Re: Chapter Fifteen: One in a Million

Big, fat spoiler warning! This is the big chapter where (almost) all is revealed, so if you haven’t read to this point and want to preserve any twists and turns, turn back now! I’m about to dissect basically all of the book, considering the reveals in this chapter.

As for everyone who stuck around, welcome back! Let’s start as we sometimes do at the very beginning: the title of the chapter. This one has a twin meaning, which I always like. I might slightly prefer colorful, unusual phrases like “Rendezvous at the Albatross Café” over generic phrases like “One in a Million,” but double meanings are a close second. In this case, the title refers both to the functioning of the crystal ray (which only has a small percent chance of going off) as well as Kennedy’s miraculous victory in another timeline.

We’ll talk more about that in a bit. But first, the whole getting looped thing. I call this my “crossing the streams” moment, as the big climactic moment comes down to doing the thing with the sci-fi gadgets that we were told to never, ever do. The idea that Kennedy comes out of this psychologically torturous situation better than he was before seems somewhat questionable, but I think the buildup works. And I’m pretty happy with how the self-reflection in the loop is written. I think one of the reasons this winds up working is because Kennedy has had plenty of time to see how his rescue attempt wasn’t working. He’s already primed to recognize his mistakes, especially after the arena fight last chapter.

One of the central ideas I was keeping in mind while writing this book was the difficulty of doing what is right versus what was easy. Admittedly, I didn’t maximize that potential by having Kennedy’s wrong choice be to go out and mount a rescue. I tried to play it up as sitting still and waiting being harder for him personally, but it’s not the best execution, I must admit. So as a result, I tried to support the idea in many other places. One of those ways was in the mechanics of the crystal ray’s firing inside of the arena. For instance, Kennedy would have to actively choose to press the button back in to get the power he needed to free the sea skimmer. He had to make an active and difficult choice to press the button back in, and do the job right. Similarly, he had to recognize that he couldn’t just sit in that suspended moment forever. He would have to actually jump back into the fight, and into danger. A fight he had just been consistently losing. Another hard call.

A couple of extra points before we get to the Hawk’s speech and all the reveals. First, the fact that Kennedy had to be rescued was important to add because A) he’s not a superhero. He can’t just do this all on his own. And B) it’s just another reminder that this half-baked rescue was a terrible idea that never would have worked, except that backup showed up. However, there is one other thing to consider. While Kennedy’s plan (or lack thereof) was doomed to failure, the idea of a proper rescue might not have been entirely without merit. The synapse slicer being on the timeline reminds us that the Hawk was still taking a risk. A very well thought out risk by a man with plenty of experience, but still a risk. My goal with that detail was to remind us why Kennedy was so tempted to act. Sophia is not safe so long as she is in Sainne’s hands. We may feel better with the Hawk’s educated guess at how things are to play out, but nothing is certain, as he admits by his surprise at seeing the mechanical mind manipulator.

Also, I just really like the image of a bedraggled, exhausted Sophia still managing to pull some air of authority around herself when she speaks to the Hawk. And from the other side, I like that the Hawk acknowledges and respects the principles that she cites. Just a nice reminder that for all the lies and secrets, Time Peace are the good guys.

So let’s get to the thing. If I haven’t mentioned it before, one principle that I’ve come to develop as I write is that often to solve one problem, you should turn to another. That is, if you’ve got several problems to work out in a story and you’re stuck on one, keep it in mind and look at another simultaneously. Sometimes by having both in view, a solution comes to mind. This was more or less how the backbone of this book was really created.

My problem A was this: I wanted Kennedy to have these flashbacks to being a marine and storming a beach. But I also wanted him to be inexperienced and have room to grow. Mostly, I didn’t want him to already be well-trained and in a military role. It wouldn’t make sense for him to then suddenly find himself in an undercover role in Aechyr. Particularly while he was only 18. He doesn’t have time for multiple specializations. My problem B I already alluded to in this post. I wanted Kennedy to make the wrong choice (the easy choice) but still go on a rescue mission. While it doesn’t line up exactly, my inspiration came from combining elements from the two. Kennedy’s visions are from another timeline, and his rescue attempt throws away aa chance for victory in the Eternal War.

Now, as the Hawk points out, this wasn’t actually the moment that the plan to kill the Ashen Phoenix goes awry. It was really doomed from the beginning, because of Sainne’s Talhesian torture device. Still, it inspired a way to link together several otherwise disparate plot elements.

This book was written a little bit backwards in many respects. I had many specific scenes and elements that I wanted before I considered how they would work with the plot. Kennedy storming the beach, Aechyr Academy, the island of Aechyr itself, a princess in disguise, Sainne, Pierce shooting a frustrated Kennedy at Crown Royal, the rendezvous at the café, and the rescue in the end. This isn’t exactly a healthy way to write a story. A few specific scenes are one thing, but getting this adamant about this many things is a little unwise, because it increases the odds of things becoming… unnatural. You have to consider the logical progression and consistency of your story, and having too many more or less arbitrary constraints in there isn’t beneficial for those properties. If I were to ignore these scenes and images that I loved and wanted to keep and re-write this book the “right” way, I would have saved a lot of the meta-timeline discussion to a much later book in the series.

But having said that, I really like the dynamic that comes out of this. I’m sure many people will still call Kennedy a “chosen one” because of this pseudo-prophecy, but the point is that he’s not. His chance at being the foretold hero has come and gone. Everything is on him from this point out, and fate is not going to be stepping in to look out for him. I think this fits in neatly with the theme I was trying to create – an emphasis on doing the work, step-by-step. Victory will not come easy, and happy endings have to be earned.

Speaking of choices and themes, there are a couple moments that do bolster the idea of “right vs. easy” I was trying to work in. The Hawk himself is probably the best example here. He wanted to pretend everything would work out because clinging to a hope that Kennedy would kill the Phoenix was easier than facing the prospect of another endless series of recursions in this war. For Kennedy though, this is repeated again when he is offered the choice of staying on Aechyr or re-joining Time Peace. I think that one gets closest to my original intention.

Well, there are probably a million other details to talk about, but I think those are the most juicy bits from this chapter. But we’re not done! There is one more chapter to do, and the reveals are not done just yet! So check in again for Chapter Sixteen: the Coronation!

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