First Draft vs Second Draft - Second Example · 3:21pm Jun 22nd, 2017
Some of you may be aware that I am working on a side-story for Skywriter's excellent Cadence of Cloudsdale series, which started with Lady Prismia and the Princess-Goddess. It's an excellent example of storytelling, with my particular favorite being the chapter, Kale. (both heart-rending and inspiring, a story of pure frustration in which Kale is perfectly portrayed)
With that in mind, below the fold you will find an example of how I wrote up the draft for two critical character interactions that are in the story, and how that draft turned into a second draft with more details. (No, it's not done. This story is going to have a fine gloss over it before I publish.) Warning: It's fairly long. And there's no romance in it. (sorry, guys)
Anyway, here is what I have for the first draft, showing what happens when Piro (the dragon) meets Cadence (the alicorn), and a snippet of the afterward meeting of Piro with Mother. (the Mother-Superior of the Abby of Song)
crossed the narrow band of gravel that separated it from the nearest edge of the chapel. but when she slipped up to the side of the smaller building and tried to look through the windows to see what was inside,
describe windows
heart racing
slither up the side of the building, every claw and talon placed with exquisite care to avoid noise
small but most of tail still on ground when opening roof. small chapel.
lick of green flame to melt the lead joining the roof seams together and one panel lifted out intact.
small room below, with barriers to keep the moonlight pouring through the windows from a box of some sort
treasure. Alarms? Guards? sniff. smelled pony, but… not what she expected. older ponies smell of sweat and panic, younger ones of poo. This was light, the scent of lavender and roses, and maybe just a hint of daisy.
Her pounding heart slowed, and thoughts of her first coin filled her mind. The way it glittered in the sunlight. The soft warmth of it against her cheek. The taste when she gave it a first, tentative lick. To her tiny reptilian mind, that coin was the ultimate treasure, and Piro had grown to nearly twice her size that very day.
shakes off reverie. This treasure would be larger. More valuable. It would make her grow big and powerful. She could feel it now, the way she was able to reach down into the dark room further than she would have been able to reach just a few hours ago. Reaches down toward the box, an intricately carved wooden structure that would have been worth taking all by itself, but the treasure she could sense was within it. Ever so gently checks the area with an extended claw, sweeping back and forth. No dust, no cobwebs, and no tripwires or magical spells she could feel either.
reaches down into the box
flips aside the blanket
and beheld the treasure
scenery porn
a small tremor of chill, from the cool night air that came through the opening in the roof and the missing blanket over the foal
extreme slow, one sharp talon which could have gutted the little pony with a single motion, tucked the blanket back around the foal. shifts position in her sleep. smiles, which holds piro frozen in fasciantion. Kisses the talon. Resumes her quiet snore.
Piro moves back, terrified beyond any measure about making a noise, some small squeak that would disturb the rest of the perfect foal. Withdraws outside the chapel, ever so carefully fits the thin metal plate back over the hole, seals it with her fire, using the shortest of bursts intermixed with pauses to listen, in case the foal woke. Then back down the wall to sit in the loose gravel and tremble while her scrambled thoughts refused to settle down.
Good evening. spoken by an elderly pony, brace around one leg, shades of white, grey and silver in the moonlight. Spoken in the language of pegasi. (reseach) said nothing more, neither screaming in terror or huffed up with false bravado to strike. Just sitting, with labored breathing taht Piro should have been able to hear approach, but did not. Eventually, “Good evening,” in the same language.
Now, I had to go back into the Kale story to remember Skywriter's headcanon for dragons and the language used, but it is well worth it,. Compare that scribbling with what I've derived from it.
More Precious Than Silver or Gold
(at about the half-way mark)
For this treasure, she would risk anything. The burning nearness of it drew her out of the sky with chains of fire around her heart and the weight of the entire night pressing her down.
More silent than a blowing leaf, Piro landed on top of the southern side of the incomplete fortress wall. She could feel the call of the treasure stronger than ever, but the lack of gold in the air itched at her caution. She hesitated, every bit of her attention focused on listening for the rustle of concealed attackers or spotting the buried lines of net traps, but the small chapel in the center of the walls was silent in the darkness, alone and unguarded.
One clawed foot at a time, Piro slipped down the fortress wall and into the protected space guarded by its bulk. There was nothing here that spoke of the reverence that ponies had for treasure, no thick iron doors or spike-covered ballesta ready to defend the structure against an attacker. The entirety of the open courtyard was empty save for the trails of gravel paths and a few small garden plots, tended with the utmost of care but mostly bare except for a few small green sprouts sticking up from the frosty soil.
In the center of the space, bathed in moonlight, sat the small chapel. It was built of the same pink stone which made up the rest of the fortress and hardly looked like it could have defended itself from even a hatchling. Broad colorful windows stretched up on all sides of the small structure, covered with bits of brilliant glass that would twinkle and glow in the light of the sun and create pictures for whatever reason the ponies had created them. They were beautiful, glittering in the moonlight with faint mixes of blues and pinks, but still opaque enough to prevent Piro from being able to peer through them to the small rooms beyond.
She slipped across the open space, silent and attentive, and drew up next to the tiny building. This close, the colorful pictures made of colored glass and lead frames seemed to take on a life of their own, beautiful examples of the care and skill ponies put into their work but far too large and ungainly to be the treasure that Piro burned into her heart by its nearness. With the greatest of caution, she slid up the wall, looking for an entrance. A ghost would have made more noise, and a shadow would have envied her ability to hide, but the small walls of the stone building were without flaw except for the leaded seams on the roof panels.
This close to her precious treasure, Piro had no problem keeping her tail and hindquarters on the ground while running her nose around the metal panel on the roof, tasting the lead solder holding it into place. Just a little tin mixed in with the joint, giving a delicate softness and distinct flavor while mixing to form a perfect joint, created with all the care the rest of the building exhibited.
She breathed, laying a thin flame against the metal and running a single claw behind to lift the metal from the softened solder. In a few endless minutes, she placed the freed metal plate to one side and looked down into the small room it revealed, illuminated in colorful blotches of light from the way the windows let in the moonlight, twisting and turning the simple rays of silver light into a beautiful mix of pink hearts and twining shadows.
Piro’s pounding heart slowed, and thoughts of her first coin filled her mind. The way it glittered in the sunlight. The soft warmth of it against her cheek. The taste when she gave it a first, tentative lick. To her tiny reptilian mind, that coin was the ultimate treasure, and Piro had grown to nearly twice her size that very day.
The treasure in this room would be far larger and valuable. It would allow her to grow big and powerful. She could feel it now, the way she was able to reach down into the dark room further than she would have been able to reach just a few hours ago. With it, she would be a real dragon, able to mate and clutch. Powerful enough to fight instead of running away. Powerful enough to maybe someday become Dragonlord, and rule over all of her kind.
The narrow slot made by the removal of the metal plate was still large enough for Piro to watch while she reached one clawed hand down toward the carved wooden box in the center of the room, cast into shadow by several partitions around it as if the ponies did not want the colored light from the windows to touch the treasure concealed within. She licked her lips in anticipation, the barest flicker of her tongue against dry lips, before touching the box and the cloth covering it. The scent here was different, with the same wafting flavor of pony in the air, but with the addition of powder and jasmine, lavender and roses, with just the faintest hint of daisies. It itched at the surface of her tongue, urging her to haste, to snatch the box and flee into the moonlit night, but she fought back the reckless urge and nudged the cloth covering away from the treasure she had pursued to this remote chapel.
For the longest moment, Piro could not make sense of what she saw. The treasure which had captured her heart and driven her across the world was not gold or gems, but the smallest of pony foals, sleeping in the carved crib with an aura of perfect peace around her infant body. She should have been a disappointment, but instead, Piro was transfixed with wonder at her first sight of the foal. The perfect shade of pink that covered her body in fine, downy hairs. The tiny wings, mere stubs adorned in thistledown and dreams. The mane, that beautiful sweep of soft childish hairs in three colors that blended and merged in long tangled whirls with the smallest of horn stubs peeking out, a gently rounded thing which just cried out to be touched to make sure she was real.
An alicorn.
Piro’s mother had said there once was an alicorn for everything, from the sky and stars down to the least blade of grass, but they were all gone now, except one. Consumed in battle and conflict, only the Sun Queen remained of her race, ensconced in her distant mountain fortress where not even the most daring of dragon would go. Alicorns were mysterious creatures who did not age in the same fashion mortal ponies matured and passed on. They were more like dragons, maturing as they gained dominion over the world and their special talent. A faint chill swept over Piro as she thought of the power the sole surviving alicorn controlled, and the certain destruction she would rain down upon any tiny creature who would threaten her place in the world.
Likewise, the infant alicorn also shuddered in her sleep, undoubtedly chilled by the cool night air blowing in through the new hole in her chapel roof. If she awoke, that image of perfection and beauty would shatter like glass when the foal caught sight of a dragon lurking above her in the darkness. In that moment, it was the most terrifying and horrible event Piro could think of, and she moved with exquisite caution with the tip of one claw to tuck the warm blanket back around the sleeping foal.
Uttering a faint coo from under her blanket, the infant alicorn stirred quietly while reaching out one perfect hoof from under her covers and touching the nearby razor-sharp claw. She paused, then moved ever so slowly, nuzzling up against the single talon which could have gutted an adult pony, brushing that perfect face up against the deadly curve with a growing smile in her sleep.
In that moment, looking down at the smiling foal, Piro could not have moved if the Dragonlord himself had commanded it. She was frozen, but not in fear, because there could be no fear, no terror at all in the face of that perfect smile. Her heart pounded away in Piro’s scaled chest, hammering as if she were flying into a wild storm with lightning and thunder in all directions. The infinite moment lasted forever in the moonlit darkness of the chapel until the sleeping foal gave her talon one last nuzzle…
And kissed it.
Piro could barely remember the foal rolling onto her side, snuggling under the blanket, and returning to sweet slumber. She could not remember retreating back to the roof after that delicate kiss, but she remained there, trembling in the moonlight while looking at the faint sheen of moisture remaining on her claw from that ever so brief contact with the foal. The cool breeze of night evaporated the physical presence of the kiss in a few minutes, but Piro could still feel the impact much as if she had been struck by lightning. Repeatedly.
“She will be cold unless the roof is repaired.”
It was a quiet voice coming from below in the small gravel walkway where Piro’s hindquarters were resting, a distinctly pony voice speaking in the Pegasopolian dialect of the ponies, but not with the malice or anger of a soldier. Instead, it was an old voice, fairly dusty with disuse and quiet, much as if the speaker could not raise her voice much beyond a whisper. Rather than turn to deal with the pony, Piro reached out with trembling limbs to pick up the thin plate of metal she had ever so carefully removed from the roof what seemed like hours or even years ago. It took several tries to get it back in place, and the clumsy job she did with her flame in melting the solder joint to fuse it with the metal frame would have most certainly been rejected by the original builders, but once she was done, Piro quietly slipped back down the wall to hunch awkwardly on the gravel and await her fate.
Even at this stage, most impressive, especially how you capture the draconic viewpoint, seeing security as reverence and not grasping the reasons behind the creation of art. And that's saying nothing of the first time she sees her.
AHHHH! I can't wait for this story!