The end of Maurice Saldini
Mar. 2nd, 2005 11:13 amI've reached the end of Maurice Saldini: Gothique Investigature. I resolved the suicide on the tower with a lot of theology and some quick action. Though I probably should have a christian beta-reader to check my portrayals of sensible chaplain's and hysterical choirgirl's perceptions of the are-vampires-are-soulless-and-damned question?
The last chapter's always hard, but it came quite easily once I started. The secret was to blend between Rat editorializing as he was transcribing the story 'now', and a celebration of the main characters in the time of the story. I left a number of unimportant things dangling, and tried to make things I wanted to follow up on later seem resolved optimistically, but vaguely enough that they could continue to be mysteries in a sequal.
Unfortunately, that doesn't mean I've finished it, as I still need to do chapter 3. I seem to have spent ages on this now, and it's still only 10k words. When it goes well I write a burst of maybe 1k in an evening, and then spend a week or two not having time.
Chapter 3 is the second one I had the idea for. Maurice is trying to check if Baz (jock student) and Prof. Ashmole (college-president-equivalent) might be vampires, though it's fairly clear they're not. The idea was that he'd bespel Baz to show he was human, but overdo it, and end up with Baz half-fancying him, but he'd use this to good effect by using him as a distraction and bait to check out Ashmole. But I could never decide who's point of view it should be from, and it didn't seem to go well. I'm thinking of variations on the theme. Or I could just drop it (there's other evidence) but that seems a shame.
So when I've re-read it, and decided about 3, it might be ready to share!
The last chapter's always hard, but it came quite easily once I started. The secret was to blend between Rat editorializing as he was transcribing the story 'now', and a celebration of the main characters in the time of the story. I left a number of unimportant things dangling, and tried to make things I wanted to follow up on later seem resolved optimistically, but vaguely enough that they could continue to be mysteries in a sequal.
Unfortunately, that doesn't mean I've finished it, as I still need to do chapter 3. I seem to have spent ages on this now, and it's still only 10k words. When it goes well I write a burst of maybe 1k in an evening, and then spend a week or two not having time.
Chapter 3 is the second one I had the idea for. Maurice is trying to check if Baz (jock student) and Prof. Ashmole (college-president-equivalent) might be vampires, though it's fairly clear they're not. The idea was that he'd bespel Baz to show he was human, but overdo it, and end up with Baz half-fancying him, but he'd use this to good effect by using him as a distraction and bait to check out Ashmole. But I could never decide who's point of view it should be from, and it didn't seem to go well. I'm thinking of variations on the theme. Or I could just drop it (there's other evidence) but that seems a shame.
So when I've re-read it, and decided about 3, it might be ready to share!
