Afterword - Book 2 - Chapter 62 (Patreon)

Chapter 62: Lives Lost, Lives Lived

(Original Chapter Title: Lives Lost, Lives Lived)

Sometimes, just when I start thinking I'm into the 'good' content of the OG draft that should need minimal editing...

I reach a chapter that's just boring to read.

It wasn't entirely a full rewrite, but I definitely had to punch this one up as I edited it. More character moments, more emotion, more... interest, to put it a bit more crassly. Chapters where time passes with moments of interest amidst the mundanity can be challenging to write, it's a skill that I've had to develop and I'm grateful that my editing process let me develop it, rather than bombarding readers with my initial efforts.

Much of a year is covered in a single chapter. Sure, I've done similar timeskips before—but it'd been a while since I had covered so much time in one chapter. The 'trick' to a good timeskippy chapter, imo, is to establish the baseline expectations and to celebrate the moments of minor change—while making it clear how (and if) they modify the baseline events. The baseline can be established by prior chapters, which is my usual go-to, but this time I needed to introduce the new minor skirmishes within the same chapter.

Because no one wants to read a chapter of Ranthia sitting atop her tower all day, no matter which twin or self-alleged twin she faced off against.

But life never truly goes (or, perhaps, 'stays' would be a more honest way to phrase this) on hold, not even when their situation becomes largely static. People live their lives, and the things they want continue to build in their hearts and their minds, until—at last—they choose to act.

A war doesn't diminish the 'humanity' of those that fight in it, no matter how much their leaders would like them to be useful cogs in the machine.

One fun note: while writing/editing occasionally I'll hit words that Ranthia just wouldn't use. A grand example is in this chapter. I'd wanted to describe the aroma of the fruit tart from Ranthia's birthday as "heavenly," but that's a bit too sacrilegious for our favorite zeal—er, ex-Paladin. When I encounter moments like these, I usually ask Ranthia what word she wants to use as a substitute (I am a VERY NORMAL author that is not at all crazy, thank you). In this case, she proffered 'gorgeous'. A gorgeous aroma. Was she sure she really wanted to go with that? Yes.

I'm mildly mortified about the ill-fitting word, which makes this even more ridiculous.

Anyhow, wading into the more serious waters: one constant criticism I get is that I'm willing to kill characters "for no good reason," even off-screen. I think that at least part of that is the tonal difference between how I write Blind Chaos and how Selkie wrote BtDEM. In BtDEM, Elaine's just kind of bright and bubbly and though Selkie noted the horrors of the world, they rarely actually affected Elaine directly, unless she happened to be exactly in the right place at the right time to nullify them. Sure, there's exceptions, I can think of multiple off the top of my head, but Elaine largely (and quickly) became a dominant force in Pallos.

Ranthia isn't a [Healer]. And one consistent theme throughout Blind Chaos is that she can't be everywhere at once. She has to choose her battles, choose her paths, and choose who she protects—because she isn't all-powerful. In spite of several (imo, baffling) comments accusing her of being OP/a mary sue, Ranthia's ability to affect more than what her knives can reach remains limited. And I'm not going to pay lip service to the life of a Ranger being exceedingly dangerous while pretending that Ranthia's immediate contacts are somehow immune to the odds.

At the risk of invoking a slight spoiler from BtDEM: Artemis retiring after seven rounds was noted as rare. Rangers that retired (without disgracing themselves) were "the rarest of Rangers." It's a path that ends in death for most; there's a reason they require hundreds of Academy graduates after every round, and it's not because new members of "the rarest of Rangers" number in the hundreds every two year.

To quote Elaine:

I looked at the wall.

I looked at the one, only publicly retiring Ranger. I didn’t like those odds.

(Myth, Selkie. Beneath the Dragoneye Moons: Adventures in the Argo (p. 578). Selkie Myth. Kindle Edition.)

Life has its ups. Life has its downs. But the important thing is that life continues, even when you're faced with tragedy. And even when threats come, you face them—so long as you survive, you have a chance to find happiness once again, even if it wasn't quite what you initially hoped to seize. That's the story I want to tell.