Reply To: Time Frame on next book
It won’t change in second edition because I want to keep the story the same, just clean up the errors and tighten the text, no rewriting of history.
One thing to keep in mind though on the proactive rescue of Jenn. Tom doesn’t/didn’t at that time particularly like Jenn. She was in the summoning circle and is directly responsible for killing his body and trapping him in the Abyss. And she was treating him with a lot of hostility. I have to put my Tom hat on and ask “Why should I be expected to go out and risk my butt for this woman who is responsible for screwing up my life?”
His goal was to get Rupert to safety, to take care of the one person not afraid of him. Everything else was a distraction to his drudgery. He also had no real interest in the squabbles of his accursed master and another accursed master who were pitting demons vs demons. However, he stuck around to get Rupert to safety and because it was more interesting that sitting in a cave.
The argument I would make is that, for most of book 1, he has no ‘stake’ in the game, other than this kid that he likes.
On the boat, he hung back because he was on the edge of popping into demon form at any minute, shape changing was new, and he was afraid of popping back to demon form and freaking everyone out.
But I think one thing I am trying to do is paint a different version of good guys vs bad guys. Not all heroes are perfect, not all villains are dastardly. Sometimes the protagonist doesn’t do what the reader wants them to do, or what’s in the best interest of the story. All characters should do what makes the most sense for them, not necessarily a story archetype.
In fantasy, we have too many perfect heroes and too many perfect anti-heroes (bad boy protagonists) but in real life, heroics and anti-heroics are often complex and situational. So I was going for something like that…but I may not have (or had 20+ years ago) the writing skill to achieve what I want technically.
Anyway this will eventually change..but I have to admit, for the first part of book ii, Tom will be up to his old “non”-tricks and relies pretty heavily on his ‘crew’ for what to do…but that will change…eventually…
Anyway, it’s very good food for thought and stuff to work on. Thanks!