Beyond the Endless Sky

Fixing The World, And Starting the Hard Part

Well, the world didn't take too much effort to fix. Wish that was true of ours.

The real problem with the worldbuilding elements in the story was that The Ruins weren't a part of the story yet. Which meant the implications of events like blowing up the island of Grainglove with a box full of antimatter weren't properly represented.

This also has the side benefit of helping to up the stakes, a bit. Since they literally sail through the consequences of not only their failure, but any significant mistake.

To fix that, I added a few small tweaks, and wrote up one more scene.

Which is really all it took. Hopefully. Some of the aspects of the worldbuilding edit will be covered in a style edit. I'd like the descriptions of The Ruins to hint at its origins better, but I'll get there.

Now, onto the hard part. The Character Edit.

Though...

Come to think of it...

This one isn't going to be quite as hard as it could be. After all, I already had to do some of it during the thematic edit, when I had to add Clarissa to the story's theme.

So, the character edit is all about making sure the characters are — in simple terms — characters. That above and beyond all else, they're interesting. Because as far as I know, pretty much nothing can save a story from bad characters. Stupid plots and pointless themes can be saved by an interesting character. Honestly, watching paint dry could be interesting, as long as the character watching that paint has an interesting narrative train. So my next task is to make these characters pop. And Clarissa is exactly where I need to start.

Clarissa

So the first thing to do is give Clarissa a little more personality. Character begets agency, so that even in scenes where Clarissa is being passive, there's a reason and choice for it that Clarissa made. So if she's hanging back just handing Anita tools, or watching as Mercy inspects a lift balloon while they're in flight, it's because Clarissa chose to let the expert handle it. Which is different than passive.

Above all else, Clarissa in the first draft ended up being a little too much like a blank character the reader could insert themselves into. Not really what I'm going for. Part of that was because this story started as a concept builder for the rest of the crew. Which is a disservice to the perspective character.

So, the best way to give Clarissa some personality, is to work out a backstory.

Clarissa is an orphan, taken when she was very young in a manner and for a purpose rather embarrassingly similar to the Jedi. She doesn't have a last name because she has no past and no life asides from the Monastery.

Her childhood is a relatively idyllic one. It's safe, which isn't always certain in the wider skies. Mostly school, and the adults in the monastery are not allowed to have children, so they make up for it by being a community of parents for the orphans they take up.

Clarissa is a good student, even among the students of the Monastery. Being chosen to learn about the shield isn't for everyone. After all, the Shield is serious business, and secrets are harder to keep when more people know about them. But at the same time, Clarissa wasn't a very good student. She coasted. Didn't commit too strongly.

And she was a bit of a thrill seeker. Used to climb up the dormitory walls to visit the boys, as much because she wasn't supposed to as anything else. The key to her rebellious streak and her thrill-hunting was she didn't try to leave.

Doing this also pointed out a few thing about her backstory that should be in the story.
-Vincent is someone she'd have seen as a kid. She'd probably be about five to eight when he was going to the shield.
-His story wouldn't be a secret to the Monastery. In fact, the Abbess would likely use it to scare other kids in line.
-The Vicar's last voyage would be known. In the story, she should connect the Vicar's fate to the Ruins.

I'll see how that does. Some of these changes won't be fully implemented until the next draft. I'll keep you posted.