Wooah

So I was thinking about Tintin.

Like authors of a lot of similar serial fiction, Herge knew how to throw in a little action on a regular basis. If the bad guys were so far away he couldn't just have a guy with a gun come in through the door, he'd throw in a speeding taxi or a falling piano.

See, I started this story as a way to do Relic Hunter like adventures with lots of physical action in exotic locales yet not quite go full pyramidiot with the archaeology. And, yeah, I ran into an old problem. I'm always too conservative. When I wrote Shirato I intended to have space fleets clashing and cities burning. So I got two ships in a one-sided duel and no cities managed to catch fire. Did set fire to a moon, though.

Well, by the end of the story Penny is solo-sailing a boat across the Aegean and ends up fighting a giant mook in brutal hand-to-hand. Okay, losing. Quickly. But anyhow! Part of the problem is the plot ramps up slowly. There are long stretches without any action more adrenaline-filled than running for a train. I spent the day toying with the idea of upping the action, putting in a little more crazy, even if it was just random incidents.

And that's why the result of today's work has been to throw out a scene I already wrote.

Penny's no longer going to get sick on the ferry from Venice. Instead she's going to play hide-and-seek. Which means I actually get to show the bad guy. And that means he's actually seen briefly in Munich, and is no longer quite the Diabolus ex machina (mixing roots again, are we?) And not only does that make him stronger and more interesting, and makes him more of a constant presence, not only does that make Penny look smarter instead of being surprised by him at every turn, it also means I bump up the character progression of Herr Satz up as well and he gets more on-screen development.

And I took the time to write down all the fox related phrases I thought might be useful. Fox and hounds, the quick brown fox (pretty sure Travis McGee used that one already), and one that is half tempting to use for the current book; The Fox Knows Many Things. Which has shown up in the narrative already, although no-one has gotten around to giving the whole quote. Maybe because none of my characters are that interested in comparing themselves to Hedgehogs?

Oh, right. That came about because Japan would be an interesting if potentially difficult setting for a story, and there is of course the Inari Shrine and fox spirits and whatnot. I'm re-thinking having the Very British one be next, as I sort of want to have Athena Fox being, well, Athena Fox successfully before The Play That Goes Wrong happens.

Yeah, I'm still writing the Space Werewolf one first.