Yzabel / March 5, 2007

I’m not talking about cats or a piece of news, but about a process initiated some time ago, grown in my little mind by what’s left of my brains, fed with the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack, and finally blossomed in full. This is to say that I separated in two distinct entities (in brief, two novels) the first volume of my trilogy set in the world of Eien.

Complicated? Yes and no. I had been hesitating for a long time, fearing that by doing so, I would only pursue new chimeras, but the facts dawned on me rather than I imposed them as a law. Either I’d get rid of a secondary plot that deserved something better than background importance (and I’d then find myself with characters without any reason of travelling any more, and with the need of modifying a general plot that otherwise suited my tastes well), or I’d develop that secondary plot, with the risk of overshadowing the main one. In the end, none of these seemed good in my book.

I need to add that said secondary plot was of the politic-diplomatic kind that deserves something else than just looking cool in the background, and, above all, that didn’t need to remain unchanged for the whole story to be consistent. However, if I were to reduce its importance, then I had to ‘justify’ it by explaining how things had come to that point. My conclusion was that another story, a one-shot, this time — a sort of prequel — would work best.

So, I indeed decided to put my trilogy aside for the time being, and to start writing this one-shot, which also be my setting of places, world and characters (well, some of them).

1) The political plot taking place in the one-shot WILL demand further diplomatic relations later on.–> My group of travelling characters therefore will keep its reason for going where they’re supposed to go. Bonus point: their problems to come won’t necessary compromise the political plot, which is good (compromising it = having to solve an extra problem = even more pages to add to the trilogy).

2) As mentioned above, this will allow me to develop some characters, and to use them later on without having to introduce them “fully” or get rid of them.–> In the trilogy, I won’t have to dwell for long on too many characters, nor to create reasons for them to avoid becoming best pals in five minutes.

3) To be honest, after having tried my hand at short stories some more, I do not want to work on a trilogy for the moment. I want to write a one-shot. Then only, if it gets published, I’ll have a lever to convince a publisher to accept a trilogy. Because, let’s be honest, there aren’t many chances to be published for a totally unknown newcomer, when said publishing houses already have to cope each months with a ton of others “young authors with their Tolkien-like fantasy trilogy”.–> Let’s start low enough to have enough chances of shining later on.

“But, dear Yza”, will you say, “do you have enough materials to write a complete novel based on a secondary plot only”?

And I’ll answer: yes, because you can bet that if it weren’t the case, I wouldn’t dabble in such risky business to start with! 😉