Serpents and Doves
Jun. 16th, 2011 08:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caper_estKiller-Kate and Luke Lackland: A chapter and a half of re-read, the pace slowing as I jump into the diplomatic snake-pit, and disentangle various characters' attempts to take the hiss.
Kate is in Garcastle, and the two sides' respective agendas are beginning to fracture already in the wake of Elegant Elder Sister's meeting with the Young Duke. Luke is dealing with his first setback, and making his tactical withdrawal over Hareborough pursued by pointy sticks. The draft is only two-thirds as rough as it seemed at the time.
I may have to lose or gloss over some of the complication in the redraft, since it's a bit much to ask a reader to follow plot knots that even I'm having trouble with! On the other hand, editing for consistency ought to lighten the burden considerably. We'll see.
Big gain from this morning: I know now what the consistency edit for Luke's great gambit in Langdale will look like. The way the story had grown, it made his earlier actions look somewhat flaily and half-arsed. No. I see now that he was just being much more direct than I'd thought - he sets up his diplomatic ground, such as it is, by his actions in the very first village, and in his first encounter with the Earl's lancers. It's only after the coming crisis that he'll cube this very one-dimensional pretext, and make it real in deadly earnest. So we get prefiguration of his Great Moment, and a ferociously ironic inversion of its original character, for free... I wish I could claim credit for having put that there on purpose! But my Muse is welcome to the credit, if I can keep the goods.
That's one major known problem with the first draft solved, and not something I'd meant this re-read to address at all. I hope the disentanglement of Kate's plotline will go so well, yesssss!
Kate is in Garcastle, and the two sides' respective agendas are beginning to fracture already in the wake of Elegant Elder Sister's meeting with the Young Duke. Luke is dealing with his first setback, and making his tactical withdrawal over Hareborough pursued by pointy sticks. The draft is only two-thirds as rough as it seemed at the time.
I may have to lose or gloss over some of the complication in the redraft, since it's a bit much to ask a reader to follow plot knots that even I'm having trouble with! On the other hand, editing for consistency ought to lighten the burden considerably. We'll see.
Big gain from this morning: I know now what the consistency edit for Luke's great gambit in Langdale will look like. The way the story had grown, it made his earlier actions look somewhat flaily and half-arsed. No. I see now that he was just being much more direct than I'd thought - he sets up his diplomatic ground, such as it is, by his actions in the very first village, and in his first encounter with the Earl's lancers. It's only after the coming crisis that he'll cube this very one-dimensional pretext, and make it real in deadly earnest. So we get prefiguration of his Great Moment, and a ferociously ironic inversion of its original character, for free... I wish I could claim credit for having put that there on purpose! But my Muse is welcome to the credit, if I can keep the goods.
That's one major known problem with the first draft solved, and not something I'd meant this re-read to address at all. I hope the disentanglement of Kate's plotline will go so well, yesssss!
