Yonder, Chapter One

Find the beginning of the novel here.

Here we have the beginning of the novel I am for now calling Yonder.  The title fits marvelously, even into the first 500+ words above, and the stage being set.  An horde is coming from yonder.  The refugees are departing to yonder.  The various events that Azariah finds himself in the midst of are moving apart from him, and at the same time he is possessed of some trouble that clearly he has no control over; so that too is a problem that might be described as 'yonder.'

I will confess, the title struck me as I was watching the dream/explanation for the motives behind Snape during Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.  This book has nothing to do with that book, and it would be difficult to indentify why I latched onto that particular word at that particular time ... but inspiration can come from anywhere or anything.  I once got a title from a PSA denouncing prostitution: Somebody's Daughter.

I'm unhappy with only one thing that I think requires some interjection somewhere in the above, and that is Azariah's size.  In keeping with the templates set in other fantasy novels, I see him as my 'huge' character ... which I want to balance the novel opening with him weeping helplessly.  I think cinematically that's a very strong image, and I confess to writing most of my novels with a cinematic bent.

The vision of the table, the wine, the expanding out to the town and the refuges, that's all camera-shot techniques.  Even when I write I still think in movie frames.

I feel confident about at least the beginning of the book, and I hope to write five hundred words every day for as long as I have the structure in my head.  For the present, I feel pretty certain of the first two chapters.  I hope I can have the third and fourth mapped out in the next couple of weeks, which should carry me to around four weeks of continuous writing.  After that, I might choke out or not ... I know where it ends and so on, but the reality of writing anything is that sometimes it doesn't pan out to being as interesting or as organized as you would hope.

In the meantime, it would be nice if my trials in this could be something other writers could relate to, and take ideas from.  Please remember, this is all my first draft.  I have not right now written the material that will appear in tomorrow's post.