New Thaw Review!
Posted by rwday on October 22, 2007
FromRainbow Reviews. And a good one, which is always nice!
I had a very productive weekend - moved forward on Fimbulvetr, plus came to some decisions on direction. I’ve been angsting over how to convey that Yorvik isn’t just York being mispronounced by the peasants, that my 1300 England isn’t our 1300 England, because it’s not really readily apparent in my first chapter, which is narrated by a 13 year old girl. My second chapter narrator isn’t exactly the type to be dropping a lot of hints about the socio-political situation either.
I know the trend these days in SF/F at least is to avoid the infodump and work the worldbuilding into the text, and I’m doing that, but honestly, I’ve read a few books in the last few years where the worldbuilding was so subtle as to leave me still confused four chapters in. I never made it to chapter 5. Maybe I’m shallow and lowbrow, but I want to know where and when I am and the basics of how the world works fairly quickly so I can concentrate on the actual plot and characters.
So there will be a prologue, just a short one, set at a pivotal time in the formation of the world, about 200 years before the story starts to serve as a sort of anchor.
At least, there will be once I stop blogging and go write it.
October 22, 2007 at 10:17 pm
Woohoo! Congratulations!
I hope this brings you the next generation of readers.
So there will be a prologue, just a short one, set at a pivotal time in the formation of the world, about 200 years before the story starts to serve as a sort of anchor.
That sounds like a great idea (the beauty of prologues!). I don’t think it’s lowbrow hoping for something actually solid to hang on to within the first four chapters. I’m all for subtlety, but a line has to be drawn somewhere.
So it looks like your POV issues have been ironed out? You’re well underway with this novel. *waves pompoms*
October 23, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Re - prologue. I don’t want to underestimate my readers, but I also don’t want them foundering and getting frustrated - it’s a fine line, I know.
And yes, have pretty much resolved the POV issues by deciding to just write the damn thing and work out the fine print later. I know this is a longterm project - it’s already definitely 2 books, may end up as a trilogy, and a lot of the polish is going to wait till after May when we go to England. I think my settings will be a lot better imagined after I’ve seen the actual places I’m writing about, plus I’m finding that unless you’re writing about London, specific details about early medieval English cities, at least the kind I need, are hard to come by over here.