While others have spent the month of November churning out 50,000-word first drafts, I’ve been finishing up the big new adventure sequence that opens Book Two. Yes, the bulk of that novel has been complete for some time, but when I peeled it off from Book One I created the need for additional introductory material.
Each installment of my series begins—after its punchy prologue—with an “Overture”: a largely self-contained episode which encapsulates themes explored by the novel as a whole. The Overture in A Sea Sought in Song covers Ilina’s encounter with the spiderworm, thereby introducing her relational fears and religious doubts. In Book Two, it’s Hugh Conrad’s turn to get encapsulated.
Which means he gets to go fight Soviets in the backcountry of postwar Iceland. Woot!
Though this was a fun sequence to write, it wasn’t without its difficulties. Not only was I forced to conduct historical research, and maintain the plot discipline of a functional short story, I had to do so under awkward circumstances. The two other Overtures I’d written had preceded their respective books, and I’d used them as opportunities to tune my thematic orchestra. Here, I needed to conjure the same effect after the symphony had already been performed. I needed to reverse-engineer a spontaneous manifestation of theme.
This felt disturbingly like outlining.
But it’s done now, and I’m pleased with how it turned out. And in celebration, I present to you … Hugh Conrad. I finally convinced him to sit down and have his portrait painted by the inimitable Hannah Gunderson.
Arlam Online 