New Spring Chapters 15-18

The second half of the novel makes up the original short story New Spring. We find Moiraine is already on the quest and the focus shifts to how Lan joined the hunt.

Every antagonist we’ve seen so far suddenly drops off the map, and a new array of threats (Edeyn, Black Ajah, Cadsuane) are introduced for the first time.  This made more sense when the story started here.

Lan finally gets to do something, and we learn Malkieri are as peculiar as Aiel. Aside from 2 pages explaining he dawdled in the southlands for a few months, Lan has been absent since Chapter 1. In the original, the viewpoints were better balanced between Lan and Moiraine.

We get a list of relative strength in the Power:  Cadsuane, Meilyn, then Kerene. Two of them will be dead in the next chapter. The next 5 are sharply below Kerene and include Moiraine, Siuan and 3 others, one of whom is retired. We quickly calculate that Moiraine and Siuan will at least be on equal footing with Elaida once they hit full strength.

Cadsuane is introduced here for the second time, the first having been way back (ahead) in A Crown of Swords. The introduction here is perfect. The strength in the Power felt first, then the attitude, then the legend explained. In contrast, her bizarre Deus ex Machina introduction in A Crown of Swords left me confused due to the complete lack of context. Here it works because we know that strength in the power equals rank, and Cadsuane is not just above Moiraine, she is the only one who could be SO FAR above Moiraine. Intimidation and threat to our protagonist is instantaneous. The attitude tells us what she’ll do with her rank, and the legend reinforces it. Her other introduction lacked the strength comparison and the legend, and instead it relied on the reactions of the other Aes Sedai. Not as powerful a signal to the reader as a direct source of information.

Writing Lessons:

One way to have a character make an impression when introduced, is to make sure the POV character is credible and informed.  

New Spring Chapter 1

New Spring was first published in the Legends Anthology in 1998, before the Path of Daggers came out. Later in 2003, it was released on its own with an additional 200 pages of material placed at the front. New Spring the Novella was meant to stand on its own. New Spring the novel was also meant to stand on its own. This prequel essentially added a prequel to itself! For these reasons, New Spring feels structured differently than a typical novel.

We often talk about Jordan’s ability to pack plotlines into the story, so I took a bit of extra time to look at a single chapter in detail, a chapter I found a bit dry, to see what was going on technically in the story. I came away a little amazed at how densely the subplots are packed together in Chapter 1 “The Hook”. The best way to present this is visually, so I laid it out in a spreadsheet which you can hopefully access by clicking this link.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AofJmajj1aXydGd0dndhY2Z3R0NTY3QxQ0d1N0NHSGc

The spreadsheet should be self-explanatory, but nonetheless here is a brief explanation. For each paragraph in the chapter, I have briefly described the main action taking place, and in other columns briefly described the information relating to each of a number of subplots I identified. I am sure you can find more subplots, or order them differently, but the point of the exercise is to look at what the authors is doing, and where. It is surprising to see plot points that will be touched on later in the story already being gently and unobtrusively placed.

I found that for this chapter, roughly ten paragraphs each would be consecrated to a subdivision of the main plot. Lan tours the camp; Lan and Bukama ‘debate’; a messenger arrives; they race to the Hook; the Aiel arrive; the battle is avoided. Meanwhile, larger plotlines are barely touched on but groundwork is laid here. All of Lan’s Malkieri behavioral codes make more sense later in the story after we’ve seen what his honor dictates he should do in this ‘simple’ situation.

Even more amazingly to me, I found that almost every single paragraph told the reader something about the Milieu, an Idea, the Character(s), and the Event (The MICE quotient, from Orson Scott Card if I recall correctly). Every paragraph? Heck it might even be every sentence. This doesn’t happen accidentally, writers, you must have to be thinking of it.

I’d like to try this grid analysis again on a later chapter if time permits.

Writing Lessons:

Are you fitting as much (or as little) as you want into a sentence, paragraph or chapter? Be aware of opportunities to lay groundwork for later understanding and avoiding the dreaded info-dump.