Sooo…yesterday I wrote that I was starting the Sword of Dragons Book 5. And I immediately wrote a 3100 word prologue.
Today, I wrote chapter 1. And…it took an unexpected turn. A very grim, horrifying turn, and now, several hours later, I’m still processing what just happened.
Yeah, you read that right. The story I’m writing took an unexpected turn and left me mortified and horrified and oh my god, the tone of book 5 just took a rather dark one O_o
Now, first, if you haven’t read up to Advent Darkness, SPOILER ALERT!
My original intent for book 5, and still is the big piece of it, is that Cardin and Sira and all of their friends need to find and gather allies to fight the Darksteel Army and prevent them from finding and/or taking the Conduit that’s hidden somewhere on Halarite.
But now there’s going to be another, big part of book 5. Cardin has just been dealt one of the biggest blows of his life. (Yes, worse than anything else that has happened so far.) I won’t say what it is, all I will say (just to reassure people) is that Sira isn’t in chapter 1, so no, she doesn’t die.
After what he’s witnessed, I feel like much of his journey will also be searching for a reason to fight. Searching for a reason to go on. Searching for hope. Grim stuff, I know.
What’s crazy is…now that I’ve written this, it had to happen this way. This wasn’t a “oh, for shock value, I’m gonna do this!” No, that’s not how a story takes on a life of its own. For this, I was going along, writing what I intended to write for chapter one, and then I got to a scene where the action starts.
Except, logically, what incites the action must include this shocking event that I hadn’t considered until the moment I wrote it. And the instant I had the idea…my stomach dropped out, and a huge void opened up in my gut. I was in shock with every passing sentence. And it just got worse, and worse, and worse, as the implications of everything became apparent to both me and Cardin.
And what he does in response…
We all have our breaking points.
Even heroes.
Especially flawed heroes.
So. While book 5 will, indeed, be Cardin searching for allies, he’ll also be searching within. And coming to terms with what he did, what he learns he can do, and what to do with that, all while dealing with one of the worst traumas anyone could ever endure in a fantasy world.
*Whew*
Guess I’m not holding anything back in book 5.
-Jon Wasik
A Writer at Heart 