Showing posts with label Work in progress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Work in progress. Show all posts

Friday, 25 November 2011

A Scribbly bit of Harts Change

I'm wading through the book with a machete and in the middle of rewriting this encounter with Evelyn and Toryan.

Concerning the setting:
The fortress port of Daggers Rest has been taken by <Classified At This Time> and at the Beggar Kings command the warsongs ring through the country!  
Evelyn, Toryan and Leonia accompany the army of Prince Nichus south to join with his father and lay siege to the place.

Concerning People:
Leonia: a mysterious woman of power.  She has plans of her own that involve Evelyn and Ambia but is content to take the long view, for now.  You will never see her without her flock of priests [and as this is skirting close to classified information we'll leave it at that]
Evelyn Oneeye: The main character and a Tinker of the king.  She's been tasked with protecting the prince who makes her job difficult by laughing at the idea since he's surrounded by an army.
Toryan: An Ambian.  Technically he's Evelyn's prisoner but since he deserted his men to be with her it's a bit of a grey area.
Horrible: he's too small to be a pony and tables don't bark so he must be a dog.

Concerning the notes:
The words in a hue of blue, 
are notes from I to me (and now to you).

That which is writ in red,
are scribblings from inside my head.
If reading them becomes a chore,
they can safely be ignored.

[nw: So what might happen I think is that they sleep together platonicly which is fine because every one else is doing it regardless of sex. It is one of the best ways to keep warm out in the open and perhaps there is a bit of sex going on as well but I wont' get into that unless it becomes narrativly important.
Now as I have said before if they merely sleep together and infact have Horrible there as a canine honor guard then it will be fine and they'll laugh about it in the morning.
The next step up from that is that if they sleep together and in the darkness of the night something happens sexually between them. That's when the morning breakfast would be slightly awkward.

Whether or not they make the beasts with two backs is irrelevant. The thing to remember of course is that while sexual tension draws an audience in After the actual sex it tends to slow everything down. The classic example is the television show, the adventures of Lois and Clark which was a hit show until Superman and Lois Lane got married and then nobody gave a damn.
What then is the point of this scene?
It would be easy to say that there is no point to it but that would also be nothing more than sloppy writing and if there were no point to the scene then why bother having it in the first place?

The point of the scene is not to just get Evelyn and Toryan humping like bunnies which realisticly is not going happen. The point of the scene is that Evelyn has been sleeping with Horrible every night since the change. She has needed something in her life that makes no demands upon her, in effect he is a teddy bear that makes her feel safe.
Now feeling safe is the interesting part of that sentence because as strange as it may seem she is beginning to feel safe with Toryan and it might be that she has caught herself casting a lingering gaze on his well formed shoulders from time to time but thought nothing of it.

Note: She hasn't had any “relations” since Tobias died and that was 5 years ago. So there is opportunity for her to feel great shame and guilt over these thoughts she is having about Toryan which is understandable although according to the character analysis she is well past the period of feeling any guilt over this]