Transforming and combining: When scenes come together

There are two ways that I could have written this blog post: after the fact and before, illustrating what I can do and my process behind it. Instead, I am going to do a bit of both. I want to document the two choices that I have with these two scenes and walk you through the advantages and disadvantages of both of them, because trust me, it’s a very varied mis of dos and don’ts.

What I want to do is chapters entitled, currently, Lucifer’s Blood and Legacy feel too similar. I have two options, either rewriting the scene to where they have different narrative functions and keeping them together, or the other options is making them into one scene. With this blog post I want to document my process in trying both options and then ask you which one you would prefer. If you want to see how the chapter fits into the narrative, I suggest you read this post and then go over to some other of my blog posts under this series which I’ll link in the recommended blog post section once you have finished here.

Narrative functions are what scenes fit into the narrative and how. If a scene doesn’t fit into the narrative and moves the story forward, then a question needs to be raised of if it should be there at all. Think of it like a puzzle piece, if there is one piece that feels unnecessary, then you’re going to think less of the puzzle, and it might not be as satisfying to build. Basically, my challenge here is ensuring that either both scenes have their own identity or, if I decide to combine them, that the scene does justice and makes the puzzle fit together.

Both chapters separately share the themes of legacy and what to do and how to prepare your child for your eventual passing. Both of these scenes hold a similar perpous to display that to the reader. The part where they both cover the same themes will be where I need to focus my attention. Let’s focus on highlighting where I need to focus and maybe the lines I want to take from each.

Breaking down

From here, I’ve highlighted the lines that I want to take forward into the combined chapter.

These were pretty simple to decide on as I wanted to ensure that the part of memories was kept and the pain and closeness of death being a central theme in the next scene. I wanted the weight of the memories and the physical cost of using his magic to be highlighted. The most important part of this scene, for me, are that the power Lucifer has and the cost of it is highlighted and that what makes this scene works. Now, magic isn’t really developed significantly in the novel, so far, and I want to bring forward the ability to do that and showcase what Nate can hope for and the cost of immense power. Memories, also, as the subject of legacy being how someone is remembered, are an important part of this scene that I think is amplified by what is happening in the next scene. There is a lot of careful balancing of exposition and narrative action here. Some of this could be used and made into footnotes, and that is what I’m going to have to use. This is because most of the world building should be balanced between this and the main narrative and I like adding extra bits into the footnotes for those people who want it. The challenge here, is leaving room to change and adapt the system for everything in the future. At the moment, with the first book, I don’t have any contradictions. If I decide to write more, then that is when it might become a larger issue.

A few of the highlighted sections in the images could most likely be used in footnotes or cut out entirely when I further dissect what I can put in and make it relevant to the scene. The footnotes character as I’ll call them, is both humorful and knowledgeable and is meant to know all. This means that I can have more information that the characters wouldn’t, and act as almost a bridge between omniscience and close narration. Now I’ve selected the parts of the chapter I want to use, I need to make sure that it all fits together like a puzzle. This highlighted part of the novel fits into the additional category as well as the foreshadowing part. This could maybe fit into further footnotes and play around with the footnotes that I’ve written already to discern exactly what I need. There is so much that I can take from this chapter and so much from the chapter that I’ve highlighted and most likely won’t make it in. I’ll be excited to make this into something I love!

Creating, crafting and remaking the new Chapter

I wanted to make sure that the select parts of this were added and I had a really hard time selecting the parts that I wanted to add to the scene and the part that even though i thought on first glance were important, when I tried to fit them into the scene, I found it really hard to do so. I don’t want to spoil too much of the scene because that would do a disservice to you as my loyal readers, but I want to highlight some of the places where I’ve got quite a lot to say about them. The forcing potent blood through his system line is particularly significant to me, as Lucifer has a lot to do with power and if you’ve read some of my other Burning Throne short stories (Birth of a Kingdom, specifically) then you’ll have an understanding of how the Kingdom came to be and how Lucifer had a part in that. Other specifics I want to highlight are the lines ’blood he’s drunk’ and ’lives he’s taken’ because those two lines add so much, in my opinion, to the worldbuilding. The world is a horrible, destructive place and hopefully, through Lucifer showing his son the Legacy he’s left behind. Some of my writing in this scene is poetic and I think that’s what has helped me get through a lot of the more boring things and flowering them up. From a more personal note, I wanted to write this way because there is a lot of discourse surrounding death and to write a blunt novel would, at this stage, be too much for me. I’ve been lucky enough to not experience the pain of loss that other people have. I do, though, understand how loss can affect people and have a good understanding of how loss affects people. I want to write this out in this scene and the resulting conflict as easily as I can. There are a lot of nuances to it and to help me cope with that, because a massive fear of mine is losing the people I love, I write more ‘flowery’. There are, though, a lot of dangers because I want to make sure you can digest my work without needing a dictionary, which, whilst lovely, my writing does suffer within a few of my pieces.

I think some of the beauty of the poetic but also the straight-to-the-point style I’m trying to develop means that I can quickly deliver information in a flowery way. I’vebeen fighting the writerly war of show vs tell for most of my writing journey, getting a feel for it gradually, knowing the right amount of telling and showing, although I have had some mishaps. This mix and the long sentences create a ‘waterfall’ type rhythm, which I think keeps the constant weight piling on lucifer’s fading life and his old bones, works really well. Even so, I think that the regrets and the theme of legacy runs through this extract and doesn’t spoil much of the scene. Spelling mistakes, though, are a habit of my first drafts and I'll write a post about going through and editing for SPAG at a later date.