Spoiler alert! This is going to be awesome.
Okay, the real spoilers are below, but I am super-psyched about writing this story. Before I get into the real spoiler territory, I'm going to talk about how the blog will be changing over the course of this experiment.
First, I'm going to put the confession on hiatus. It's a great self-analysis tool, but it's often been a bit of a stumbling block in starting a new blog post, and I don't want anything to stand in my way, even something minor.
Instead, I'm going to get in the groove by doing a little commentary on what I've done up until that point, and where the stuff to follow fits into the whole picture. This won't be too long, and it won't be included in my word counts for the day. But hopefully it will give you some insight into what I'm thinking as I write.
I would appreciate any comments you have, and I'll read and reply to every one. Given that this is a rough draft, though, don't worry so much about typos and the occasional grammar error. There's no point in polishing up the language until later drafts, once the big elements of the story are already set in place. You don't glaze your pottery before you're finished molding it. Of course, if there's a metaphor or phrase that jumps out at you as particularly good or bad, by all means let me know.
Behind the scenes, I will be copying each day's output into a Microsoft Word file. This will give me the master word count as I go along. The idea of a target of 52,347 words is still there, and what's more, to do that writing over the course of 31 days. That's an average of 1,689 words per day, which I think is more than reasonable. I will get rid of the publication status meter at the bottom and establish a new one.
Today's Total: x,xxx words
Progress to Date: x,xxx / xx,xxx words (xx.x%)
Total Progress: x,xxx / xx,xxx words (xx.x%)
That should be pretty much self explanatory. You'll see what I did today, how that compares to where I should be, and what percentage of the whole I've completed. I want to keep the Progress to Date over 100%, which means that I'm ahead of schedule. Anything less than 100% means I'm behind.
Okay, time for the real Spoiler Alert. I don't know if reading what's below would ruin the story for you or not. You're the best judge of that. Understand that these notes are mostly for myself, so if they seem to refer to people or events that you haven't heard of, it's because I haven't blogged about them yet. Regardless, if you don't want to know the resolution to certain plot lines, read no further. (I also reserve the right to change the outcome to suit my own nefarious purposes.)
As I mentioned yesterday, I brainstormed a few dozen scenes that I thought were particularly vivid or memorable. A couple of them would be great setpieces in the movie in my head. Here's what I've got so far.
- Bryony awakens and meets Elma
- Bryony meets Mistress Gessica
- Her initial branding
- Meeting her roommate(s)
- A tour of the market
- Her first day in class, when she learns she doesn't know how to read
- Meeting her private tutor
- Record keeping duty, when she learns that there may be records of how she came to the market, which would reveal her family and past
- Another classroom scene in which it's determine that she's actually a lot brighter than everyone is giving her credit for
- A scene in which she is mercilessly ridiculed and picked on for her supposed high birth, and Devan comes to her rescue
- An attempt at various crafts. She's terrible at most, but does pretty well at the needlecrafts. Likes that idea, because she would get to spend more time with Elma.
- Late night with the attendees, who are kind of the top dogs on campus. Learns about the testing, usually done after the age of fourteen or so. (Bryony doesn't know her age.)
- Adventure in the city on a free day, with her best friends Devan and Yancy. First time she sees the lowborn. Realizes how small and defenseless she is.
And a cultural note--middlings are allowed only one name, as family ties are not really encouraged per se. At the age of ten, children are "placed," and only see their families rarely thereafter. The family unit is the market itself.
The lowborn also only have one name, but there are a limited number of names that are allowed to be given, always one syllable. No middling, and certainly no highborn, would ever have one of these names. To distinguish each other, the lowborn take on nicknames based on personality, occupation, a distinguishing physical feature, or something of that nature. They are also given a number, and it is by the combination of name and and number that their middling supervisors tell them apart. Among the other lowborn, they are usally simply called by their nickname, or given name and nickname, e.g., Van Sunburst, Kern Lockleg, Ginger Heb, etc.
Okay, back to the scenes.
- Called in the middle of the night to test. It's too early, but she's pissed off Gessica, who wants to make sure that she's put in a lowly position. Instead, she's put at the top.
- More intense training. Jorik becomes her confidant in a way; philosopher, she admits to him about her memory. He also explains about magic.
- She finds herself somehow exalted in the eyes of most of her fellow students, but Emecia hates her even more. Asry stands up to her.
- Boys like her now too.
- Personal shopping day--must be pleasing to the highborn who see her. Passes all Gessica's tests.
- Meets the patroness, who takes a liking to her. (Bryony didn't know who she was, treats her with resepect but not fawning, which is unusual in someone so young. This happens on the first day of her attendance, when Gessica had stepped away for a moment. Patroness like making these little surprise visits. She realizes that Gessica hates her, and puts her under the personal tutelage of Merona, another of the senior attendees.
- Bryony works for Merona.
- A visit to an estate with Merona. Meets Illiantine Kindlebry and her brother, Havenstar.
- Patroness "requests" an interview. Feeling her out. On the way out, she meets Tynofast.
- Some kind of intermarket reception, where Merona and Bryony meet representatives from the other markets. A conference of some sort, allocation of raw materials, treaties, etc.
- Another meeting with Tynofast, at which point her magical ability becomes apparent.
- Training with Tynofast.
- Havenstar tries to rape her, Daven stops him, and is brought low. (Arranged by Gessica)
- Appeal to patroness, who turns her down.
- At some point, discovers Gessica's plot.
She learns from Jorik about the sea wall, and how things weren't always this way. (The word outside is the first and only thing that nearly triggers her buried memories.)
The scenes above make up the first third of the novel, give or take. Her first goal is to track down Daven. She arranges to meet him several times, and is dismayed at the change in him. She also begins to scheme to bring down Gessica, but is clever enough to do so in a way that has no negative consequences for her Patroness. The Patroness knows what she is doing and approves, so long as it doesn't reflect on her. She only wants the cleverest people in charge, because they can do the most for her.
Bryony manages to seize power around the age of eighteen. She illicitly uses her magic to alter the testing equipment to help her recruit those helpful to her cause. Through Daven, she learns that there is an underground movement among the lowborn who also want to change society, and that he has become a part of it. She cleverly manages to get them aid.
She finally manages to track down her family and has a meeting with them, although done in such a way that they don't realize it... or so she thinks. Her father appears most troubled, and he hangs back. She reveals herself and challenges him, and he says that they didn't sell her to the market, that she had died, and her body vanished before the funeral. She doesn't believe him.
She arranges a leave of absence, and during that time meets with the lowborn. While among them, she learns that their minds are clouded, and reverses it for those she can. She also demonstrates that she can remove their scars.
Bryony understands that the highborn will active try to stop change, and that most of the middling have no reason to desire change. It must come from the lowborn. But the biggest problem is that the empire is too powerful and they have nowhere to go.
Except, of course, for the outside. Bryony is more and more convince that there is something outside the sea wall. She takes a tour of the islands supposedly looking for raw materials, but hires a sailor to take her to the sea wall. Others have tried to use magic to pierce it before, but she senses something that they had not, something generating the sea wall from within the empire. It's at the imperial palace, of course.
During this time, she has started to remember bits and pieces of what is outside the seawall, and suddenly remembers her purpose, which is to bring it down from the inside. She still can't remember who she was before, just that she had come the only way it was possible to come, since it was otherwise impenetrable. Bringing down the sea wall will open up other lands, and put the empire in contact with other cultures. it's the only way to thoroughly change things for the better.
Meanwhile, someone is working to bring her down as Mistress, or else the Patroness has learned about her duplicity and intends to bring her down herself. Bryony and a cadre of people that she has taught magic, plus her friends among the lowborn, burst out of her chambers in a triumphant, unstoppable march. She makes it to the palace and meets little resistance, since the majority of the troops are lowborn, and she has managed to infilitrate many of them. She makes it to the palace and learns that the emperor is aware of the sea wall, and doesn't want to let her bring it down.
She fights him, defeats him, and brings it down. They manage to flee from the city.
The book ends with her on one of the outlying islands. Those who survived the final battle are with her, and she has been set up as a ruler. She alone still bears the tattoos. As the novel ends, a ship is sighted on the horizon, sailing from where the seawall used to be.
Publication Status:
- Submitted: 6
- Accepted: 1
- Rejected: 2
- Pending: 3
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