A man who attracts ghosts
Apr. 30th, 2005 05:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khiemtranI think I've made good progress on The Silver Bowl rewrite this week...
One of the big changes from the previous version is that I've cleared up the previously vague relationship between the character I'll call the Poet and the spirit world. In the earlier versions, he was unique because he wasn't afraid of ghosts, and because he went out of his way to seek them out. The trouble was, this left a few nagging problems - a key part of the plot was that the spirits were becoming harder to find, and yet the poet kept on bumping into them. There were also some problems with the various spirit summoning scenes, which basically involved the poet sitting down and summoning them "through the concentration of his mind" as the line in the ancient Chinese poem goes.
In the new version, the Poet's "gift" is that he actually attracts spirits, which suddenly makes things fit a whole lot easier. It explains why he can summon spirits so easily when no-one else can, and it casts a new light on his relationship with some of the other characters. In one sense, it simplifies things by making him out-right magical instead of just different. It makes the summoning scenes work all of a sudden, because it introduces a real magical element. Sure, you can try meditating in the forest, but it's not going to work unless you're magical like he is (and who knows, maybe you are...)
One of the big changes from the previous version is that I've cleared up the previously vague relationship between the character I'll call the Poet and the spirit world. In the earlier versions, he was unique because he wasn't afraid of ghosts, and because he went out of his way to seek them out. The trouble was, this left a few nagging problems - a key part of the plot was that the spirits were becoming harder to find, and yet the poet kept on bumping into them. There were also some problems with the various spirit summoning scenes, which basically involved the poet sitting down and summoning them "through the concentration of his mind" as the line in the ancient Chinese poem goes.
In the new version, the Poet's "gift" is that he actually attracts spirits, which suddenly makes things fit a whole lot easier. It explains why he can summon spirits so easily when no-one else can, and it casts a new light on his relationship with some of the other characters. In one sense, it simplifies things by making him out-right magical instead of just different. It makes the summoning scenes work all of a sudden, because it introduces a real magical element. Sure, you can try meditating in the forest, but it's not going to work unless you're magical like he is (and who knows, maybe you are...)
