The Plot Bunny Farm

I've been working on my world-building for Sundered Sword, and it occurred to me that I need to tweak the way I was planning to use magic. Okay, fine, I was going to go with "illegal to use magic (under pain of death) unless a member of a specific group." It's been done before, I know, but I thought I could live with it.

Then I realized I'm using a very similar approach in Shadowed Sight (hey, look! another double-S title), which is what my 2004-2005 2YN eventually morphed into. Well, inasmuch as one can say that it's morphed when it's only a third of the way into the book. As with other projects, life came up, I set the book aside for a bit, fully intending to get back to it, and it is on my to-do list to get to.

Should it be? I'm plagued with doubt. Will I want to finish it if I use a similar plot point in Sundered Sword, which I'm planning to finish this year? Is it worth finishing? Maybe there's not enough there there.

Which gets me to the point of this post. (Yes, there really is one, besides me thinking out loud.) I'd like to find an alpha reader or two who's willing to look through the 32k (give or take a couple of hundred words) that I've written so far and just give me a simple opinion -- finish it, needs more subplots, too derivative, whatever. Fair warning: it's ugly. Characters change names (Aliya becomes Alesia, I think), some characters are unnamed (given such charming monikers as &&), there are notes to myself about things to deal with later -- it's all raw first draft. That said, if you're interested, let me know.

Maybe if the consensus is that the story's good, I'll put it on 2011's to-do list. (I have others on my "finish in 2010 if time permits" list.)

Been playing with a new idea, and I wrote up the following bit of backstory for it today. The quasi-Italian names are heavily influenced by my current paying work, proofreading about Tuscany & Umbria. Enjoy!

***

12 Avrill, 43rd year of Cossimino's reign

Gracious Patero Brucco,

It begins. The dukes are eyeing Meo's vineyards and orchards, and they look to my own lack of a company of knights. They will not move while Father still lives, but the wound he took when his sword broke is great. He pretends to more strength than he has, I fear, and it weakens him more. It is an open secret about the court.

At times, I wish Giorgio had lived to adulthood, lived to be a boon to our father. When I was younger, I wondered that he could fall when riding with Lucia; our sister was ever the horsewoman of the family, even as a young girl. Could she not have done something to save him? In my blackest moments, moments I dared not even to confess to you at the time, I wondered if she had done something, if his death lay at her door.

Nonsense, of course. Certainly our father has no doubts about her loyalties. Last night in full kingly regalia before the court, he gave her the broken blade and bade her keep it until the angeli see fit to send us someone to forge it anew. Meo protested, of course. He said that as eldest living son, it ought to be his to carry. Father said he would not wish the fate of the broken blade upon his son.

Without the sword, however, no one will heed sickly Meo, too weak to defend his own home. If he has knights loyal enough to defend his family, I shall be surprised to learn it. Not that I expect to live long enough to see it. I ask only that you keep my wife and son safe, for a time may soon come when only my little Apollito will survive to inherit, and to rule when the angeli do grace us with a heaven-touched smith. I hope it comes soon, before Father dies, but my heart knows I will not see the sword whole once more.

Tell my family I love them, but I must be here for Father. Domenecca will understand.

Ever your servant,

Leoncio di Cossimino