Writing Right Out In Public: Scene #6

[ecosophia]

I ended up way behind schedule on this, though there was good reason for it -- in fact, two good reasons. On the one hand, I had the editing and foreword to do for Vintage Worlds I, the anthology of Old Solar System stories edited by me and Zendexor, the general factotum of the Solar System Heritage website -- that's now at the publisher, and a call for stories for Vintage Worlds II will be forthcoming shortly. On the other, the sixth volume of my epic fantasy with tentacles, The Weird of Hali: Hyperborea, was in the last stages of completion; I've rarely had to work harder on a novel, and it swallowed much of my spare time for more than a month before finally coming out right. 

Still, both those are out of the way, and I was able to work out the next scene on this project last night and tonight...

***********************

A vast silence gathered around Embery then. It embraced the thorn trees, the gray crannied stone of Mollory Edge, the pale blue sky above, the whole of Raithwold and everything beyond it, but what lay at its heart was the half-human figure before her, crouched at the foot of the trees. She tried to open her mouth, tried to make the least sound, and could do neither. The golden eyes regarded her without curiosity, without haste, as though she had been standing there on the grass since the spirits had shaped that part of Raithwold and would be standing there still after ages of ages when Mollory Edge had crumbled away to dust.

“Thank you,” Tay said. “Thank you, Uldin.”

The faun glanced at him, and the half-human face creased in a smile. “You’re early,” he said in a high sharp voice. “You’re lucky I’m here at all. And who is this with you?”

“My mother.” Then, in a rush: “We’re in trouble. They’ll stone us if they catch us.”

“Ah.” The horned head gestured back over one shoulder, toward the darkness beneath the thorn trees. “Best come in, then. No one finds this cave unless I wish it.”

Tay got his satchel and his blanket roll from the grass, took Embery’s hand, pulled her forward. Dazed, she followed, bent low to pass under the branches of the thorns, clambered into the darkness beyond. Dry rushes covered the floor of the cave. The rank animal scent of the faun filled the air, but through it she caught odors of smoke, dried meat, old pungent roots.

“Sit,” said the faun, gesturing. She settled, and the rushes crackled beneath her. Tay sat next to her, nestled up close, and she put an arm around his shoulders.

The yellow eyes regarded her again. “They wish to catch you,” said the faun. “To stone you. Why is that?”

Embery found her voice. “Some of the people in the village saw you and my son walking up past Creel’s Head. The monks think that means I’ve had dealings with unhallowed things.”

“Have you?” the faun asked.

Taken aback, Embery stared at the creature. “No,” she forced out. Then, because she was sitting a few steps away from a faun of Amalin, she let herself say something she’d scarcely allowed herself to think before: “But I wish I did.”

A smile spread over the half-human face.  “Maybe you will.”

All at once he turned, scuttled low to the ground into the back of the cave, came forward again with shapes in his hands she couldn’t see clearly at first. “Here,” he said. “Before anything else. Your son has shared bread and drink with me but you have not. Will you?”

She took the flat brown loaf he gave her, bit back her apprehension. There were stories about the bread that strange beings in the woodlands baked and the wine that they brewed, and what those did to the people who ate and drank them. Those were not stories of Amalin, she reminded herself. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, of course.  When Eremon asked wisdom from the faun, they ate and drank together before the faun gave him counsel.”

“Good,” said the faun. “Your son knew that too.” Then, with a odd sidelong look, as though the words shamed him: “I am not that faun.”

Remembering the story, she broke the loaf in half, bowed a little as she sat while handing him half of it. The yellow eyes regarded her, inscrutable, as the faun poured something from a wineskin into two cups fashioned from wooden burls hollowed out.  He gave her one, dipped a corner of the bread in his cup, waited until she’d done the same.

The bread was of seeds and roots ground coarsely together, she guessed, and half-glimpsed in thought the faun’s strong hands pushing one rock over another. The wine was of autumn berries, and tasted faintly of the skin in which it had been aged. Neither worked any change in her that she could sense. She and the faun ate and drank in silence until the loaf was gone and the cups were empty. Tay watched them both, kept the same silence.

“Now,” said the faun. “Tell me. Tell me everything.”

Embery drew in a long breath, and told the whole story: how Merimer the doctor had come to the village, how the villagers would rather give her gifts than pay him in silver pennies, how Anner’s sons had seen Tay and the faun off beyond Creel’s Head, and from there to her flight with Tay to Mollory Edge. All the while the faun watched her with those unreadable eyes, and kept watching her for a long moment after she’d finished.

“What do you desire?” he asked then.

The question took her by surprise. “I don’t know.” Then, catching herself: “I don’t want them to catch me or Tay. I know we’ll need to go somewhere else and try to find a new home, but I don’t know where, and I don’t know how we’ll manage.”

Her voice trickled off into silence. Now that the immediate threat of the magister and the monks was at arm’s length, and the shock of the faun’s appearance had begun to fade, the bleakness of her situation and Tay’s had begun to sink in. It was early yet in the year, true, and enough days remained to travel far before winter closed in—but in all Raithwold, was there a place that would welcome the two of them? She knew well enough what the folk of the village she’d left would think if a stranger woman who dealt in herbs and healing showed up suddenly in their midst. Worse, word of her disappearance and Tay’s would spread, and though it might take time to come to whatever place she went, come it someday would. There hovered before her eyes in the cave’s dim light a vision of a life spent fleeing further and further into strange countries, pursued always by magisters, monks, and fearful villagers with stones in their hands—

All at once she realized she was trembling. Tay gave her a troubled look and took one of her hands in both of his, but the faun simply watched her, his yellow eyes giving back nothing.

“How far are you willing to go?” he asked her then.

“I don’t know,” she said again. “As far as I have to.”

“That is wise.” He considered her for a time.

Tay, watching him, ventured, “We talked about going.”

The yellow eyes turned. “Yes, we did.” Then, to Embery: “I owe you a debt.”

“How so?”

“When your son went with me beyond the place you call Creel’s Head, to learn certain things from the wind in the oak-trees there, I did not think we would be seen. I was wrong, and so the two of you have lost your home and may yet lose your lives.” He shrugged. “A little thing, perhaps, for you will both be gone soon enough.”

That called up an unwilling laugh from her. “I suppose so.  You don’t die, do you?”

The yellow eyes narrowed suddenly. “Of course we die. We can be killed. Have been killed, by the thousands, by the tens of thousands—but should one of my kind escape such a thing, why, then season follows season without bringing him the least step closer to death. We do not age toward death, even when that would be merciful.”

Abruptly he turned away, moved back a little, for all the world like a skittish goat shying away from some too rapid approach. “Enough,” he said then. “I waste your time with empty words. Will you come?”

The abruptness of the question startled her. “Come where?”

“Amalin,” said the faun.

She stared, open-mouthed. The faun regarded her with inscrutable eyes.

It was Tay who broke the silence that followed. “That’s what we talked about, Mother,” he said, his eyes shining. “That’s why we went past Creel’s Head to the oak groves, to ask the wind in the oak leaves for an omen—and it was a bright omen, a good strong omen, the kind that came from Oromas himself in the old days. We can go. We can leave Raithwold behind and go to Amalin. We really can.”

“Will you come?” the faun asked her again.

She was trembling again, but this time it wasn’t fear. All the stories she’d learned from old Neely came crashing into her mind at once, every tale of Amalin the golden, where white temples rose up against a sapphire sky, where Eremon fought and Dreela reigned and Tatennen answered every riddle but one. More: the wild desire that had stirred in her earlier that morning, to raise an altar to the gods and goddesses that were gone with never a monk or a magister to learn of it, burst over her again, irresistible.

“Please,” she said, and tears pooled in her eyes.

Comments

Following Along

[(Anonymous)]

Last time, in my story, I noted a continuity error that I fixed and posted here.

http://gkaybishop.weebly.com/purple-orb-process.html

[drhooves]

Another fine scene - all the senses are covered, and it really places the reader right there in the cave. The second to last paragraph is very powerful as Embery's thoughts reveal more details about Amalin. The story is moving right along and certainly provides anticipation for the coming journey.

I've hacked out a couple of more scenes myself, and still need to make some more notes for continuity and pace. I'm still unsure where it's all going, but I'm happy to say the scenes I've completed so far have rolled off with much less sweat and effort that trying to write from an outline. Of course I won't know which approach is better, until the final draft, but so far I'm pretty happy with the "scene-by-scene" method.
https://drhooves.dreamwidth.org/5262.html

[jenniferkobernik]

Yay! It's back. I enjoy these serial updates.

It's good

[ferngladefarm.blogspot.com]

Hi John Michael,

Interesting. In the story I've learned a little bit about fauns, and even some of their history. I'm not sure I understand what Amalin is all about, but time will sort that side of the story. Will Amalin be in ruins when the trio eventually arrive there after much travail? I wonder...

Busy must have something to do with this time of year. Hope you found your student. That is one thing I wonder about too.

Chris

[walt_f]

My critical two cents: I found this passage to be just okay.

Which shouldn't be the case. We're getting the title arc underway, at what seems the culmination of the first chapter. We've met the faun and we're going to Amalin!

So what's wrong? I've had to think about that a while, but it might be because there's nothing surprising or challenging about the faun or his plan. His presence in that setting was surprising to Embery. But once met, everything about him seems to be what Embery expects, except the going-to-Amalin, and even that, Tay already knows about. And, as it turns out, what the faun is proposing is not only exactly what Embery needs under the present circumstances, it’s also exactly what she wants.

Is it too... comfortable? A few scenes ago Embery was fearing her son's dangerous independent-mindedness, then leaving everything she knew behind and running for her life. Now if seems the only conflict in the offing is against whatever as-yet-unrealized pursuit and obstacles arise to try to stop them.

Ferngladefarm’s speculation of Amalin in ruins in his comment is related to this, I think. If Embery can reach Amalin sacrificing only what she’s already lost, maybe there’s something wrong with it…

Imagine, instead, if the faun said only one of the humans could accompany him to Amalin (perhaps because the other has to stay behind to complete whatever dangerous task brought him to the area in the first place). That, now, presents a conflict.

(That's an illustration of a point, not an actual suggestion. I figure you have adventures in mind for the three of them together, though some separations may happen later.)

Okay, I wasn't going to go there when I counted out my two cents, but writing the last two paragraphs have brought me there anyhow. I haven't read all your fiction, but in what I have read, as an author you’ve tended to be kind to your protagonists. You throw challenges at them that they prove to be ready and able to handle. You take things (and companions) away from them that they seem ready and able to leave behind with few regrets. You send them all the help they need, at tolerable cost.

I’m thinking all the way back to Trey's entry into the ruinmen's guild: not only does Trey shrug stoically at the harsh treatment they offer, but most of it turns out to be a hazing practical joke anyhow. That was a fun reversal of the tired orphanage-from-hell trope, and the whole book, more or less following that same pattern, is one of my favorite SF novels. (The poignancy of the post-collapse setting and the limits learned at Star’s Reach counterbalance Trey’s success story in tone.) But since then, I wonder if being kind to your protagonists has become a bad habit.

Keep in mind, my own published oeuvre consists of a few long-forgotten computer games, and two short stories whose publication you had a direct hand in. So, take my opinion for what it's worth.

[ecosophia]

So noted! I personally find the contrived conflicts that play so large a role in popular fiction these days dull -- oh, look, here comes another appallingly difficult choice the author has cooked up to make the protagonist suffer, whatever will he do? Yawn. I'm much more interested in exploring personality and action in a more nuanced context, one that has more resonance with the kind of conflicts and resolutions most of us actually experience in our lives. I know that's not a universal taste -- obviously a lot of people enjoy fiction with the kind of thing you've asked about -- but it's my taste.

Put another way, the kind of story where somebody has to sacrifice everything they value to achieve the point of the story has been done to death, and turned into a cliche. What I'm interested in here is not how much canned suffering I can extract from Embery, but how the pursuit of her dream through a variegated landscape is going to change her, and change the way she sees the world, and in the process, change the way the reader sees the world.

[(Anonymous)]

JMG,

You are, of course, completely ignoring the advice of all the various writing books on how you must fashion a plot. And for that, all I can say is... Thank you.

Modern fiction has become so formulaic as to become nigh on unreadable.

I do rather like, "I am not that faun." It reveals several things while simultaneously asking several other questions.

This also opens up a curiosity for me about your writing process. When the faun decided to say this, did it come along with a hint of the importance of the statement? Or will you have to wait for the story to unfold itself further before you find out?

-- Ailin

[ecosophia]

You're welcome and thank you. None of the novels that moved me most had the kind of plot that depends on the author cooking up ways to make things difficult for the characters, and some of them -- I'm thinking here especially of Hermann Hesse's Demian, and more recently Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge -- don't have problem-oriented plots at all. The kind of story in which a character works out a complex destiny without benefit of contrived crises is one I find very satisfying.

As for "I am not that faun," I have a guess -- but at this point it's no more than a guess. The faun told Tay earlier that he's wise but not good, and now he's distancing himself from the faun who counseled Eremon (who's the stand-in for Heracles in this world). I think there is a bitter failure in our faun's past, something that reaches back to the death of the old gods. But we'll see...

Loving it

[claire_58]

I'm wondering why Uldin is able to return to Amalin now? He's been in exile a long time. What's changed? Does he need Embery and Tay's help to make the journey?

He and Tay have talked about checked the omens for a journey none of them seemed to know they were going to make. Is Uldin able to see the future? Or just make better guesses at it? Meeting a human child who could recite the song of Eremon must have been a novelty if not a surprise.

His comments about himself: that he is 'wise not good' and he's 'not that faun' seem to be a statement about his own individuality and unique character. He's not just a single representation of 'faun-ness'. I don't see him as untrustworthy but I can clearly imagine he has his own reasons for wanting them to come along with him.

Maybe I'm making the mistake of seeing him just a differently shaped human. I think you said that you chose not to write in first person to avoid that.

BTW I found your tips on generating ideas and especially writing the scene that is clear without thinking about continuity very useful. Unfortunately spring and summer are my busiest time of year. Come November i'll take up the challenge.

All the best,

Re: Loving it

[ecosophia]

I don't yet know why Uldin is ready to go back to Amalin now. I'll be learning more about that as the story unfolds. Those are all good questions, though!

[(Anonymous)]

This is striking me on several levels. Most generally, I like how you've made obvious without ever stating it directly that the Holy Law is being stuffed down the throats of the people and kept there largely by force or threats of force. It makes me wonder about its origins.
Closer to home, the faun. This gets the near-retired engineer in me going! So fauns don't age - do they reproduce? Are there female fauns or is Embery going for a wilder ride than she currently imagines? Also, what led Uldin to reveal himself to Tay? Eremon's song could have been a ruse. Does it have power over Uldin?
But closest to home, the alarm bells are going off in the back of my head: "Anner's sons saw Tay and Uldin at Creel's Head! The magister's men don't need to track Embery and Tay to find them! Run! Now!"

-RPC-