Hi everyone!
Today I thought I'd take you behind the scenes of The Ruon Chronicles and how the (new-ish) timeline is coming along.
So. I thought I had it all figured out in my mind and then I started actually putting the storyline on paper and realised that I didn't.
You see, the problem is that I went and wrote pieces of the story here and there and then, when I checked the timeline properly, saw that I had 70 years where nothing really happens story-wise. Well, not that's important enough to merit writing a whole book about.
What I figured out at 3am on Monday when I couldn’t sleep (at luckily wrote down as well) is that I needed to not only shift two pieces of the story around, but that I also need a prologue. It is an epic fantasy, so I guess I might as well add the prologue!
Okay, so basically I squashed together what I’ve already outlined fully/have written and now just need to keep going. I want to have at least a relatively good idea of what will happen in each book before I start (re)writing book 1 in earnest. I also changed one of the set pieces of the beginning (Elame and her prison) geographically from the Ahfara Sea to the Shadowmere and actually found that it made more sense that way – huzzah!
This just goes to show that sometimes you not only need to sleep on it, but also remember to make notes at 3 in the morning!
A rough draft of the beginning of the prologue
The library of Holt Haliern, hewn from the living rock of a lone mountain, stretched eight storeys high. Inside the library was a labyrinth of corridors and rooms that held a copy of almost every book in the whole of Airtha-Eyrassa.
Neanare stood in front of one of the walls of the inner rooms, wax tablet and stylus in her hands. Her eyes followed the lines of text that formed on the wall of the library as if carved by unseen hands. Dust from the carven words fell to the floor, clung to the hem of her dress, and lingered in the sunlight that fell through the ventilation shafts. She watched as each letter, each word of the world’s branching history traced itself in tendrils. Every now and then she scratched some of the words down on the wax tablet before shifting her weight from one foot to the other.
“We’ve found her! We have found Elame!”
Neanare almost dropped the tablet at the shouting and drew a thick line through the wax, ruining the surface. Without a second look at the damage, she started running towards the voice.
A few of the librarians were crowded in front of one of the walls. Here, too, the words appeared on the wall. One of the librarians were tracing along a sinewy line of words.
“Here! See?” the elderly librarian said. The letters were still freshly formed and barely glowed from within.
Neanare leaned closer and then stepped back when she saw the Wislic of Holt Haliern making her way through the throng of librarians that were now crowding in front of the wall. The Wislic bent down, clipping a pair of glasses to the bridge of her nose.
“Shadowmere,” the Wislic breathed and straightened. Her face had lost all its colour and the librarians murmured amongst each other. The Wislic met Neanare’s eyes and showed her to step away from the other librarians.
“Neanare,” the Wislic said, “go to the Keeper House and tell Wislic Ruaha that Elame’s been found. She needs to get everyone ready.”
“Shadowmere is in Brenoth Wood,” Neanare said in a low voice. “It is only two days’ travel from here.”
"Wislic?" An elderly librarian pointed an outstretched hand to one of the other lines of script that were forming on the wall. "It says ... it speaks of an ash creature being awakened.”
The Wislic turned to Neanare. “Be quick! We have no time to lose.”
Neanare nodded and sped from the room, the words she’d written on the wax tablet forgotten.