Thursday, February 21, 2008

Hellstrom Voyage: Chapter 3 now up

Chapter 3 of the Hellstrom Voyage has been posted.

4 comments:

Masada said...

Thanks for the tip on women being the only casters. That makes much more sense and will, of course, have radical impact on the dynamic and the whole world.

Chapter 3:
This chapter is totally devoted to the opening of combat between 2 other vessels and the Constant. We see the Captain barking orders and get our first feel for what is possible in this world. There is a mix of mussel-loading musket science and magic. Lady Med shapes to a leviathan while Lady Theodore controls the wind and Major Boughton takes pop-shots at the enemy crew.

The sequence ends with at least one of the enemy ships crippled and/or sinking while the other ship's Captain is dispatched by a miracle-shot from Major Boughton as he hangs from the rigging of the rolling ship. The gunnery officer below decks with the cannons suffers a grievous leg wound. I suspect a peg leg will be be produced soon!

Chuck said...

Yeah, I've been sort of nibbling around the edges of some info, rather than coming right out and saying it.

I am desperately trying to avoid the "information dump" that comes in the first chapter of a lot of fantasy novels.

Masada said...

Yeah that is a struggle... You have to give the background, but if you dumped it all it gets slow.

I've seen a few writers tackle that with a multi-flow story. They jump from one character's perspective to another's... all while covertly telling the story.

An example might be for Lady Med (during one of her segments--perhaps even in chapter 2) to drift back to the brothel she escaped from... how hard it was growing up a witch... how her mom dealt with it and how women are treated. It introduces your woman-caster element while at the same time putting more substance in to the character.

Chuck said...

I'm totally unsure if I'll be able to pull it off but my idea is to try and tell the story without flashbacks, through dialogue, almost like a play, with a minimum of description.

I really hate narration-heavy books, so I'm trying it in what's probably a more difficult way lol.

I'm also trying to write a very action-oriented book.

A lot of books love to be about people getting their talk on, which is fine, but my concept for this story is more of a rollicking adventure where crazy shit happens and it's just fun.

Whether I succeed is something else again of course ;)

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