Long time no write! I could say that I’ve been so caught up writing my second draft, but really I’ve just been doing things other than writing blog posts. Anyway, obligatory semi-apology out of the way…

I’ve been working on Draft 2 of Lionheart since January 1 of this year. My beginning goal was to write an average of 800 words every day. Some days I have time for 2000, some days I barely get out 400. Some weekends I don’t even make time for that much. But things even out and in January I averaged 852 words every day. That dropped to 582 in February (busy, busy month) and 459 in March (in my defense I was on a trip and didn’t write for 9 days). Somewhere in the middle of March, anticipating the next few months to be busy with wedding plans amping up and now apparently a pandemic, I adjusted my personal goal to average 400 words a day. Most days I can still write well over 800, but having that lower goal means on the days I don’t have a lot of time, I can still meet my goal. The lack of stress honestly frees me up to write more than I normally would, and if I average out the last half of March, I was writing 700 words a day. All of that work totals to almost 60,000 words in Draft 2. I’m just getting into act two, things are moving along and going pretty well. 

Even though I had a complete outline before I started, I’ve been making plenty of changes as I go along. My best ideas always seem to be the ones I come up with in the middle of a scene, demanding that I go change the rest of that story thread to account for this MUCH BETTER idea that came to me in the throws of writing. In Draft 2 I’ve got a whole new subplot that I’ve added since writing Draft 1, and it’s constantly evolving as I familiarize myself with the characters and what’s going on. Some characters also have new backstories, which means a lot of new ground to tread. Talya, a character originally envisioned as ‘Conrad’s ex who gets held for ransom by the bad guy’ has transformed into one of the most interesting characters on the page for me. I struggled with her character throughout Draft 1, knowing that she was important but taking the whole first draft to figure out why exactly. Now I know (thanks to some great input from my sister, who has much better ideas than I do) and her scenes are the ones I look forward to writing. 

I’ve also got Conrad, who has some new and interesting backstory. Originally he was little more than a rude mercenary with a dark past, but once my sister (again: better ideas than me) pointed out that he went through some serious trauma, and my fiance had a theory about his mysterious dad, Conrad got a whole lot of dimension. (Writing lesson: listen to your readers, sometimes they have more insight than you do. They can pick up on stuff you’ve unconsciously laid out when you’re too focused on what you think the plot should be.) His backstory didn’t change much in the broad strokes, but I’ve got a new perspective on it, and that allows me to write Conrad with clarity and specificity. Now his dislike of magic stems from his years of using it in violent service to the bad guy. For Conrad, magic is tied to the horrible things he did and experienced rather than it being a half-baked dislike that melts away in a couple of chapters. His trauma is a real problem for him throughout the story, creating obstacles that he has to work around or through. It adds much more meaning and character development to a moment in Book 2 where he offers to use magic to help someone. 

All of my characters have been growing in depth as I’ve understood them more. I’ve been writing Lionheart for three or four years now, but it’s just in the last two years that I’ve really figured them out. (Incidentally, it’s in the last two years that I’ve started figuring myself out… Totally not a correlation there.) It’s messy and complicated and difficult to try to introduce human development rather than fall back on easy, black-and-white character beats. But the resulting stories are much more organic and relatable. Ben has shifted from an annoying, judgy, moral trumpet to–well he’s still that, but now the narrative points out that he’s annoying rather than gormlessly agreeing with him, and the acknowledgement of his flaws allows him to grow. Ben is composed of some of my homeschooler experience; a dash of moral superiority and judgmentalness at people who live differently, some culture shock of going out from my sheltered home into the big world, and the wrestlings as I discovered that maybe some things I believed about this big worldly world were not true. Ben has to confront his own failings and perceptions very quickly. His beliefs are challenged, he sees that some of his morals are simply not sustainable once he’s outside of his sheltered home, and he has to decide what is and is not true and important. It’s a much more interesting story than ‘pure good boy is right about everything and tells everyone how right he is and never changes’. 

The third of my main characters, Ana, hasn’t changed much, but my deepened understanding and maturity has let me write her with more perspective. I can write her growing personal conflicts about her fate with more deftness, and rather than feeling just what she’s feeling, I understand why she’s feeling it. I’ve also added more complexity to her backstory and to her parents’ backstories, fleshing all of them out as characters. (Again, input from my sister completely changed Ana’s mother. Get some people to read your story, especially people with different life experiences than you.)

Another addition to Draft 2 are flashbacks. I didn’t want to pepper flashbacks constantly through the books, but there are some pivotal moments that happened in the past that I really wanted on page. So I’ve added three flashbacks per book, one in each act. These let me show the characters at very different points in their development, shed some light on why characters are the way they are, and hint at secrets that haven’t been revealed yet. In act 2 I have a flashback concerning a newly-introduced character. The flashback shows, without context, the aftermath of an event, the consequences of which are felt majorly through the other two books. They directly affect three characters in big ways. Some of the context for this event is revealed by the end of Book 1, with more information coming out over the next two books. Since one of Lionheart’s themes is how the past affects and changes us, flashbacks fit in very well. It’s been fun to write the characters at such different points in their life. (Fun I say; all three flashbacks for Book 1 are intensely emotional and difficult for the characters. My favorite to write.)

Aside from working on Lionheart, I’ve been learning how to felt, watching The Mentalist (everything I loved about Bones with nothing that I hated about Bones), playing through the Dragon Age games, developing another story on the side, and spending time with my fiance. My next step for Lionheart is some development of the next location my characters are going to, the ruins of a school of magic. I have to let go of my precious word count for a little bit so I can sit down and work out a map, what the school used to look like and what it looks like now, and all the beauties and dangers contained within. Fun stuff! 

I’m almost always listening to music while I write. I’ve got a playlist of over 80 pieces of music for Lionheart, and The Witcher soundtrack has fit into it perfectly. Hurdy gurdies are one of my favorite instruments with it’s unique, organ-esque sound, and it’s all over The Witcher. This particular piece always gets me really focused.