Mightier than the Sword - A Part of the Aidan Moher Network

Well, after Chapter 12, which took a bloody era to write, Chapter 13 and most of Chapter 14 are done.

 Chapter 14 marks the halfway point of the novel, roughly, and features one of the most dramatic and tone setting scenes. I’m really happy with how things are coming together and after this chapter it’s all downhill to the conclusion of the novel. I can’t believe I’m nearing the hump, the end line is in sight and I just gotta find a way to get there.

But that’s half the fun, right?

I’m still thinking of putting up a new excerpt. Either Chapter 10 or the extended excerpt that some of my friends have read which contains chapters 1-3. Let me know which one you might be more interested in.

Jeez, where to start.

 I haven’t posted one of these progress reports in a while. Why? Because I’ve been writing so damn much…

Chapter 10 and 11 are done and dusted. Actually, they’ve been done for a couple of weeks now and I’m currently hard at work on Chapter 12, which is proving to be the most difficult to write chapter yet. I’ll speak on that later, when the chapter is done, and instead I’ll just let you know that Chapter 10 & 11 were a blast to write and came quickly. I probably spent less than half the amount of time writing them combined than I’ve spent on Chapter 12 so far.

 Why so fast?

Simply put, they wrote themselves. Chapter 10 was interesting for me because I was able to explore a part of Ireland I’m very familar with (and rather fond of), but through the eyes of a character that is very much aware that there’s a whole other world existing just beneath the surface. The whole chapter leads towards a violent confrontation between Rowan and a faerie creature with rather nefarious intentions. It was an interesting challenge for me to write such a dark chapter in a setting that I have nothing but fond memories of.

 Chapter 11 was fun for a totally different reason. Rowan once again steps away from our world back into the world of Faerie and it’s always a pleasure to explore it with her. I’m not a hugely descriptive writer, I tend to believe that the characters should tell the story and the readers deserve the benefit of the doubt when it comes to imagining the world it takes place in. Of course, this doesn’t mean I don’t use description (as you all know from reading the excerpt!) and this chapter was one that really allowed me to test my abilities to paint a picture in the mind of the readers. Rowan travels into a weird world and I hope that everyone reading the novel feels like they’re right there alongside her.

 One thing I made a conscious decision about before I started writing Through Bended Grass was that, despite drawing heavily from the history and lore of our world, that I wouldn’t let myself be tied down by that same lore. I want room to wriggle around in what’s already been established and give it my own spin, to make my mark on the lore without taking any self agrandizing liberties. It’s certainly a fine line to walk, but also a fun one.

As a bit of an aside, I think Chapter 10 would make a good excerpt, giving readers a taste of what the story’s like later on in the novel without giving away too much. It’s not going to happen right away, but if people really want it, I’ll consider it.

Now, back to Chapter 12, it needs all my attention!

I actually finished Chapter Nine a little while ago (currently halfway through Chapter Ten at the moment), but got so caught up in writing, publishing the excerpt (read it!) and starting a redesign of the web site that I forgot to write about it! Well, it’s a slow day at work and I figure it’s finally time to get caught up on the progress report.

Chapter Nine, titled Four Leaf Clovers and Bended Grass, turned out to be the longest chapter yet, weighing in at a respectable 4011 words. I wasn’t really planning for this to happen, but as the chapter wore on I realised just how much needed to be accomplished and it lengthened. I feel confident that despite the increase in word count, I still managed to create a chapter full of interesting situations, solid pacing and good dialogue

Chapter Nine begins the second act of the novel and sees Rowan back in our world, but having to deal with the fact that she’s very much aware that another world exists out there, her son is still missing, and she’s meant to find someone she has no idea how to find. In a lot of ways I get to take some of the ideas that have been floating around Epic Fantasy – A missing son, an alternate world, magical creatures, a sense of discovery and wonder – and play with them in a new light, getting to put my own spin on things and (hopefully) making a lot of it seem fresh again.

Of course, by no means would I call Through Bended Grass an epic story, quite the opposite actually. Through Bended Grass is a story about people, about relationships (both internal and external), about discovery and, maybe most importantly, about family. It’s not about a quest to destroy an evil-something-or-other (though a certain antagonist certainly tries to fill that role), it’s not even about “good vs. evil”, but rather about the shades of grey found throughout the world. I know that’s a cliche at this point, but I still think it’s an integral part of writing a good novel, Fantasy or otherwise.

One character, who is introduce in this chapter, has surprised me a lot by how much he’s become involved in the story. When I was in the early planning stages he had a single, small role to play and then more or less disappeared. But then I started writing about him, discovering his history and what brought him to where he is during the story, and I began to realize how important he is to Rowan’s story. His role has expanded since then and I expect that by the end of the novel it will have expanded even more. Anymore about him would be spoiler territory, but I certainly can’t wait for my readers to meet him and continue to learn about him just as I have.

Chapter Nine turned out to be a hefty chapter, but I think it adds a lot to the novel and manages to keep up a good pace. The start of Rowan’s real journey begins with this chapter and it doesn’t let down with the wonder, discovery and action until the end of the novel.

This is a watershed chapter, plain and simple. A lot of the story gets laid out before Rowan (though she understands little of it) and as the reader continues on with the novel they will (hopefully) see many of the story threads leading back to Chapter Eight.

With so much information needing to be crammed into this chapter, it was a challenge for me to avoid long, heavy blocks of exposition and info-dumps (the bane of any Fantasy novel, it seems). The most obvious and effective way to relay information like this is dialogue and I took that concept and ran with it. In fact, the majority of this chapter simply consists of Rowan, Fitheal and another character sitting huddled in a room, deep in the bowels of a Cathedral, shooting the shit.

Of course, there’s a lot more to the chapter than that. Rowan’s now fully immersed in the Faerie world and her life is looking anything but stable. She’s also told, in no uncertain terms, that if she value’s her life she’ll drop the search for her son. But, as any self-respecting, spunky heroine would attest to, those just aren’t very compelling terms. Rowan doesn’t exactly put her Fey host in his place, but I was surprised by how well she was able to hold her own in the argument.

I expect that when I sit down to edit (a process I’ve started, actually) that this chapter will require quite a bit of revision. There’s a definite balancing act between revealing enough to hook the reader into the main story and not giving too much away, and that’s going to require a very close look when I go back to reread the chapter in the future. I’m confident that I’ve got a good solid skeleton for the chapter, all the pieces are there, I’ll just have to spend some time moving things around, add in some fat and try to get it looking more like a living, breathing thing than a stumbling zombie.

Through Bended Grass is split up into three parts - First, Second and Third Act, you know the deal - and Chapter Eight marks the end of the first part. The story’s been set up, the ball’s rolling and things start getting messy. From this point onward the Fey world, and it’s relationship to our own, opens wide and Rowan doesn’t look back as she’s shoved in head first. Her story flits back and forth between the Feylands and our world and each has its own sights to see for the reader.

On another note, the excerpt that I’ve constantly promised is done. It’s all edited, but still I dilly-dally about putting it up here for everyone to see. I suppose part of it is fear that I’ll get torn apart, but I need to be confident in the story I’m telling.

I’ve also put aside editing the first 8 chapters in lieu of getting on to Chapter Nine. The desire to tell the story is burning much too brightly for me to put it aside for editing. On top of this, my brother is currently travelling through Ireland and just visited a major Irish monument that plays an important role in Chapter Nine, so that has me all kinds of motivated!

Chapter Six ended with Rowan in a pretty sticky situation - specifically being stared down by a very large, very angry creature of Faerie. Chapter Seven takes this situation and runs with it, allowing the story (and the reader’s expectations of what to expect) to expand greatly. It’s the first time Rowan truly steps from our world - the real world - to the Fey world that we all know from legend and childhood Fairy Tales.

This, of course, is going to be most delicate part of writing the novel. It’s easy enough writing about real world situations where the readers already know the rules… it’s less easy to make things up while still adhering to a consistent set of rules. The Fey world is magical, the Fey world is home to all sorts of wonderous things, but it still needs to be believable in the eyes of the reader. Of course one of the major reasons I’m writing this particular story is that it allows me such freedom to bend the rules and to play with the reader’s perceptions of what they think they know about our world, Faeries and even figures central to the history of our world (wait until you meet St. Patrick….)

Writing in this world - creating this world, really - may be a delicate practise, but it’s also an extremely rewarding one. It’s a lot of fun to take old concepts, old stories and mess them around in my head, trying to come up with ways to put a spin on what we think we know about the fables and the characters involved.

Writing in first person really allows me to explore Rowan’s emotions as she (literally) falls into this fantastic world and finds out that the Fey world isn’t all sugarplumbs, pixie dust and brownies. Of course there’re about, oh… a bajillion stories written with regards to the Fey world, going back pretty much since stories have been told, so the trick is taking the familiar conventions and making the reader excited about them again. We’ve seen the gamut of what can be done with the Fey world: Post-industrial (Michael Swanwick), skyscrapers, automobiles and warring fairy conglomerates (Tad Williams), fanciful fairy tales (The Brothers Grimm) and that makes it truly difficult to come up with something totally balls-to-the-wall different. So, with that in mind, I hope the Fey world in Through Bended Grass does feel familiar, but at the same I want the reader to feel like they’re stepping into a Fey world that is just a little different than any they’ve seen before - like stepping into your bedroom and knowing, without being able to pinpoint exactly what or why, that something’s been moved, something’s changed - very familiar, but slightly uncomfortable.

Chapter Seven is the first chapter where I really get to exercise this idea and it’s been damn fun to play around. Do I succeed? Ultimately it’s up to my readers to decide. Of course, I hope to bring a world as hauntingly evocative as Tad William’s New Erehwon, as frighteningly realistic as Neil Gaiman’s version of America in American Gods, as charmingly friendly as Charles De Lint’s Newford, or as hauntingly eloquent as Terry Brook’s Hopewell, Illinois. Of course, these are all established, legendary writers and I’m still simply learning. But it’s always good to have high heights to aspire to, right?

Word Count

Prologue: 955
Chapter 1: 1,409
Chapter 2: 2,022
Chapter 3: 3,107
Chapter 4: 1,941
Interlude: 644
Chapter 5: 3,153
Chapter 6: 3,734
Chapter 7: 2,374

Total: 19,339