Things fall apart and come together in interesting ways
Sometimes things spiral out of control in a really good way.
This chapter reads strangely to me now. In retrospect, I think I would have taken more time to develop this scene more. As it is, it feels like I quickly switched some things around in order to patch up a plot hole that the entire book would have fallen into.
That's because there was. And I did.
My first idea for Templum Veneris was to have Viekko, Isra, and Cronus completely entranced by the wiles of Cytherea. Viekko would fall completely for the hard, military life. Cronus would lose himself at the ship with Joana. And Isra would be completely enchanted by the Rainha's ability to control a population like Cytherea. That would leave only Althea to see the truth and try to get everyone else to come to their senses. The most important one being Isra, who would, by the end, be on the verge of turning on her crew.
Except that last one? It didn't make any sense when I looked at it.
I've often said that Isra's superpower is the ability to read people and understand what they wanted and use that to her advantage. So it didn't make any sense for her to go along with this. It would be like a moment in a superman comic where he couldn't lift something because it was too heavy. Unless that thing was THE FUCKING SUN, it didn't make any sense.
If you've never had to patch up a major plot hole in a book, you should know it requires a lot of the literary equivalent of duct tape and WD-40. Whole chapters got overhauled. Some were deleted entirely and were replaced. The motivation changed from Isra being weirdly under the spell of Isabel to her having a contest of will and wits with the Cytherean queen.
And, as a result, I found something out about this character that I never knew before. I knew she was confident and brash, but I realized that it could stray into overconfident and reckless without her realizing it. She is about to play a game with Rainha Isabel, and she is completely unaware of how dangerous that game is going to get.
For now.
I ended up somewhere I never thought Isra would take me. But I'm glad she did.
This chapter reads strangely to me now. In retrospect, I think I would have taken more time to develop this scene more. As it is, it feels like I quickly switched some things around in order to patch up a plot hole that the entire book would have fallen into.
That's because there was. And I did.
My first idea for Templum Veneris was to have Viekko, Isra, and Cronus completely entranced by the wiles of Cytherea. Viekko would fall completely for the hard, military life. Cronus would lose himself at the ship with Joana. And Isra would be completely enchanted by the Rainha's ability to control a population like Cytherea. That would leave only Althea to see the truth and try to get everyone else to come to their senses. The most important one being Isra, who would, by the end, be on the verge of turning on her crew.
Except that last one? It didn't make any sense when I looked at it.
 |
| Forget the fucking poster... how thick are these walls between cells? |
I've often said that Isra's superpower is the ability to read people and understand what they wanted and use that to her advantage. So it didn't make any sense for her to go along with this. It would be like a moment in a superman comic where he couldn't lift something because it was too heavy. Unless that thing was THE FUCKING SUN, it didn't make any sense.
If you've never had to patch up a major plot hole in a book, you should know it requires a lot of the literary equivalent of duct tape and WD-40. Whole chapters got overhauled. Some were deleted entirely and were replaced. The motivation changed from Isra being weirdly under the spell of Isabel to her having a contest of will and wits with the Cytherean queen.
And, as a result, I found something out about this character that I never knew before. I knew she was confident and brash, but I realized that it could stray into overconfident and reckless without her realizing it. She is about to play a game with Rainha Isabel, and she is completely unaware of how dangerous that game is going to get.
For now.
I ended up somewhere I never thought Isra would take me. But I'm glad she did.
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