I finished the latest draft of Ma’rama, Daimyo’s Daughter, and gave it a new working title: Ma’rama, Duke’s Daughter.
As I now have a fairly good idea of what I want to happen in the second book of the duology (Ma’rama, Emperor’s Emissary), I made changes to beef up the role of a secondary character who will have a more significant part in the second book. I also tried to correct inconsistencies and edit a key scene to eliminate an undesirable interpretation of the action.
I also changed most of the words borrowed from foreign languages to have a flavor of the referenced cultures without being those cultures. Thus, daimyo became kō sh’kun throughout the novel (as I’m not accurately applying the Japanese word in my fantasy setting anyway).
The issue became keeping track of those changes!
I initially made a table with the headings “Was” and “Now” just to get me through the draft. I also updated the glossary created for the previous draft by crossing out the old and inserting the new terms (additional “was” and “now”).
However, the glossary intended for readers didn’t include all the characters, locations, and objects that I will need to reference in writing the second novel and continue editing the first novel.
With a heavy sigh, I decided I need to skim through the current draft and capture the pertinent information in a new table. I made it to page 79 before departing to visit friends for a belated Christmas gathering.
But I will persist. The “Bible” for the duology includes many double entries for the same term — the English translation and the made-up name. It will almost be a book itself! I might not forget that Ma’rama and her twin Hahana have amber-colored eyes, but I may have trouble recalling what I now call the Great South Road.
A fantasy world “Bible” probably should be initiated as one is developing the fantasy setting, and added to during the writing phase. But no writer wants to break the flow of scribbling the first draft to make entries in the consistency table. And at the end of the writing day, I certainly don’t have the energy to back through what I’ve just written for additions to the “Bible.”
Ah, well. It certainly doesn’t hurt to skim through the latest draft once again. And the “Bible” should make it much easier to dive into the second book.
Mary S. Potter 