Re: Chapter Ten - The Lost Princess of Aechyr

Spoilers ahead! If you haven’t read to this point in the book and want to preserve the surprise, steer clear of this recap.

For everyone else, welcome back to our recap/behind the scenes. This chapter’s title was once upon a time going to be the title for the book. But as much as Sophia is the key to much of this book’s events, I eventually decided that it didn’t give the right impression of the tone and genre. For one, it didn’t capture the action element. “Ascension at Aechyr” might not be the most action-packed sounding title, but I think the tone is more appropriate for the book as a whole.

But onto that whole missing princess biz. Yes, as it turns out, our dear Scarlett is in fact the Crown Princess of Aechyr. Or was. Or will be again. You get the point. I suspect this twist does not come as a surprise to many readers – that’s a sacrifice of the structure I chose. Given that Scarlett is such a prominent character in the beginning of the book and that someone at the Academy is going to wind up being the princess in question, I wouldn’t be surprised if many readers… weren’t surprised. However, I did try to throw in a couple of red herrings just so that it wasn’t absolutely guaranteed. We already saw that Kennedy thought of Avery as a possibility, but Quincy was also added for this reason. I wanted another red herring but needed a justification in the plot. Realizing that a member of the royal guard would fit in perfectly into the story (plus adds something else down the line), she was slotted into the book.

As for Scarlett, well, I’ve been hinting throughout these posts at some of the character traits which tie into her backstory, which we get now. Her fascination with symbols comes from being seen as one. Her easy composure, yet slight preference towards solitude comes from training in the palace and demands for her appearance. As we see, Sophia really wants to do the right thing – to do anything – but felt trapped, and with an identity crisis to boot.

Writing her speech when she finally opened up was really fun and really challenging. At the end of the day, it is a monologue, and the ever-present writing advice of “show, don’t tell” makes this sort of thing feel like a dubious proposition. But still, sometimes characters just have to talk. The trick was trying to find a balance between simple recitation of events and putting the right feeling and expression into the words. You’ll have to tell me how I did, but I hope the various metaphors Sophia employs helps to accomplish that goal.

I still skirted around Kennedy’s backstory here, but that’s less about him opening up this time, and more about wanting to keep that vague for the moment. I think there’s a certain fascination when the audience doesn’t know everything about a character, especially key moments. We’ll see if we ever get around to the actual event. I could see myself going either way – it all depends on the story.

As for this one, I quite liked the little bit that Kennedy did give Sophia. He actually is opening up, and more importantly, using it to comfort and empathize with her. My favorite moment has to be when the two keep picking up the other’s thoughts to express the same feeling. They’re very different people, but their experience running away has a startling amount of overlap. It’s part of a gentle push-and-pull that I think works with their developing relationship. They can still clash, but there’s a deep understanding and common ground which makes them work so often.

Of course, there’s the other side of that push-and-pull later in the chapter. For some reason, the idea of Kennedy storming down the hall, frustrated with Sophia and her mother before being ambushed by, uh, the Utility Man (we have to wait a chapter or two for his name) was one of the earliest little scenes I had envisioned for the book. Now, I didn’t have a clear vision for what Kennedy would be sulking about originally, so that had to come later. This is another tricky part of the writing, because I didn’t want either side to come off as petty or irrational. Fortunately, the ground rules that Kennedy and Sophia laid out, plus Kennedy’s orders from Time Peace proved to be useful tools for navigating this dilemma.

I’m sure I could find pages more to write about for this particular chapter (it’s a big one!), but I think I’ll leave it at that for now. Next time we see who has launched a surprise attack, and if Kennedy can recover in time to put a stop to it.

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