Second Draft underway

It might seem a bit odd that I waited until the second draft to truly do a detailed dive into the religion and culture of the world of Cherry Blossoms, but to be frank, I went in with a good idea of what I wanted and cared more about making sure the characters and story held up and made sense. Now that I have the confidence that the story works, I am cramming in the world and making whatever additions and changes are necessary. To that end, Chapter 0 is done.

I've been looking at the various things I want to make sure I include (mostly notes decided while writing the first draft that I wanted to include earlier) and marrying with it other ideas created after the draft was finished. Among them is a redesign of an entire city and geography and the addition of a complete culture. Basically I'm adding my version of the Japanese myth of the Tengu and have been designing concepts for them this week.

But married to that has been researching and detailing the religious overtones. I didn't really want to put anything seriously religious in, initially, because that's always treading dangerously close to turning off some potential readers. Though I've written other books with a religious-themed group, as I was writing the first draft it became apparent that there was a need for a certain... heavy hand with religious figures included, just by the nature of what I was writing about. I try not to be heavy-handed but I do want a religious ideology that becomes the definition for the culture I'm writing so there was a strong attempt to sort out how I would weave it in unobtrusively. While I think I can manage it (at least to the point that it isn't really thought about much until the final battle), it was interesting to write the dissertation today to create the official mythology and worship practices.

Now I get to see how some of my additions to the draft will play out. I'm hoping that the additions will be flowery enough to impress but not deviate the story too much that you get lost in those details. And I hope people accept my chapter haiku (which I like the idea of doing, but I don't like haiku).

David Barentine
www.wotps.com