💾 Archived View for d.moonfire.us › blog › 2015 › 11 › 11 › sand-and-ash-15 captured on 2023-11-14 at 09:28:36. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2023-04-26)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Chapter fifteen[1] of my fantasy novel, Sand and Ash[2], is one of those chapters where my style of writing has surprised me.
1: http://sand-and-ash.fedran.com/chapter-15/
2: http://sand-and-ash.fedran.com/
I don't really plan my stories. I mean, I write an outline and I have all intentions to follow it, but usually I deviate within a few chapters. In this case, we've already well off the planned path. Rutejìmo and Mapábyo were suppose to have their big fight in this and the next chapter leading up to off-camera makeup sex in the chapter after that.
That didn't happen.
I'm very glad that I jumped off the planned path. The story would have been twenty thousand words shorter (it is short as it was at 80k words), but it wouldn't have taken the path that it ended up following. And this new path is what I fell in love with. And why I don't mind being not being prepared when I write.
The other thing that is fascinating about this chapter is when Mapábyo says “I see you.” At the time, it was just a little bit of dialog but that phrase became something so much more as this story progresses. I don't know why, but I find the genesis of a phrase like this wonderful. It wasn't forced, it wasn't “I love you,” or anything else. Just something that resonated between two people and became something private and wonderful.
In my own life, I have something close. It had to deal with my struggles to know my emotions and back when me and SMWM's relationship was new. I rarely said “I love you” (still have trouble with it) even though I know that I'm in love with her. But, it is an intellectual awareness that I'm in love instead of some deep feeling when I look at her. (I'm sure I'll write about my struggles with emotions later.)
During that time, and for many years after that, I had responded to her “I love with you” with “and I you.” While I've used it with a few other people once or twice, that is the response I give with many terms of affection (especially with SMSes). It's my phrase for her, my way of saying “I love you.”
It is also the same with the Princess Bride and “As you wish.”
Categories:
Tags:
Below are various useful links within this site and to related sites (not all have been converted over to Gemini).