The Monthly Report: September 2022
The Monthly Report: September 2022
Completion and Transition
Hello, and welcome to the Warthog Report.
Wrapping up Aodh
Last month Aodh’s story in Battles Beneath the Stars concluded. Even though there’s still plenty more character stories to write, getting just one down feels good.
Now is as good a time as any to mention some details about the development of the story. Before I made this a full fledged project, I had already written a draft of Aodh’s story just to share with friends. So when I did decide to make it something I would share, there was already a foundation to build off of.
The basic plot of the first draft was the same, but there was a subplot where Amezwar attempted to convince Aodh to accept an invitation from the king of Pheona. But then I decided that the subplot wasn’t relevant enough to Aodh’s arc, and Quiahuitl already provided a political element. So the Feriel and Amezwar fights were replaced with Nisha and Aris.
As a character I’ve had Aodh for some time, with two unpublished short stories about his relationship with Fintan. However, Aodh had appeared in some other stories I wrote even before that, but he was a very different character. This prototype of Aodh saved mortals he approved of from mortality, whether they wanted it or not, leading to him being a feared figure with the epithet ‘the collector.’ Characters like Fintan hadn’t been created yet at this point.
The first story directly about Aodh, Fragment IV, was an experiment with metafiction and where Aodh’s current characterization manifested. It took the form of Ciara’s writing about Aodh and Fintan’s relationship, having been translated into English with a preface and footnotes from the translator.
The second short story, Kindling, covered Aodh’s first meeting with his fellow dragons while helping better define his relationship with his mortal friends. It was partially written due to Fragment IV facing consistent rejection, and me thinking that a story with a narrower focus might be easier to refine into a publishable quality. But it also got rejected enough times for me to shelve it for rewrites I haven’t gotten around to yet.
Aodh’s story in Battles Beneath the Stars is somewhat of an epilogue to those short stories, since it shows him after the tragedy of the Bloody Day. It’s an odd place to introduce him to people, but I’m glad I got something out there.
Moving Forward
There’s currently a thread for people to say which character they want to see as the protagonist next, which is also the first thread for this substack. There’s still time to contribute with your comments. As of this writing there’s a tie, if it stays that way I get to pick between the characters tied for first.
Regardless of who is selected, it will take some time for me to plot out the next story and send it out. Which will give me time to go and make adjustments to the formatting of earlier chapters to be consistent with what I decided on in the later chapters.
My first post where I ramble and try to convince people to try something is taking longer than I expected, but it should be ready soon. I still haven’t decided on a section name for it yet, with ideas ranging from ‘highlights’ to ‘please try this.’
There’s nothing special to report on for the blog posts. I don’t like to confirm the subject of a post in advance, that way I’m free to switch subjects if a planned topic doesn’t work as well as I thought it would. If I’m able to prepare some posts ahead of schedule, then I’ll be more open about the subjects to expect for the month.
Lastly, some of you might have noticed that my posts used to be sent out early in the morning, but now arrive later. In my experience a lot of other substacks do early morning updates, leading to mornings where I woke up, checked my inbox, and felt overwhelmed by the number of emails I had. I don’t want to contribute to other people going through that, so I’m playing around with later posting times.
That’s all for this update. Thank you for your support and readership.