategy thus wholly into the active column takes us from "waiting for terrible things' unfolding, then reacting suddenly and boldly" to "taking tenuous and covert control of the situation, losing it early when forced to react, and needing to recapture it quickly at grim odds". Not only is this much more dramatic, but I can actually believe it could work without my cheating. Which makes it much more attractive, as well as more pointful, to write.
Charge!
What I should have realized from the outside is that a captain as war-wise as Sir Richard would certainly have schemed to take full control of the timing, from well before his enemies knew a fight was coming. He's no genius, but he's no dummy either, and he has experience of a kind that Kate and her peasant allies simply don't. He's also served under a commander who - considered on the purely tactical level - was very good indeed.
Moving our friends' strategy thus wholly into the active column takes us from "waiting for terrible things' unfolding, then reacting suddenly and boldly" to "taking tenuous and covert control of the situation, losing it early when forced to react, and needing to recapture it quickly at grim odds". Not only is this much more dramatic, but I can actually believe it could work without my cheating. Which makes it much more attractive, as well as more pointful, to write.
Charge!
