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In a decent amount of pain right now, quite suddenly; I'm not sure if it will persist through tomorrow's plans, but I hope it does not. At present, I am waiting for acetaminophen to begin working while eating a bowl of soup, so I figured I'd update this thing.
I've almost finished the first actual scene for Fall (not counting the prologue, of course). I'm quite proud of some of the choices I've made here; I do wish to elaborate, but many are related to spoilers.
First of all, if you've read the entirety of Journey to Fire's Keep, you are aware of a few things. Asmodeious is a dragon, Stephen and John are now dead, and a massive lava bird became a massive lava flow that killed quite a few completely innocent people. Fall itself actually begins some time later, as Justin and Angelo have somewhat settled after the events concluding the first volume. In a series of flashbacks, Justin catches the readers up with what exactly has been going on. It would appear the lava flow ended up destroying half each of Monsoon and Flood City, as well as the entire jungle that existed between the two. Angelo, being the "child" character who has just lost pretty much everything he ever knew, became immediately suicidal upon returning to civilization; this manifests in an excessive drinking problem. If you recall, he does state in the first book that he considers alcohol a poison; as such, by drinking himself absolutely stupid, he really is trying to kill himself in a rather childish manner. Justin, being the only one even remotely familiar to Angelo at this point and feeling as though he owes it to Stephen to take care of his surviving friend, manages to wean him off the stuff; however, Angelo continues to drink behind Justin's back, albeit not nearly as much.
Another little thing I'm really proud of is the lava flow itself. Because it began existence as an elemental summon, the magma is initially quite viscous and actually composed largely of Silicon dioxide; however, it moves quite quickly because, as stated, it was actually a being. When its "life force" is destroyed by the Summoner being destroyed, the initial velocity behind the flow is still quite high; however, as it begins to cool - quite rapidly due to the excessive speed - it forms a massive obsidian flow. Almost all travel and commerce between Flood and Monsoon City is cut off, as traveling across the expanse is quite dangerous for a number of reasons; the black rock gets ungodly hot, and the sharp edges of the deteriorating glass make traveling with a pack animal almost impossible. Hacking away at the rock would be an unwieldy exercise - the material is several dozens of feet deep in several places - and poses the additional threat of silicate particulates becoming airborne and inducing pneumononucleoses. Finally, it is impossible to grow anything on the glass surface, meaning the land has been rendered pretty much absolutely worthless. This was initially the idea I had; however, the fact that it's obsidian is something I decided on as I began working on this novel in particular. Eventually, the land becomes colloquially known as "Salamandro's Domain".
Welp, the pain killers seem to have taken effect, so I'm going to head off. Mostly I really wanted to share the above stuff, though.
Oh yeah! I'd forgotten one more thing. At some point, a character in this book utters a sort of expletive swear of astonishment at how badly a specific event comes out. I want to use something like "Christ all Friday", except that phrase itself would make even less sense in their universe, as Christ has absolutely no context for them. Additional difficulty is, he's a member of the group who would most closely be considered "gods" to the people, so he can't really refer to any sort of deity in this manner either. Any thoughts from the peanut gallery?
I've almost finished the first actual scene for Fall (not counting the prologue, of course). I'm quite proud of some of the choices I've made here; I do wish to elaborate, but many are related to spoilers.
First of all, if you've read the entirety of Journey to Fire's Keep, you are aware of a few things. Asmodeious is a dragon, Stephen and John are now dead, and a massive lava bird became a massive lava flow that killed quite a few completely innocent people. Fall itself actually begins some time later, as Justin and Angelo have somewhat settled after the events concluding the first volume. In a series of flashbacks, Justin catches the readers up with what exactly has been going on. It would appear the lava flow ended up destroying half each of Monsoon and Flood City, as well as the entire jungle that existed between the two. Angelo, being the "child" character who has just lost pretty much everything he ever knew, became immediately suicidal upon returning to civilization; this manifests in an excessive drinking problem. If you recall, he does state in the first book that he considers alcohol a poison; as such, by drinking himself absolutely stupid, he really is trying to kill himself in a rather childish manner. Justin, being the only one even remotely familiar to Angelo at this point and feeling as though he owes it to Stephen to take care of his surviving friend, manages to wean him off the stuff; however, Angelo continues to drink behind Justin's back, albeit not nearly as much.
Another little thing I'm really proud of is the lava flow itself. Because it began existence as an elemental summon, the magma is initially quite viscous and actually composed largely of Silicon dioxide; however, it moves quite quickly because, as stated, it was actually a being. When its "life force" is destroyed by the Summoner being destroyed, the initial velocity behind the flow is still quite high; however, as it begins to cool - quite rapidly due to the excessive speed - it forms a massive obsidian flow. Almost all travel and commerce between Flood and Monsoon City is cut off, as traveling across the expanse is quite dangerous for a number of reasons; the black rock gets ungodly hot, and the sharp edges of the deteriorating glass make traveling with a pack animal almost impossible. Hacking away at the rock would be an unwieldy exercise - the material is several dozens of feet deep in several places - and poses the additional threat of silicate particulates becoming airborne and inducing pneumononucleoses. Finally, it is impossible to grow anything on the glass surface, meaning the land has been rendered pretty much absolutely worthless. This was initially the idea I had; however, the fact that it's obsidian is something I decided on as I began working on this novel in particular. Eventually, the land becomes colloquially known as "Salamandro's Domain".
Welp, the pain killers seem to have taken effect, so I'm going to head off. Mostly I really wanted to share the above stuff, though.
Oh yeah! I'd forgotten one more thing. At some point, a character in this book utters a sort of expletive swear of astonishment at how badly a specific event comes out. I want to use something like "Christ all Friday", except that phrase itself would make even less sense in their universe, as Christ has absolutely no context for them. Additional difficulty is, he's a member of the group who would most closely be considered "gods" to the people, so he can't really refer to any sort of deity in this manner either. Any thoughts from the peanut gallery?
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If Christ has no context for them, is there something that does? Perhaps some sort of historical event that went very badly (if it's to be literal), or some important figure (if it's to be less literal)? Or maybe he can refer to a particularly clumsy fellow "god"?
I know next to nothing about the universe, but I guess what I'm trying to say is: if there is no context, create context :)
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I guess what I'm trying to say is, while I want it to have a similar impact, I really don't want it to involve invoking any sort of name or anything. This is really where the difficulty comes from. ^^;
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The actual reaction could be slight if you manage to show it that way: the person looking at another in a certain way, or stopping mid-sentence, though it would depend on the circumstances.