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August 15, 2009
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After chapter 219, this was the hardest chapter of the volume to write. It was a combination of these two
chapters that led to most of my writer's block.
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The original concept of the ending chapter was to have the forces of West Luna lined up against the forces of
Luna. I originally envisioned both sides being of equal sizes. And after I wrote chapter 203, I envisioned the
resolution to the Conflicted Stark arc to resolve here.
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After I returned from the fourteen month long break, I saw how much trouble I was in, and it was no longer just
chapter 219 that was going to give me a lot of trouble.
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The first thing was that there were two major concepts behind the volume when it came to Melfina. Melfina's
main antagonist was going to be Wayland, and he wanted her Tome of Lost Knowledge, and Melfina was going to
study necromancy. The main antagonist had nothing at all to do with what most of the volume was largely focused
on. I pretty much just thought, "I'll figure it out later." The problem was that later had arrived and been
extremely delayed, and I still hadn't figured it out.
Eventually I figured out that it was the fact that Melfina was now a necromancer that was going to be the reason
that the conflict between the two sides ended.
Then I still had another problem. I knew I wanted both Lord Luna and Aedilwulf to be there (and introduce his
son Theowulf), but if they were there, they would take center stage because they're the leaders. The original
concept of the ending was that it ended solely with the confrontation of words, and Lord Luna would trap
Aedilwulf into realizing that he could not make an aggressive act towards a necromancer, and that he had to
leave.
On one hand, I knew that would be unsatisfying, because Melfina would need to play a bigger role than just be
talked about, and be witness to what was going on. And then as I was doing the revision to Volume 1, it really
hit me at how horrible of an ending that would be. There needed to be action. Otherwise it would be like the
ending to Pirates of the Carribean 3, where you see all these forces gathering, and yet everything is resolved
by a battle between one ship from each fleet facing off against each other.
When writing chapter 217, my notes reminded me that I wanted to show that Wayland had the Tome of Enlightenment.
This volume was named Enlightenment after all. And so I put it in that chapter, and Wayland pulled it out as a
tool for intimidation. He used it for ceremonies and battle. After reading that line, it just reinforced some
more that I needed some action to take place.
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At this point I was thinking it would have to be an all out battle between both sides, and I felt that the Tome
of Lost Knowledge needed to be used as well as necromancy. I saw in my head Melfina dual-wielding both books,
and that seemed wrong, as well as adding to the problem of how do I have her casting necromancy spells in an
all out battle, when the reveal that she is a necromancer is the reason the volume ends.
As if that wasn't enough, I realized that Wayland had the Tome of Enlightenment, and Melfina had the Tome of
Lost Knowledge. I needed to find a way for them to duel. It would be possible to have a battle while showing
them still facing off against each other with their respective books, but a duel was much more appealing. But
I couldn’t give up on the concept of a battle either, as Stark had spent the Volume training guards, and they
needed to do something more than just stand there.
Darksage needed to fit into the ending somehow. My original idea for chapter 220 had Darksage being much more
sage-like, and hopefully he would say something very thought provoking that would be echoed in the final chapter,
but that didn't happen in my rough draft, so I needed to be able to fit him in to the chapter as well.
One last thing, after scanning through some notes that I had over-looked, I saw that I also wanted to introduce
the Ossian Grimoire during this last chapter, and not at the beginning of Volume 3 like I had thought.
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So to sum it up, I felt I needed a duel between Melfina and Wayland, a face off between Aedilwulf and Lord Luna,
a battle between the two forces, to resolve the Conflicted Stark story arc, to have Darksage involved, to
introduce the Grimoire, to introduce Theowulf, and I needed the volume to be resolved with the revelation that
Melfina was a necromancer. Lastly, all of that needed to take place within the two-thousand word limit that I set
as one of my original guidelines.
That seemed like an overwhelming amount of things to accomplish.
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Luckily, there were a few things that helped me out. Figuring out that chapter 219 resolved the Conflicted Stark
arc took away one thing that I didn't need to add to the chapter. There were still a few sentences that were
related to it, however it would have been much longer had it not been resolved in 219. The other help I got was
when I finished chapter 218, and found a reason as to why Melfina would not be able to dual-wield both books.
That reason is what allowed the basic structure to come out fairly easily when I wrote the first draft of the
chapter. (Introduce the Grimoire, Aedilwulf vs Lord Luna, Melfina vs Wayland, then battle and end.
At one point the chapter was over 2,250 words. While the guideline could certainly be broken, I wanted to keep
within the 2,000 word limit if possible. I did consider breaking it up into two chapters, but then there were
other guidelines I would be breaking, and I felt it be important that the introduction to the Grimoire (with the
reminder that all necromancers came from Umbra) be in the final chapter, and not the second to last chapter.
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All in all, I think the final chapter came out pretty well. I wish I could have found a way to end without
such a strong cliffhanger, but I always knew that was a possibility since I mention the Reunification in
the first chapter while knowing the event wouldn't happen until Volume 3, but having a cliffhanger ending isn't
so bad after having to find my way through that gigantic mess that I set myself up with.
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Word Count: 2,000
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