Joely Sue Burkhart

You know that little something in a story that makes it fantastic versus just good?  Maybe you can’t even put your finger on it.  The characters are fine, the plot fine, the author’s voice is maybe already one of your favorites, but there’s just something… meh about the story.

For me, what makes the difference from “meh” to “OMG!!” is the cost involved.  Nothing in this world is free, and I personally love stories where characters have to pay the greatest price of all to achieve their story goal.  Sometimes a death of some sort is required:  a treasured dream, an old self, innocence.  Sometimes a character is truly willing to lay down his life for another.  Just that willingness to sacrifice for another is enough to win the gods’ favor.

So I was working on The Fire Within last night, and thinking about my plot, and it’s a pretty good plot.  I’ve got the notecards all filled out.  I know what the dark moment is, blah blah blah.  And yet… 

I’ve really struggled to get these 7K+ words.  Survive My Fire came smoothly and wonderfully in a month.  TFW has been a slow crawl.  When this happens to me, it’s usually a problem.  There’s something not quite right somewhere, even if I think it’s all good.  And the story is good.  But I think I can make it even better.

One thing that bothered me all along is the “similarity” in theme between SMF and TFW.  Now, this series has a common theme:  Love, the greatest gift of all.  And the greatest sacrifice.  So all stories in this world will have that flavor and tone–dark, bloody, sacrifice, agonizing love.  Yet the heroes’ goals were too similar for me.  I realized last night that a slight change to the motivation and goal can really up the stakes.

I asked those timeless romance questions:  Why should they NOT be together?  Why is she the worst possible choice for him?

Ah ha.  His emotional cost changed, the story’s problem is completely different, yet most of what I have doesn’t change much at all, and both main characters’ underlying problem is unified at the same time.  The biggest change:  Zahak is no longer tal‘Cobra, the chieftain of his tribe.  His beloved brother is.  A man as opposite from Darius as night from day.

Eleni was never meant for Zahak at all.  But in a land of poisoned sands and endless thirst for generations, once a Keldari has tasted pure, sweet water, he will die to keep it.  No matter the sacrifice.