One of these days pretty soon, I need to compile everything I've written for Terakiel's story. It's a big unorganized mess, so I'm not really looking forward to it. I've really just been adding on and on for the past. . .six or seven months or however long this whole writing exercise has been going for. At one point I was keeping track of everything in a Wordpad document, but after updates became sparser, I stopped doing that. I've considered compiling them into some kind of document that would allow me to make a table of contents so I could more easily access specific parts of the story, but I'm not really sure how to go about that.
If I did organize everything like that, it would give me better perspective on what really needs attention and what should be rewritten. I have a whole new backstory in mind for Aisen. Right now, he has very little personality to speak of. If I had to sum him up in one word, I'd probably say "inoffensive." I think when Aisen and Terakiel meet, it should be more of a dramatic moment. As the story is now, they meet up and Aisen just sort of. . .accepts his new fate. He might be a little disgruntled, but he is otherwise not bothered by his new situation. This strikes me as pretty unfeasible, even for a work of fantasy. I have some ideas about where he might have come from, who his friends might have been, and what his motivations might be--and perhaps most important, some defining personality traits.
It's possible Casnie could use some spicing up as well because if I were to try to sum her up, I'm not sure I could. The only real defining character trait that she has right now is a love for her sister, and I've barely even touched on that. It's something I introduced in the experimental rewrite of the first Casnie scene and I haven't really messed with it much since then. I was planning on referring to it more and maybe, y'know, explaining it, but I haven't quite gotten around to it.
I think Casnie was supposed to be some sort of musician originally. Although a talented Strander, her real interest was supposed to be music. I'm not sure how I was going to incorporate this, but that was the nugget of an idea that formed in my head. One pressing concern is just how underdeveloped my ideas about the Strand and its cultural impact are. I have it in mind that this "magic" is commonplace in Sidea, but for what purpose is it most commonly used? Is it military? Utility? Some combination of both? Maybe it's used as a substitute for labor in some cases. Is it strictly a primal energy or is it more of a practiced art? Why haven't I definitively answered these questions yet?
I get really impatient about the "worldbuilding" aspect of this story. I want to just focus on the characters and their interactions but I feel like I'm falling short on that as well. I think I should just hold myself to a higher standard of quality--which I'm just realizing heavily contradicts a previous post about writing as much as I can regardless of quality. I guess I'm really just thinking about the final product in this case. I'm being as critical of my writing as I can so I could eventually get it to a point where it is polished and lives up to my standards. That'll take some time.
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