Relvan’s revision
Filed under Writing Journal on November 8, 2006
Keywords: Relvan's Rescue
I finished “Relvan’s Rescue,” the piece I plan to submit to Fantasist Enterprises’ Sails & Sorcery anthology, yesterday. The ending word count was almost 1200 words over the maximum listed in the submission guidelines. As I was rereading through those guidelines, however, I realized I had an even bigger problem. Well, not really realized. More like acknowledged.
The world of Janner Kohl and the Blue Lightning Brigade is one in which magic has slowly disappeared under the influence of the Church of the Way, a nature-based religion that proclaims magic an abomination of the natural order. The third sentence of the guidelines reads:
Mysticism and magic should play important parts in the tales . . . .
On top of that, the examples listed were all stories with a strong fantastical element: magic, undead or living ships. I knew that the story I envisioned contained no magic, and the story I wrote contained no magic. I really want to submit this piece for the S&S anthology though, so I brainstormed with my wife on ways I could incorporate magic, but still keep the sense of a post-magic world.
We came up with a some solid ideas, but they require big changes to the plot. As an added bonus, I can cut a couple scenes at the beginning that made the story top-heavy and should bring me back under the word limit.
Related Posts
- Relvan rejected
- Easter eggs
- A history of the Brigade
- February 2007 wrap-up
- Submitting to Dragon magazine
November 8th, 2006 at 9:08 am
Well done, Kam! I’m looking forward to reading it.
RE; the prominance of magic and mysticism
Yeah, I am worried about that too for my story. There’s not much magic in my world, and the mysticism is kind of in the background. But the story does show a clash (slap down really) of the normal world trying to invade the realm of the mist.
The story hasn’t moved past the outline stage, unfortunately. I want to write it, but not lose any momentum on the actual book to do it. Sigh. I’m out of town on business next week. Maybe I can take advantage of the solitary nihgts in the hotel…
November 11th, 2006 at 3:36 pm
I didn’t know you were writing a story for the anthology. A month left until the submission deadline. You can do it.