Reworking my beginning

[Ireth]

My latest WIP [working title: Holly, Oak and Stone] opens with the MC, Cadell, and his best friend Loegaire finding a band of black-elves tramping through the woods of Faerie, leaving destruction in their wake. Before they can do much to halt the destruction, other Fae arrive and start picking off the black-elves. Cadell and Loegaire join in the fight, and Loegaire is mortally wounded. Along come four light-elves, who had been pursuing the black-elves and wound up in Faerie unexpectedly as well. The light-elves go to a nearby human settlement, and bring a healer for Loegaire. Unfortunately, Loegaire dies before he can be fully healed. This prompts Cadell to take (completely misguided) revenge on the innocent healer, and that night he kidnaps him with the intent to torture and kill him. The healer's family saves him, along with the four light-elves.

I realize killing off the MC's best friend so early in the story may not be the wisest choice, since there's practically no time for the reader to develop any empathy for him. This is especially hard when his first plot-important action is to aid in the slaughter of total strangers -- he's meant to be a good guy, a rare thing among Fae, who are usually neutral at best. My idea for the rewrite is to have Loegaire not try to kill the black-elves at first, but rather attempt to speak with them. This won't do any good, because neither can understand the other's language. Also, the black-elves would mistake him for a light-elf from his appearance, and likely kill him on sight, thinking him a threat. This is not good for the plot, as it leaves no time for the healer to arrive, thus nullifying Cadell's revenge and forestalling the rescue attempt which winds up driving the whole rest of the plot, and Cadell's motivation for changing from someone who'd be the villain in another story to being the hero (as opposed to anti-hero) of his own. Basically, Loegaire has to die to kick off the whole story; it's just a matter of how.

Thoughts and comments are much appreciated.

 

[Spider]

Rather than worrying about the reader's empathy with the MC's best friend, you can use this as an opportunity to create a bond between the readers and Cadell. Instead of being saddened by the death of Loegaire, the readers can feel the anger of Cadell. Overall, I don't think it is a bad idea, it's just a question of how you want your readers to feel and who you want them to be invested in.

 

[Ireth]

Well, Cadell isn't the only one affected by Loegaire's death, the kidnapping and torture notwithstanding. Loegaire had friends in the human community, and they too are grieved by the loss. My intent is to show a few different ways people grieve. Cadell gets angry; the healer, Eirikr, is guilt-ridden; Eirikr's daughter, who was closest to Loegaire among the humans, is sorrowful. I need to get that empathy for Loegaire across early on, otherwise people may wonder "geez, why are these people friends with such a jerk?" And in case anyone's inclined to ask the same thing about, say, Cadell himself, I'll just say that the Fae treat each other differently than they typically treat humans, and so their idea of friendship is quite different as well.

 

[Spider]

My idea for the rewrite is to have Loegaire not try to kill the black-elves at first, but rather attempt to speak with them. This won't do any good, because neither can understand the other's language. Also, the black-elves would mistake him for a light-elf from his appearance, and likely kill him on sight, thinking him a threat. This is not good for the plot, as it leaves no time for the healer to arrive, thus nullifying Cadell's revenge and forestalling the rescue attempt which winds up driving the whole rest of the plot, and Cadell's motivation for changing from someone who'd be the villain in another story to being the hero (as opposed to anti-hero) of his own. Basically, Loegaire has to die to kick off the whole story; it's just a matter of how.

If the black elves usually kill the light elves on sight, then wouldn't the light elves kill the black elves on sight too? The fact that Loegaire is initially trying to settle the conflict without violence might cause the black elves to hesitate before striking. Maybe he lowers his weapon in front of them and makes a gesture of peace, such as holding up his hands to show he means no harm.

 

[Ireth]

These particular light-elves don't mean to kill the black-elves, only to find out why they left Svartalfheimr (both elven groups were travelling through Midgard before stumbling through the rift into Faerie). The black-elves don't know that, though, and are simply concerned with fleeing their pursuers. For Loegaire to jump down among them and say "hey, what are you, and how did you get here?" would probably make them nervous, especially since Loegaire is using a language they don't understand (Gaelic, whereas the elves, both light and black, speak Norse). This would also make Cadell uncomfortable, since he's all gung-ho about killing the black-elves for damaging the trees as they fled through the woods (which is also why the other Fae who arrive start killing them).

I had something else to say that wasn't in response to Spider, but it seems to have fallen out of my head. Hopefully I'll remember it at some point. ^^;

 

[Caged Maiden]

I guess my first question might be, "Is this the necessary starting point?"

If the answer is yes, you might consider opening the story with short prologue. I'd advise song or a tale someone is spinning about the character that is going to die in the first scene. That way, the reader can be prepared for the impact?

If the answer is no, then spend one chapter, maybe two, setting up the friendship. Some banter, maybe shared memories. Let us see him being an awesome guy before he kicks it and the world weeps for him.

I have a novel that opens with a boy and girl telling stories and then I show their friendship. Then the second chapter is a little more about their friendship and they are making out in the garden when her father walks in on them in a compromised situation. He breaks them up and sends the boy home. The third chapter is about her begging her father to let her see her friend again, and in the fourth, the boy goes missing and she's crushed, wondering what happened to him and suspicious her father had something to do with it. I don't feel I could have started the story just with him going missing, the reader wouldn't have felt her loss. So maybe this is a case like mine, where you need to take a little time to set up the impact. If you cannot afford to spend a chapter or two building up this ill-fated character like I did, then I'd recommend the song. Just before the chapter starts, write a little song about his heroics, or his peaceful nature, or maybe the daughter of Eirikr could be telling her little sister a bedtime story, and she just so happens to be telling it about the character.. something wonderful he did or something.

 

[DassaultMirage]

The mother of my MC is killed nine years before the series starts. You can build empathy through flashbacks methinks, or make the dying words of the character his one last shot to show just what kind of a character he is, hence, if he is worth feeling sorry for.

And I don't see the point of taking revenge on the healer. Its like the Hitler cursing the Jews, so unless your character is as stupid as Adolf Mustacheboy, I suggest against getting your character in a twist against the healer. Maybe the healer themselves would feel an emotional flinch, being healers and failing to save someone?

 

[brokethepoint]

I think your original starting point is a pretty good one, you get to know the MC by how he reacts to his best friends death.

 

[Ireth]

I guess my first question might be, "Is this the necessary starting point?"

If the answer is yes, you might consider opening the story with short prologue. I'd advise song or a tale someone is spinning about the character that is going to die in the first scene. That way, the reader can be prepared for the impact?

If the answer is no, then spend one chapter, maybe two, setting up the friendship. Some banter, maybe shared memories. Let us see him being an awesome guy before he kicks it and the world weeps for him.

[snip]

Just before the chapter starts, write a little song about his heroics, or his peaceful nature, or maybe the daughter of Eirikr could be telling her little sister a bedtime story, and she just so happens to be telling it about the character.. something wonderful he did or something.

Now that you mention it, I suppose I could try to back up a bit, to establish both Cadell's friendship with Loegaire and his resentment toward the humans a bit more. I'm not sure I'd have enough for a full chapter, though. I really want to get the black-elves in the picture as early as possible, and as it stands, they come in on page two or three. This is their first appearance in Faerie as well as the story as a whole, so I can't even hint at it beforehand if I were to back up.

A story could work, though I'm not sure who Eirikr's daughter could tell it to -- she's an only child, whose father only recently remarried after his first wife's death shortly after the daughter was born (and by shortly, I mean "five days later"). Eirikr's second wife is not even pregnant yet, nor is Eirikr's sister-in-law, recently married to his brother. There are other young people in the settlement, but none younger than thirteen or fourteen, far past the "bedtime story" age (and they're little more than faces in the background, anyway. This story keeps gaining characters as it goes, and I'd rather keep it to the bare minimum of what's needed as far as named people go). Eirikr's daughter is in her late teens/early twenties.

The mother of my MC is killed nine years before the series starts. You can build empathy through flashbacks methinks, or make the dying words of the character his one last shot to show just what kind of a character he is, hence, if he is worth feeling sorry for.

And I don't see the point of taking revenge on the healer. Its like the Hitler cursing the Jews, so unless your character is as stupid as Adolf Mustacheboy, I suggest against getting your character in a twist against the healer. Maybe the healer themselves would feel an emotional flinch, being healers and failing to save someone?

Well, I do a bit of that by having the affected characters think and talk about Loegaire and the times they shared in friendship. Giving him any coherent dying words is a bit difficult because of his manner of death (iron poisoning and extreme bleed-out, the former of which is agonizingly painful, too much to allow him to do more than beg for the MC to help him before passing out).

The revenge attempt is both plot-important and character-important, because it illustrates that Cadell, like the majority of his Court, are prone to take even small insults very personally and deal out disproportionate retribution. It's only later on that he is kidnapped by the villain's spy and tortured far worse than what he does to the healer, after which he realizes "wow, my people and I are really no better than these A-holes, aren't we? That has to change, and it'll start with me as soon as I get out of here." Sometimes one can't see one's own flaws until they're shown in a mirror.

I think your original starting point is a pretty good one, you get to know the MC by how he reacts to his best friends death.

Thanks, but I'm more concerned with killing off a character the reader barely knows, as others have commented on above.

 

[wino]

I find the whole premise to be a bit confusing. So L is C's best friend and they're fighting the black elves. L is wounded by the black elves and dies. C is mad at the healer for not being able to save L. Did I get that right?

Why is it so important that the healer is blamed for L's death? Why doesn't he blame it on the black elves?

 

[Ireth]

I find the whole premise to be a bit confusing. So L is C's best friend and they're fighting the black elves. L is wounded by the black elves and dies. C is mad at the healer for not being able to save L. Did I get that right?

Why is it so important that the healer is blamed for L's death? Why doesn't he blame it on the black elves?

Yes, that's right. Cadell doesn't really blame the healer for Loegaire's death, he just takes out his anger and frustration on him. He can't do so on the black-elves, because they're all dead by the time all's said and done, and Loegaire is dead. Cadell knows the healer is innocent, and it comes back to bite him in the rear end later, when HE is tortured needlessly and realizes how much of an A-hole he's been. That's what kicks off pretty much his whole character arc. Post #9 said as much.

 

[wino]

Yes, that's right.

Yes, that's right. Cadell doesn't really blame the healer for Loegaire's death, he just takes out his anger and frustration on him. He can't do so on the black-elves, because they're all dead by the time all's said and done, and Loegaire is dead. Cadell knows the healer is innocent, and it comes back to bite him in the rear end later, when HE is tortured needlessly and realizes how much of an A-hole he's been. That's what kicks off pretty much his whole character arc. Post #9 said as much.

Well then I see another problem. What would compell a reader to continue reading a story where the MC is an obviously awful person in the beginning? I don't think it's important that readers need to feel empathy for L but rather they should feel the MC's loss of his best friend. If the MC is an ass, it would be very hard for the reader to care about the MC or L.

 

[Ireth]

Well then I see another problem. What would compell a reader to continue reading a story where the MC is an obviously awful person in the beginning? I don't think it's important that readers need to feel empathy for L but rather they should feel the MC's loss of his best friend. If the MC is an ass, it would be very hard for the reader to care about the MC or L.

I've asked about this problem in at least one other thread. That's why I think showing Cadell and Loegaire interacting as friends, with no jerkass behavior until after the death scene, is a good idea. The trouble is making it interesting enough to get people to read on to where stuff starts heating up. I don't do fluff very well, and more often than not it just seems boring. I'm not sure yet how to make it really impact the plot beyond making the reader feel sad when Loegaire dies. Guess I'll have to worry about that when I start the second draft, cuz tackling it now might warp how the first draft flows out and make things confusing for me.

 

[wino]

I've asked about this problem in at least one other thread. That's why I think showing Cadell and Loegaire interacting as friends, with no jerkass behavior until after the death scene, is a good idea. The trouble is making it interesting enough to get people to read on to where stuff starts heating up. I don't do fluff very well, and more often than not it just seems boring. I'm not sure yet how to make it really impact the plot beyond making the reader feel sad when Loegaire dies. Guess I'll have to worry about that when I start the second draft, cuz tackling it now might warp how the first draft flows out and make things confusing for me.

I don't think you need to do "fluff" but you need to show some dynamic between them and how they relate to each other. For example, C is the hot headed one who ends up provoking the black elves. Maybe L tries to save him and ends up being wounded instead and C feels immense guilt for this. Before L dies, they share a touching moment between them that reveals a bit a more about their character to readers. Really think about both of them as people and how the reader can relate to them.

Also, I think making C torture the healer is just too much and it would make me hate him and stop reading the story immediately (unless there's a good reason for him doing it). So expand on the healer. Maybe he could have done more to save L, that sort of thing.

 

[Ireth]

I don't think you need to do "fluff" but you need to show some dynamic between them and how they relate to each other. For example, C is the hot headed one who ends up provoking the black elves. Maybe L tries to save him and ends up being wounded instead and C feels immense guilt for this. Before L dies, they share a touching moment between them that reveals a bit a more about their character to readers. Really think about both of them as people and how the reader can relate to them.

Now there's an idea. I could work with that.

Also, I think making C torture the healer is just too much and it would make me hate him and stop reading the story immediately (unless there's a good reason for him doing it). So expand on the healer. Maybe he could have done more to save L, that sort of thing.

Well, the best explanation I can give for why Cadell tortures the healer is that he's deep in the ragey part of grief, and not thinking entirely clearly about the logic of who's to blame for what. The Fae in general are incredibly petty anyway, as I said with the disproportionate retribution thing, so it'd be more out of character for him NOT to do it.

As for the healer, he does everything he can, it just isn't enough. How fast he gets there is entirely dependent on how fast the horse he rides can gallop, and a snowy forest is not really the most ideal place for that. Besides which, said horse is carrying two -- the healer himself, and the light-elf who's sent to fetch him. Plus there's the fact that it takes a little while for Cadell to communicate to the light-elves what he needs; despite that they immediately try to help, there's a language barrier to overcome, and pantomime can only accomplish so much. He knows the healer's name, but he has no idea if they'll know who he is. But thankfully, they DO know him, and Cadell points them in the right direction. When the healer finally GETS there, he casts the best healing spell he can think of, but Loegaire dies anyway. The healer offers his condolences, but Cadell just yells at him to leave.

 

[Caged Maiden]

I wrote a scene with two characters (strangers) fishing. They get to know each other and talk. But you also get a glance at each of the men as individuals and get into the MC's head (his thoughts on fishing and his lack of skill compared to the other man). The thing was, when the two characters met, the young man trespassed on the older man's land, looking for help for his injured friend. The old man responded by pointing a crossbow in his face and telling him to get lost. So after very brief introduction, where the old man realizes the woman is injured and tells the two of them to stay and get comfortable while she heals, the two have to deal with their weird introduction. I've been complimented on the scene because it does double duty. Something is happening in the background which helps us get to know the MC, but it's also an opportunity for him and the reader to get to know the older man.

I'd imagine a scene like that might be perfect. Maybe, just before they're walking through Faerie to get attacked, the two are doing something like that. Maybe watching deer in the forest, fishing, or even hiking. If you can place them in an interesting scene and let a friendship take form, I bet it will be much more poignant when the one dies. I'd flesh it out with some reminiscences. Things like talking about women they liked or their relationships with their fathers... something men would talk about privately with only their best friend. It would speak volumes about their relationship and the trust they share.

You could even find a clever way to introduce some foreshadowing.

 

[Caged Maiden]

it just occurred to me, what WERE they doing before they got attacked?

 

[Ireth]

it just occurred to me, what WERE they doing before they got attacked?

For the record, Cadell and Loegaire weren't the ones being attacked; they were technically the ones doing the attacking. They found the black-elves blundering through the forest and breaking branches, followed them to find out more (and avenge the damaged trees if they could), and joined in the fight when they saw other Fae with the same idea. Which, again, makes it even harder for Cadell to come off as remotely sympathetic even before his Heel Face Turn.

Here's the intro as it appears in the Showcase, from the opening until the first glimpse of the black-elves. (Note: the weird symbol in Þorpstein is pronounced as a hard TH.)


Cadell climbed like a squirrel from branch to branch of the old oak, brushed the morning's snowfall from one of the sturdier boughs and settled down. He clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back against the trunk, his long legs stretched out along the limb. Nothing to do, and all the time in the world to do it in, made for a very relaxing day.

A snowball smacked into the side of his head just under his right ear; he grimaced at the laugh that rose from below. "What was that for?"

Lóegaire grinned as he climbed to a branch above Cadell's, then hung by his knees and shook the snow from his long blond hair. "For dumping snow on me, that's what."

"Pff." Cadell dug bits of half-melted snowball out of the collar of his tunic. "Had I known you were there, I might have been more careful."

"Only 'might'?" Lóegaire huffed an exaggerated sigh, then pulled himself right side up again. "Some friend you are."

Cadell chuckled. "If you want to be treated fairly, go to Þorpstein and speak to the mortals you are so fond of watching."

He paused, frowning up at Lóegaire. "Why are you so fond of them, anyway? They seem as selfish as we can be. Barring us from a corner of our own forest, as if they own the place."

"At least they leave us alone for the most part," Lóegaire pointed out. "If we don't bother them, they don't bother us."

"They bother me simply by being here. That is enough." Cadell tilted his head to the side, eyes narrowed. "Sometimes I think you like those mortals a little too much."

Lóegaire shrugged and looked away, starting to whistle a tune. It was cheerful, yet the notes rang eerily in the cold air.

Cadell settled back against the rough bark and closed his eyes, but sat upright a moment later. He slunk forward, pressed against the bough like a caterpillar, then looked up over his shoulder. "Stop that, I need to listen!"

Lóegaire stopped whistling and spoke in confusion. "What is it?"

"Hush!" Cadell inched forward again, catching the strains of voices through the trees. It was no language he understood, though he had heard it a few times before, from the Norse-Gaels in Þorpstein, Faerie's only human settlement. But these voices did not sound like the mortals.

He could see the speakers now, as dark shapes between the snowy trees. No mortal he had ever seen had skin as black as pitch. Cadell narrowed his eyes, creeping closer, from tree to tree. These were not humans--by the shape of their ears, they looked somewhat like Fae.

 

[wino]

Now there's an idea. I could work with that.



Well, the best explanation I can give for why Cadell tortures the healer is that he's deep in the ragey part of grief, and not thinking entirely clearly about the logic of who's to blame for what. The Fae in general are incredibly petty anyway, as I said with the disproportionate retribution thing, so it'd be more out of character for him NOT to do it.

As for the healer, he does everything he can, it just isn't enough. How fast he gets there is entirely dependent on how fast the horse he rides can gallop, and a snowy forest is not really the most ideal place for that. Besides which, said horse is carrying two -- the healer himself, and the light-elf who's sent to fetch him. Plus there's the fact that it takes a little while for Cadell to communicate to the light-elves what he needs; despite that they immediately try to help, there's a language barrier to overcome, and pantomime can only accomplish so much. He knows the healer's name, but he has no idea if they'll know who he is. But thankfully, they DO know him, and Cadell points them in the right direction. When the healer finally GETS there, he casts the best healing spell he can think of, but Loegaire dies anyway. The healer offers his condolences, but Cadell just yells at him to leave.

As long as you know that doing so will make him a very unlikeable character that is hard to sympathize with, then it's your choice. Personally, I don't think it's a good idea to start your MC off so negatively, before the reader has had a chance to "bond" with them.

 

[Ireth]

As long as you know that doing so will make him a very unlikeable character that is hard to sympathize with, then it's your choice. Personally, I don't think it's a good idea to start your MC off so negatively, before the reader has had a chance to "bond" with them.

I don't think I have an alternative, short of compromising his character arc. The whole point of the story is that he goes from a selfish, hotheaded jerk (albeit one with a softer side that a few of his people know of, though not humans) to a compassionate, more pacifistic type. If he doesn't start out as an ass, then what's the point?