Tuesday, April 17, 2012

There's a Fine Line...

Now that The Other Half is complete, Blake Simons and Alicia Johnston are screaming at me to tell their story. Theirs will be a lot more targeted in nature - meaning, not as many tertiary characters or subplots to confuse the reader and a whole lot more focus on character development, both singly and as a couple. At least, that is the plan. Hopefully, it'll play out on 'paper' the way it is in my head.

As far as progress goes, it's been slow but steady. I have fully fleshed out both Blake and Alicia. They have full descriptions, history, and prospective plans all written out and ready to be integrated into the story. And I do mean written - it's in a spiral notebook that I keep in my laptop bag. LOL Daevas Malphas got the same treatment, though his was slightly easier as he is based on an actual demon of myth. Yes, I love sprinkling my stories with historical facts and legends. I also have a rough outline so I know the direction the story needs to go but without binding me to a particular path to get there. I like leaving it a bit open or I feel like I'm writing to a certain end result instead of just letting the story develop as it should. Hopefully, this will also prevent those nasty sub-plots from appearing and confusing things like they did with TOH.

Tertiary characters that I am certain of thus far will be the Pierce family of vampires - Elizabeth, Johannes, and Francisco di Luca (Alicia's "adopted" family); Uruvion and Lysavar of the Kedaunnor nation  of elves; Sapphire and Opal, the mated pixies; and, of course, the mysterious contact from the vampire council whom I'll not name at this point but has his own page in that spiral notebook. Michael (Micipsa) and Kris from The Other Half may make a cameo appearance but, at this time, there are no true plans for them to have any influence in the storyline. Their time has come and gone; it's Blake's and Alicia's time to shine.

The rough draft of the first chapter has been started and sits at only about 2500-3000 words thus far. It's very much an unfinished rough draft but, with some work, it should set the stage nicely. Once certain stages of the story has been reached, I'll post some things that may or may not make it into the story itself but provides insight into the characters involved. Historical references will be noted, summarized, and linked in case anyone is curious as to how reality differs from the story.

At least that's the plan. Hopefully, it'll all work out.

As for the title of the story, it falls into the same ambiguity that The Other Half had. In the first story, the "Other Half" could have meant the other half of the population of the world - the nonhumans no one knew about until the Reveal. It could have meant the person who is the other half of a mate's soul. It could have meant the other half of the human race who chose the path of fanaticism or racism. What it meant was left up to the reader. For me, it meant all those things and more and that's why it fit so well.

For Blake/Alicia's tale, the title comes from a famous quote: "There's a fine line between...." Usually, it's filled in with "love and hate," or "good and evil" but there are as many endings to that phrase as there are opposing items in the world. That dichotomy defines the story in many ways. Again, it'll be up to the reader to decide how to complete that line for themselves and it is my hope that they will fill in those blanks in different ways as they progress through the story.

Again, that is the plan. I do hope I've not set my expectations too high with this one. We'll just have to see, won't we?

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