I wrote today!

I have had a couple of very demanding months at my job and had not had enough energy to either work on my novel or update this blog since November.

I took the time to do some writing today, and used a number of things I realized were completely missing from my initial draft idea to create a new first chapter (mostly moving the initial first chapter to the second chapter of the book).

What I had not understood was all related to mystery. I realized, by reading Order of the Phoenix once again, how horribly I handled mystery in all situations (both in gaming and writing). I used to think mystery was all about the unkown: everything the reader does not know is a mystery.

But here is a very simple truth that would have greatly enhanced all roleplaying games I have ever run, and that will make my novel a 100 times more interesting to read: Players and readers cannot care about any unkown fact unless they realize that there is something they do not know, and realize the importance of that unkown. They don't want to understand what will occur later in the story, they want to understand what they have already read, and see how it unfurls.

It may sound very obvious, but fully grasping this concept of mystery and being able to apply it efficiently in any kind of story is a major challenge.

To help you fully grasp what I mean, I will summarize my novel in the initial plan and my more recent draft attempt:

Initial plan:

In the dystopian city of Seopolis, Askata Suna is aggressed by a policeman, gets religious visions she does not understand, sparks a revolution, is used by those who would manipulate the revolution, realizes that her vision were due to poisoning, sees her comrades and her brother be killed by the state, witnesses an unfair trial to frame innocents for the mass killings, and leads the workers in a final revolutionary push to overthrow the state, and finally realizes that she is not fully in control, that the religion which used her is now in control and will limit the liberties of the people just as the previous state did.

Modified plan:

In the dystopian city of Seopolis, Askata Suna has gone to pray over her mother's grave, in a cemetery for the Enemies of the State, but has to hide when a man comes in, put the thorny stem of a rose (a symbol of vengeance) on her mother's grave and walk away.

Who is this man? Why is Askata's mother branded an Enemy of the State? Why does this man want vengeance, and against whom?

All of what was written above will still take place afterwards, with foreshadpwing similar to what I just cited above. Don't you want to read this a lot more now?