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Fantasy Friday! The Bow of Destiny Commentary Pt. 2: The “Fit”

Introduction

I thought it would be interesting to share some commentary about the beginning of The Bow of Destiny now that the book has been out for a while, sold well and the next book should be released in just a few months. The Bow of Destiny has a curious beginning for many people that’s at once perplexing, confusing and intriguing. This effect is done on purpose and I’ll share a bit about it now.

The Bow of Destiny is written using the technique of deep point-of-view where readers hopefully become deeply engaged with the perceptions of the point-of-view character. There are a few other aspects mixed into this, one being that there are little, to no, dialogue tags in the book – all the dialogue is contextual. Secondly, with the deep point-of-view, internalization is signaled – or tagged – with physical actions by the character. As such, the internal thoughts, mood and emotions of the character are not italicized since these are deep enough into the chracter-reader engagement to not be set apart in such a way. Lastly, when italics are used it is for a specific, ongoing experience for the POV character. In such cases, hallucinations, dreams, memories, visions and other such experiences of the character are italicized as a special indicator that something different is happening for the character. I also used a present tense instead of past tense to cue the reader that this is a present experience for the character. It’s important to note that the tense only has changed and not the character POV.

The Fit

Athson has been afflicted with what he terms “fits” since he was orphaned. Something in his surrounding environment can set off these episodes where he re-lives his past – sometimes overlaid with his present. It’s actually a PTSD-like reaction to the violence of his past and can leave him rather confused

On top of this, Athson also sees other things like Spark, an imaginary mountain hound that’s been at his side since the incidents described in the first chapter. Athson takes an elven concoction called Soul’s Ease to prevent him from having “fits” or seeing Spark.

The opening scene gets confusing for Athson because he’s forgotten his Soul’s Ease. The instances of italics in this case are when Athson sees his traumatic past – in present tense. It emphasizes that something different is ongoing within Athson’s awareness. If you – as the reader – are confused, then it’s all good because Athson is confused and you are really deeply into his experiences. However, it’s important to remember that the character point-of-view does not change – only the tense has changed to emphasize Athson’s (in this case) experience has changed.

Athson knows that these “fits” give him a hard time differentiating what he sees for days so he assumes things like Spark are not real. However, these seem very real to him and he often gets caught up in them anyway – such as interacting with Spark.

Conclusion

So this is another layer to Athson’s point-of-view in the opening scene. As you can see, there are a lot of different aspects to this scene that might get overlooked. However, if you read it again you’ll see the clues along the way. By the way, there are a number of other subtleties throughout the book that you might find interesting on re-reading.

Next week, I’ll dig a little deeper into this opening scene and attempt to offer a bit more about Athson’s state of mind. I found this scene difficult, tricky and daring all at once so there are a lot of layers to what’s going in with Athson that set the stage for the whole story. Thanks for reading today. Please leave comments below and check back next week for another post about this topic.

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About the Author

P. H. Solomon lives in the greater Birmingham, AL area where he strongly dislikes yard work and sanding the deck rail. However, he performs these duties to maintain a nice home for his loved ones as well as the family’s German Shepherds. In his spare time, P. H. rides herd as a Computer Whisperer on large computers called servers (harmonica not required). Additionally, he enjoys reading, running, most sports and fantasy football. Having a degree in Anthropology, he also has a wide array of more “serious” interests in addition to working regularly to hone his writing. The Bow of Destiny is his first novel-length title with more soon to come.

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Scrivener Collections Pt. 3: Getting at the Facets of Your Writing

Scrivener is a powerful writing tool. I write about it weekly with tips and usage ideas. To read more of my posts click the Scrivener tag or category at the end of the page.

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Diamond photo courtesy Morguefile.com free section.

Just as a gemstone must be cut, so it is with a writing project. There are a variety of ways to approach editing any book. Fortunately, Scrivener’s Collections allow you to organize the various stages of your editing and help you get to the final version of your writing project that is your diamond.

If you’ve been reading my Scrivener posts the last few weeks you’ll know I’ve been discussing the use of collections. For those who may have missed the other posts they are here & here. Today, I continue with collection usage and approaching my current edits for my second novel in The Bow of Hart Saga, An Arrow Against the Wind.

My first round of editing covers structure whereby I’m adding necessary chapters and scenes to the book. To that end, last week’s post covered creating a collection and schedule for this editing. While I’m certainly not finished with that round of editing, I’m going to discuss the next type of structural editing that I can schedule now using collections.

For those who are wondering, yes, multiple collections can be created for any number of reasons. So my next collection will cover style. The chapters and scenes will address different ones to those added last week as well as some saved searches I expect to use during this editing phase.

If you need instructions on creating collections, please refer to the last 2 Scrivener posts linked above in this post. From this point, I’ll assume if you’re reading you understand what I’m doing. In the following screen-shot, you’ll note that I’ve create a second collection named Structural Edit – Style as it appears in the list of collections.

As I mentioned earlier, the chapters and scenes for this collection are different since I switched to deep POV during the time I wrote this draft. So I’ve identified the chapters that need to be edited to deep POV style. Note the chapters are different between the two collections.

Similar to the first collection, I’ve edited the meta-data for Status and Labels and I’ve applied them in similar fashion to the first one. I’ve learned to edit for these changes previously, so I’ve created some searches based on these so I can use them in the chapters to I can quickly make basic changes before making more specific ones. This makes editing the chapter or scene in question much quicker.

Now when I’m ready to proceed to this phase of my structural editing, I’m ready with a schedule and expected searches. If I need anything new, I’ll be able to add the necessary elements to the collection.

Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments section. Interested in more of my writing? Just click one of the retailer banners on the sidebar to see more.

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