Author's Notes: The Emperor's Dream Chapter Nine

Hello and welcome to my author’s notes for chapter nine of The Emperor’s Dream! These shorter notes are my reactions to the chapters that I have posted, as well as some fun facts about the writing process. So if you like peeking behind the curtain, or if it’s helpful to hear how another writer looks critically at their writing, read on! If that’s not your cup of tea, don’t sweat this one. See you next week with chapter ten.

If you haven’t read chapter nine yet, you can read it here.

If you just saw “The Emperor’s Dream” and you had no idea what I was talking about, no worries! It’s my ongoing epic fantasy novella that I’m sharing a chapter at a time here on my website. You can read chapter one here. These are first drafts only, so the final published version might change a little or a lot, but hopefully you either enjoy or learn something from seeing the process.

Now on with this week’s author’s notes!

• The beginning of this chapter feels a little info dump-y. I’m trying to get everyone up to speed on the situation and what Meisun’s report revealed, and while trying to constrain this story to only a novella, I think it’d be challenging to make discovering this info very action oriented.
• I feel like Yishan always has dramatic exits, and despite not being a flashy guy, I like that that’s kind of part of him.
• In rereading the second scene of this chapter, where Wanyi and the other chiefs are meeting, I noticed something related to the first point. One piece of writing advice that I have heard frequently is, “In early, out late,” meaning when writing a story/chapter/scene, you want to begin right where the action is starting and end right when it stops. You don’t necessarily need the waking up and getting ready for the day and the “Hello, how are you” every time unless there is conflict inherent in those things.
  • In trying to follow this advice, I start in the middle of something. In the first scene of the chapter, Wanyi and Yishan had already read Meisun’s report. Now, Wanyi and the other Clan chiefs have already been meeting for over an hour, and Tukharen is finally wrapping it up.
  • I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with starting in these places, but I’ve noticed how it relates to my info dumping. In both cases, I have a paragraph or two or three filling the reader in on what has been happening. I start with something happening in the moment, then I explain quickly how we got here before continuing.
  • This has me wondering: is this okay? Do I need to begin sooner so I don’t have so much “he had done such and such already”? Or is this how you do the “in late, out early” thing?
• I’m once again worried about the white room problem. In the moments between pieces of dialogue, I usually just describe the character’s reaction. I show you how they’re feeling. Crests rise, fists clench, etc. But I’m wondering if it might be better to describe these things in context of the setting to bring the reader back in. For example:
  • “I don’t like it,” he said loudly.
  • “I don’t like it,” he said, his voice reverberating off the hall’s stone walls.
• I’m considering replacing most occurrences of the word “just” with “only”. It just sounds a little higher to me, which pulls me more into a fantasy world. “Just” is how I speak in modern day English with my friends. I’m not a huge stickler for fancy prose, but I have noticed in some books that have been published more recently, using modern phrases/slang pull me out of the story more.
• I love the end of this chapter. Wanyi takes some initiative of his own, and I love the last line that he thinks to himself: Two Hukan Clans are united once more. I will make you proud, father.

I think that’s all for this week, friend! What questions do you have? I’d also love to hear your feedback. Let me know your thoughts!

And again, if you haven’t read chapter nine yet, you can do so here. That’ll make this whole post make a lot more sense.

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Until next time!