(Originally published on LiveJournal)
In between doing household chores this weekend, I have been rummaging through various notebooks connected to my fantasy novel (okay — it would be easier just to refer to it by its title: The Ring of Adonel – also abbreviated RofA). The most recent notes are ten years old. I know this because I have this obsessive habit of dating my manuscripts. I write the first drafts of many of my bits of writing long-hand. A habit begun in childhood, and continued in college. There’s just a different rhythm to the composition when writing long-hand than there is when composing at a keyboard. Anyway, whenever I sit down to work on a manuscript (long-hand), I date the beginning of the section. So I know when last I worked on it.
I won’t even go into how long ago the manuscript was begun — because I can’t possibly be that old! (What’s that they say? “You’re only as old as you feel”? So, don’t make me feel it! 😉 )
The particular notebook I was looking at today is one where I would write down scenes as they occurred to me – well in advance of where I was in the actual manuscript. I mean, if a good, powerful scene occurs to you, you should not just keep it in your mind until you get there. You might not remember it by then. And in reading some of these scenes, I was struck by the fact that I had not remembered many of them.
One of the major issues I needed to work out for the novel – and for the world in general – was the nature of certain of the races of the world. The combined influences of Tolkien, fairy stories, and Norse mythology had led me to include a race of immortals in my world. That is, they are (as I call them) “Children of the World”, part of this creation, and not members of the angelic beings who entered it from “outside”. Like Tolkien’s Elves, and in fact, they were originally called “Elves”.
But way back when, “in the dark ages”, my friend Sherwood Smith (sartorias) was hearing parts of the MS being read to her, she made the suggestion that using “elves” would point far too much toward Tolkien. And she was right. My creatures deserved something more clearly “their own”.
After listening very, very carefully to my work, I “learned” that they were called the Fynlaren. And so they have been to me every since. To look back over the earliest parts of the MS and see the word “elves” feels very, very strange.
However, the influence of Tolkien also taught me something. For myself, the Fynlaren needed a more specific nature than I felt Tolkien’s elves have. Well, admittedly, the Elves may have had a specific nature to Tolkien, but I never quite felt it. And in my creation the “first generation” of the Fynlaren were created as adults, who “awoke” at the beginning of their lives (rather like Adam & Eve). So, now I’m going to inflict one of those “advance” passages on you. This is one of those I’d forgotten I’d written. But it has such an interesting concept behind it that it struck me this evening. Just so you know the players, Gwyric and Darael are both of the “first generation” of the Fynlaren, and they’ve known each other for… oh, at least a thousand years, I think. A long time. Gwyric had wed a mortal woman 22 years earlier (his son is the hero of the book), and Moira had been murdered earlier in the story. What Gwyric is about to tell his friend, he has never told anyone.
****
At last Gwyric spoke. “There are the First Awakened, and then there is the First Awakened. All of you, waking in Kyradon, when you woke you knew and understood what you saw. The world had names. Everything had order. For you, that is all you have ever known.”
A silence fell between them and Darael was astonished by what he saw in it.
“Do you mean–?”
Gwyric gave a heavy sigh. “You cannot possibly know. When there were no words, how can there be words to describe it?”
Darael felt the pressure of the hidden listener’s attention. “Try.”
The pause was so long, Darael almost prodded again.
“Adonel woke me with a touch. Such glory. Such a bright scattering of pieces. My hands were empty, my mind empty. Yet through them tumbled everything. To be conscious without knowing. It is a terrible thing, li-delf. Perhaps if my living heart were ripped from my body and I still lived, perhaps that might be a faint experience like that first moment. Like this moment. Adonel, of course, realized what I lacked. His second touch gave me language. He had been too eager to greet the Children of the World. If he had not—”
Gwyric shook his head. “The flood of language, of knowing. Yes, it was a joy. But I alone of the Fynlaren have known … aloneness in such a way that none other has. And now it grows in me again. That moment swells in me. Like a dark wave, it rolls over everything in my memory. As Jernathien sank beneath the waves, the green hills and fair stones overwealmed by the dark, clear waters….”
He threw out a hand, trying to push something away from himself.
“She is gone. And I cannot see, and there are no words.”
***********
I suppose some of this will be revised when I get to this point in the story down the road. But in the meantime, I’m rather enjoying being surprised by my own work.
Comments
sartorias Aug. 12th, 2007 02:59 pm (UTC)
Go for it!
kalimac Aug. 12th, 2007 03:04 pm (UTC)
Had Tolkien written a similar concept, it would have been … interesting. But as I understand him, the Elves invented language on their own. Some other contrasts between you and Tolkien come to mind: I have this obsessive habit of dating my manuscripts. And Tolkien studies would be very different if he’d done the same. I “learned” that they were called the Fynlaren. And so they have been to me ever since. Tolkien had a hard time giving up on “Bingo” and “Trotter”. You’re fortunate.
jpantalleresco Aug. 12th, 2007 11:37 pm (UTC)
“The pause was so long, Darael almost prodded again.” bothers me. Not because of the line itself. I get the impression you leave too much unsaid there. I get the feeling this should be a very sad scene. What is going on with Gwyric during the long pause? Why does it take so long? It feels like that line is the start of a missing paragraph, not the whole paragraph in itself. He’s reflecting on that time. What is in his eyes or face when he pauses? You don’t need a lot of detail here, exactly, but I think you need a line to showcase something is going on. Otherwise it sounds good. JP
scribblerworks Aug. 13th, 2007 06:53 am (UTC)
Thanks, Josh! I’ll keep your observation in mind. And yes, this is part of a sad scene — only a part of it, mind. I wouldn’t want to give away too much this far in advance, but I will say that the scene takes place at night, and the “hidden listener” is in fact Gwyric’s son, Gidion. But “hidden” only in the sense of out of their sight, and supposedly sleeping. But I like your questions. They’re the kind of questions I would want a reader to be having at this moment. 😀
