Writing advice - Pacing (with second chapter of Bridge Troll) · 9:22pm May 28th, 2022
Continuing on the previous writing advice I did about ideas and starting a story, now we proceed onto a difficult topic that even veteran writers can choke up on: pacing.
Admittedly, you’re going to get better advice on pacing from the Writer Dojo podcast with Larry Corria and Steve Diamond, or Max has in his Being a Better Writer series, or the entire Brandon Sanderson lecture series on writing (highly recommended to watch multiple times). That doesn’t stop me from tossing ten cents into the wishing well. Free advice, worth every penny.
There is an incredible urge affecting any writer when starting. It roughly goes “I’ve got all these great ideas that I need to tell the reader right now!” Cue a twelve page infodump and a reader quickly headed to some other story. Unless you are David Weber (in which case, why are you here?) You are not David Weber. There’s a fairly good “Don’t do this” funny bit called How David Weber Orders a Pizza. Read it. Don’t do it.
Details need to be given to the reader as they are needed, and not before. Make a giant lump of them and you stop a reader. Run a chapter or two without one and… where did they go? Hey, come back! As a quick example, Equestria 1940 starts out in an understandable situation with one out-of-place detail: a unicorn in the airplane. From there (fairly slowly) we get to why there is a unicorn in the airplane, what is the world situation now, etc…
The Young Knight, the Fair Maiden, and the Bridge Troll is much like that. I was so tempted to infodump on the second chapter, but I spaced things out to the point where it is the third chapter where he meets Broom. (which I’ll post later as I go along) Here, let me show you what I’ve got to that point
Home Sweet Home
Traveling with a troll presented some rather unique bits of knowledge added to Fetch’s diverse experience so far in life. ‘Unexpected troll face when waking up’ was only one part of it, but a very large part.
Fetch was used to getting up early, but the last few weeks had been harder on him than he would admit. Although he went to sleep under Quartz’s wagon, today he woke up on it, with the sun fairly well up into the sky and Nutmeg trailing behind them at the end of a lead line.
“Breakfast is aside you there,” said Quartz, who seemed to realize that Fetch was awake before he did. “Didn’t want to waste no sunlight.”
It took a minute or two for Fetch to gather his wits enough to respond. Plus a piece of cornbread. And a small jar of river water, thankfully free of any minnows.
“I can walk,” he managed after swallowing, only to have the troll swing one huge grey arm back and push him gently back into the wagon without even breaking stride.
“Little thing like you don’t even slow me down. You just sit there and we can talk as we go. After yer done eating.”
Since Fetch had taken another bite of cold cornbread, he could not immediately respond. He wanted to protest, but the troll’s casual stride was more rapid than Nutmeg could manage with a rider, so he decided to finish off the rest of the cornbread first.
He also wanted to ask just what exactly someone a fraction of Quartz’s size could do to ‘help’ in the bridge building process but really did not want to interfere in the discussion that ensued when the troll decided that a travel companion also made a convient conversational partner.
Apparently, when a merchant wagon train crossed the troll bridge where Quartz was raised, the wagonmaster approached first, negotiated a price for their passage, and talked with Quartz’s father until the last wagon left. Little trolls with curious minds would find a good place to lurk within earshot so they could hear all the stories and news being exchanged, and all those years of stored childhood tales had been stored away, waiting for the right time to be shared.
Every hour or two, Quartz would stop talking and climb down into the nearby stone ravine. He’d stay down there in the riverbed for a time, then emerge with a few rocks that he would show to Fetch with various explanations why this was not the place. Then they would move on down the problematic road until it was time for him to check out the possible bridge foundations at the next stop. It was educational, to say the least. Not quite what he had experienced with Mrs. Triana when she tried to teach him the basic words and figures needed to run an inn, or the difficulty of reading one of the few books found in the village. It was more like working at the forge with the village blacksmith as he spoke of fire and iron, or the wheelwright when he taught Fetch how to turn a spoke.
“This should be the spot,” said Quartz as the two of them stopped again. This time, the road quit following the deep ravine of the river and instead took a sharp turn, heading off into the forest and in the direction of Nadare, provided the map was accurate. If there was a better place to build a bridge, Fetch could not see it from here. Nothing so far had met with Quartz’s approval, and any further upriver would make wagons leave the laughable road and weave through the trees in order to cross. It did make him wonder just why the thin scraggly road was here in the first place, until he spotted the thin remnants of ropes hanging down from the opposite side of the gap.
“Rope bridge,” snorted Quartz with a hefty dose of disdain. “Probably ten, twenty years old afore it broke. Practically gotta rebuild ‘em every five, and they don’t take no real weight, not even a horse. If’n there were any bodies at the bottom, the river’d carry them off by now, so no use looking like you do now, Fetch.”
“I wasn’t thinking about that,” lied Fetch, and not very well. “It’s just… Even a rope bridge would be better than nothing, particularly if somebody’s walking. Can’t walk any faster than a wagon after all, and people can’t climb down to the river, cross it, and climb back up again. Asides, everybody can walk. Not everybody has a horse.”
After brief consideration, Quartz nodded. “Right you are. I got so tied up in building a big bridge that I didn’t think about how useful a quick little bridge would be. All kinds of people walked across the bridge at home and we didn’t charge ‘em nothing since we made most our money off wagons and carts. Charging foot traffic would have just slowed down the paying customers, but if I built a rope bridge here first… Hm… People could use it while I build the big bridge. Mebbie get used to the trip. Then when the big bridge was done, they’d already be coming by anyway. That is if’n this place is suited for a proper bridge. I’ll be right back.”
This time when Quartz vanished over the edge of the ravine, it took little time for a whoop of joy to come floating up, followed by various happy troll noises. Then there was relative silence for a while until Fetch could see the troll effortlessly climbing up the other side, poking and prodding at the stone until he reached the anchoring formation where the other end of the rope bridge had been tied.
“About as good as it gets,” he called back. “Nice and solid, top to bottom.” With a casual motion, the troll lobbed a rock across the gap, landing it fairly close to Fetch but not close enough to make him dodge. “Take a look at that baby.”
Even with as much inadvertent geologic education as Fetch had received over the last day, it still looked like a rock. A very solid rock, admittedly. Not a very pretty one, except for the faint dusting of quartz that glittered in the sunlight, and not a very useful one for anything Fetch could think of offhand, but it was certainly solid. Then again, Quartz was not looking for his opinion, he was showing off something he found, so Fetch found a sitting-sized rock nearby and put the sample rock on top of it. Each time Quartz tossed over another one, Fetch lined it up next to the others in order, until the troll returned with a massive grin stretched across his smooth grey face.
“Thanks! Couldn’t rightly carry them all and they’re too big for pockets,” said Quartz, slapping his rugged leather vest. Fetch had not paid the clothes much attention yesterday. Even though the concept of a troll in pants should have drawn his attention, the simple concept ‘troll’ tended to make all other thoughts fade by comparison. There were actually more pockets than vest in its construction, with convenient loops and small clips for attaching tools. The grey leather pants were fairly similar, rough and tough with fewer pockets and more pads to protect against jagged rocks, although the bare feet sticking out of the bottoms needed no shoes. Troll feet were solid, with blunt toes and stiff soles that would not have benefited by any kind of protective enclosure, and also might have hindered his ability to climb up and down the sheer rock walls like a huge spider.
Since it was late afternoon and Quartz was engrossed with the upcoming bridge that he was planning in his mind, Fetch decided his best helpful action would be catching some rabbits and contributing toward dinner. With several lengths of stout cord from Quartz’s wagon—borrowed with permission—he set off into the woods to set a few snares.
There obviously had been some sort of home in the area a decade ago because several of the bushes bore colorful flowers, and scattered among the trees here and there were a few clay flowerpots filled with dusty remnants of herbs or blooms. The rabbits certainly did not care about the previous inhabitants because the thickets and hedges were thick with burrows. Finding the snares later would have been a giant pain if not for the colorful pieces of surveyor’s ribbon that Quartz had loaned him also, so Fetch felt fairly good about his current situation. He had a job with an unusual employer who had no apparent desire to eat him, enough to eat instead of scrounging in ditches while hearing King Seiki’s men in every broken twig, and the only thing missing was… everyone he had grown up with.
Sitting down on one of the mossy boulders in the area, Fetch took a deep breath and tried to look at the villager’s situation rationally, much like he had been taught most of his young life. If any of them had not gotten away, they likely would have been tossed in with the rest of the prisoners. Fetch had not seen any of them, so ergo, that meant they had escaped through the woods, poorer for the process but alive. They certainly would not have returned to attempt a rescue because none of the villagers were particularly skilled in warfare. He did not even know which direction they might have fled once they entered the forest proper.
Still, if Quartz took several years to build his permanent bridge, there would certainly be a stream of merchants and passers-by looking to shorten their journey by way of Fetch’s suggested temporary bridge. Asking the travelers here about his friends would be more effective than traveling around the country himself there, looking for them. Particularly with no money.
It only took a few hours to get as many rabbits as he could reasonably carry, most with the snares, but two or three of the curious ones with a well-slung rock. He came walking back into the forest clearing as the sun was just beginning to set, catching Quartz in the process of setting up a campfire.
“Oh, there you is, lad. Thought I’d have to go looking for you, on account you’re a city person.”
“We had some woods near the town,” said Fetch defensively. “That’s where I learned how to set snares, after all. Not nearly as thick with game as these, of course.”
It did bring up something that Fetch had not realized until now. The forest should have been more difficult to find his way around and still make it back here, particularly with the way he had been lost in thought during most of the walk. Instead, he had walked straight back to the campfire as if he were following a string.
Quartz did not seem to notice, because he was busy shuffling several large rocks around with pieces of real string draped between them. It was obviously some sort of model, but Fetch did not want to disturb him in the middle of the process, so he waited until he had finished dressing out each of the rabbits and started staking them over the fire.
“There’s a pot fulla water in the cart, lad,” said Quartz with an absent-minded wave of one large hand. “Some dried carrots, too. Nuttin fancy, but if’n you want stew…”
Several of the rabbits had been old enough to warrant a long soak in salted water, which occupied Fetch’s time until Quartz finished his little project. The model bridge was fascinating to observe as it progressed, and the way the troll measured each piece of string before tying them off piqued his curiosity once his hunger was being dealt with.
“So you use the stick to make your model,” said Fetch with a wave of a well-gnawed rabbit thighbone. “Is that how you know how long the finished bridge is going to be?”
“Of course. It’s all mathematics,” said the troll with a toothy grin. “There’s a magic to angles and lines that humans think is all theirs. I marked a few points on this side of the gorge while you was off in the woods and took some measurements. Worked it out in numbers so you could see,” he added, passing over a chalkmarked slate with little arcs and numerals written all over it.
“Errr… If you say so.”
Obviously, it was not a sufficient statement of knowledge for the troll’s satisfaction. Even after the night engulfed their camp, he continued to teach Fetch how special triangles and metal measuring tools could reveal strange facts like how tall a tree was without climbing it, or in this case, how wide the river gorge was without tying a string across and measuring it. It was fairly late before the concepts sunk into Fetch’s thick head, and in an attempt to get to sleep before dawn, he covered the kettle of stew and tried to summarize what he had learned.
“All triangles have their inside angles add up to the same number, so if you know two of three facts about them, you can calculate the rest. Right?”
“Close enough,” said Quartz. He stopped picking his teeth with a splintered rabbit bone and ate it with a small crunch, then cracked his knuckles. “Mind you, I’m gonna travel upriver a day or two so I can check out the rest of the area. Would be awfully stupid to build a bridge if’n there’s some sort of natural crossing nearby. There’s no real road on this side, so I’ll have to leave the wagon behind and walk down the riverbed. Think you can watch it ‘till I get back, lad? I’ll leave the slate and you can practice your numbers.”
“That’s… Yes, I can,” said Fetch rather hesitantly. Over the last day, Nutmeg had quietly grazed around the clearing without cropping the grass too short or getting lost, so he would not be a problem. The area seemed to be devoid of any larger predators or wild boar so it was fairly safe, and he could always sleep under the wagon in case of rain. Then again, if it rained and the troll was in the riverbed…
Since he was looking up at the cloudless star-covered sky, it must have been terribly obvious what he was thinking, and Quartz picked up on it instantly. “It ain’t looking like rain, boy. If it were, I’d feel it in my bones. Rain’s one of the worst things that can happen to a good bridge. Flood’ll wash away the best of ‘em. Not here, though. River’s far enough down the canyon that it’d take a real huge blow to get this high, an’ there ain’t no such markings around here.”
It seemed to be a reasonable assumption, since Fetch could not remember any tangled tree snags or waterborne debris on their journey. “That’s a relief. Back in Fir Junction, the town was mostly up on a hill. When it rained really hard upstream in spring, the water spread out all around us for a week or two. We treated it as a holiday of sorts, dragging waterborne logs out and making bonfires if nobody had roof trouble. Otherwise, I was climbing around wet cedar shakes with a hammer, or trying to pack new thatch into a hole. I had a rope tied around me,” he added at Quartz’s obvious look of disapproval at the risk involved. “And I got paid extra.”
“You know, we still ain’t figured out what to pay you,” said Quartz with a scratch of his beardless chin. “That’s how I know you ain’t no dwarf. They’d have the pay figured out to the last copper pence by now. You know about dwarves, boy?”
Fetch nodded. “We had about everybody go through the village at one time or another, even some elves, although they mostly kept to themselves. Traveling somewhere, don’t know from or to and they didn’t tell us. The vast majority of traffic was humans, though. I think they’re about as varied as all the other races combined.”
“Probably just because you ain’t see so many of the others.” Quartz got up and went over to the wagon to rummage around in one of the boxes. “Couple of the seafairin’ races are downright nasty, but met a pleasant fellow comin’ across the bridge one day, just out and about to see how the other side of the water lived.”
Quartz found what he was looking for and gave it a toss to Fetch. The tiny stone glittered in flight much like some sort of iridescent insect, and Fetch barely managed to catch it without damage. In the light of the campfire, it looked like a common pebble, but when he held it up and peered closely at it, the facets and angles lit up with cold blue fire.
“Pretty,” admitted Fetch, turning the gem back and forth to watch it shimmer. “Some sort of sea creature?”
“Petrified sea sapphire,” said Quartz while Fetch was balancing it on one fingertip. “Seafolk have hundreds of ‘em, but mostly they’re about the size of rice. Big ‘uns like that are worth about a gold sovereign where I come from, maybe more further away from the ocean. I brought about a half-dozen since you never know just what you might gotta buy to get a bridge built.”
Fetch had seen a gold sovereign once when a merchant was showing off his wealth, although mostly Mrs. Triana dealt with a staggering variety of copper coins from various kingdoms and merchant houses. It put the pebble-sized glittering rock into perspective, and Fetch handed it back very carefully.
“Dwarves for gold,” said Quartz as he tucked the sea sapphire back into the box, “silver for elves, and iron for humans. Rocks for us trolls, of course, and all them bits and pieces flow across our bridges every day and night. Dwarves take human iron and turn it into steel, elves watch over the forests to make sure human lumberjacks don’t go crazy with their axes, and round it goes, flowing like a great river.”
“All across rivers with troll bridges,” said Fetch. “You make it sound like everybody knows what they are doing and where they belong, but I’ve never been sure about either.
Quartz grunted, but kept rummaging around in the wagon. “You where you need to be now?”
Fetch thought about it. At first, he did not really see, but after a while he started to understand. He nodded before taking the blanket that Quartz handed over and nestled down under the wagon to sleep. His life was much like the river, and since King Seiki’s men were undoubtedly still in his home village, that part of his life had flowed away. Even if the army marched somewhere else and the villagers returned, Fetch had seen enough of the world that he could never be comfortable back in his old attic room at the inn.
That was then. This was now.
And now his place was helping to build a bridge, a fascinating task that made his head spin with possibilities until sleep overtook him and he dreamed of trolls constructing a staircase to the stars.
A fascinating read.