Note for further use: sketching characters and ending up with better designs than what I had in mind first is a great thing; now I just need to remember to edit the descriptions in my novel when I get to reading it fully a first time. I bet I’ll forget, but noting it down all the same doesn’t harm.
I’ve just realized one thing.
Simply with Jen + Heiji’s backstory, I probably have enough material to write another, complete novel.
It’s with a purpose that I’ve avoided describing this storyline too much, except for a few sentences thrown here and there; these two anyway have a relationship that needs to be shown, not told, much like everything else in novels in general, and “telling” their past wouldn’t bring that much to the story.
I’m also shared on whether I should do more with the bit of Jen’s story that runs around her father. It’s not essential to the main plot, but it’s essential to understand why Heiji’s been around her for so long. Maybe I’ll add something about that when I get to rewriting/fleshing out the whole thing. However, I’m afraid it would make me go back to my ways of writing too much (I don’t want to end up with a 150k novel, 100k of which would be “only” backstory… Wouldn’t it feel weird?).
Anyway… Keeping this idea in my “to do” folder. Perhaps it can be my piece of work for the next NaNo.
[This excerpt is just a little bit longer than the previous ones. This is the first conversation between Deanna and Chen that appears in the novel. The man they're talking about is in fact Heiji, whose old code name was 'Akuma'—hence the title. As for Chen... I swear, this man would give me the creeps as well...]
The face that appeared on the large screen was no one else’s than Eric Chen’s, looking as alert as ever, his dark eyes gleaming with a satisfaction he didn’t even try to conceal. It sure wasn’t the expression she had expected to see him; in fact, she didn’t expect him to contact her that fast.
“Good evening, Deanna”, he started without even letting her the time to greet him.
“…Mr. Chen”, she nodded, quickly putting on a neutral expression to not show him that he had somewhat taken her aback.
Eric Chen, on the private Syzygy channel, past midnight, barely one hour after she had sent her report? Not good. Not good at all. That the man in charge of all the operations of the Townsend on the colony was to call her in such a way, himself still in his working clothes, denoted that she had struck the right chord, yet oddly enough, she wasn’t feeling very happy with this idea. Chen had always frightened her, sometimes more than just a little, although she wouldn’t admit it to anyone; he pulled strings that herself had never been able to discover, and working for him didn’t mean that she liked what the man had in mind most of the time. It was a blessing to not be in the Syrtis branch of the company, else she’d likely had turned crazy by now.
“I’ve finished reading your report. An eventful day, isn’t it.”
The alarm bells set off at once in her mind; when the conversation started on the bantering tone, it always meant she wasn’t going to like its outcome.
“Yes, Sir”, she answered, making sure that her voice wasn’t going to waver even once during this exchange. “We’re getting things back in control. Tomorrow, it’ll be over. I don’t think there’s anything to really worry about.”
“There is, my dear. For that matter, there is. But I know you’re doing what’s needed. What I want to talk about first is this recording of… what’s her name? The girl. McAran, that’s it.” He snapped his fingers in a casual move — another sign that she wasn’t going to like this call.
Deanna nodded in silence, placing her arms behind her back in a stance that much looked like the one she had been used to, back when she was a low-level Agent. Forcing herself to not fidget with whatever she had under the hand demanded her more focus than she would have thought. Chen’s presence always had this effect on her, she didn’t know why; one of the descendants of the Sino-American settlers who had come to Mars in the middle of the 22nd century, the man didn’t have anything special to his looks, with his regular features and neatly cut slick black hair, except perhaps this self-confidence that appeared in every of his gestures. A shark in a lion’s disguise, old Laraby once had said. He had climbed the complex, stiff hierarchy ladder of the Corporation that fast in barely twelve years; this was a sure sign that he knew what he wanted, and knew how to obtain it, whatever the means involved.
“McAran, yes”, Deanna said, her mouth dry. “The hacker.”
“Not much data available on her, right? They have such a way of covering their tracks, these little rats.”
“Jen McAran seems to be quite a talented one, indeed. Too bad she’s on the wrong side.”
She swallowed hard. She already knew what was to follow, and Chen seemed to have read her mind, for she clearly noticed the calculating smile at the corner of his lips, right before he went on:
“The man’s interesting, too. Much more interesting.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“We both know it’s him, right, Deanna?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“And all this time, we thought he had died in Syrtis. I’m not sure if this is a good or a bad surprise. If Laraby was still alive, I’d make an example with him, just for having not finished the job.”
For a second, only a second, Deanna closed her eyes. A part of herself wished she never had found this document, had never gone on Juno Street to question the reporters and lay her hands on their recording; the other part knew that had she dared to dissimulate this to Chen, her situation would have sooner or later turned for the worst. She couldn’t afford to be in the spotlight, not when it came to Eric Chen, not when they both knew she stood in the palm of his hand.
“I want him dead, Deanna. For good. No supposing and believing.”
The Security Chief opened her eyes again, staring at the screen, and nodded, unable to acknowledge the order in a loud voice.
“I don’t care what means you need to use, I want this man. I want to know how he managed to escape. How he fooled us for so long.”
“So you want him taken… alive?”
“Alive, yes. I want to see the look on his face when he realizes his life is between my hands. He’ll understand. And then, he’ll die.”
“I’ll do my best, Sir.”
“Of course, you’ll do. You don’t have the choice.”
His smile had vanished all of a sudden, his voice taken on a threatening tone. Again, Deanna nodded in silence, the barely veiled threat still echoing in her ears. Stay in your place. She kept on repeating the old motto in her mind, aware that slipping only once would mean her death too. There was another rule, an unspoken one — once an Agent, always an Agent. Trying to get out could only be done through one, unique door.
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44,350 / 50,000
(88.7%) |
A lovely new chapter under my belt, in which Deanna Shaw realizes who really was behind the whole virus thing, as well as understands that Eric Chen holds her by the balls—manner of speaking, of course. Poor girl hasn’t any other choice than going on working for him, since, as she puts it herself, she’s not a lone wolf who can afford to do what she wants regardless of her family’s well-being (no, I didn’t pull the single mother stunt or something; she simply happens to have a sister and nephew in Syrtis Major).
I quite liked writing this scene; she has to stand strong and feign to not care about the thousands of deaths they’ve caused, while she’s completely disgusted on the inside. Deanna isn’t evil per se, she’s just doing a job that she can’t give up on, else she’ll be killed because she knows too much. “Once an Agent, forever an Agent�, or so the saying goes in her Corporation. Ethics or no ethics, she can’t act directly and give the finger to Chen. What she’ll do in the future will… probably wield interesting results, if Heiji doesn’t gut her alive first.
I’ll try to shoot for the 50k for tomorrow evening. Not sure if I’ll make it, but we’ll see. The evening’s not over yet, after all.
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30,320 / 50,000
(60.6%) |
The 30k mark is reached, which is what I wanted to do this week-end. I’m so totally disconnected today, though, that I’m leaving it at that, even though it’s only 6:30 pm.
I’ve been working on the scene where Miki Kobayashi openly tells Jen and Heiji that she’s part of the group who’ve engineered the Red virus, but I’m very, very unsatisfied with it. Not in the “I keep on rewriting it” way, more in the “I can’t manage to write it at all!” way. The fact is, I’m not sure of how to approach it. I don’t want to lead it as an exposition piece, since so far I’ve been bent on balancing action and dialogue a lot, with lesser amounts of description around; anyway, I don’t like long exposition passages, and in the middle of my story, it’d look a little dumb. I was considering leading it as a dialogue, but it’s turning out to be very hard, too. It’s mainly Miki talking, and the two others don’t exactly have lots to say in turn (and if I go the road of Heiji skinning her alive at every word, she’ll never manage to finish her little story). Last but not least, all my story is in limited 3rd person—not always from the same character’s point of view, but still limited; I absolutely refuse to throw the omniscient narrator in for an explanation passage, for this would look even worse in my opinion. So, er, I’m kind of… not stuck, but having sweated for 3-4 solid hours on this.
I’ll do my best to finish it tomorrow, even if it means leaving some details behind, or replacing them by notes rather than by paragraphs. I’m a champ at putting in “[Insert more detailed description here]” notes here and there when I’m bored with a passage and want to finish the chapter all the same. The only thing I’m not doing is leaving the previous attempts at writing this scene in the file; I keep them in a separated document, in case they’d be useful again later on, but I don’t want to leave them in the word count (I’d feel like cheating).
Worse comes to worst, I’ll work on another scene instead of remaining stuck. It’s annoying me, though; my goal is to finish the story, not only reach 50k words, and I’m afraid that if I leave unfinished scenes in it, I may not come back to them in the end.
Tough.
