I had a thought today, and it’s a thought I’ve had before so bear with me, but today is the moment when it firmed in my mind and because an actual thing/movement/whatever. It’s now embedded in my brain.
The thought… This particular stage of writing Woman in White is the discovery stage, not just of the plot but how I want to tell the story. It’s difficult/tricky (we know how I hate to use words like “difficult” in relation to writing—which is fun!) and I constantly feel like I have no idea what I’m doing or what’s happen precisely because I haven’t decided/discovered how I want to do any of that.
I’m slowly getting a grip on Nia’s story (she’s no longer S’Ahn, at least not for book 1, because… worldbuilding), and it’s kinda like what I imagined it but the rest… S’Chang’s story will be, not so much different because that would imply that I had thought about his story before I started, but it won’t be what I initially imagined. It’ll be more involved.
As I said, I hadn’t thought about/planned S’Chang’s arc for the main reason that my focus was on Nia and the Valkyries, now though…
Gamer opened me up more to multiple POVs and Woman in White is going to continue the trend. A lot of that is because Nia doesn’t know anything and there are some things she can’t explore as a foreigner, plus… how does one realise her own madness? And she’s nuts, totally nuts.
Anyway, back to the main point. The idea that this initial phase of WiW is the discovery has planted itself in my mind and I am going to give myself a break for all the teeth pulling moments. They only feel like teeth pulling because I’m expecting myself to be perfect on the first round, so… no more of that.
S’Chang is going to be a bit of a challenge, he needs a deep dark secret to rock his world but I haven’t figured out what that is. Nia is a piece of cake, the whole frigging series is based around her, but S’Cang… What does the God of War want? What thing will not only rock his world but throw a massive monkey wrench into the whole fucking plot? That’s going to be the thing.
He can’t be as serene and perfect as he seems on the surface, there’s something there that is royally fucked up and Nia is the one to help bring it out, or is the straw the breaks the back. I think it’s going to be more a case of the straw, S’Chang would have blow his top eventually, Nia and the Rhwn just make it happen a little earlier.
Whether of not the explosion is to Nia’s benefit… I doubt it, that’d be too easy, rather I think it’ll land S’Chang on the opposite side of whatever deeper conflict develops, that’s where the good stuff will be. The meat, the sauce, the grizzly flavoursome bits.