Okay so, not a lot of writing got done this week. At least, not new writing. It turns out that chapters two and three of Lord of the Black Mountain were not saying the things I needed them to say. That is, I did the thing where I thought I had explained something and left the clues needed for the writer to understand what was going on, but I was not in fact doing that. I was in fact, doing the opposite of that.
My intent was to have Caris be very freaked out and have a slightly unreliable narrator because again, freaked out and biased to think the worst of people who don’t share his beliefs or goals. I meant also to show that the characters dealing with him were very angry, but also attempting to avoid a further diplomatic incident. Everyone in the scene is very stressed! They are very unhappy about this situation which is understandable!
Unfortunately, I failed to convey this. Instead, it looked like I was saying, “This character is wrong and everyone is punishing him because he is Wrong and his Culture is Wrong.” I also flattened my poor deuteragonist in regard to characterization and motive, which was not the intent! In addition, I accidentally inserted a creepy vibe that I did not in fact intend because I failed to consider certain details. This was all brought to my attention by someone on Discord I am on, and it was very cool of them to help! (As no one else noticed the issues, including me.)
I was attempting to convey in the narrative that Caris and his sister had political, spiritual, and personal objections to the marriage that had been ignored in the decision-making process. Pushed to desperate action, Teren and Caris plan to break the alliance. (Though they differ on what form this should take. Teren feels assassination is too dangerous and a step too far. Caris thinks he should at least try, waffles on the issue, then panics because the ruse is about to be discovered and he has no idea of how Joris will react. Not so much a target of opportunity as a target of impulsive flight/fight.)
So, in order to do this, I had to go back and flesh out Caris and Teren’s reasons/objections to the marriage alliance. I had failed to do this previously both because I am a pantser, and also because of the entire, “I thought I explained it but I did not explain shit,” thing. Fortunately, the web novel serial format makes going back and fixing these problems pretty easy!
So Teren and Caris’ objections to the wedding and marriage alliance are the following:
- Sewen and the Assembly do NOT have a good history with each other. This would be because a couple of hundred years back the religion the Dosai follow was very much a “Convert by the Sword,” type. This was not great for their neighbors! Joris has a very scary reputation in Sewen as a result, (even without the entire, “Immortal Necromancer King” thing. (Joris is not in fact the king of the Assembly. The Seweni just don’t really have a concept of the actual structure, so they make assumptions based on what they’re familiar with.) It doesn’t help that the religion the Dosai follow does not entirely trust magic or magic users, and has a very strict moral code for the same…which Joris does not follow because again, being of a different religion with a different moral/ethical code.
- Teren really, really doesn’t want to get married. She wants to join the clergy. Either as lay clergy, or full priest. If she absolutely has to get married, she wants to be with someone as devout in her faith as she is. Joris is kind of the opposite of that! Joris is a pagan necromancer and both Caris and Teren are inclined to believe the thing where “the pagans secretly know we’re correct, but are just being stubborn and pretending not to.”
- Both Teren and Caris are of a faction that disapproves of the idea of a full alliance with the Assembly. They believe that they should try harder to ally with their sister kingdom, Aruis. (Aruis is more conservative than Sewen and violently disapproves of the fact that Sewen even has trade alliances and various treaties with the Assembly.) They believe that Aruis would be more likely to help if there were no agreements or treaties with the Assembly. (Yes, this is very naive. It’s also an intentional blind spot.)
- They and the faction they are a part of believe that the Assembly is inherently untrustworthy and more inclined to ally with their fellow pagans and thus betray the alliance anyway. (Something that is only internally logical if you not only believe, “The pagans secretly know we’re correct,” and also think that two different religions are actually exactly the same as the other…which is not the case, but you’d be amazed at how often this concept appears. I mean, the Romans tended to conflate their gods with the gods of other peoples. Assuming your cosmology has anything to do with someone else’s cosmology is par for the course.)
What I did to address these issues was this:
- First, I established much sooner in the story the reasons why Caris and Teren decided to attempt to disrupt the alliance. This actually took a couple of attempts before I was satisfied with the outcome. So I added in narrative bits where Caris is upset on his sister’s behalf and also upset that their objections were ignored or immediately discounted. (I also inserted some familiar dysfunction to go along with certain other themes.) I made him more visibly angry and upset as well.
- I made it more clear that Joris’ people are very stressed and very angry with the prince. I also wanted to make it clear that everyone is doing Customer Service Smiles in an effort not to be (too) petty and mean to Caris. Meanwhile, I have Caris worrying about increased hostility from servants who seem very loyal to the guy he failed to assassinate!
- I tried to insert some implications that may or may not come through but will hopefully pay off later. (I inserted a scene where Joris’ student inspects Caris for additional weapons/spells/curses. Caris assumes he’s being checked for spells that might be intended for Joris: this is not the case–he’s being checked for curses or spells that might have influenced him. The student does not explain this, to avoid giving Caris an alibi.)
- I made Caris more snarky and uncomfortable. I also made the student more snarky and annoyed.
- I have hopefully made it more clear that Joris has his own biases and is being influenced by them. Because I did intend Caris to be more sympathetic and for Joris to be kind of a passive-aggressive troll (while also wanting to preserve this alliance and avoid a further diplomatic incident).
At some point, I need to:
- Make the reason Caris agrees to the arrangement suggested by Joris more clear. In my head, he’s clearly going, “No, I’m doing it,” in response to Lord Simuir trying to get him to accept being imprisoned instead of taking on the role of Joris’ spouse. This is not the only reason, however. He’s also making an effort to challenge his own biases because he clearly went wrong somewhere since Nemar Joris is absolutely nothing like he expected.
- I might need more implications about Caris and Teren re: gender presentation. They are both more or less non-binary but their culture does not in fact have a concept of “non-binary,” and has certain expectations of gender roles that don’t quite map onto the two main ethnic groups of the Assembly.
- Make the dysfunction of Caris’ family background more apparent, though you can figure it out when I get to Teren’s POV. (The king and queen are at best C- parents. They don’t really understand their kids, and are super-dismissive of them while also having ridiculously high-performance expectations.)
TL;DR: I have made some changes that will hopefully expand and clarify issues with the narrative. You might want to re-read. And maybe review/comment/follow me on Royal Road/Patreon?
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