5 Comments
Nov 11, 2022·edited Nov 11, 2022Liked by Simon K Jones

I had to stop in the middle of the read to specifically note the second and third paragraphs, which are a beautiful character assessment of Clarke and a stunning mini-treatese on the nature of bias and trying to overcome it. Ok, scrolling back to the top, now...

*reading*

And we're back!

Clarke is gonna need a new partner, soon enough - and that's a new character in SDC, which opens up a lot of possibilities. Of course this also means Lola chapters will bring in more Palinor, which also opens up possibilities. It's very "Act II" in that you're really shaking up the status quo here and are ready to really start twisting your tapestry.

Speaking of twists, you noted, "There’s a fair bit of storytelling shortcutting going on...," and it's something I've been semi-conciously mulling over with this book (this week in contrast to the Dresden Files, which I am in the midst of re-reading to catch up to the two novels and one novella I haven't read yet). Structurally, you do skip over a lot of nuts and bolts storytelling. It does work. Since Dresden is urban/Pl fantasy, there's some points of comparison - with the main difference being Butcher always stays in Dresden's POV (except a few short stories, but those are also single-viewpoint). But that's the significant difference.

In a Dresden book this sub arc would be a lot longer - we'd stay with Dresden beginning to end and see every step... Sitting in hospital overnight with Nisha, the battle to take down the dopur, the search of the apartment, and the pet shop owner would absolutely be eaten by a Palinor beastie, cuz Butcher loves his irony. He'd also spend 50-to-100 pages on it all.

It's your multiple viewpoints that are holding it all together and allowing you to skip forward so much. Clarke and Styles are Detectives. We can accept that a different group - animal control or SWAT (Police Special Ops in the UK, correct?) handles the dopur off-page, and just go with the jump into the end of the investigation.

Ending with an exciting chase would have been fun, but your instincts took you the right way. We get some nice anticlimax in the pub, more illuminating character bits, and then... "Did Holland bring down the government?" That is a damn good "Oh, shit!" moment. SDC might have pissed off some very powerful people.

Makes it all the more likely the next SDC Detective will be a "political hire..." Maybe another fox in the henhouse?

Fortunately, SDC is no henhouse - it's a kennel. Hounds can take down a fox.

(I am unreasonably happy with myself for the prior paragraph.)

On video games and narrative structure, AND the structure of Triverse: part of my conscious analysis is related to my own game narratives. Over six years (off and on as we rotate games) and three campaigns I've generated over 400 pages of first-draft narrative, and am toying with reworking the entire shebang (most heavily drawing from the "Vert Valliant" campaign) into a single coherent narrative. There's a lot to parse through - several dozen characters, lots of world building events, having to pare away un-needed events (game events generated specifically to allow PC advancement which don't impact on main plot points can largely be discarded), while expanding roles that were NPC events happening off-screen are creating lots of notes and outlines. Here, changing viewpoints are going to allow me to skip over events. There will be changes in chapter format between classical "narrative" structures to characters expressing themselves via letters, to proclamations, maps, and charts. And, yeah, Triverse is a structural influence. So, take that, Simon!

Side note - Laura's "Moridin," was conceived by her as a woman in disguise, which she dropped from her play as a result of how I wrote Moridin as being six-foot-six with a rumbling basso voice and five-foot broadsword. Well, I'm returning Moridin to that concept. Moridin will now be six-foot-one and wear a scarf to "cover" the "horrible neck scar" which has reduced "his" voice to a "rasping whisper." Oh, and a five-foot broadsword. I already have the scene where another character discovers the deception, but Leon (who is gay) isn't telling anyone else... That'll teach Moridin to lock the door before sticking her entire torso into a barrel to wash up!

Expand full comment