Folks tell you, all the time, that the main parts of a story are the plot, the characters, the locations, and a few little things the characters and plot need to tell the tale.
And, in that, for all of us, they are correct.
Gazing on this tale, the tattered thing called "Predator's Ground", I find the origin of the story in that first section, where I was just playing around with the concepts of how an Assassins/Bounty Hunters Guild might give jobs, based around knives, hence the reason each of Scorpio's tales revolves around the knife the job creates for him to use, and know his prey.
That was all I had, other than I wanted him to hunt a villain whose killing of others outraged a town enough to forgo their normal hatred of his profession, and hire him to destroy this menace to their lives.
That was it. I never tend to outline a story, most I have outlined, I do enough that the tale dies, not from lack of a story to flesh out, but once I outline it, my mind moves on, leaving the tale untold.
Starting with the hiring of the assassin, though, unless I wish to do tons of flashbacks, will not work now, as I realize I needed to build the characters more. Again, this was not a need the first time around, as the tale grew during the early drafts of Billenius' Tale from a character who walked into Bill's tale, leaking bits a pieces of his stories into the mix. Which led me to ask: "Who the hell are you, and what are you doing here?"
So, to fix this, first, it is time to address the biggest mistake of serialized tales, too big of bites at a time. Which I violated making the sections over 3K words each, nearly 6K words in one section.
So, against my better judgement, and over the objections of my characters, I'm setting a limit first, on the length of each section to post, of 2.5K words. Period. Minimum of 1K, just to give folks something to read for a bit.
Then, we need to expand the tale, to include more from the villain, and a few other characters.
Oops. Violation one, still no draft outline of the plot, and I have characters popping up.
Fine, others might say I'm nuts, but I'll let my methods, choppy as it may prove to use them, run rampant here for a while. Then fix it with the chain saw in the edit.
So, Protagonist is Scorpio Kenrai, the clansman of the Eagle wanderers, and our villain stays Winnet Duhn, from the Kiltyen Hill-Baron clans.
But she, I have found in telling other tales, is not the ultimate villain, just the tool used this time by one I called the Necromancer early on, Zisura of Kvaeg, and other places. A sorceress, specializing in death magics and the like, who has some reason to hate my hero.
Okay, so, some back story work on each can flesh them all out. I know this is midway through the "hunts" cycle for Scorpio, even if he still consults his mentor Codi Duhn, who is the uncle of the villainess ....
hmmmmm.
So, my outline, and weak plot come back together. No idea how much to write this time, but it is gelling up.
Outline.
1 - Zisura's Plan and Corruption of Winnet.
2 - What Scorpio is doing as things start.
3 - The evil grows as Codi and Scorpio deal with something in the guild, that leads to Codi retiring?
4 - Zisura betrays her tool, only to have it turn upon her. She plants the seeds of the tool's fall, telling it of her nemesis, the undestroyable Scorpio.
5 - Winnet's journeys and kills along the way.
6 - Scorpio's resolution of the guild issue.
7 - Winnet in Cosarali, building her base of power and setting her traps.
8 - The town in fear, as the daimyo turns to the guild for help.
9 - The guild politics around the mission, as some see it as a chance to disgrace the rising star that is Scorpio.
10 - The failed blade, when another assassin becomes one of Winnet's victims.
11 - Dark nights, gloomy days as the body count rises, and Scorpio looks at things on his own.
12 - Codi's suspicions lead him to return to the guild.
13 - Close strikes of the villain to the powers of the town, leading to open declaration of the bounty on the unknown killer's head.
14 - Guild talk of the leaders, and the making of the blade (something I have hinted at, but not dealt with yet in stories, each job is a blade.)
15 to 19 the tales points, refined and stripped both, as they lay now.
20 - A better return, via the Grasslands and some better resolution of his own driving reason for being a hunter of men.
Not all that well organized, I know, but, this is the way my mind works.
Looking at the reasons, I know the guild issue and the issue of Zisura have to be linked, and as she is the creator of the Blade of Shadows, perhaps that tale gets woven into this one.
So, now I tear out the bits I want for the first installment.
A intro my characters and places,
B link together their situations,
and C.... start the path towards the main conflict.
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