Traveller's Tales

I haven’t talked about the writing for a while.  That’s not because nothing has been happening, but rather because it’s been happening quite a lot and, well, I wanted to actually write, rather than write about it.

So, although I haven’t stopped writing, it’s time to write about it now, because something neat happened and I want to blather about it a bit.

There’s a part of the story where Erik, our leading man, finds himself in Highbranch, a city (if you choose not to tangent on the link) predictably tree-ish in nature.  It’s not a casual visit; in fact, he’s a prisoner there, and finds himself under heavy suspicion and questioning by various and sundry officials, but he’s not strapped in chains just yet, as the people who live there believe in things like due process, at least to an extent.

At one point, Erik is instructed to visit a specific place in order to see some ancient artwork that his enemies claim prove his association with the fellow currently giving everyone fits.  The first time I wrote this bit, I assumed that this location was just your basic art gallery sort of place, and I simply segued to Erik seeing what he needed to see.  It worked at the time, but as part of the overall re-treatment I’m giving the story, I realized there was another way to do this that would have a great deal more impact.

So, rather than letting Erik just bamf into that art gallery, I decided to let him walk there, as I had a scene in mind where his entry and journey to the center of the exhibit was a slow crescendo to panic and revelation.

That’s when the throwaway detail became not so throwaway.

I had never really fleshed out the art gallery concept beyond it being, well, some random art galleryish sort of place, so while I gave Erik and his new friend, Elori, some time to get acquainted on the way, I ruminated on it a bit.  Erik’s antagonist in this part of the story tells them to go see an exhibit ‘near’ this specific place, so obviously the antagonist had known something I didn’t.  So, as I wandered the massive, curving boughs with Erik and Elori, I had this sudden vision of what that place really was.  Suddenly I had a new hook into the world, a new insight into the people, a new subtly impressive place to see and a feeling to share.  I’m endlessly excited when I discover new places in this poor, ruined fictional world of mine, and this no-longer-just-an-art-gallery place quickly became an object of wonder and delight — so much so that the pages that followed were an utter blur.

I won’t give the details away, because a blog post won’t do it justice.  But not only does it give Highbranch yet another level of depth and realism it didn’t have before, it reconnects Erik with the tragedies of his recent past in a way I hadn’t been able to work out before, and it gives he and Elori an awesome, genuine bonding moment they will need in the hours and days to come.

So, moral of blog post, never throw away a detail — you never know what you’re selling short when you do.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 12th, 2009 at 2:23 pm and is filed under Worldbuilding, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.